The Daily Beast Podcast

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UNLOCKED: Trump DHS Official: Of Course There Are Racists in the Administration Sep 09, 2020

Show notes

As you’ve probably heard, we also run bonus episodes every Sunday that are only for Beast Inside members. As a small token of our gratitude, we’re sharing one of those bonus episodes in full with you here. If you want more bonus episodes like this, with more of the spicy interviews and blunt banter you know and love, consider joining Beast Inside. Doing so supports us, The New Abnormal, and the rest of fearless journalism from The Daily Beast. Head over to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to become a member now – or after you listen to this amazing interview with Elizabeth Neumann.

Even a former member of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security thinks he is bat-shit, and surrounded by actual racists. It would be funny if some of the stories that former DHS official Elizabeth Neumann told Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode on The New Abnormal weren’t so terrifying. She admits that she did “hold her nose” and vote for him in 2016 and really believed he would rise to the occasion. But that dream died super quick—by the end of summer 2017 to be exact: “It was clear he didn’t have a strong enough character to put aside some of his bad habits,” she said. There was one moment, though, that changed it all. Or, as Molly put it, “made you realize we’re not in Kansas anymore.” “He was having some sort of school yard bully fight with a man who is trying to launch a nuclear weapon,” she explained. “It was a huge wake up call for the department.” Neumann also spoke to the influence Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller had on immigration and when she, a pro-lifer, realized the president “wasn’t a true Christian.” And then she makes two scary admissions, which says a lot because they are all pretty scary, tbh. The first is that Nuemann can say with certainty that many of those in Trump’s orbit are racist. In fact, she had a moment while working in the department in which she thought, “Oh my God, some of these people are racist.” The second, and related to the first, is the role that Trump has had on domestic terrorism and white supremacy in the United States: “The president not speaking out against white supremacy and against QAnon is extremely dangerous. He is creating that fear that creates vulnerability in people to be recruited and radicalized by groups that have an intention of violence.” Plus! Will more former administration officials come out? Neumann shares her thoughts.

Want more? Become a Beast Inside member to enjoy a limited-run series of bonus interviews from The New Abnormal. Guests include Cory Booker, Jim Acosta, and more. Head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com to join now.

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Who Is Trump’s Handler in Russia? Sep 08, 2020

Show notes

Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who helped launch the Trump-Russia investigation, says the current occupant of the Oval Office “poses the greatest counterintelligence threat of any president in modern history.” It’s not just that Trump and all of his top people have lied about their connections to Moscow, Strzok tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. (Although that is super weird.) It’s that he takes all of these inexplicably pro-Kremlin positions on issues he clearly doesn’t care about. (Montenegro? Really?) Which leads Molly to wonder: If Trump is really acting like a Russian asset, who would be Trump’s handler in Moscow? “I don't think he needs one,” Strzok responds. This isn’t some old-school spy case, with dead drops and covert communications. “The best intelligence relationship… if you want them to do something is: ‘I've got you on the hook. I know you're going to do, you know what I want. And I don't ever have to tell you because of the leverage I have over you.’ And that's what I think Russia has over Trump. How else do you explain all these fucking inexplicably things that he's doing with regard to NATO, with refusing to say word one about [Putin critic Alexei] Navalny being poisoned, about the bounties” Russia offered the Taliban for killing U.S. troops. Plus! Strzok addresses the charges that the White House dialed up his investigation into Trump’s Russian connections. (No way, Strzok says.) Rick teases some material from Michael Cohen’s newly released book. Molly sheds tears over the sunken Trump flotilla—and reports from the raging hellscape that is Manhattan. And! Strzok reconsiders his earlier position. “I was maybe a little too flippant about saying [Trump] doesn't have a handler,” Strzok says. There are so many things Trump “says and does that are very much in Russia's interests [and] that he doesn't have an independent knowledge of.” It makes this counterintelligence veteran wonder.

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TEASER: Lev Parnas: Trump’s Cronies Made Fun of Him Behind His Back Sep 07, 2020

Show notes

What you're about to hear is a teaser for our new bonus episodes we are doing for subscribers to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast's membership program. We have a very special guest with Lev Parnas a person from inside Trump and Guilliani’s inner circle. In this interview we talk through all the fuckery around Giuliani's attempts to get dirt to smear Joe Biden as well as the horrors of being inside Trump world. Again, this is for Beast Inside members only. To hear this along with the rest of our upcoming bonus episodes head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com. That's newabnormal.thedailybeast.com.

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What Will Happen to Fox News When Rupert Murdoch Dies? Sep 04, 2020

Show notes

Everybody has got to die sometime, even the Great and Powerful Fox News giant Rupert Murdoch. But what will happen to the empire when papa ‘Doch finally does kick the bucket? CNN’s Brian Stelter shared his theory with Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal and it’s hard not to see it as a possibility. But spoiler alert: It’s super complicated. (“There will be a battle over the future of the company because there's this trust right now. There's eight votes in the trust,” he says. “Rupert has four votes and the kids have four votes. So he wins. If, and when he dies, there will be four votes from four children,” and dun dun, dun” one of them leans more liberal.) Stelter did the work none of us wants to and wrote a whole book about Fox. He brought up a personal Molly Jong-Fast nightmare (Tucker Carlson 2024?) and the trio discussed the very obvious occurrence of the network literally controlling what the president says or does. (“Tucker will tweet or say something on the air. And two days later, it's Donald Trump's policy.”) Then! Dr. Al Gross, who is running for Senate in Alaska as an Independent, spoke with Molly and producer Jesse Cannon about why the state isn’t as red as everyone thinks and how he’s able to balance his time as a commercial fisherman, an orthopedic surgeon, and Master of Public Health. Oh, and that stimulus check the state’s citizens get called UBI. Plus! Find out which hill Bill Barr is dying on to protect Trump this time.

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Trump Jr. Loves Boats, Hates Rhinos and Is So-So on Democracy Sep 01, 2020

Show notes

Ike Barinholtz—of Eastbound and Down, Suicide Squad, and Mindy Project fame—loves, and I mean LOVES, Donald Trump Jr. It was a passion that grew white hot on safari. “I went with DJ TJ, we went to beautiful Tanzania back in 2014 and it was amazing,” Ike tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. “We talked to the locals and they were really great. And then this really nice man, he was a guide. And he took us to just the most majestic group of sleeping rhinoceroses and we just blew their fucking heads off. It was beautiful.” But Ike admires one of the president’s top four smartest children for more than his guns. Ike also appreciates Don’s nuanced political views, especially when it comes to boats. “Look, everyone is born with a boat. We know that, but only people who really commit—to not just the boating lifestyle, but also the MAGA lifestyle—have earned the privilege to fuck up all of the wakes in a lake. And so once again, DJ TJ is right and that's why I'm supporting him in 2024.” Plus! Trump Senior turns the White House lawn into a NASCAR parking lot. Melania goes dictator chic. And Molly—this part is serious, I swear—recites a Tiffany Trump tweet over an electropop beat.

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TEASER: Trump DHS Official: Of Course There Are Racists in the Administration Aug 31, 2020

Show notes

What you're about to hear is a teaser for our new bonus episodes we are doing for subscribers to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast's membership program. We have a very special guest with Elizabeth Nuemann is a former member of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security and will be talking to us about the racism and horrors she saw inside the administration. Again, this is for Beast Inside members only. To hear this along with the rest of our upcoming bonus episodes head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com. That's newabnormal.thedailybeast.com.

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Ivanka Is an Idiot but Unequivocally the Smartest Trump Aug 28, 2020

Show notes

It’s the last night of the Republican National Convention and former GOP operative Tim Miller joins Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast to break down what Rick calls “four hours of sweaty Castro-esque speechmaking.” The most surreal speechmaker of all may have been Ivanka Trump. “There were a lot of lies,” says Miller. “But I thought the lie that really stood out to me was when she talked about how much he loves his grandchildren.”Molly was impressed, sort of. “I did think tonight, Ivanka is an idiot, and she is absolutely unequivocally the smartest of all of the kids.” Aside from Trump, himself, the gang agrees that Rudy Giuliani gave the most despicable speech of the night. Former Giuliani staffer, Rick, says the former Mayor of New York was kickstarting a Republican race war that will run until the election. “There's never been a more perfect exemplar of ‘everything Trump touches dies,’ because that speech tonight; it was, at one point, everything but the n-word… They're coming for you, they're coming for you to your suburbs. These black lives matter…” And when it came to Trump himself, Molly says he was totally off-form: “He finds reading very boring. So, I mean, every speech where he's not saying crazy shit is him being totally bored by whatever they're making him read."Rick agrees “it was very low energy speech,” but predicts the calm—maybe even electable—Trump will not last long. “We all know something about Donald Trump. After he’s been disciplined and held down by his staff for a couple of days, he has an equal and opposite reaction and goes fucking nuts.”

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Mary Trump on Whether ‘Despicable’ Ivanka Could Be New VP Aug 27, 2020

Show notes

Mary Trump, The New Abnormal’s favorite guest, is back for the third night of the Republican National Convention. Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast want to know if it’s too late for Trump to drop Mike Pence as his running mate and bring in fresh blood. “Pence is a total drip and his only value to Donald is that he sucks up to him,” says Mary. “Do we seriously think that Mike Pence could not be convinced to step down?”

Rick admits it would be incredibly tough to bring in a new vice presidential candidate at this late stage, but can see why Trump would do it. “It's a difficult enterprise. Although, I think Donald would be tempted don't you, Mary? Because it’s like a reality TV play. It’ll be dramatic. The ratings will be yuge.”

Molly was taken back by the sheer scale of dishonesty at the convention tonight. “Those were C-PAC-level lies, not RNC-level lies,” she says. Rick suggested Richard Grenell, who was briefly Acting Director of National Intelligence, was making a strong entry into “the Trumpian liars Olympics” with his convention speech. Mary says he was the undisputed champion. “It was the worst, most damaging performance of the evening, if not of the entire convention, because of the things he was lying about with a straight face. Everything he said was a lie.” Rick selects Trump as today’s ‘Fuck that guy’ for his defunding of FEMA as a hurricane makes landfall in Louisiana and Texas, but Mary says: “You know, that money stolen from FEMA that may not have been needed if Bannon hadn't stolen it from the GoFundMe…”

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Why Are These Crazy People at The RNC Saying What They’re Saying? Aug 26, 2020

Show notes

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum joined Molly-Jong Fast and Rick Wilson on a special edition of The New Abnormal for the second night of the Republican National Convention and he just couldn’t work out what the Hell the GOP thought they were doing? Stephen Harper, the former prime minister of Canada, used to have a sign up on all four walls of his campaign war room, Frum explains: “And the sign said, ‘Why are you saying this?’” While the Democrats realized they needed to create lots of short video segments that would be shared online, Frum compares the RNC disaster as a low-rent version of the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News. “He's a professionally competent white supremacist with a volume controls on the input device that matches the volume output,” he says.

Molly was also unimpressed by Melania’s “dictator chic” and her very long speech. “In the end she was just like this weird alien trying to mimic a human,” she says. Amid the cavalcade of nepotism, Molly also thought Tiffany Trump’s performance was instructive. “There's always been a liberal fantasy that Tiffany is not as evil as the rest of the adult children. I think tonight, that fantasy has been put to bed,” she says. The sight of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi prompted Rick to issue a warning that Bondi has been working with Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon on concocting “Hillary's emails 2.0”—some kind of opposition research attack on the Bidens. “Tonight was a preview of the October surprise,” he says.

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White House Insider: Trump Wanted to 'Maim' Immigrants Aug 25, 2020

Show notes

It’s the first night of the Republican National Convention and Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast are joined by Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, who shares eye-watering tales of what Trump is really like when the cameras are switched off. You thought what happened on screen on night one of the convention was crazy? It’s nothing compared to Trump behind the scenes, where national security officials couldn’t get through a meeting “without him doing 20 tangents, becoming irascible, turning red in the face, demanding a diet Coke, spewing spit,” Taylor explained. “Literally out of goddamn nowhere, he'd be like, ‘You know, who’s just my favorite guy? The MyPillow guy. Do any of you have those pillows?’ When it came to the issue of the border wall, Trump would be dreaming up “sickening” medieval plots “to pierce the flesh” of migrants, rip all the families apart, “maim,” and gas them. “This was a man with no humanity whatsoever,” Taylor says. “He says, we got to do this, this, this, and this, all of which are probably impossible, illegal unethical,” Taylor recalls, but he was writing them down as the president spoke. “And he looks over me and he goes, you fucking taken notes?”

All that, and there was still time for the “Fuck that guy” segment, and Jerry Falwell Jr. won a hotly contested race after it was claimed that the anti-LGBT preacher had encouraged the pool boy to have sex with his wife while he watched from the corner of the room. “I would like to salute you for providing the most meta and self-referential ‘Fuck that guy’ ever,” Rick says to Molly. “Because Jerry Falwell said to his wife, ‘Fuck that guy.’”

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