How I Sleep Better by Switching off the Trump Show

Republicans are terrified—with good reason. Utah Sen. Mike Lee went viral this week when he sputtered earlier that one of the new voting rights bills making its way through the House was “written in hell by the devil himself.” And Lee’s GOP colleagues didn’t exactly knock the notion down. “They should be scared of it,” Rep. Eric Swawell, the California Democrat, tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “What we saw this past election in Georgia and Arizona —states that have historically made it harder for African-Americans and Latinos to vote—was that when you expand access to the polls, Democrats can win. And so I'm sure it was not comfortable for Georgians and Arizona leaders to certify the results for Joe Biden and [Sens.] Mark Kelly, [Raphael] Warnock and [Jon] Ossoff.” “But instead of doing the right thing and standing on the integrity [of the election], they're learning the wrong lesson,” Swalwell adds. “What they're doing now is they're going back and saying, ‘Well, we don't ever want to do that again. We don't ever want to certify a Democratic victory. So let's just change the rules... Let's get rid of early voting. Let's get rid of Sunday voting, which benefits the faith-based communities of Georgia. Let's make it a misdemeanor if you pass out food or water to a long line.... And that way we can protect ourselves from another Democratic victory.’” “If we do not pass HR1 and HR4—the two voting rights bills—you will see this institutionalized across the country, and the results will be devastating,” he continues. “HR1 gets rid of the dirty maps of redistricting, gerrymandering, and the dirty money. It strips down to the studs as much as you can legislatively the Citizens United ruling. HR4, The John Lewis Civil Rights act really puts back in place what's called pre-clearance—requiring approval from the courts before you can move polling places or purge voter rolls. And so if there was ever a reason to break the filibuster, which was put in place to block voting rights, it would be to advance both voting rights. It's almost a perfect completion of the circle.”Then, Justice Democrats spokesperson Walid Shahid talks about how President Biden can avoid the traps that snagged Obama. And Carl Zimmer—a top science reporter for the New York Times and author of Life’s Edge: the Search for What It Means To Be Alive—joins Jong-Fast to discuss the pandemic, and the botched response that we are only now beginning to counteract.“People knew this was coming for 20, 30 years, and yet we didn't prepare well enough,” he says. “If you look at countries like Nigeria or Senegal, and look at their case rate, their death rate, and all the rest, they have done incredibly well. And, and I was recently listening to a Nigerian disease specialist, talk about why this is. And one reason is that they'd been through Ebola and been through other outbreaks. They know what a virus can do when it goes berserk. And so they coordinated very early lockdowns and everyone was on board and they had good, consistent public health messaging. They didn't have a lot of money, they didn't have a lot of resources, but they were coordinated and effective. And I think we could learn a lot from them. And we should also look to ourselves and say, ‘well, why did we in the United States that makes such a spectacular mess of it.’”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... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

12 Mars 202159min

While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may have been the runner-up to former President Donald Trump in the recent CPAC straw poll, his chances of ever becoming president himself are not good, according to Florida’s top Democrat. “You know, he went MIA for three weeks in November claiming that he was working on some statewide plan. My take is that he probably had COVID and didn’t want to tell people when the vaccines first came to our state,” Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Fried also spills the tea on DeSantis’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his real boss—Trump. “A lot of it was, he [DeSantis] was getting his nod from President Trump and wasn’t able to do anything without President Trump’s approval, and the same thing is happening here, because now President Trump is a resident. So I’m sure that [DeSantis] is consistently calling the president and I’m sure the president’s wealthy friends in the state of Florida are asking for the vaccines, and so they’re getting it delivered to them.“But Fried isn’t done truth-telling about DeSantis and how his vaccine rollout will burn down his presidential aspirations, after he allowed non-residents to claim coveted doses for themselves while Floridians went without. “He allowed for out-of-state people to come into the state. So we heard, you know, big donors and people on the boards of hospitals and nursing homes were flying into our state,” she tells Molly.Also in the episode, Peter Segal of NPR’s beloved quiz show Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! joins Molly to talk about the emotional life of politics and everything that isn’t on Twitter. Sagal feels passionately that when the aliens come down to Earth, they are going to not see much of a difference between left and right wing cable television rhetoric.“Differences that are obvious to us would not be to a Martian,” he says. “Looking at a camera and explaining to us very seriously and very sincerely why another group of people are terrible... They’re trying to get the audience to feel the same way about the opposite group of people, to feel indignant, to feel angry, to feel righteously upset about how awful these people are to feed that fuel. And what that says to me is that we’re more alike than we thought.”And then the crew brings on David Shor, who says his job is to “get Democrats elected” but his formal title is head of data science at Open Labs.Shor tells us how Democrats can win elections and the big problem with the 2020 election.“One of the big stories of this election is that those non-white conservatives started to vote more like white conservatives, that we started to see this ideological polarization that’s happened over the last four years,” he says. “This has been a long-term trend, 2018 was worse than 2016. I think it’s something that a lot of people ignored, that there were a lot of races where Democrats did substantially worse than [Hillary] Clinton among non-white voters, and it was impactful. The reason we lost the Florida Senate race, or the Georgia gubernatorial race, if we had done as well among non-white voters as Clinton did, we wouldn’t have lost those races. And in the same way, going to 2020, I think, you know, 2020 was worse than 2018. And if you look at some survey data, you get some hints as to why. We ended up asking after the election, we did a large post-election survey of Latinos and asked a battery of issue questions just to try to get at what was motivating some of these voters who switched over. I think the single largest predictor was attitudes toward crime, attitudes toward public safety, attitudes toward policing.”All of that plus Kyrsten Sinema’s Marie Antoinette imitation and the secret to getting that sought-after “NPR voice” on the latest The New Abnormal.If you... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

9 Mars 20211h

It’s safe to say that the people of New York City are ready for a new mayor, and certainly one who isn’t Bill deBlasio. Sure, he gave the city universal pre-K but had some faux paus over the years, most recently in 2020, when he was accused of antisemitism for a tweet addressed to the Hasidic Jewish community over social distancing rules during COVID and also (this one was big) for not standing up to the NYPD for harassing citizens during the George Floyd riots this summer. One of the many candidates stepping up to take his place is Maya Wiley, an activist, professor and veteran of City Hall, who says she will handle things much differently if she becomes the next mayor of New York City. To start, she doesn’t think there should have ever been a curfew during the protests, she tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast, producer Jesse Cannon and Beast editor Harry Siegel in this members-only episode of the New Abnormal. (“You can not have a control and containment model of policing that sees who are, who are expressing first amendment rights as the enemy.”) She also made it clear that she won’t bow down to bullying from police unions like many believe deBlasio did. “[The NYPD] works for us. You're public servants,” she says. “We're going to put the public back in public safety. And what I mean by that is civilian oversight are the rules of the road. Of the priorities of policing, we are going to right-size it, because it does not make any sense to have police doing functions that other experts should be doing like mental health crisis response.” When it comes to the city’s economy, she plans to take a Depression-era approach: investing in “communities that have been hard hit by COVID.” Plus! Molly asks her about Cuomo’s allegations (“There has never been any change worth fighting for where you didn't have someone who was difficult to work with.)If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

8 Mars 20213min

It’s safe to say that the people of New York City are ready for a new mayor, and certainly one who isn’t Bill deBlasio. Sure, he gave the city universal pre-K but had some faux paus over the years, most recently in 2020, when he was accused of antisemitism for a tweet addressed to the Hasidic Jewish community over social distancing rules during COVID and also (this one was big) for not standing up to the NYPD for harassing citizens during the George Floyd riots this summer. One of the many candidates stepping up to take his place is Maya Wiley, an activist, professor and veteran of City Hall, who says she will handle things much differently if she becomes the next mayor of New York City. To start, she doesn’t think there should have ever been a curfew during the protests, she tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast, producer Jesse Cannon and Beast editor Harry Siegel in this members-only episode of the New Abnormal. (“You can not have a control and containment model of policing that sees who are, who are expressing first amendment rights as the enemy.”) She also made it clear that she won’t bow down to bullying from police unions like many believe deBlasio did. “[The NYPD] works for us. You're public servants,” she says. “We're going to put the public back in public safety. And what I mean by that is civilian oversight are the rules of the road. Of the priorities of policing, we are going to right-size it, because it does not make any sense to have police doing functions that other experts should be doing like mental health crisis response.” When it comes to the city’s economy, she plans to take a Depression-era approach: investing in “communities that have been hard hit by COVID.” Plus! Molly asks her about Cuomo’s allegations (“There has never been any change worth fighting for where you didn't have someone who was difficult to work with.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

7 Mars 202131min

This is just how dire things got for the Biden campaign in early 2020. Plus, just how much damage Trump did by hiding his COVID vaccine, and Colorado’s voting model.How did Joe Biden manage to eke out a presidential win after washing up in fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire? Co-host Molly Jong-Fast still wants to know. “I’ve spent much of the week talking about being wrong about Cuomo, but I would like to take a minute to talk about being wrong about Biden,” she tells NBC News’ Jonathan Allen, co-author of the new book Lucky: How Biden Barely Won the Presidency, on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.While Jong-Fast and others were writing Biden’s political obituary in February 2020, his staffers were suggesting the former vice president refinance his house to put money into his dying campaign, Allen says.“It's not the most unheard of thing for a candidate to do it,” he says, but “a presidential candidate doesn't do that. And the subtext of going to him to tell him that is that it might be time to just wrap up the campaign. To Joe Biden's everlasting credit, he believed in himself.”Allen talks about how Biden’s key endorsement from South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn came about—and another key to his win, the coronavirus pandemic. “COVID hits and Biden is taken off the trail and he is able to be scripted know for his entire career, been disciplined and reporters love him because they'll talk, but he's on disciplined. And now his campaign has the ability to control his message and choose when he talks and how he talks to who he talks to. Um, and he's able to make those discretionary decisions along with his advisors. And meanwhile, Trump is on the stage at the white house, telling people to inject disinfectant, to combat COVID.”Allen also talks about whether Biden will be able to unify the country and get any Republican votes to get legislation passed. “I think that there are things on which a Biden will be able to get votes from model Republicans. Um, it sort of independent thinking Republicans, you know, the converse is some of these bills are going to be incredibly difficult for them to vote against. I mean, think about voting against the COVID relief bill that's already made, you know, an entire campaign's worth of ads for an opponent. Marco Rubio is going to vote against this COVID relief bill, and he's going to have a democratic opponent next time. There's several that are thinking about getting in, including Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy from Florida.”Also in the episode, Jong-Fast is joined by Eric Topol, cardiologist scientist and author and the founder and director of the Scripps research transitional Institute, who talks about how the vaccinations are going and how hard the U.K. variant will hit.The U.K. variant, he says, will hit hard in Florida, California, and Texas, but he’s not so worried about the South African and Brazilian variants, which “ don't seem to be nearly as infectious.”How are vaccines going? The U.K., he says “can go much faster since they're not giving the second doses right now. We've actually been pushing for that in the US to get ready for this variant that we're going to be hit with there that you gave variant, but there isn't receptivity at the white house, uh, yet, or we're Tony Fauci. We think that just for a month to go with the one dose, uh, you know, and then get these, all these people get their second dose a little bit delayed would be really advantageous, but we haven't had success in pushing for that.”HE also says it’s a travesty Trump's decision to cover up the fact that he was vaccinated.“We have politicization of the vaccine of vaccines. We have a remarkable global gap... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

5 Mars 202152min

For years, a central goal of the conservative movement was to install right-wing judges. A Republican president delivered, big time. And these Trumpists are still pissed. Which tells you one thing. For the authoritarian wing of the Republican party, this was never about interpreting the American legal code. It was always about raw political power. “It's not about the rule of law. It's not about getting good qualified judges. It's about results- oriented litigation,” former U.S. Attorney for Alabama Joyce Vance tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “They want judges who will vote to save the election for a president who has clearly lost it. And that's just out of bounds. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican. The notion that the courts could be used to steal an election is really the epitome of being anti-democratic. It's ludicrous. It's ridiculous. It just shows you that these folks are off the rails. They might as well have stood on a stage at CPAC and torn up the Constitution.” Vance adds, “We should immediately begin to identify what's being done here as anti-democratic. I don't believe that that's where my Republican friends in Alabama are. Many of them are good people who have different principled views than I have on policy issues. They believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. And they're horrified by what they're seeing.” Because the Trumpists aren’t just looking for judges that overturn elections they don’t like. They don’t want anyone outside of their crowd to be able to vote, period. “These efforts to suppress the vote previously have been relegated to dark corners of political operatives. It's now actually the platform of the Republican party to make it hard for people to vote, because they're afraid that they might not vote Republican. They should be expending half the energy they're expending on voter suppression on trying to win voters over, on creating policies that are appealing to the population,” Vance says. “This is a sickness in the American political dialogue.” Vance also looks at the mushrooming scandals around Andrew Cuomo, and the mounting legal cases for Trump. Then, Olivia Troye, who worked for Trump and Mike Pence during the early days of the pandemic, talks about their botched response to COVID. “It turns out nobody in the White House cared about spreading the virus,” she says. And the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, fresh from CPAC, talks about how even straight-laced Republicans are now espousing the Big Lie.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 it's just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2 Mars 202159min

The theme this year, stupidly enough, is ‘America Uncanceled.’ But the only real way to get any kinda cred at the 2021 Conversative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to make a stink about how you’ve totally been canceled.One easy way? Refuse to wear a mask, even though the host city and the hotel both require it. “We’ve seen these conservative influencers who, it seems, are deliberately getting kicked out of CPAC by not wearing a mask,” The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Because for them, CPAC is sort of just the place to see and be seen. They don't really care if they get kicked out. I mean, they don't want to hurt their brand by wearing a mask. And so we've seen a lot of these guys [showcase] the video of the ceremonial ouster from CPAC.”“They're really against being canceled, but it actually seems like the culture of conservatives now—the merit badge is, you got canceled. Like, Marjorie Taylor Greeene is a celebrity now, because she got canceled,” adds producer Jesse Cannon. But there’s a reason the CPAC posse is coalescing around cancelation. It’s because they can’t agree on much else. “The thing that I was really struck by, Jong-Fast says, “was that they're so light on policy… There's no nuts and bolts stuff.” “The only policy discussion you hear at CPAC is when some lobbyist is clearly trying to plant something,” Sommer replies. “Theoretically, CPAC is supposed to be a bring[ing] together of the factions of the conservative movement. But this year I think everyone is so shell-shocked from 2020, they can't acknowledge that they lost. Because that would mean acknowledging that Trump lost. And everyone's just so terrified of Trump.”The only thing left to fill the space is the performative resistance. “So, apparently, to get this hotel, [the CPAC organizers] had to promise that people would wear masks,” Sommer says. “But at the same time you're inviting the people who are least willing to wear masks, to celebrate often how much they hate masks. So you have speakers like Ted Cruz saying how dumb it is to wear masks.”Sommer adds, “So then occasionally in CPAC you have to have the organizers stand up and say, ‘we all love property rights, right?’ ‘Yeah!’ And they're like, ‘well, what about the right to have people a mask on your property?’ And everyone goes, ‘boooooo!!!’”If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

28 Feb 20213min

The theme this year, stupidly enough, is ‘America Uncanceled.’ But the only real way to get any kinda cred at the 2021 Conversative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, to make a stink about how you’ve totally been canceled.One easy way? Refuse to wear a mask, even though the host city and the hotel both require it. “We’ve seen these conservative influencers who, it seems, are deliberately getting kicked out of CPAC by not wearing a mask,” The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Because for them, CPAC is sort of just the place to see and be seen. They don't really care if they get kicked out. I mean, they don't want to hurt their brand by wearing a mask. And so we've seen a lot of these guys [showcase] the video of the ceremonial ouster from CPAC.”“They're really against being canceled, but it actually seems like the culture of conservatives now—the merit badge is, you got canceled. Like, Marjorie Taylor Greeene is a celebrity now, because she got canceled,” adds producer Jesse Cannon. But there’s a reason the CPAC posse is coalescing around cancelation. It’s because they can’t agree on much else. “The thing that I was really struck by, Jong-Fast says, “was that they're so light on policy… There's no nuts and bolts stuff.” “The only policy discussion you hear at CPAC is when some lobbyist is clearly trying to plant something,” Sommer replies. “Theoretically, CPAC is supposed to be a bring[ing] together of the factions of the conservative movement. But this year I think everyone is so shell-shocked from 2020, they can't acknowledge that they lost. Because that would mean acknowledging that Trump lost. And everyone's just so terrified of Trump.”The only thing left to fill the space is the performative resistance. “So, apparently, to get this hotel, [the CPAC organizers] had to promise that people would wear masks,” Sommer says. “But at the same time you're inviting the people who are least willing to wear masks, to celebrate often how much they hate masks. So you have speakers like Ted Cruz saying how dumb it is to wear masks.”Sommer adds, “So then occasionally in CPAC you have to have the organizers stand up and say, ‘we all love property rights, right?’ ‘Yeah!’ And they're like, ‘well, what about the right to have people a mask on your property?’ And everyone goes, ‘boooooo!!!’” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

28 Feb 202130min