The Daily Beast Podcast

The investigative reporter sifting through the unbelievable treasure trove of texts that the January 6th committee obtained from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadow’s phone has detailed what he found inside the 2,319 messages. “There’s just a ton of different people in there,” Hunter Walker, reporter for Talking Points Memo, told host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. Next up on the podcast, Layshia Clarendon, who is the first openly non-binary player in the WNBA, describes what was going through her mind when she heard that Brittney Griner (BG) was arrested in Russia and taken into custody. “It was like the ground underneath me just fell,” Clarendon tells podcast co-host Danielle Moodie. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kyrsten Sinema is no stranger to burning bridges. She’s in the process of doing just that with her former Democratic colleagues now that she officially switched her party to Independent, and according to David Shapira, a former Arizona politician and ex-friend to Sinema, she burned a bridge with him, too. Shapira wrote a now-viral Twitter thread about the ordeal but came on this episode of The New Abnormal to break down exactly what happened—and the half-assed apology she allegedly gave him after—as well as some reasons he believes his “calculated” former pal cares more about “notoriety” than her role as a servant of the public. Also Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Spencer Ackerman, and author of the Forever Wars newsletter, joins the pod to share what he thinks will happen with the Yemen-Saudi ceasefire resolution Bernie Sanders recently proposed, which calls for the United States to stop the residual aid that it’s giving to Saudi Arabia. Plus! Danielle and Andy make an extremely strong case for why Marjorie Taylor Greene needs a mute button after her latest comments on trans kids and Jan. 6, and ponder the idea of Kevin McCarthy retiring. Hey, co-hosts can dream! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Laura Ingraham is mad. The Fox News host is mad about shadow banning and, in a recent news clip, she disclosed she’s mad about Herschel Walker’s loss and mad at everyone involved but Walker himself. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast, co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie hilariously break down (read: tear apart) her grievances (along with other wild GOP arguments made by conservative darlings John Kennedy and Tucker Carlson). MSNBC columnist and law journalist Chris Geidner also joins this episode to walk Andy through a few important Supreme Court cases, including the one involving a wedding website creator who wants the right to refuse same-sex couples her services. There’s two big problems with her argument from the get-go, says Geidner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ron DeSantis’ war on public education is going national. At least that’s the fear of Jennifer Jenkins, a member of the Brevard County School Board, one of several Florida school boards that have undergone a rightward shift. The county’s highly accomplished superintendent, Mark Mullins, was essentially pushed out this month after candidates backed by the conservative group Moms for Liberty won election. Also in his episode, Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief of Bolts magazine, which focuses on local government and local elections, reveals just how good this past election was for Democrats. And co-host Danielle Moodie breaks down Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory over scandal-scarred Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate election. You can listen for yourself, but let’s just say she thinks “the force” was with him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kanye West’s 2024 presidential campaign is extremely unofficial (he hasn’t even filed to run, New Abnormal podcast co-host Danielle Moodie reminds listeners on this episode), but that hasn’t stopped right-wingers from clamoring to be part of his team, and it’s a shit show. Daily Beast reporter Zach Petrizzo, who exclusively reported that right-wing figure Milo Yiannopoulos left Ye’s campaign after infighting, joined the show to tell Danielle all about the drama. Also in this episode: Daily Beast senior editor Andrew Kirell (a former Fox News staffer many lifetimes ago) chats with TNA co-host and fellow former Fox News staffer Andy Levy about how the right-wing media is handling anti-semitic Kanye, including which figures are changing their tune on the rapper. Plus! Danielle and Andy discuss an obvious truth: Conservatives really want to see Hunter Biden’s dick pics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Six years ago Brandon Wolf made a promise after his best friend was shot dead. He tells The New Abnormal’s Danielle Moodie how we can all make that promise a reality Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A group of senators with unlimited sick leave voted down a measure on Thursday which would have given rail workers just seven paid days of sick leave—, a fair rise considering where they currently stand: at zero. It’s a “horrific” decision, according to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. “My feeling is this is not a win,” said podcast co-host Danielle Moodie. “I don’t know who this is a win for. We all just went through the heights of a global health pandemic. People lost their jobs, people needed to take off because guess what? We needed to quarantine. So the fact that even after going through this for over three years, that members of Congress could vote to deny people access to sick days, it’s draconian, it’s disgusting.” Also on the podcast, Latosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter and is founder of Southern Black Girls Consortium tells Moodie about the Georgia runoff race as it finally nears an end. Then, Daily Beast political reporter, Roger Sollenberger, talks to Levy about his story surrounding Republican megadonors Dick and Elizabeth Uihlein. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stave Bannon calling out Donald Trump for hosting white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago reads as jealousy, according to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of The New Abnormal. Podcast co-host Danielle Moddy also can’t believe she’s agreeing with Bannon: “Do these people not do any type of Google search on who the fuck is coming into Mar-a-Lago? Is there no background check? Also on the podcast, Jared Holt, senior research manager on U.S. Hate and Extremism for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who has a newsletter and podcast called Posting Through It, explains Trump’s intentions for not condemning Fuentes after the meeting. Then, Sarah Kendzior, author of They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent and co-host of the podcast, Gaslit Nation, says Elon Musk’s motives for changing Twitter are part of a bigger strategy: control and “possibly the destruction of the public sphere.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today's episode we get to know hosts Danielle Moodie & Andy Levy a bit better by hearing about some of their first political memories and some of their favorite things. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Attention political history buffs: This episode of The New Abnormal podcast takes us back in time, to the ’50s and ’60s to be exact, as Beverly Gage, author of “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century,” tells co-host Andy Levy all about the background of the first-ever FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Andy learns that racist Hoover, infamous for going after Martin Luther King Jr. and committing multiple abuses of power across the board, particularly under the protection of the surveillance program COINTELPRO, didn’t like the Klan and had an interesting relationship with former President Richard Nixon. Author Kal Raustiala also joins the show to tell Andy about his book “The Absolutely Indispensable Man: Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the Fight to End Empire” and everything we didn’t know about the famous Black United Nations mediator—including the fact that Nixon told him his son was going to be drafted, and the reason he didn’t stop it from happening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Merrick Garland is wasting our time. That’s the sentiment of New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy and the show’s brand new permanent co-host, Danielle Moodie. This is Danielle’s first show as official host and she wasted absolutely no time going in on Republicans, Trump, and even Merrick Garland. The two also talk about Garland’s new appointment and their frustrations with the lack of action on gun control on the heels of another shooting, this time against more LGBTQ people in Colorado. Then Maxwell Frost, who will be the first Gen Z member of Congress, joined the podcast and shares his “morbid” but real take on gun violence in this country, what almost made his quit his campaign, and how he truly feels about his state’s governor “dictator” Ron DeSantis. Plus! Ryan Cooper, the managing editor of the American Prospect, tells Andy why Trump running for president again is the “worst case scenario” for Republicans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast, co-host Andy Levy talks to Modern Family producer Danny Zucker, who weighs in on the Dave Chapelle SNL monologue that used the same anti-semitic tropes as Kanye West. They also discuss the time that he harassed Donald Trump on Twitter, why he wants to “rage” at Dems, and why the writer’s made Luke’s character “weirdly libertarian.” Plus! A touching story about how the show made a conservative dad less of a bigot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump’s 2024 announcement may have felt like a flop, but dig deeper and you’ll find the most interesting part. Jose Pagliery, political investigations reporter at The Daily Beast, tells The New Abnormal host Andy Levy that there is no way to look at this announcement “as anything other than an attempt to mar any prosecution as a political persecution of him.” It “could be viewed as him trying to seek further cover so that if he does get indicted for one of the many things that he’s being investigated for right now, he could just say, ‘oh, look at this, they just indicted me because I announced, they were just trying to stop me from winning for you in 2024.’” Speaking of Trump, also on the podcast, former Missouri Secretary of State and the host of the podcast Majority 54, Jason Kander, explains that Trump could be his worst enemy, becoming overexposed in American culture. Also on the podcast, Kat Abughazaleh, who covers Tucker Carlson for Media Matters for America, describes how Carlson has been relatively quiet since Trump’s announcement. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No one really likes New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs, Lindsey Boylan tells host Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast. Boylan was one of the first people to publicly accuse former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment. Now, she feels equally emboldened to call out Jacobs, a remnant of the Cuomo administration, first on TikTok, and now to Andy. According to Boylan, Jacobs is to blame for solidly Democratic parts of New York turning red. Mainly because of his hatred for progressives. Plus! Andy chats midterm fallout with columnist Jeb Lund and both clock all of the lies, sad and hilarious, that Elon Musk has Tweeted (and deleted) on the app. And David Weigel, who covers politics at news site Semafor, explains how Fox News essentially screwed over midterm Republicans and the LGBTQ issue Republicans won’t touch these days. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Actor and comedian Andy Richter’s take on cancel culture can be summed up in three words: Bring it on. On this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, he tells host Andy Levy why “it’s about time” cancel culture is a thing and shares experiences of seeing it play out in real life. The two Andys also discuss why Richter didn’t vote for Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, if he regrets that decision now, and why he’s O.K. being referred to as Conan O’Brien’s “sidekick.” Plus! His affection for the Twitter porn bots that spam his account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If former President Donald Trump were to go against popular Florida Governor Ron DeSantis today in the race for 2024, Trump would still knock DeSantis out despite the far-right Gov.’s rise in popularity in important states over the last year. That’s according to CNN political commentator and New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp, who joins host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. Elsewhere on this-post election-themed podcast, guest host Sam Brodey, the Daily Beast’s congressional correspondent, reflects on how we underestimated what Democrats were working with regarding what really resonated with voters. Elsewhere on this-post election-themed podcast, guest host Sam Brodey, the Daily Beast’s congressional correspondent, reflects on how we underestimated what Democrats were working with regarding what really resonated with voters. Ari Berman, Mother Jones National Voting Rights correspondent and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, echoes those thoughts, reminding us that “this was the first time in US history that a constitutional right had been given and taken away.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf interviewed over 100 people involved with the Trump White House for his book American Resistance: The Inside Story of How The Deep State Saved the Nation, and according to his sources, it took almost no time for Trump’s staffers to realize what kind of boss he was. He tells New Abnormal host Andy Levy about the ways these staffers had to adapt to Trump’s ineptness as well as obliterating the argument that Republicans are better for the economy (spoiler alert: they’re not and he has proof.) Also on this episode, Defector Media co-owner David Roth joins Andy as co-host and compares Elon Musk (aka Twitter’s new obliterator, er, owner) to a substitute teacher who has lost control of his class and Michael Edison Hayden, investigative reporter at spokesman at the Southern Poverty Law Center, gives the inside scoop on the “hard-right, neo-fascist” billionaire takeover of the publication Newsweek. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Patton Oswalt has a sneaking suspicion that things are going to get ugly in America and people, like Republicans for example, are pretending otherwise. On this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, he tells host Andy Levy where these feelings are coming from and how he really feels about the comedians crying cancel culture, including that they’re “failed open mic-ers.” Plus! Oswalt unpacks the one issue that he thinks scare Evangelical conservatives the most and gives us a peak inside the life of his middle school-aged child. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Biden’s Wednesday speech at Union Station in D.C. where he warned of the perils facing US democracy ahead of next week’s Midterms just wasn’t forceful enough, according to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast, The New Abnormal. In his speech, Biden made reference to the hammer attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul last week, warning the country faces escalating threats of political violence. He also criticized ​​Donald Trump over the former president’s refusal “to accept the results of the 2020 election.” But it wasn’t enough, according to Levy and guest host Josie Duffy Rice, who writes about prisons and prosecution at The Unnamed. Also on the podcast, Mike Isaac, a technology correspondent for The New York Times discusses whether Twitter can survive under Elon Musk’s ownership. Then, Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, discusses how Republicans twisted the story of Paul Pelosi’s hammer attack from a crime story to a national conspiracy; that the violent assault was the result of some sort of gay lover’s spat or falling out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur can’t stand Republicans and can’t stand Democrats. So who can he possibly see as a viable progressive presidential option for 2024? asks host Andy Levy in this episode of The New Abnormal podcast. Uygur’s top pick: Jon Stewart. The two chat what that would look like, then Vox’s senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop shares everything we need to know about far right political blogger Curtis Yarvin. The guy not only wants to replace American democracy with a monarchy, but also has ideas on how to make Jan. 6 better “next time.” Plus! Andy and guest co-host Beast opinion editor Anthony Fisher review the biggest political news of the week: the attack on Paul Pelosi and Don Jr’s “gross” response to it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Comedian and On Cinema actor Tim Heidecker wants to make one thing clear: He does not want Joe Rogan canceled. But that doesn’t stop Heidecker from airing his displeasure with the podcaster and his show, which he does without pause on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. Plus! He and host Andy Levy talk about the event that made Heidecker even more socialist (Betsy DeVos is involved) and what he thinks about the Kanye West elephant in the room: “You can be mentally ill and an idiot, too, right? You can have both of those things going on.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump will not run for president in 2024, according to his former fixer. Michael Cohen tells host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of The New Abnormal that while Trump’s popularity has plummeted since 2016 and he can’t risk the idea of losing, there are also serious financial implications that could stop Trump from his return to the White House. Also on the podcast, Kali Holloway, a columnist at The Daily Beast and the Nation, who guest hosts with Levy, says that part of the reason why Herschel Walker was hand-picked to run in Georgia by the Republican Party was because “they wanted a Black candidate to run against Warnock. Then, Judd Legum, a journalist who founded and writes an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism, Popular Information, discusses a recent article surrounding Amazon and its statement days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots where it claimed the company would no longer give money to any member of Congress who had voted to overturn the election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s GOP in-fighting among Trumpy Republicans when it comes to future House leadership positioning and Fox News host Tucker Carlson made it a whole lot worse. What is going on? New Abnormal podcast co-host Andy Levy and Daily Beast politics editor and guest host Matt Fuller try to figure it out and answer the questions they have about it, in the latest episode. Plus! Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, warns Andy about the holiday COVID wave that’s coming and the scary twist that will make it unlike past waves. And Daily Beast politics reporter Will Sommer, also co-host of the podcast Fever Dreams about the shenanigans of the far right, joins to tell Andy all about the racist, sexist alt-right homophobe who raised $1 million for an alt-right superhero movie and promptly lost it in the most hilariously dumb way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The excuses that the oppressive Islamic regime has given to explain the violence (and deaths) against protesters—sparked by the death of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini in morality police custody—are so “appalling” that it’s “laughable,” says British-Iranian-American journalist Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani. In this week’s bonus episode, host Andy Levy interviews Modarressy-Tehrani on what’s happening with the protests in Iran, including the violence from the Islamic regime and resistence from citizens who are fighting back, especially among Gen Z. Plus! She shares what Iranians actually want from the United States (hint: not intervention.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Marjorie Taylor Greene “came out of nowhere” to become one of the Republican Party’s most influential powerhouses, journalist and author Robert Draper, who writes for the New York Times Magazine, tells host Andy Levy in this week’s episode of The New Abnormal. “Republicans kind of wanted to kick her to the curb immediately,” Draper, author of the new book Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost its Mind, said. Then, professor at the University of Florida Michael McDonald, who specializes in American elections and is the author of a new book, From Pandemic to Insurrection: Voting in the 2020 US Presidential Election, says Trump’s refusal to accept that he lost the 2020 election has dramatically altered American politics. Also on the podcast, guest co-host Maura Quint, Tax March co-founder and member of Americans for Tax Fairness, reveals what America could learn from Liz Truss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s hateful rhetoric isn’t a joke; she wants to start a war, proclaims podcaster Danielle Moodie on the latest episode of The New abnormal podcast. Moodie, who joined the show again as guest co-host alongside host Andy Levy, tore into Greene after she and Andy listened to a recent clip of the Republican Congresswoman making Democrats out to be child predators. Also on this episode: The Intercept investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein explains where the United States currently stands with the Trump and Putin-friendly Saudis and the Crown Prince, including that they’re gearing up to screw President Joe Biden over, big time. And for good measure, Klippenstein shares all the ways we could fuck over the Saudi Crown Prince without war, if we wanted to. Plus! Daily Beast media editor and editor of the media newsletter Confider, Andrew Kirell, joins to give Andy the inside scoop on how Fox News is handling the deranged Kayne West clips that were cut from his segment on Tucker Carlson’s show and then subsequently leaked. Kirell thinks he has an idea of who the leaker could be and him and Andy talk theories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Comedian Andy Kindler has very strong opinions on cancel culture, specifically regarding Louis C.K.’s so-called “cancellation” and comeback after sexual misconduct allegations. Lucky for New Abnormal podcast listeners, the “Bobs Burgers” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” actor decided to share all of them with host Andy Levy on this bonus episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The odds of Donald Trump actually showing up to testify under oath at the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks are not great, according to Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast The New Abnormal. “Less than zero,” says cohost Kali Holloway, a columnist at The Daily Beast and The Nation. “I think that the panel’s probably aware that he’s not gonna show up, but I think this is the kind of thing that they have to do just to sort of, for lack of a better phrase, show they mean business.” Matt Fuller, senior politics editor at The Daily Beast echoes concerns Trump won’t show up.“He probably won’t do anything with [the subpoena], and I can’t imagine he’s going to sit down for the January 6th committee,” he said. “It could be a court fight, but more likely than not, it’ll just be a nothing burger.” Also on the podcast, Justin Baragona, media reporter at The Daily Beast, reveals how Fox News management and Tucker Carlson are very interested in finding out who leaked the deleted Kanye West interview footage to Vice. “They definitely want to know who it is and, and there will be repercussions, is what I would assume,” Baragona said. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amie Parnes, senior correspondent for The Hill newspaper, covering the Biden White House and national politics, joined The New Abnormal podcast to talk with host Andy Levy through the list of Democratic contenders who could become the next Bernie Sanders—why they would or wouldn’t be fit for the job, and why New York Congresswoman AOC made the list, with a grain of salt. We're also joined by freelance journalist, Eve Peyser who weighs in on the latest with Ye & Donald Trump's poor decision-making. Then, filmmaker Andy Ostroy, who hosts the podcast The Back Room, joins the pod and plays a little game of Sophie’s Choice with Andy Levy: Would people rather see Trump in jail for the rest of his life or see Fox News shut down forever? Plus, he shares what it felt like to interview the killer of his deceased wife, actress Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered in her apartment in 2006, as well as his take on said killer being an undocumented immigrant. It’s not what you expect. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer and trans activist Parker Molloy joins host Andy Levy on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal pod to talk about Tucker Carlson’s awful obsession with making trans people look absolutely batshit—and the serious implications of that which are already happening around us. Plus! Molloy and Andy discuss the GOP’s hypocrisy when it comes to anti-trans legislation, why the right’s outrage with pronouns is “fake,” and the latest in the Elon Musk Twitter saga. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Daily Beast reporter who broke the story of Herschel Walker paying for a girlfriend’s abortion has provided behind-the-scenes details and thoughts on the case. Politics reporter Roger Sollenberger pointed to the key detail in the cobweb of Walker stories to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast The New Abnormal: the woman behind the allegations. Speaking of the potential political ramifications for Walker, guest podcast host Josie Duffy Rice, who writes about prisons and prosecution at The Unnamed, told Levy that while the abortion bombshell could swing the vote, it is unlikely to make Republicans switch. Then, Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer at Slate Magazine who covers court and law, describes how the Supreme Court is blowing up Law School too. “The court has become, in many ways, corrupted by the political process and so just delivers these decisions that fall perfectly in line with the platform,” he says. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump can hold a grudge, Daily Beast reporter Corbin Bolies tells Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal podcast, and he’s not wrong. “Donald Trump knows how to hold a grudge and he will, and we've seen that continue throughout the last year and a half, because Donald Trump has consistently attacked Mitch McConnell,” Bolies says, discussing the most recent verbal harassment levied at the former Majority Leader’s wife, Elaine Chao, in the form of blatantly racist name-calling on his Truth Social platform. Also on this episode: Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, joins this episode to co-host with Andy, touching upon the intense violent threats against Dems and Marjorie Taylor Green’s try-hard effort to get Republicans to think the threats are for them. Plus! Daily Beast far-right reporter and Fever Dreams podcast co-host Kelly Weill breaks down a huge schism happening within the libertarian party, including how the old Libertarians totally over these new Libertarians’ toxicity. Like, beyond Trumpy toxic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HuffPost reporter Andy Campbell and author of the brand new book on the group called We Are Proud Boys joins New Abnormal host Andy Levy for a riveting interview about what the far-right group is up to these days after many members have been charged with sedition for Jan. 6, how Trump and GOP officials came to know about the group, and back them, and what we have to fear about these guys the most. Plus! In this episode, actor Paul F. Tompkins explains why he stays away from politics in comedy and that the MAGA-aligned actors who complain about being blackmailed aren’t being shut out, they just suck. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is Tucker Carlson really a true believer in the MAGA world? Has he taken a dive too deep in the Republican rabbit hole? Or is this all just a performance for the ratings? For the money? For the clout? It’s a vexing question, according to host Andy Levy on this week’s episode of political podcast The New Abnormal. “We’ve had many conversations about the performative aspect of this and trying to figure out who we think are true believers,” Levy says to guest, the author and CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp. Also on the podcast, Levy talks to guest podcast host Maura Quint, co-founder of Tax March and the campaign director for Americans for Tax Fairness, about a recent Gallup poll finding that trust in the Supreme Court is at a record low. Then Levy tells Daily Beast politics reporter Zachary Petrizzo that the only surprising part of that New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s new Trump book was that Trump aides were apparently taken aback by his crude, transphobic behavior. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s a new era for The New Abnormal! But things are still pretty abnormal. Co-host Andy Levy is back with guest co-host Danielle Moodie, co-host the Democrayish podcast, to hilariously unpack the last few days’ worth of politics news, including the “terrifying” and fascist woman who won Italy’s election and what that means for us here in the United States. Hint: Nothing good. Also, their joint hope that New York AG Leticia James will finally be able to “burst” Trump’s billionaire bubble. Then! Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe breaks down for Andy the Brett Favre Mississippi welfare scheme, in which Favre and other state officials are accused of funneling $77 million worth of welfare funds to their own personal projects—none of which had anything to do with where the funds needed to go. But a former WWE wrestler is now getting in the mix with major allegations that Wolfe shares with Andy. Plus, Daily Beast reporter Jake Lahut, who focuses on Republican campaigns, joins to talk what he’s seeing in the field, and the time he cornered J.D. Vance with a question about abortion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jan. 6 may not be the last time people get violent over an election. Election experts CBS Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett and David Becker, co-authors of the new book The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy and the Age of the Big Lie, came on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to share their biggest fear when it comes to the upcoming midterm elections: political violence. They also share what poll workers have been dealing with since 2020—spoiler alert: a whole lot—and what, if anything, we can do about it. Plus! Hosts Andy Levy and Molly Jong-Fast mark Molly’s last ever TNA episode as host with a round of Tucker Carlson and Trump clips. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New Abnormal hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy reveal who is really taking on Trump and talk to politics reporter Asawin Suebsaeng for the scoop on Dr. Oz’s latest fight. Despite continued allegations of fraud and obstruction of justice claims against Donald Trump, somehow, there are still only two people continuing to call the former president out—and neither on is a man. Also on the podcast, Matt Fuller, senior politics editor at The Daily Beast, explains how Democrats have something to push voters to the polls: abortion. “That’s the big animating factor for Democrats,” Fuller says. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was going through a Hardee’s drive-thru after ordering a burger and chocolate shake when he was approached by the FBI. That’s according to Daily Beast politics reporter Zachary Petrizzo, who has more details of the FBI’s seizure of Lindell’s phone while he was at a Hardee’s restaurant last week. “I had heard from Mike that he ended up ordering a Swiss burger with a chocolate shake,” Petrizzo tells hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of political podcast The New Abnormal. Also on the podcast, Iuliia Mendel, former press secretary to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and author of the new book The Fight of Our Lives, discusses what it was like meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the ‘80s Justine Bateman was one of TVs most recognizable faces thanks to her role on Family Ties. Now, she tells The New Abnormal’s Molly Jong-Fast how online chatter about her looks left her reeling. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As his legal woes pile up, it’s no secret that former President Donald Trump has employed more than a handful of lawyers in his time. David Enrich, a business investigations editor at The New York Times and author of the new book, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice, tells hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal that it’s certainly a pattern. Also on the podcast, G. Elliot Morris, data-driven journalist and author of the book, Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them, describes the “pretty complex” world of polling and sampling. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just when you thought Donald Trump couldn’t get any worse, new revelations prove Trump was even worse than we thought, according to hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal. Also on the podcast, Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic as well as Democracy Journal and author of the new book, The Middle Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared Prosperity, talks about how the Democrats can shape their message around progressive politics to win. (Tomasky is also a former special correspondent and editor at the Daily Beast.) Then, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) talks about her reelection bid and her wacky opponent, Adam Laxalt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump often gets credit for his Rumpelstiltskin-like ability to spin the most demented parts of the American psyche into political gold. But in his new book, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How The Republican Party Went Crazy, David Corn traces the lineage of the GOP’s love of lunatics all the way back to the 1950s and says Trump is just the latest in a long line of morally bankrupt politicians willing to use the chaotic crazy generated by the darkest parts of society to fuel their ambitions. “Far Right extremism, including paranoia, racism, tribalism, conspiracy theories, … what we’ve seen under Donald Trump is nothing new. It might be the culmination, it’s not an aberration,” Corn said. Corn, a veteran journalist, author and Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones, joined the political podcast The New Abnormal to explain just how American brains became so broken. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Queen Elizabeth is an important cultural mascot in a way that Americans can’t understand and her death will have more implications for Great Britain and the world than simply who will take over the monarchy. That’s according to Ian Dunt, columnist at the ‘i’ newspaper and host of the podcasts, Oh God, What Now? and Origin Story, who tells hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of political podcast The New Abnormal that the country faces multiple crises as it deals with the queen’s death. Also on the podcast Douglas Rushkoff, author of the new book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, describes his experience talking to some very rich people about the “event.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s buddy-buddy, and complicated, relationship goes way back according to writer Andrew Kirtzman. Kirtzman covered Giuliani’s political career for over 30 years and is also the author of Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor. He came on this episode of The New Abnormal to give us an insight into New York’s fallen angel and his pal Trump—from anecdotes that one of his ex-wives told him to why Trump felt he was too much of a “liability” to be his Secretary of State. Plus! Fever Dreams podcast host Will Sommer, who is the expert on all things far-right, joins this podcast episode to talk about the up-and-coming ultra-conservative, QAnon-type candidates a la Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert running in the midterms. And also, what the Proud Boys think of their founder Gavin McInnes and his fake arrest prank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump’s way of speaking is hard to mistake for anyone else’s. On this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, video essayist Evan Puschak, owner of the 3M subscriber YouTube channel Nerdwriter1 and author of “Escape Into Meaning”, joins Molly Jong-Fast to break down how the former president and reality show star came to speak how he does, and the one thing that he doesn’t do while speaking that makes the way he talks so effective. Plus! Molly and Evan discuss whether or not Trump is intentionally speaking this way to manipulate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss Trump’s legal jeopardy with George Conway and whether he will ever be sent to prison, and then check in to discuss the infamous Mar-a-Lago carpet documents. The ultimate question remains, according to Jong-Fast; will Trump ever go to jail? “I can’t guarantee it, but there’s a reasonable likelihood of it,” Washington Post contributing columnist George Conway told Jong-Fast. Then, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) , who represents Virginia's seventh congressional district and who is a former CIA case officer, delves into the image of Mar-a-Lago carpet documents. “I can’t make predictions on what comes next, but certainly as a former Intel officer, I can say that if anyone I ever worked with had a collection of documents like this at their home, there’s no question of what would've happened to them.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lindsay Graham said on Sunday that if former President Trump is prosecuted there will be “riots in the streets.” Some call it a prediction. New Abnormal podcast host Andy Levy is calling it a threat. In this latest TNA episode, Andy uses some more descriptive language to describe how he really feels to co-host Molly Jong-Fast who has her own theory for diehard Trump apologists, which includes a spaghetti reference. Then Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the 25-year–old running for Florida’s 10th Congressional District, joins the show. He fills Molly in on why age is nothing but an asset to him—“I went through more mass shooting drills than fire drills. That perspective is important in Congress”—and why you should not ever compare him to Madison Cawthorn. Plus! Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline, author of House on Fire: Fighting for Democracy in the Age of Political Arson, gets real with Molly on the reason that rich white guys have gotten away with criming for so long—and the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg-sized elephant in the room. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Florida Governor went full on Donald Trump during his “Keep Florida Free Tour” last week after saying he wants to “chuck” the “little elf” Dr. Anthony Fauci across the Potomac. Will it help him gain traction ahead for a 2024 presidential run? The New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy shares his hot take on how well this is gonna work for DeSantis on this episode. And this conversation is before he and MollyJong-Fast listen to a clip of DeSantis talking about the woke crowd. Plus! NBC’s Capitol Hill Correspondent Ali Vitali joins to share some of the reporting she writes about in her new book, Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House . . . Yet, including why Everyone Hates Kamala. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The upcoming midterms will depend on the voices and votes of those in the suburbs, according to hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy on this episode of The New Abnormal. After a key win for Democrats in New York’s 19th Congressional District, where Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in Tuesday’s special election, Levy says that despite the bad news for the party, the Dems still need the suburban vote to get them across the line. Then, Dahlia Lithwick, who writes about the courts and the law for Slate and hosts the podcast Amicus, talks former President Donald Trump’s little dust-up with the National Archives. This week, Politico revealed that the Archives had recovered more than 700 pages of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago in January and that federal investigators were concerned “by Trump’s resistance to sharing them with the FBI.” Also, Max Fisher, who writes The Interpreter column for The New York Times and is the author of The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World, discusses how social media “is distorting you in ways that you are probably not quite aware of.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr. Oz is failing the unofficial Twitter war against PA Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the loss coming after Fetterman dunked on Oz for using the term crudite in an April video. But his campaign has a problem that goes deeper than veggie platters and NBC’s Jonathan Allen joins the pod to explain why (and tells host Molly Jong-Fast about his encounter with Dennis Rodman in a cigar lounge.) Plus! Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), frequent flyer on the pod, joins this episode to talk midterm candidates he’s excited about in California and holds no punches when it comes to calling out MAGA Republicans. Of course, hosts Andy Levy and Molly also discuss a very interesting (and bad, in Molly’s opinion) take that involves some sort of bargain where President Biden pardons Trump with the caveat he never runs for president again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices