Sex Secrets of Trump, Epstein and Andrew Laid Bare

Andy Slavitt was shocked when he joined the Biden administration. “I was under the impression coming in—as many, many Americans were—that there were big stockpiles of vaccines waiting to go out the door that were produced over the course of the last year. It's been much, much less the case than I think we'd been led to believe,” the White House senior adviser for COVID response tells Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. It was one of a host of shortcomings the Biden team found, Slavitt says: “Not enough vaccines, not enough vaccinators, not enough places for people to get vaccines.”“So when we got here January 20th, one of the things we learned as an only 46% of the vaccines delivered to states had actually made its way into people's arms. Now you'd never expect that to be 100%. But 46%? It was low,” Slavitt adds.There’s now a plan in place to purchase as many as 600 million doses, hopefully enough for every American. States are now using 75% of their doses, a big step up from a few weeks ago. And there may be another vaccine around the corner, from Johnson and Johnson. “I would love to tell you, we weren't going to be starting with a huge stockpile of Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The truth is we're starting with a small number and we've got to build it as quickly as possible.”Meanwhile, the virus is evolving. More contagious, deadlier variants are spreading, fast. But even here, Slavitt sees some signs for hope. “All of the vaccines work very well against the English B117 variant. So that's good. The South African variant—and there's another one that looks like the South African, that's the Brazilian variant—that one it's interesting. There is a degradation of performance of the vaccines against the South African variant. However, that degradation is thankfully still above the scientific threshold for effectiveness,” Slavitt says. “It still generates antibodies. It doesn't generate as many. But it’s good.”The vaccines may even be a bit better than advertised, Slavitt says. “You know, we may have done a little bit of a disservice to ourselves when with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, we talked about the end point as including [serve] and mild [COVID-19 cases], because we really don't care as much about the mild. And so we get very fixated on the fact that they're 95% percent effective against both, right. And we probably should have stepped back and said, ‘you know what, let’s just measure it against more severe symptoms.’ In which case, the Johnson and Johnson does very close to comparable.” And all of the vaccines seem to stop severe cases—from all the variants. There are even some indications that “viral load”—the amount of virus a person carries—“is decreased for people who are vaccinated,” indicating “that these vaccines not only reduce disease and save lives, but these vaccines also will reduce the ability of people to affect one another, which if it holds up, will be terrific news.”But only if the vaccine gets into the arms of the people who need it the most, Slavitt cautions. “It's not just how many vaccines are being administered, but also how equitable equitably they're being distributed. Because look, we all know there are half the population or more would crawl over broken glass to get the vaccine, right. But the problem is they’re crawling over other people,” he adds. “You know, they're getting online and going into communities, maybe neighborhoods they've never visited or visited in a long time, but [where] we put vaccines that are really hard hit by the virus. People are coming in, refreshing their browser, and going in and getting these appointments. It's really important that we not just focus on how many people we vaccinated, but that we do it as equitably as possible. And that's a big, big push for us.”If you haven't heard, every single week The New... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

19 Feb 202148min

That impeachment vote in the Senate was tough to swallow, with 43 Republicans voting to acquit Trump for the insurrection done in his name, by people waving his flag. Even more gag-worthy was Sen. Mitch McConnell’s speech afterwards—blaming Trump for the wannabe coup minutes after voting to let him off.“The most galling statements for me were the ones from the Mitch McConnells and the Rob Portmans and the Marco Rubios after they voted to acquit Donald Trump, basically saying, ‘Well, you know, the whole coup thing was kind of bad and I wish you wouldn't have tried to do it. And I wish a cop wouldn't have died. And you know, he made some bad choices. But you know, I had no choice,’” Bulwark writer-at-large Tim Miller tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. But of course, McConnell and his crew did have a choice. The House impeached Trump on January 13. The Senate decided to take a vacation, rather than take up the case right away. And once the vacations were over and Biden was sworn in, they decided against all reason and precedent that an ex-official like Trump somehow couldn’t be convicted.“For Mitch McConnell to be like, ‘I really wanted to do it, but…’ Bullshit. The only reason that you didn't do it was because of you. It is galling. Give me a hundred [militia-friendly Rep.] Lauren Boberts—who are too stupid to know that it was bad, or Ted Cruzes—who are sociopaths—over Mitch McConnell, trying to try to tell me that he has some feelings about this. Give me a break,” Tim says.Also on the show: Rep. Andy Kim tells Molly what it’s like to be the rare Democrat representing a Trumpy district. Molly gives an update on the Lincoln Project situation. And Tim keeps going in on McConnell.“I know that many listeners will think that Mitch McConnell doesn't have a soul at all, and that's understandable. But he actually does have a flicker of one. He does love the Senate, you know,” Tim adds. “And he wanted to be able to emote about that in his weird Mitch McConnell way. And that's what actually makes it worse… Don't try to memorialize to me. You had an opportunity to do something you didn't. You made the craven move. You sided with the insurrectionists.” Miller says, “Basically what we saw on Saturday was a Republican party that had an opportunity—after five years of being craven cowards that rolled over for Donald Trump at every chance—finally was able to put the stake in his heart and say, ‘We don't need you anymore. We don't tolerate this. And we want to move forward, even it takes a little pain.’ And 43 of them said... ‘nah.’”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.

16 Feb 202144min

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert weren’t elected to their positions in the House of Representatives by accident. They ran campaigns like everyone else, and won. Given Greene’s “nutty” aka QAnon-supporting and anti-mask-censorship antics in particular since she arrived in Washington, it may be hard for lots of people to understand why. In this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast sat down with Doctor John Cowan, the Republican surgeon who lost to Greene in her district despite both candidates supporting Donald Trump, to get an idea for what people may have had in mind when casting their ballots for her. “I think this is why she got elected is because people really felt like these guys are absolutely crazy in Washington DC,” he explains. “And they are, many of them are, trying to actively destroy the country through their policies and rhetoric and whatnot. And [voters] looked at someone like Marjorie and said, ‘we've got the answer to that. You know, she's a fighter she'll say or do anything.’” Essentially, says Molly, she won for the same reasons Trump did. Cowan agrees: “I think they just thought, well, we've got somebody who's literally going to kick it to the government and maybe he can crack that or drain the swamp as he was off to say.” Then, Molly talks to Gregg Smith, a former Marine and ex-colleague of Erik Prince, who is running against the GOP’s Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado. He feels that he can and will defeat her. Donald Trump had support out there because “people out here will generally vote against the mainstream,” but that support has dwindled, and Boebert’s response to the insurrection is being questioned, he says. But Democrats aren’t going to win the area by pushing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders-level ideologies too hard. “You've got to address the issues that are important out here.” That’s basically what both Cower and Smith have in common with one another: hope in the voters. “I do think people eventually will wake up and see that there's a lot of darkness there,” says Cowan. Plus, Smith shares the moment he knew Erik Prince couldn’t be trusted: “I never want to see him again.”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 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.

15 Feb 20213min

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert weren’t elected to their positions in the House of Representatives by accident. They ran campaigns like everyone else, and won. Given Greene’s “nutty” aka QAnon-supporting and anti-mask-censorship antics in particular since she arrived in Washington, it may be hard for lots of people to understand why. In this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast sat down with Doctor John Cowan, the Republican surgeon who lost to Greene in her district despite both candidates supporting Donald Trump, to get an idea for what people may have had in mind when casting their ballots for her. “I think this is why she got elected is because people really felt like these guys are absolutely crazy in Washington DC,” he explains. “And they are, many of them are, trying to actively destroy the country through their policies and rhetoric and whatnot. And [voters] looked at someone like Marjorie and said, ‘we've got the answer to that. You know, she's a fighter she'll say or do anything.’” Essentially, says Molly, she won for the same reasons Trump did. Cowan agrees: “I think they just thought, well, we've got somebody who's literally going to kick it to the government and maybe he can crack that or drain the swamp as he was off to say.” Then, Molly talks to Gregg Smith, a former Marine and ex-colleague of Erik Prince, who is running against the GOP’s Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado. He feels that he can and will defeat her. Donald Trump had support out there because “people out here will generally vote against the mainstream,” but that support has dwindled, and Boebert’s response to the insurrection is being questioned, he says. But Democrats aren’t going to win the area by pushing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders-level ideologies too hard. “You've got to address the issues that are important out here.” That’s basically what both Cowan and Smith have in common with one another: hope in the voters. “I do think people eventually will wake up and see that there's a lot of darkness there,” says Cowan. Plus, Smith shares the moment he knew Erik Prince couldn’t be trusted: “I never want to see him again.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

14 Feb 202130min

Amidst hundreds of thousands of Americans dying from COVID-19, countless pleas from health officials and the CDC to wear maks and social distance, and a recent report from Lancet that put the cherry on top of the “this was basically Trump’s fault” sundae, Fox News has decided to do what Fox News does: Go against all of that. This time, their “poison pill” of choice, as Media Matters’ President and CEO Angelo Cursone calls it in this episode of The New Abnormal, is vaccine skepticism. “What Fox is doing with the vaccines right now is similar to the role that they played at every step of public health measures,” Cursone tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast. “They dismissed social distancing early on. They were sort of skeptical about the masks and Jeanine Pirro was warning her audience. That the only reason people wear masks is to do bad things.” Now, they’re telling their viewers they’re not sure about taking the “George Soros Kool-Aid.” (Rick Wilson is already seeing this play out with “MAGA moms” on Facebook). But Fox has a reason for this, adds Cursone, who shares his theory. It has to do with your cable bill—and it’s also the very way the network could be destroyed. The more outrage they get, the more viewers, the more negotiating power they have against cable companies to get them to charge cable watchers more for their channel. “Fox News, now, for every person that has cable news pays Fox news between $2 and $2 and 50 cents a month, whether or not you ever watched the channel and what they're trying to do, because they've lost so much, advertising [wants to] get that number up from about $2, a person to $3 to $3 and 50 cents over the next year,” and if there’s a way to hit them where it hurts, explains Cursone, it’s here. Of course, it’s not a New Abnormal episode if there isn’t talk of impeachment, especially the hearings going on right now involving the Capitol insurrection. Rick is particularly furious at Rick Scott and Marco Rubio: “They're basically just saying, ah, yeah, our little plot failed. Our little coup failed. So we're just going to hang out here and be the dick kids in the back of the room, throwing at the teacher.” Speaking of dicks, Molly tells the fun little tale of Marjorie Taylor Green and the Tantric Sex Guru and Daily Beast congressional reporter Sam Brodey talks about his experience witnessing the trial in person.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.

12 Feb 202157min

For years, Facebook has been a cesspool of conspiracy theorists, political ragemonsters, and quacks pushing cures for decaying Boomers. But as dangerous as these creeps were, they were mostly contained to the social network.Until the pandemic hit.Now, all of us are locked down. And Facebook’s worst actors and brainwormiest thinking is bursting out into the real world—and threatening to take it over. “I see it a lot actually in local community pages,” The Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill explains on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “To give an example, I was looking at a page, a local news site, about my 5,000-population hometown. The main restaurant, they closed down for a COVID exposure or something. And people were saying, ‘Ah! This is tyranny. We don't have to do this.’ Someone was posting an image macro in the comments with the ‘where we go one, we go all’ Qanon thing. And I'm like, ‘Oh my God, like, this is about the salad bar.’” “You really see the conspiracy theories and the atomization, the disconnection from real people and how you would hopefully behave in a real life setting. That just vanishes on Facebook. And I think with so many people using that now as their main means of communicating, it's spreading,” Weill tells Molly Jong-Fast.Take the icky phenomenon of online multi-level marketing. Those “are those parasitic posts that you see all over your Facebook. It's your friend from home saying, ‘Hey, I just got a great deal on vitamin supplements. And, uh, if you, you know, give me $50, I'll send them to you. Or you can go into business with me and become my associate,’” Weill says. “It's something that you're not legally allowed to call a financial cult, but golly, does it sound like one.”One local politician in Kansas was in so deep, he had “someone come and make a sales pitch for during a political meeting on preventing COVID,” Weill continues. “During a council meeting on COVID, he brought in someone from an essential oil company to make the pitch about how these products can help you and your family and empower you to live the healthy lifestyle.”“I don't think there are official rules against doing that. We've just been, uh, coasting on people not doing that. That's been kind of the unspoken expectation,” Weill says.Speaking of expectations, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) stops by the show to talk about what he wants to see from Trump’s upcoming second impeachment. And Rick Wilson has a message for the Republican senators who want to let the ex-president off the hook: “This is one of those votes, like the Iraq war or Obamacare, that you never escape. You never escape it. And if you think the tide isn't turning, you're not paying attention. Trumpism is still a threat and will be for a long time, so I know that's why those guys are afraid. But the rest of the country is done with this bullshit.”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.

9 Feb 202154min

The pandemic shook things up, a lot. It exposed the country’s deepest inequalities, and arguably, made them worse. Now, all eyes are on President Biden to see how he’ll fix it, and Republicans are responding exactly as expected: by crying about the debt. Here’s the thing, though, says Paul Krugman, an American economist and op-ed columnist at The New York Times, there’s really no reason to. It’s a tale as old as time. Both parties spend, but when it’s time for Dems to make the economic plans, and Biden took office, Republicans “suddenly rediscovered that they were worried about debt” he tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. But it actually doesn’t matter, he claims. “The important thing to realize is that governments are not like you and me, governments don't have to pay back their debt,” he explains. “All they have to do is make sure that their obligations don't grow beyond any reasonable estimate of what they can us over time. That means they never actually have to pay off debt. It's a threat that exists only in the imagination of people who want to have some reason to squeeze government spending.” Instead, says Krugman, lawmakers should prioritize giving money to poor families with children, which is cheap and will get them out of poverty. “You can do an enormous amount for children, fairly affordably,” he says, but for the love of Pete, stop calling it tax breaks. “It's actually just giving people money,” he says, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Will the Trump voters go for this? It’s unclear, but Krugman says Biden’s policies actually help them the most. (“There's basically no place in America that is more dependent upon federal aid. That is more lifted out of absolute misery by massive support from the taxpayers than Eastern Kentucky. And it's very, very hard to find someone who didn't vote for Trump and those in those counties.”) Plus! The past alignments of the Democratic and Republican parties are completely changed, he says. (“People used to describe [the GOP] as being a center, right party, but it's not, it's now an extreme authoritarian, anti-liberal, anti-science, anti-almost-everything party that more or less [resembles] fascist parties of Europe.”) And! A prediction of what economic recovery look like post-pandemic. It’s good news for the working class. 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.

8 Feb 20213min

The pandemic shook things up, a lot. It exposed the country’s deepest inequalities, and arguably, made them worse. Now, all eyes are on President Biden to see how he’ll fix it, and Republicans are responding exactly as expected: by crying about the debt. Here’s the thing, though, says Paul Krugman, an American economist and op-ed columnist at The New York Times, there’s really no reason to. It’s a tale as old as time. Both parties spend, but when it’s time for Dems to make the economic plans, and Biden took office, Republicans “suddenly rediscovered that they were worried about debt” he tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. But it actually doesn’t matter, he claims. “The important thing to realize is that governments are not like you and me, governments don't have to pay back their debt,” he explains. “All they have to do is make sure that their obligations don't grow beyond any reasonable estimate of what they can us over time. That means they never actually have to pay off debt. It's a threat that exists only in the imagination of people who want to have some reason to squeeze government spending.” Instead, says Krugman, lawmakers should prioritize giving money to poor families with children, which is cheap and will get them out of poverty. “You can do an enormous amount for children, fairly affordably,” he says, but for the love of Pete, stop calling it tax breaks. “It's actually just giving people money,” he says, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Will the Trump voters go for this? It’s unclear, but Krugman says Biden’s policies actually help them the most. (“There's basically no place in America that is more dependent upon federal aid. That is more lifted out of absolute misery by massive support from the taxpayers than Eastern Kentucky. And it's very, very hard to find someone who didn't vote for Trump and those in those counties.”) Plus! The past alignments of the Democratic and Republican parties are completely changed, he says. (“People used to describe [the GOP] as being a center, right party, but it's not, it's now an extreme authoritarian, anti-liberal, anti-science, anti-almost-everything party that more or less [resembles] fascist parties of Europe.”) And! A prediction of what economic recovery look like post-pandemic. It’s good news for the working class. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

7 Feb 202123min