The Daily Beast Podcast

Princeton University Professor of African American studies Eddie Glaude tells The New Abnormal’s Molly Jong-Fast why he warned the U.S. President that democracy could die unless he is willing to “go big”. Also on this episode: Journalist Francisco Alvarado takes us inside his reporting on how Nebraska’s voter ID proposal has become mired amid claims of fraud and big money coming from someone very close to the state’s governor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Haters love to attribute Katy Tur’s success to her former partner, commentator Keith Olbermann. But she’s over it. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal podcast, Tur tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast how that early connection to the broadcaster has impacted her life since and recounts some anecdotes about her “violent” childhood from her new memoir, Rough Draft. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The New Abnormal hosts recorded late, after the Jan. 6 committee's latest blockbuster hearing, where, co-host Andy Levy says, “We found out today that the mob in the capital came within 40 feet of [Vice President Pence] at one point while they were transporting him to the secure location. That sounds pretty terrifying considering, we have to remember, this is the mob that was chanting “Hang Mike Pence.’” Later, co-host Molly Jong Fast says,”I feel like the top line is when did the president know and what did he know it? He knew it, and he still tried to do it.” Indeed, says senior NBC News politics reporter and co-author of Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency, “I think that it may be a mistake to look at anything that happened as particularly accidental. I'm always sort of torn a little bit when I talk to voters who are kind of like Jan. 6 deniers, because I think most of them aren't denying that Trump was trying to hold power. I think they're denying that it was bad.” Plus, Daily Beast and New York Magazine contributing writer Jay Michaelson breaks down the Ginni Thomas-John Eastman mess: “If this is not an impeachable offense for a Supreme court justice if what we've come out in evidence is true” then what would be? “This is the most impeachable offense I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean, this is not a gray area case. This is unbelievable.… John Eastman, one of the somewhat more crazy lawyers who tried to overturn the 2020 election said at one point that there seems to be a heated fight underway among the justices. And that's interesting. I don't know how he actually knew that, but now it seems that he knew that from actually being in touch with Ginni Thomas, the wife of one of the justices,” Clarence Thomas, “who is also a well-known conservative activist.” And, “if true, disclosing secret, confidential, and to put it mildly, highly sensitive deliberations of the Supreme Court justices to somebody who he knows—his wife—is closely involved with the effort to overturn the election. And it's fine that they have separate careers and they have separate lives. That's fine. But you know, Molly, if I disclose this to you, we don't have to be married for me to realize that that would probably be a problem, right? That disclosing to somebody with a close degree of not just interest but actual active participation in this effort, which is overturning an election, right, which is trying to mount some sort of a coup. So even if this was some boring insurance transaction that we were involved in, this would be a massive violation of judicial ethics. And the fact that it took place in the context of Jan. 6 is beyond shocking.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode of The New Abnormal, Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy debate which Republicans testifying at the Jan. 6 hearings can be considered ‘good guys.’ Spoiler alert, not Bill Barr according to Andy. Molly also breaks down the ‘psychology’ of Jared Kushner based on his performance testifying. Plus! The Nation columnist Jeet Heer explains to Molly why Democrats shouldn’t trust Liz Cheney and CNN national security reporter Zachary Cohen points out one of big question marks on the Jan. 6 timeline that the committee is trying to piece together: What happened when Donald Trump was in the dining room? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Author James Patterson joins this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to tell co-host Molly Jong-Fast about his new biography titled James Patterson by James Patterson: The Story of My Life. He also tells stories about some old friends, including the Clintons and Dolly Parton. Also in this episode: Molly and co-host Andy Levy listen to some funny clips of Republicans saying “dumb” things, including Jesse Watters, who Molly dubs the “stupidest anchor on Fox News.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Jan. 6 hearing was everything it had to be, The New Abnormal co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy agreed—and Republicans knew it. Liz Cheney, said Molly, in a conversation recorded just after the prime-time hearing ended, “is an extremely good speaker you can tell will follow Donald J. Trump to the gates of Hell.” So as the damning case was laid out, the MAGA set did their best to pretend it simply wasn’t happening. Plus: Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer talks about “why Democrats keep losing the messaging war,” his new book Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America and the “decades-long billionaire funded plan to build up an alternate information bubble,” and Ian Bremmer, author of The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World explains that there are four now: the pandemic, global climate change, “the proliferation of disruptive and dangerous technologies, and now you have the Russians invading Ukraine and a war in Europe.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is Donald J. Trump losing his impenetrable grip on the Republican party? Co-host of The New Abnormal podcast Molly Jong-Fast thinks so. She shares her theory with co-host Andy Levy on today’s episode. Also, the two attempt to answer this question: Who is a scarier Republican candidate? Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump? Plus! Daily Beast politics editor Matt Fuller gives Molly the cold-hard truth on gun legislation that’s bubbling up in the House and Senate and who—and who won’t—vote for it. Plus! British columnist & host of The OriginIanory Podcast, Dunt explains why Brits will have “an absolute psychological breakdown” when the Queen is no longer the Queen. He also shares why England Prime Minister Boris Johnson isn’t very secure in his position. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Parkland dad Fred Guttenberg details the day his daughter Jaime was killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School as well as what he thinks needs to change to get solid gun reform policy. Plus, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy unpack GOP clips, including one of Lauren Boebert calling Trump a ‘family man’ because he shared popcorn with her son. Plus! Andy shares a very interesting metaphor in which he compares Hunter Biden’s name to cat nip. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“The problem is there are so many mass shootings that they are now pushing other mass shootings out of the news” and Republicans just want to change the subject each time, co-host Molly Jong-Fast says to kick off the latest episode of The New Abnormal. But the cold comfort is that “there are so many shootings that we're going to be talking about it, even though Republicans want to run out the clock, they're never gonna be able to run out.” Plus, We’re Not Broken author and MSNBC columnist Eric Garcia joins the pod to tell Molly about his reporting on autism in America while having autism, and Strict Scrutiny co-host and ABC Supreme Court contributor Katie Shaw explains how politicians hide behind the Supreme Court’s 2008 gun decision to pretend they’re powerless now, and about what’s looming when the Court issues it’s first big gun decision since then any day now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is former President Donald Trump’s hold on his Republican base waning? Vice’s Senior Political Reporter Cameron Joseph thinks so. “Trump is slipping. [He] doesn’t have the grip over the GOP that he once did,” Joseph tells Molly Jong-Fast in this episode of The New Abnormal. Later on this episode, historian Jon Meacham, who is host of the new “Reflections of History” podcast gives Molly a preview of some of the juicy tid-bits from history he covers on his show, like how NATO was an unpopular opinion when it began and that New York Times’ Sunday magazine passed on publishing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from Birmingham jail. Oh, yeah, Meacham also happens to be an unofficial adviser of President Biden and Molly does not let the interview end without pressing him on that. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kelly Carlin, daughter of the late comedian George Carlin, is mystified that Donald Trump followers and right-wingers have tried to claim her dad as one of their own. She came on the pod with comedian and director Judd Apatow to talk to hosts Andy Levy and Molly Jong-Fast about her dad, how they think he’d feel about Republicans today and about Apatow’s upcoming George Carlin documentary on HBO, which Apatow says “terrified” him at first. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy call out Republicans for avoiding the gun conversation at all costs, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for his insane mental health hypocrisy. Plus! New York mag correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti tackles the Biden elephant in room: What happens if Joe Biden can’t run for reelection? There are a few people that may be backups for the party, he says. And last up, Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan shares what she thinks are the root causes of the gun violence epidemic—and that the entire Republican party “needs to be cured and cleansed.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kellyanne Conway’s new book makes very clear the people she has a grudge against, and the ones she doesn’t, according to Daily Beast media reporter Zach Petrizzo. He read the former Trump aide’s book and tells The New Abnormal podcast host Molly Jong-Fast that there are two people she goes after the most—Jared Kushner and her husband, George Conway III. Plus, Washington Post political enterprise reporter Robert Samuels talks about his new book with co-author Toluse Olorunnipa, ‘His Name is George Floyd’ and Molly and co-host Andy Levy analyze the right-wingers who attended CPAC in Hungary and why they (jokingly) think the Twitter user retweeted by Trump, ‘MAGA King Thanos’, will lead the next civil war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nazi Billionaires author David de Jong joins this bonus episode The New Abnormal to discuss the findings from his book, including the ugly, anti-semitic history of German oligarchs, including the family who owns the German car brand BMW. Plus, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss Kevin McCarthy’s latest witch hunt that somehow involves Nancy Pelosi and Peloton and roast George W. Bush and Justice Clarence Thomas for being really bad at telling jokes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s another week chock full of Republican fuckery, and The New Abnormal is all over it, including a tough interview with Bryan Jones the Republican trying to take down creepy Matt Gaetz in Florida’s first Congressional District, and starting with a conversation between co-hosts Molly Jong Fast and Andy Levy about how Republicans seem more interested in capitalizing on the baby formula shortage to score points against Biden than they are in fixing it and, you know, making sure babies can get fed. Then Jay Willis, the editor in chief of Balls and Strikes warns Molly that the looming Roe reversal its just the start, and that “a lot of the backlash to this opinion has also dealt with not only the disastrous consequences for women, folks who may become pregnant but also for its really unnerving hints about where the Court could go in the future. Roe is not enough for Samuel Alito, who’s got all kinds of accumulated culture war grievances to air.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has the “worst luck in American retail politics ever,” declares host Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal. Stefanik’s past “replacement theory” rhetoric has resurfaced after the “screed” of the Topps shooter Payton Gendron had been reported to contain the same kind of views. Somehow she thinks she’s the victim—and Molly and Andy Levy dive into that on this episode. Plus! Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod gives Molly the low-down on the Pennsylvania candidates running in Tuesday’s election, including Dr. Oz and Kathy Barnette, who is “even too Trumpy for Trump.” And Shannon Watts, founder of anti-gun violence group Mom’s Demand Action, explains the loophole that allowed the Topps shooter to get his gun, and how the NRA is linked to what drove him to kill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosts Andy Levy and Molly Jong-Fast listen to audio clips of unhinged Republicans, including one of Donald Trump crapping on Mitch McConnell’s popularity, and they agreed with him, sorta. Plus! Molly and Andy ask important questions about Dinesh D’Souza’s election-fraud conspiracy film, “2000 Mules,” and Karen Elson, model and fashion activist, tells Molly about her work to unionize models in the fashion industry and the hazards they do face at work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Despite being the richest man in the world,” Elon Musk doesn’t have enough cash to buy Twitter for $43 billion, podcaster and CNBC contributor Dan Nathan tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast, so he’s selling Tesla stock to get some of that cash in hand and then bringing in private equity and venture capital to cover the difference. Plus, Molly and co-host Andy Levy go in on another week full of conservative fuckery, and Daily Beast senior editor Matt Fuller explains how “the abortion landscape really has changed” after the leak of the draft opinion doing away with Roe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Media Matters president and CEO Angelo Carusone came on The New Abnormal to talk Elon Musk’s questionable desire to buy and become CEO of Twitter, Tucker Carlson’s reaction to the New York Times’ pieces on him and what’s next for Fox News (it doesn’t look good.) Plus! Co-host Andy Levy has his own theory for why Tucker is horrible. And Robin Marty, Communications Director for the West Alabama Women’s Center, makes predictions on what’s next when it comes to abortion bans in the U.S. (Hint: lots of felony charges). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new book by New York Times journalists Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns has gotten lots of attention for its revelations about Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And they get into that on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, but they also tell Molly juicy nuggets about Democratic dysfunction, including texts calling Nancy Pelosi “terrible” and Biden’s struggle with Manchin and Sinema. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the podcaster is fated to release an episode right as the news cycle renders them hopelessly out-of-date. That’s the worst thing to come from the revelation that the Supreme Court is essentially set to overturn Roe v. Wade, obviously. Aghast and mind-blown, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy attempt to break down this “new, new, new abnormal” we all find ourselves in as the country teeters on the edge of becoming a post-Roe democracy. How did we get here—and, more importantly, what happens now? That, plus: Daily Beast legal affairs columnist and former Supreme Court clerk Jay Michaelson discusses how Justice Samuel Alito cultivates his Scalia-esque brand on the bench and how the abortion’s writing has been on the wall for “years, if not decades.” And Valerie Biden Owens, the president’s sister and former campaign manager, talks about running the 1972 “children’s crusade” that catapulted her brother into elected office for the first time—and why she now lovingly refers to him as “the ass.” Finally: don’t believe the Christian right used to trumpet that life began at birth? Read this, and get back to us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to New Abnormal podcast host Andy Levy, literally, nobody cares about what Jared Kushner has to say. On this episode, Andy and co-host Molly Jong-Fast break down the latest GOP book announcements, Jared’s included, and The Nation columnist Jeet Heer tells Molly why he thinks the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is a bad idea. For one, this dinner was the start of Trump’s villain origin story, he jokes. Plus! If you’ve ever wondered how a person like Trump was elected in the first place, University of Minnesota’s Dr. Larry Jacobs has an answer and explains why primary elections will be the ruin of us all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow’s scathing speech on the floor in response to being called a “groomer” by a conservative colleague went viral. She joins as special guest on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to tell co-host Molly Jong-Fast how it all went down and what she wants people who are non-marginalized to know. Plus Molly and co-host Andy Levy listen to Fox News proclaim that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is a liberal puppet and Ben Shapiro gets skewered for his “Twitter” advice to Elon Musk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

nathan Kott, who worked for Joe Manchin for seven-and-a-half years, joins The New Abnormal, and co-host Molly Jong-Fast gets right to the point: "Are you surprised by what you're seeing right now" from the West Virginia Senator?"No," says Kott. "He's the exact same person he's always been. It's just he's getting more attention in the last year than I think he had before." Plus, Molly and co-host Andy Levy run through even more Republican fuckery, starting with Trump's fear of fruit. "If you're that worried about tomatoes, I guess you just assume that everything is very dangerous and you might as well give everyone guns' jokes Molly. Finally, Marc Caputo of NBC explains what's happening in the great state of Florida, where "conservatives are a lot more Trumpy "now. "In 2016 when Donald Trump won people thought it was a fluke. And then in 2018, when Ron DeSantis won by less than half a point, they're like, 'okay, Andrew Gillum, his gubernatorial opponent was a flawed opponent. And then in 2020, Donald Trump won so big here by a bigger margin than Obama did in 2008 and that kind of got conservatives or Republicans to realize, 'there is nothing to fear from Democrats anymore in Florida, let's keep pushing the envelope.' And so that's where we are. We're in some serious envelope pushing." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s only text sent by former First Daughter Ivanka Trump among the 2,319 CNN-obtained text messages between Trump’s inner circle from the days after the 2020 election and something about that feels peculiar to The New Abnormal podcast co-host Andy Levy. He and co-host Molly Jong-Fast tackle those in this episode along with special guests Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA), who shares his thoughts on Elon Musk buying Twitter, and Amanda Litman, Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director of Run for Something. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hawaii senator Sen. Brian Schatz joins the show to explain why he let Josh Hawley have it on the Senate floor this month and what he thinks his colleague Joe Manchin will do, or not do, about climate change. Plus, Molly and co-host Andy discuss Dr. Oz, listen to clips of Tucker Carlson saying that the “Libs of TikTok” account is real journalism and break down Fox News star Jesse Watters’ creepy meet-cute with his wife. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In another jam-packed week of GOP fuckery, The New Abnormal co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy looks at look at the party’s profiles in cowardice, starting with the new revelations about House Minority “Leader” Kevin McCarthy cozying back up to Donald Trump and then shifting to Ron DeSantis’ anti-Disney jihad and what Molly calls the party’s new brand of “unpopular populism.” No one is crying for Disney or its special tax status, says Andy, but it’s still nuts that “the government of Florida is now basically telling businesses, ‘just shut up and don't take any, you know, even the most milquetoast of stands” or we’re going to punish you even if you’re a company that brings the state billions in revenue a year. Then the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger comes in to break down his recent reporting on the Maga Goon Squad’s new money woes, as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, and Matt Gaetz collectively spent $275,000 more than they took in the first quarter of 2022. Plus, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the second lady of Pennsylvania whose husband, John, is now running for the Senate, and the founder of the Free Story in Braddock, “actually the first free store in the country,” tells Molly how that came from “this idea that some of us have so much and some have so little and there's so much excess, and how can we bring all those worlds together to do good. I really believe in mutual aid and having people connect who maybe would otherwise think they don't have anything in common and the free store was a place where all of that could happen.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tucker Carlson’s constant pushing of junk science on his Fox News show reached an apex this week when he discussed “testicle tanning” with Kid Rock. Of course, The New Abnormal hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy had to break down that video immediately. Also on the show: Democratic strategist James Carville, co-host of the Politics War Room podcast, holds no punches blaming the Democrats for Biden’s approval rating and Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at American Progress, explains why a handful of Hispanic voters voted for Trump last election despite the awful things he’s said about them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

‘Freezing Order’ author Bill Browder, one of Moscow’s most wanted, joins this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to talk about “evil” Putin and why the former American banker still chooses to speak out against the Russian president despite being targeted and followed for it. Plus, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy react to a few very bizarre clips of Republicans and a rap about Matt Gaetz. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

the focus on The New Abnormal this week is on Donald Trump Junior, as CNN reporter Zachary Cohen breaks down his reporting on the namesake’s post-election text messages to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows scheming on how to steal the election: “We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021.” Plus University of California Law professor Rick Hasen, the co-director of the university’s Fair Elections and Free Speech Center and the author of Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics—and How to Cure It, explains how “if we had the same polarized politics of today, but the technology of the 1950s, we likely wouldn't have had Jan. 6 and the insurrection and millions of people believing the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rep. Eric Swalwell joins this episode of The New Abnormal to weigh in on the Don Jr. texts and explain what he calls the Costco Effect—and how it relates to the Trumps. Plus, Jodi Hicks, Planned Parenthood California’s President and CEO, explains what happened with the Texas woman who was held on $500K bail for having an abortion. Naturally, co-hosts Andy Levy and Molly Jong-Fast have a lot to say about all of the above, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

J. David McSwane, author of Pandemic, Inc. shares his reporting on some of the fraudsters who got their hands on PPE contracts during the pandemic. Plus, a fun segment in which co-hosts Andy Levy and Molly Jong-Fast listen and respond to the wildest GOP clips from this week—including one in which Josh Mandel tells MLK Jr’s daughter she needs a history lesson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s “a sea of performative moronics” ahead of the mid-terms, says New Abnormal Molly Jong-Fast, and we’re all drowning in it. Just look at “the cruelty, the stupidity and the racism” coming out of Texas right now, where Gov. Greg Abbott seems more interested in getting booked on Fox News than getting anything done. Then Jan. 6 committee member Jamie Raskin joins the pod to explain how Republicans transitioned from the party of Lincoln to the party of Trump, “a minority party, a shrinking minority party” that nonetheless “wants to get rid of Liz Cheney, who represents pretty big parts of the conservative Republican establishment. They want to get rid of Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney and so on because they don't follow the leader in the way that they're supposed to.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You know who’s telling on themselves? The American conservatives cheering about Putin pal and proto-fascist Viktor Orban’s big re-election win in Hungary. “It’s a pretty good litmus test,” says The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong. “If you are celebrating that, you're probably a bad guy, like the people who are still support Putin.” Speaking of people telling on themselves, Washington Post investigative reporter Michael Kranish joins the pod to run down his reporting on MAGA mutts Madison Cawthorn, Mo Brooks and the inimitably awful Ted Cruz, who somehow managed to escape much scrutiny for months into his pivotal role in pushing Trump’s big lie, and doing everything he could to stop Joe Biden from taking office. Plus, Press Run founder and editor Eric Boehlert explains to Molly why “the coverage of the Biden economy is unlike anything I’ve ever seen” as the press coverage “reeks of both sides.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Majority Minority author Justin Guest, a George Mason University professor, breaks down a sociological experiment he conducted to see if Hannity could make his viewers liberal with surprising results. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Madison Cawthorn has Republican leaders like Kevin McCarthy deathly afraid that people in his district will start asking him questions using words like “orgy” and “key bump.” Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy, The New Abnormal’s unflappable (seriously—they’re being forced to picture a debaucherous Louie Gohmert and Newt Gingrich) hosts, are ready to parse whether it’s better or worse for him if Cawthorn’s telling the truth. Also on this episode: George Conway, a lawyer and Washington Post contributor, explains why the 7-hour gap in Trump’s White House phone logs may not be so much a conspiracy as good old-fashioned incompetence; and Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state, breaks down the legislation she’s pushing to keep election security tight—and why it’s so “frightening” when the call, when it comes to voter fraud, comes from inside the house. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Charles Bethea of the New Yorker joins to break down his reporting on all that, and to break down his recent scoop about the very unlikely ballot cast in 2020 by former Trump Chief of Staff and still Big Lie enthusiast Mark Meadows: “He had recently sold in 2020 his and his wife’s house in the state, and as the election neared I think he wanted to vote in North Carolina, partly because he was thinking about and talking about running for Senate and you want to have a record of voting in the state where you run and he didn't own a property. So it looks like he did something that's still sort of inexplicable, but, and he hasn't given us a reason–” Plus New Lines Magazine editor and Daily Beast contributing editor rejoins the pod to explain what’s happening in Ukraine now, and why this refugee crisis has electrified the West in a way that the Syrian refugee crisis never quite did — including when Putin militarily intervened there. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kid Rock of all damn people is boasting about how Donald Trump would call him up after Sarah Palin introduced him and Ted Nugest to the president, and ask things like “What do you think we could do about North Korea?” “I’m like, What? I don't think I'm qualified to answer this.” Then again, it could always be worse with this set. As Molly asks, “Do you think Kid Rock is stupider than Junior?” And, notes Andy, at least Kid Rock “was self-aware enough to know that he shouldn't be talking, giving advice about North Korea.” Plus, Florida Agriculture Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried — who went to high school with Judge Jackson — joins to explain how she won office in a red state and her bid to become its first female governor. She says the party needs to “follow my lead” to win again in the Sunshine State: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s the 200th episode of The New Abnormal, starting with a wild “flashback” to the very “first” episode in the summer of 1998, when co-host Molly Jong-Fast foresaw a future of “racist babies,” with Molly wishing “if only there was a senator with a ridiculous mustache” to being the issue to light. Jump ahead to 2022, and co-host Andy Levy says Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson “really missed a chance there” when that senator with the ‘stache, Ted Cruz, asked her to define what a woman is. Jackson could have said, joked Levy: “Yes, senator, I define a woman as someone you marry and then defend them when someone else calls them ugly,” like Trump did to Cruz’s wife—who didn’t think that, or Trump saying his dad had killed JFK, was reason enough to stop sucking up to The Donald. Later in the episode, the Beast’s Matthew Fuller joins the party to break down the fuckery of the Jackson hearing and its “straight racism, just the full-flavored version." Plus, Buzzfeed’s Christopher Miller, who’s been reporting from the Ukraine for years, considers the first month of the Russian invasion—“When Putin announced his invasion, I was in the Eastern city of Kramatorsk, near the front lines of the longer simmering war in Eastern Ukraine and (was) awoken by an airstrike on an airfield that was about 2000 feet away from me, which is definitely 2000 feet too close—and the history that led to this moment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Josh Hawley is attacking Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and is using the word “pedophilia” to do it. Naturally, The New Abnormal hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy have choice words, and a new title, for him. Also on this episode: NBC News political analyst Susan Del Percio has a very scary midterm prediction involving Jim Jordan and Danielle Carnival, head of Biden’s White House Cancer Moonshot program, breaks down how exactly her team plans to meet the president’s goal of decreasing cancer by 50% in 25 years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The war in Ukraine has made Vladimir Putin one of the most hated figures in the world. But any attempt to remove him from office could unleash more violence inside Russia. Moisés Naím, author of The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century, tells Molly what that could look like in this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. Plus, Molly and co-host Andy Levy listen to a clip of Trump trying to “teach” Joe Biden about nuclear weapons, and they break down Sean Hannity’s “hard-on” for Ronald Reagan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Author Francis Fukayama thinks Zelensky’s communication-style, and his creative team, will be one of the main factors in overcoming Russian forces. Both he and former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch joined this episode The New Abnormal to talk about the Ukrainian president’s transformation from comedian to hero and what they each think will be the outcome of the war (hint: it doesn’t look good for Russia.) Yovanovitch also details what she was told the night Trump ordered her to be removed from her position. Plus, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss the Russian social media influencers who are very mad at Putin because of his Instagram ban and attempt to answer a vital question: Does Kyrsten Sinema understand Daylight Savings Time? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Putin may not realize how poorly the war is going for him, but his troops do. Ukrainian diplomat Olexander Scherba joins the pod to explain what he’s hearing from soldiers on the ground, including stories of them refusing to fight. Plus, The Nation’s Elie Mystal pleads with Biden to say the word “abortion” and hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy discuss whether Tucker Carlson can feel embarrassment and Molly actually sorta defends Mitt Romney when it comes to Tulsi Gabbard. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Retired NYPD sergeant Valarie Carey joins today’s bonus episode along with Adell Coleman, co-host and executive producer of the podcast Say Their Name, to talk about her sister Miriam Carey, who was shot by law enforcement 26 times when she drove into a restricted zone outside of the U.S. Capitol. Plus, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy talk about why Ted Cruz is full of crap about vaccines—no one is hugging him as much as he says they are—and listen to clips of Don Jr. defending his dad, whom he weirdly calls “Trump.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a jam-packed new episode of The New Abormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast rips into the “contingent of very stupid Republican Congresspeople” who don’t want the U.S. aiding Ukraine before building a border wall here, which makes sense since “the country of Mexico is shelling, Texas and they're using cluster bombs and stud missiles—Oh wait… There is no war at our Southern border, but no one has told Rep. Doug Collins.” Plus, Melissa Moss of the 65 Project explains how that was “set up to protect democracy; by holding accountable lawyers who bring bogus lawsuits to overturn legitimate election results” to account, and breaks down the three sorts of lawyers her group is going after. And the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols considers Putin: "This guy is not a good strategist. He blunders into things… and bluffs his way out, or tries to murder his way out. I don't know how this ends, if he were the strategist that everybody thinks he is, he would find an off-ramp.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nearly two weeks into Russia’s invasion, News Lines news director and Daily Beast editor at large Michael Weiss joins the pod to explain how and why the Ukranians have defied everyone’s expectations except their own. Plus, Steven Brill of NewsGuard looks back at his group’s conversations with Facebook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this bonus episode of the New Abnormal, Kyiv-based film producer Egor Olesov— an executive producer at FilmUA, one of the largest film studios in Ukraine, where we worked extensively with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his acting career — calls in from Lviv. Olesov—in a conversation also joined by John Wynn, a Vietnamese-American filmmaker who worked with Egor on the film The Rising Hawk, which was shot in Ukraine in 2019 and 2019—tells host Molly Jong-Fast that “We came back and right now we are doing what we can do as much as possible to support our people, to defend our country and to show to the world the truth about this crazy Russian invasion in Ukraine. It’s like horror dream. It's a really crazy situation. It's a big war in the center of the Europe.” Plus Andrew Rice, New York Magazine Contributing Editor and the author of the Year That Broke America, explains how “I came to the conclusion that the seeds of the future were sewn in 2000 in the election between Bush and Gore (as) all the things that we now see coming to fruition in distressing form in our society were sort of just starting to come into being at that time and in one place, in Florida. which I call the unlikely crucible of the future” — one where “at the time the recount was going on, the 9/11 pilots were training in Florida, sort of serenely flying above it”—just after Trump ran for the reform party nomination that year in his first presidential campaign and “all these stories I sort of brought together in the book tell this sort of ribald, picaresque and ultimately sort of tragic story of how America took a wrong turn.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become an icon around the world for his bravery and leadership since the Russian invasion began—and New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast herself has a special place in her heart for him. Zelensky “is my age and a Jewish comedian, so I feel very connected to him,” she says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “My generation, we’ve had a tough time of it. We’ve never really had our moment. So this may be as close as we ever get to our moment.” Later on the episode, Face the Nation moderator and CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan joins to talk about the conflict in Ukraine and the exodus of a million Ukrainians. Finally, former presidential candidate Evan McMullin, who’s now running as an independent to unseat Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), comes on talk about his race and the Russia-Ukraine war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The attack on Ukraine isn’t going how Russian President Vladimir Putin thought it would, co-host Molly Jong-Fast posits in today’s episode of The New Abnormal. Vladimir Ashurkov, a colleague of anti-Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, joins the pod to explain what’s next for Putin—whether he wins or loses the war. Then, NBC News’ Jonathan Allen talks about what he saw at CPAC (the The Conservative Political Action Conference), including a screaming match at a bar where two men argued about Ukraine and one called the other a “shrill for the Queen.” Plus, co-host Andy Levy has a message for Marjorie Taylor Greene: “It’s OK to cancel Nazis.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Barbara McQuade, a former Michigan prosecutor, joins the first unlocked bonus episode of The New Abnormal to explain how Trump’s big lie is a provable crime. Plus, Andy Levy makes his Sunday episode debut, just in time to listen to clips of Josh Mandel sounding stupid and to unpack Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott’s criminalization of trans kids. It’s a move Andy calls “full-on fascist.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices