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Check it out at plaud.ai slash dailybeast and use beast for 10% off. That's P-L-A-U-D dot A-I slash dailybeast and use code beast for 10% off. Hi, I'm Molly Jungfass, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundit and a writer at the Atlantic Info.
And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy and current cable news conscientious agenda. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure this don't come too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with the wisest and funniest people in science and media politics and help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it.
What a great show we have today. First, we're going to be joined by Congressman Eric Swalwell, who of course represents California's 15th congressional district, and he's going to talk to us about the Dems' prospects for winning the midterms. Then we'll talk to NBC News Digital senior politics reporter John Allen, and he'll tell us what he's seeing on the ground with politics today. But first, let's have some fun.
Andy Levy! Molly Jungfass. You sound tentative. I sometimes am forgetful.
But you know who's not tentative? 57% of Americans who believe that you should prosecute Trump. I should prosecute Trump. I would love to.
Listen, I'm happy with this poll, but I would like to point out, it's not up to the public. Like, if you break the law and do crimes, you should be prosecuted, even if you have an implanted wig and are very rich. Should we even be polling this? Like, yes, it's the law.
Yeah, look, I have no problem with it being polled, but I also, I don't care if it says 1% think he should be prosecuted if he committed crimes. If he committed crimes, he should be prosecuted. And like you said, so whether it's 1% or 99%, I don't care. I mean, the only interesting thing about this is one of the big arguments for not prosecuting him is, oh, it will divide the country, which I guess you can, sure, 57-43 is a divide, but it ain't 50-50.
I mean, it's a majority of the country. And so I think, at least to a small degree, it weakens that, you know, well, you'll split the country, which, by the way, is also a garbage argument, as we've discussed. And as you just said, if you deserve to be prosecuted, you should be prosecuted, regardless of polling. We've had so much pundit malpractice, very little of it mine, so I must talk about that.
You know, remember the hot takes right after January 6th committee. Oh, it's not going to work. It's not working. They blew their chance already.
This polling shows us that it is working, right? This is the kind of poll that points to in America that does believe what Liz Janey believes, which is that Trump has this incredible primary base that will let him do whatever he wants, but the rest of the country will not. No, exactly. And you don't give those folks what amounts to a heckler's veto.
Right. You don't not do something that is the right thing to do because there are people out there who don't want the right thing to be done. I don't understand the argument for that at all. And, you know, then there's always the, well, it might be the violence.
Oh, yeah, because we haven't seen any of that already. Yeah, that stuff is crazy. Like, you need to. And it led to a number of brain-wormy opinion pieces this weekend, some by very fancy outlets, that said that perhaps the only way to solve America's division that was caused mostly by Donald Trump is to give Donald Trump a free pass and pardon him.
Again, like, I think this is a totally interesting idea because it's so stupid. I don't know if you know, but there was this president before Trump who was sort of like early Trump and his name is Richard Nixon. And one of the things that happened to Richard Nixon was that he was pardoned because the thinking was, you know, he's an old white guy and he probably won't get elected again or whatever. And I think ultimately that was one of the things that really fucked us up and set us on the exclusion course to stupid discuss.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Also, you know, I don't know if people who think Joe Biden should do this don't remember that. It didn't go well for Gerald Ford, who pardoned Nixon. Right.
And he was summarily dismissed from office in the next election, losing to, you know, Jimmy Carter, the not exactly the world's strongest presidential candidate. Right. Let's not be mean to Carter, but yes. No, I'm just.
No, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
So it's not even like, you know, if you think it's a good political move, I think you're wrong. But beyond that, yeah, pardoning Nixon was a mistake. And I think we should learn from it because it was the same arguments that were being made back then. I'm sure you remember, Molly, from in your 30s or whatever it was.
Oh, yeah, that was nice. That's nice. Yeah. This is because Andy's very old.
And so he was actually a member of the Nixon administration. No, I was part of the committee investigating him. That's right. I was a senatorial aide.
You were in your mid 40s then. Yes. I had just taken down the CIA and then I was part of that. But the biggest argument for that was basically to heal the country and to bring the country back together.
And this is like a thing we do when powerful men commit crimes. We make it about healing the country. And it's like powerful men have enough ways to get out of paying for their crimes. We don't need to give them another one.
We should absolutely not make that mistake again. And part of the reason we shouldn't make it again is because they did it the first time and now people are bringing it up as a reason to do it again. You don't want to set these precedents. You don't want to let people become president in the future and think that, well, I can commit crimes and I can try to steal elections.
And ultimately nothing will happen to me because I'm too big to prosecute. And that is not what we're supposed to be in this country. We very specifically don't have a king. And there was a reason for that.
And this is one of those reasons. Like these people, they're not above the law. The president is not above the law, despite what you might occasionally hear on Fox News weekend morning programs. It doesn't mean there is.
Yeah, there is nothing in the Constitution that says when the president does it, it's legal. That's that's not a standard. But I'm just baffled. As you said, there's like there were at least four, I think, as you said, you know, articles at Washington Post, Bloomberg.
I don't even remember where else, but all sort of in the last three, four days explaining why Joe Biden should pardon Trump. And I don't know where this is coming from. I actually know where it's coming from. Some of the pieces were written by conservatives.
And you can understand why conservatives want this. Right. Because they don't know. I think even Trump's staunchest defenders, if they're at all smart, know that Trump is capable of a lot of real fucked up shit.
That's that's a legal definition. They are worried. I think that you'd be hard pressed to find a Republican who's not more than a little worried about what the hell are in those boxes. Right.
And also, I'm telling you, the other thing that I keep thinking about is who explained to Trump what to take. Right. Because Trump is not a mastermind on documents. And even Dan Crenshaw was on one of the Sunday shows and he was saying, you know, Trump wouldn't be reading documents.
Right. Which begs the question. So why did Trump take the documents if he didn't know what was in them and who told him to? No.
But I don't want to get to like conspiracy here. I just want to say that clearly everyone who's on the conservative side would love Biden to pardon Trump and just get this all over with. But if we know anything about Trump, it's that we know that Trump will just be like, OK, this is proof they didn't have a case and then run for president. So I think this was a terrible idea.
And I think that the brain worms that cause you to write a take like this should cause you to not write a take like this. No, I agree with you on the conservative side. But then there were also like the Bloomberg column was written by Stephen Carter, who was a law clerk for a third and marshal. Oh, Jesus.
I sort of feel like he's probably not a mainstream conservative. And his big idea was that Trump should Biden should pardon Trump with the condition that he cannot run for office again. And then Carter's thing was like, and if he breaks that condition, then the pardon is null and void. Yeah, but he's got to break the condition.
This is one thing we know that Trump will do. It's always the most crimey, sleazy, fucked up thing he can do. Of course. And then, of course, what will happen is he'll run for office again and the pardon will be broken.
But people will say, well, you know what? He was already pardoned. We're not going to go down that road again. Yes, we need to move on.
Exactly. So that's just a win-win for Trump. So I just I am just baffled by all of these really bizarre takes. And I guess there's a new poll out now from NBC showing that cost of living has always been sort of the top voter issue recently.
And threats to democracy has now overtaken it. And, you know, I think that goes along with what we're saying, because, look, the threats to democracy ain't coming from the left. Even if you hate the squad, for whatever reason, you'd be fairly hard pressed to say they're a threat to democracy. We know where the threats to democracy are coming from.
For that to now be the number one issue facing voters. This is important in and of itself. But it's also a reason that you don't pardon Trump and you don't pardon anyone involved with January 6th or involved in trying to, you know, unseat electors and change the election outcomes, because those are the threats to democracy. And you're now saying that, you know, if you want to let those people just sort of get away with it.
Well, that's clearly not what the people want. If the American people's number one fear is now threats to democracy. I mean, it's just it's just interesting. And that polling also had abortion is almost as important to voters, you know, as a lot of other really the border.
I mean, it was, you know, very it was very clear that there's been a lot of punditry malpractice and it hasn't been mine. And I want to celebrate that because it's always good when I don't fuck up and other people do. I think we do need to talk about one of the more annoying phenomenons, which is that Trump is extremely Trump's people are extremely mad about the raid. Trump is raising lots of money on the raid.
It has made him more popular, discuss with his people who will do anything for him. Yeah. And again, this is sort of it sucks. First of all, I guess it's not unexpected.
And again, this is the guy that, you know, famously said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. And what we've learned now is he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his numbers would go up. So, you know, he was he was right as far as he went, but he didn't go far enough. Maybe he didn't realize back then just how much of a cult he had started.
This, I think, is not unexpected. And obviously, you know, the conservative media and the Trump people. But I repeat myself, have done a very good job, you know, as far as effective wise of hammering these talking points about the FBI broke into Trump's home and overreach and Merrick Garland. And Joe Biden did this to distract from Hunter Biden.
And, you know, so if all you consume is Fox News and the other parts of the conservative media sphere, then, yeah, you are you are now sitting there. And this is because you're not listening to The New Abnormal and not listening to Molly Johnfest, who has been right about this and who has not committed a pundit malpractice. You are now thinking that you are under assault. This was an attack on you.
If they can do this to the president, think what they can do to you, blah, blah, blah. We all laugh at that stuff. Yeah, we laugh at that stuff as we should in terms of it, you know, because it's fundamentally unserious and fundamentally false. But that group of people, I can't call them a name because Hillary Clinton tried that and it didn't work.
But those people, you know, this is to them, this is this is an attack on them. And we have to rally behind the dear leader. I mean, the good news with all of this is that it turns out that when Trump does this, that money goes to Trump and not to other Republican Senate candidates or Republican House candidates. It's still Trump's party.
And so he'll raise that money and give it to Eric's lawyers or give it to Lara's publicist. It's bad news for the Republican Party, which is actually good news for the rest of us. So a little patch of brightness and otherwise crushed democracy. Congressman Eric Swalwell represents California's 15th congressional district.
Welcome back to The New Abnormal, Congressman Eric Swalwell. Thank you, Jesse. Molly. We're so excited to have you back.
It's been, I think, an incredible little bit of Democratic legislation in August, not known for instance. What are they doing? Right. I mean, talk to me about it.
It's kind of been a real narrative shift. Well, it's getting shit done, which is what we promised to do. And it's doing it with the thinnest of majorities, which I think is what's so remarkable is that there's no room for air. There's no room for a traffic accident.
There's no room for air with an even set and a plus four majority in the House. But I think we showed with lowering prescription drug costs, the investments in climate rescue, investments in the CHIPS Act. And then, of course, the gun safety legislation in the PAC Act. That's just the last 60 days.
And so give us a larger majority and everywhere we came up short, I think we could probably achieve. So let's talk about that for a minute, because with the gerrymandering, there's about 161 safe Democratic seats, 191 safe Republican seats, and a pretty large section of toss-up. Again, the Senate looks a lot better for Democrats, but how is it possible for Democrats to squeak through keeping the House? Let's consider toss-ups.
The overwhelming majority of those Biden won. So there's more Biden seats, seats that Biden won in 2020, than seats that Donald Trump won. Now, there are many, as you just pointed out, that are close. But what we're seeing is that on these freedom issues, you know, a woman's reproductive freedom, you know, your kid's freedom to be safe in school, your paycheck, you know, freedom, or just the right to have your vote counted.
You know, these are all trending in our direction as far as where the voters are. There was an NBC poll this weekend that showed, for the first time in a long time, the number one issue on Americans' minds is democracy. That used to only be an issue for, like, you know, the nerds, the scholars, the MSNBC, watching New York Times, reading the crowd. But when you see candidates all over the country, from the top of the ticket to the bottom of the ticket, calling for political violence, as the Republican, the mad Republicans are, it's concerning the people.
And so that's why, you know, democracy really is on the ballot, and it's not just a, you know, ivory tower belief this election. Right. I mean, that is super interesting. So, I mean, do Democrats have plans to try to stay the House?
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, the way I look at it is the Category 5 hurricane hit us in 2020, where almost every Democrat who lost their seat in 2020 had more votes in 2020 than when they flipped the seat in 2018. So that's the Trump surge. Those voters came out, and that's where we lost, you know, a seat by six votes in Iowa, a seat by 46 votes in upstate New York, a northern L.A.
county seat by 300 votes. So that was the Category 5 hurricane. So now, if you're going to win, you have to beat Katie Porter, you have to beat Alyssa Slotkin, you have to beat Abigail Sandberger, you have to beat Elaine Luria, who's on the January 6th commission. So Angie Craig in Minnesota.
So these are people who flipped the hard seat in 2018, held it during the Category 5 hurricane, and are battle-tested and getting things done, you know, for the constituents and have on prescription drugs, on climate, on gun safety, and a record on, you know, abortion rights. They've got issues to stand on, and then candidates who are just the opposite of all of those freedoms. So it's not as easy as it would look, and that's why I'm still very high on this, you know, keeping and expanding the majorities in both chambers. So let's talk about some of the congressional races you're involved in that you are optimistic about.
One of my favorites is Will Rollins in the Palm Springs area. So, you know, Palm Springs has one of the largest, you know, per capita LGBTQ populations, not just in America, but in the world. And my dad lives in Palm Springs, more importantly. Oh, okay.
So even when they had Republican representatives like, you know, Sonny and Mary Bono, they were pro-equality. They had Dr. Raul Ruiz for the last 10 years, who certainly, you know, was with the community on their issues. Now they have Ken Calvert, who has been in Congress for decades and voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, you know, to ban same-sex marriage, has voted against, you know, Quality Act, has voted against every piece of legislation that would give more liberties, you know, to gay Americans.
And he's running in a Trump-plus-one district, meaning in 2020, Donald Trump won that district by one point against Will Rollins, who was gay, who was a... former federal prosecutor who's from the community, young guy, and is, I think, late 30s, very energetic, and reflects who that community is. And so Will has consistently out-fundraised Calvert. He's out-organizing him with his volunteers, and I've been to an event down there for him.
And I think that's a race where, you know, on paper you would say, well, it was Trump plus one, they've got an incumbent Republican, put that in the Republican column. I'm not so sure. I think that's one that, you know, we can absolutely win, and Will Rollins is just a terrific candidate to do it. He was inspired, by the way, left his job after prosecuting January 6th cases, people in that area who had traveled to Washington, D.C., and he ran when he didn't know what the district was going to look like, didn't know what was going to be as close as Trump plus one, just had his own call to service around democracy issues.
I thought there was another candidate. Do you have any other candidates in Europe? Yeah, just north in Orange County is Jay Chen, former Naval Intelligence Officer, you know, current Community College Board member, running against Michelle Steele. And, again, that's a district that we narrowly lost in 2020.
And I like the way I talk about Will and Jay is, you know, that profile of either law enforcement or military service is what helped us win the House in 2018. And in Will and Jay, you see, you know, it's not necessarily elected office service. And I don't know if that means that's what you need to have to go to Congress, because we've got a lot of great, you know, members now who were former federal prosecutors or, you know, military officers. And I think, you know, that's a generation that's really coming of age now.
And we're seeing that in Congress as far as, you know, what the next generation of leadership is going to look like. It's going to be, I think, people in that era. So you think in your heart of hearts, there's really a chance that Democrats could keep the House? I'd rather be honest than them.
Yes, absolutely. Because, again, it's this idea of, do you want community, a community where you have freedom, or you want chaos, where you have, rather than voting to determine who makes the laws, it's violence that determines that. So it's really this, you know, community versus chaos, people versus politics, you know, election that we're going into. And I like where we are on that.
And I think that's why you're seeing, not just in the anecdote, but in the polling, that the generic congressional number is tightening or Democrats are ahead. Republicans are polling that, you know, look where they put their money or look where they pull their money. And they pulled money out of Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as far as, you know, Senate seats. And I don't think you can separate the Senate and the House.
And, you know, if you're pulling money out of Pennsylvania, you know, in the Senate, well, that means that Matt Cartwright and Susan Wilde, two House members who are in tough re-elections, they're going to benefit from the lack of money that Republicans would have spent statewide, you know, to turn out Republican votes for Dr. Oz. So I do think you're seeing momentum with us. And that's because we're attacking problems and they're pandering to them.
And I think that's starting to show. One of the other things that I'm curious if you would speak to is Trump is really still the de facto leader of the Republican Party. And one of the things he wants is field to be. And so Republicans have to, in order to win their primaries, or at least largely, this is true, they have to promise their allegiance to Trump and be as Trumpy as possible.
Whereas in Democratic primaries, that is not true with Biden. And Biden is not, you know, that Biden has sort of given Democrats a lot of space to be the candidates they are and not to attach themselves to him. Do you think that has something to do with what's happening? Yes.
And when you look at the Biden number, right? In Pennsylvania, Fetterman is over 50% and outside the margin of error over Dr. Oz. And Biden is in the low 40s.
And I think that separation reflects that independence that you just talked about. And also that the Democratic voter, especially a progressive voter, who may be disappointed that Biden has not enacted legislation on student loan debt or enough on climate or the child tax credit, but they know that John Fetterman is going to be a vote for those issues and would help us reform the filibuster so we can make even more progress. And so with Donald Trump, even at his lowest number overall, he always had 95 plus percent of the Republicans. And Biden is around, you know, high 70s with Democrats.
So if he had all the Democrats, the way Trump had all the Republicans, he would be, you know, much, much higher. But all of that, I think, goes to what voters are going to be considering when they break this down to two choices. And Republicans have put themselves in this position with their fealty to Trump, that if they win Congress, they will spend all of their time fighting for Donald Trump. They'll spend all of their time, you know, carrying out his grievances, investigating the FBI, you know, investigating the IRS and whether they turn over his taxes, you know, investigating Trump's, you know, detractors.
If Democrats win Congress, we're going to continue to fight for you. And I like that set up. Give them power. They fight for Trump.
Give us Congress. We fight for you. And we've got a record over the last few years of doing that. And that's what happens when you're in a cult.
You end up, you know, having to carry out what the cult leader wants, not necessarily what is better for the greater good. And so whether this election is entirely about Trump and who they fight for, whether this election is about, you know, reproductive rights and, you know, gun safety legislation, voting rights, you know, I'll take path A or path B. And those are the two paths that we seem to be bouncing between as we are 80 days out of the election. So I want to talk to you about this polling that just came out.
This poll, I'm sure you've seen it, threats to democracy is like the sort of the largest. It's 21%. I feel like threats to democracy, I'm sort of surprised. I mean, what do you make of that poll?
So that poll reflects that more and more you're seeing threats of political violence or actually political violence, you know, carried out. And January 6th was a centralized act of violence. It was the president of the United States inciting people and aiming them at the Capitol, you know, the central place of power in America or the world. And that's where the violence took place.
We have seen, you know, in the last couple of months, you know, this decentralization of violence where, you know, the violence is taking place all over the country and from people, not just the top of the ticket, but, you know, all over. So you have a congressional candidate in New York who at least a phonic endorse, Carl Paladin. Hitler had some good ideas. Yeah, and he also said that he called for the execution of Merrick Garland.
You have a congressional candidate in Florida over the weekend who said that if the FBI, you know, had raided his house, they would have left in body bags. I mean, that's crazy. And you have Carrie Lake, you know, who is endorsing, you know, this state Senate candidate who has said that Jews are evil and has all these homophobic and anti-Semitic beliefs. And so across the country, up and down the ballot, you're seeing, you know, threats to this idea of majority rule or the rule of law.
And it's starting to concern people. And never before in America have we seen violence like this where leaders at the top either are the ones inciting it or through their silence are condoning it. We've had political violence in America before. We always will.
But we've never had it, as I said, so centralized that it's coming from a former president and now so decentralized that leaders, you know, in their states, people who are their state's nominees for governor or attorney general or secretary of state who are also espousing it or not, you know, condemning it when it is put in front of them. Do you think that that helps Democrats? Well, we are seen as a party of, you know, law and order and the rule of law. And again, it's just so rich, I guess, and exquisite that for years, and for me, especially with my law enforcement background as prosecutor and my brother's cross, to listen to Republicans take a handful of Democrats who called for defunding the police and projecting that on the whole party and seeing how to stop our losses for that in 2020 when in the last few years, when it came to giving congressional gold medals to the Capitol Hill police officers that defended the place, when it came to funding community policing and the American Rescue Plan, when it came to funding the security around the Capitol to protect against a future January 6th, and when it came to standing up for the FBI when they carried out a search warrant that the judge signed off on, that it was Democrats, you know, supporting law and order.
And so that's why, you know, I've come to believe that they're not pro-cop, they're pro-coup. So they're just in favor of whoever, you know, wants, you know, to lead them and whatever that person believes, and it has nothing to do, you know, with, you know, backing the blue. And when the rubber meets the road, they've shown their true colors. And so I think that's also why this polling shows that, you know, people believe Democrats are better able to handle, you know, issues of law and order and democracy.
And for Republicans, it's not about law and order, it's just about their own power. Do you think if Republicans get a shellacking in this midterm or underperform, that they'll have it sort of come to Jesus moment with Trump or no? I mean, I feel like every Democratic household in America is like, when will it be enough for them to, like, abandon him? And it seems like it will never be enough.
Well, the reason I keep doing this and the reason I'm not giving up is because we have to break this fever, right? The fever has to break. And I'll tell you what, if Democrats lose this election, that does not, you know, the fever's not going to break. It's going to, you know, intensify.
Obama went into 12 and Clinton went into 96, you know, kind of showing the contrast. This ain't them. This is so different, you know, because of their comfort with violence, overvoting, because of, you know, the obsession they will show in trying to embarrass the president's family and trying to haul in every single one of them just to settle, you know, their own scores that, you know, we cannot, they're not responsible enough to have the keys to government. They will take the country over the cliff.
And again, that's why we can have community or we can have chaos. That really has to be the frame that we're setting up for the voters because it will be just absolute chaos if they get anywhere close to being able to govern. With all these threats against Hunter Biden, I think, and I say this as someone who's had Hunter Biden on this podcast. I mean, I don't know him particularly, but like, I don't think that Democrats would really give a shit about Hunter Biden.
Like, it's not like what the Trump cult, you know, Democrats went after Eric, right? Republicans would lose their minds. That's right. Molly, that's so funny to say that.
I was thinking that the other day. I've never met him before. I've never talked to him. It's clear there's some sort of investigation going on.
And if there was to be an indictment, I don't think Democrats are going to say this is a witch hunt against Biden, fire the attorney general. And that goes back to your earlier point, which is I think we're the ones that actually believe in the rule of law. If that was the case, that would be something you have to deal with. And you would see us defend the attorney general because we believe he's an honest, independent person.
That's the country we want to return to, regardless of what that means politically, you know, for the president. But also, again, anyone who knows Joe Biden, you know, who's been in office for nearly 50 years. Do you really, do you think that he's hidden out of, you know, 50 years of vetting and being around journalism in the media, you know, some corrupt lifestyle that we're just going to find out in his last couple of years of service? It's just crazy, right?
It just doesn't, it doesn't make sense at all. It took Donald Trump, you know, a couple of years of service for us to see like how corrupt he was, right? Do you think Joe Biden was able to hide it for, you know, five decades? That's just...
And I think also, just, I don't think the Democrats have the same relationship with the Biden family that Republicans do with the Trump family. And it goes back to your note about, that we're not in a cult, right? So we don't see every move against, a Biden family member is a move against the cult. Thank you so much, Eric.
This was awesome. Of course. John Allen is a senior politics reporter at NBC News Digital and the author of Lucky, How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. Welcome back to New Abnormal, John Allen.
Oh, he's all right, he's good to do that. So we're going to talk today only about Dennis Rodman, who you sat next to in a cigar bar. And Jesse told me before we were recording this not to talk about that much. No, I'm just kidding.
Interesting weekend. How unusual is it for Mitch McConnell to already start to try to lower expectations for the Republican Senate candidates in August? Well, I think this is important because it's really about a blame game, whether he is to blame or Trump is to blame or a national Republican senatorial committee chairman where Scott is to blame if Democrats hold the Senate. So I think that's what McConnell was doing when he said, when he talked about bad candidates, he was talking about that guy.
He was talking about J.D. Vance, these guys. What about young Blake Masters? Yeah, he was talking about all of them.
He's basically saying that Republicans have disastrous recruiting season because Donald Trump spent time knocking off normal Republicans, right, or the ones who were most likely to bridge the gap between the Trump wing of the party and the establishment wing of the party. And so you laugh with Oz and Masters and J.D. Vance. And Kershaw Walker, who McConnell supported, but clearly was somebody Trump has this deep-one relationship with.
So, you know, they'll probably fight over the blame for that if Kershaw Walker loses. Some of these people, one of these people may win, but I think what you're seeing is the early stages of Mitch McConnell laying the groundwork to try to avoid being blamed for losses and to point the finger at Trump and say, look, if it wasn't for Donald Trump, we would be in the majority of the Senate, of course. We'll have to see what happens in the election, but I think that's what's going on here. It's interesting to me.
I want to talk about this Rick Scott reporting this weekend. So Rick Scott is the chair of the Republican Senate campaign or committee or whatever it's called, right? I guess it's possible that the football field or so of Scott. Rick Scott.
So why did the Republican Party decide to make the Mars attack guy the head of the Senate campaign? Just curious, because, I mean, he's only been in the Senate for two years. My take was that it was because he was a very rich old guy, but am I wrong? So typically, the way they decide the NRSC chairman is whoever they can force to take it.
Nobody really wants to do that job. I mean, the Senate, like 10 people older and have to be wealthy. Like, this is not like begging other people for money and recruiting candidates. And like, you know, I mean, it's not like you're so ambitious house number who needs to become a class to become a leader.
I mean, every once in a while, somebody raises their hand and they really, really, really want to do it. And I think Scott really, really, really want to do it because it's somebody who would like to be something bigger than he is and isn't sure exactly what that is, whether it's president of the United States or Senate Majority Leader or Senate Majority Leader, but I think he is somebody who is ambitious and nobody else wants him. Right. Imagine him as president.
I mean, my favorite thing about him is that he has, like, he just has almost no charisma. Yeah, almost no charisma. I think that's, like, fairly valid. I mean, I think politicians, generally speaking, are, you know, devoid of charisma.
The modern politicians because they have to be so careful about everything they say, not that we're excited, but they generally have to be very careful about what they say and as a result of that, it's very personal personality and then they say that they have personalities because they said things they shouldn't have. Are we sure you're not comparing them to Dennis Rodman after you hung out with him all weekend? Like, the guy is charismatic. I mean, I mean, it's just like, I spent, like, a few friends of mine and I spent, like, 45 minutes with him this weekend and, like, he makes Kanye West look stoic by comparison.
But I would say of Dennis Rodman, he is very, very warm and generous and seems to be trying to spread the love. And he wants to go to Russia to free, to help free Brittany Griner. Yeah, he said that he had gotten permission to go to Russia and was trying to go this week. By permission, you know, basically that's just for Russia to give you a visa.
Like, you can go get a visa. Like, the United States doesn't need to go to Russia, you don't have to go to Russia. Although the State Department advises that you're not going to Russia because they say that you can be wrongfully imprisoned, like, particularly if you're a famous basketball player. It seems like a terrible plan to me, but he is friends with Kim Jong, so maybe...
Maybe he's a dictator whisperer. Right, and Kim Jong does have a relationship with Putin, right? I mean, these guys are not... They're sort of on the same side, relatively speaking.
Do you remember the Naked Gun? Or maybe it was the Naked Gun? I can't remember which version of the Naked Gun. By the way, our foreign policy podcasting over here is without fear.
I'm really killing it. Yeah, go on. Tell us more about the O.J. Simpson movie, John.
Tell us more about the Naked Gun, because that is what people, when they want to hear about foreign policy, are thinking about. There's a scene where all the world dictators are, like, meeting together in, like, this cabal, and it's like, you know, I mean, and Kanafe, whatever. When you say Kim Jong and his friends with Putin, all these guys are friends, I think to myself, like, some sort of comic version of that. Yes, the super dictator friends.
And then Dennis Rodman walks in and he sees all the world. Yeah, I mean, that seems like it makes more sense. So I just want to get back for a minute to this idea that the Republican Senate candidates are really in disarray. Herschel Walker has sort of flirted with the idea of doing a debate against Raphael Warnock.
It now looks like he's not going to do it. Can he just not do it the whole time? Sure, he doesn't have to do it. You know, I think that someone probably suggested to him that him debating the pastor from the Mr.
Bastard Baptist Church and the Stokin, like, one of the most famous puppets in America was probably not a good idea. I mean, it's one of those things where you're like, can you imagine what the debate would be? But, like, it would be very shocking if, you know, Herschel Walker were to score points on Raphael Warnock in a debate. Right, that is certainly true.
The other thing that is going on is that Oz is sort of hoping to kind of come back. I mean, is Oz's campaign manager or his digital people just bad or do they hate him? Are those the only two choices? I mean, I don't know.
What's happening there? Every time he tries to come back, he makes it worse. Yeah, okay. Canses tend to reflect their candidates.
Oz was living in New Jersey and wanted to run in Pennsylvania. It didn't make a lot of sense. I mean, we live in a time of, like, wanting off a different candidate, and, like, they're kind of starting with a perfect bagger candidate. If you look all over the country, whether it's Democratic or Republican candidates, a lot of them are getting banged up for being perfect baggers right now.
So it's like a bad time for that kind of thing, right? Yeah. So, you know, but then also he's making bad decisions within the campaign. For example, I was in, last week I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the Liz Cheney race against Harry Nageman, and Dr.
Oz was spotted out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's like, is it this guy's, like, in New Jersey? What was he doing there? I'm not sure, but he was spotted there.
I assume he's in one. We're vacationing. Right. Jesus.
I mean, it's just not so hard. Like, if you're Dr. Oz, you never want to be seen anywhere outside the state of Pennsylvania. And then, of course, there was the whole crudite affair.
Right. I don't know. Like, it may be too late to help the guy. The crudite thing is sort of interesting, because here's a guy who's been on television for decades.
He can't do it, huh? There's not a lot of relatability. I don't think there are very many people in Pennsylvania that say that Dr. Oz is like me.
Or even standing up for people like me, which is fine. Like, you don't have to be. There's a long history in this country of, like, you know, small-state senators being the people who wrote scholarships and, like, went to the Ivy League schools and come back home. And, you know, they are of a different class in a lot of ways than some of the people they represent.
But they're going to be representing those people. Like, that's wonderful. But that's not Oz either. Right.
I mean, Oz has never really lived in Pennsylvania, right? You know, I... But he does have ten houses. I mean, he didn't go to summer camp in the Poconos or something.
But, you know, I mean, for all intents and purposes, it's not going to be a carpet bag or relatively accurate. Landing. Definitely landing. It seems to me like Democrats have really managed to kind of reverse in a couple weeks what was a pretty dark-looking situation into, like, a pretty amazing kind of reversal.
What do you think about that? I think that in the Senate that that's probably true. That they're not going to have a lot better than they did, you know, six months ago or a year ago. But I think they're still likely to lose the House.
And I also think there's a losing the football aspect to looking at campaigns in August from the Democratic side. Right, right, right, right. It's not as bad as we think it is. Right.
You know, that's part of the game, right? Like, you've got to keep the donors alive and everything. Right. It would be a huge shock if the Democratic president lose the House.
And what really matters is, like, who controls the chambers, because that means whether or not Joe Biden gets anything done, the rest of his presidency, the rest of his heart, and it also is whether the investigations look like. You've got a January 6th committee today that is infected against the people that rushed into the Capitol. Or literally, you know, where there are false flagged, like, you know, deep state operators out on the Capitol. Right, right.
I don't even want to repeat the Alex Jones level of insanity. Alex Jones-style kind of stuff, yeah. You could see that. You could see Marjorie Taylor Greene running a committee hearing on Alex Jones-level stuff.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the thing is that you say Marjorie Taylor Greene, but, I mean, it really is all of them. Right. I make little distinction these days between, or less distinction these days between the extreme factions of the extreme members of the Republican Congress and the ones who are considered mainstream because they're being lagged by the extreme side.
Right. Especially when it comes to conspiracy theories that support Donald Trump. There's very little difference between Stefanik and Lauren Boebert, ultimately. Yeah, except for the Lauren Boebert is a more effective communicator.
Right, exactly. John Allen, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back and be somewhere where your cell phone has better service. I'm so sorry for the cell phone problem.
No, no, I'm just kidding. But you were great, and we really appreciate having you on and super interesting stuff. Next time I'll find a normal place to sit, but I will not sit with normal people. I will hang out with Dennis Rodman and Molly Jungfass every opportunity I get.
Just happy to be grouped with them. Thank you, John. Yeah. Andy Levy?
Molly Jungfass, now you sound independent. Yeah, well, I'm confused. Who is your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy, I feel like we've maybe talked about him once or twice before on this podcast.
Famously, he was America's mayor. He was known for crime fighting, and now he's known for crime doing. For crime doing, yeah. That's a good line, yeah.
Thank you. It would have been a better line if you hadn't chimed in while I was trying. Yeah, sorry about that. I'm totally kidding.
No, there's no, yeah. So there's a new book out by a journalist named Andrew Kurtzman and it's called Giuliani's Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor. It shows that one of Giuliani's associates, at least I believe that's all she was, Molly, may have more information on this. No, she dated him.
She said she's right. Yeah, she dated him and she was the hospital worker he cheated on. I think, I could be wrong, so Jesse fact-check me because we're no Joe Rogan over here. That's right, that's right.
In more ways than one, let me tell you. I got a kettlebell right here. I don't know what you're talking about. Right, exactly.
She was the woman I think he cheated on Judith Nathan with. I'll go along with that. Hospital administrator, large-breasted, brown-haired woman. Is that her Twitter bio?
Yes, that's right. You do that, it's involved in the hospital. We call it a Gingrich thing, not a cheated. That's right, it's a Gingrich thing.
That's right, named after our man, dude. And by our man, I mean not our man, fuck that guy. Anyway, as I was saying, Giuliani's associate slash maybe ex, Maria Ryan, during a lot of what was going on with January 6th and all that stuff, Maria Ryan wrote, as you know, he lost his job and income and more defending you, that's President Trump, during the Russia hoax investigation and then the impeachment pro bono. Ryan requested $2.5 million for his legal services.
He also wanted a Presidential Medal of Freedom and eventually he wanted a pardon. Me too, man. Just a general pardon. The request for the pardon was made on January 10th, 2021, which I'm sure only coincidentally was four days after January 6th, 2021.
Yeah, probably just a coincidence. No, it's a straight-up coincidence. According to this book, the funny part about this is that the letter never reached Trump because Bernie Carrick, of all people, who was famously the police commissioner, to bring Julie Honeystern here. Again, another terrible person from the 90s.
Did he go to jail? Did Bernie Carrick go to jail? I was just about to Google Bernie Carrick jail. I think he got out of it.
He might have, yeah. He's what we call not a good guy. He was pardoned by Mr. Trump, if we recall.
Oh, okay, so he was pardoned. Okay. Oh, yeah, there we go. Pardoned by Mr.
Trump. Who could have seen that coming? Two counts of tax fraud he was guilty of. Yes.
Multiple spouses. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm a kid who is not a Fox News host yet. Yet. So anyway, it's just every day we learn more and more about America's mayor and all the fun things that he's done and all the fun things that he's wanted.
And I just think the idea of giving him a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a pardon, like, you got to do those at the same time. That has to be the same ceremony because that's the only way it works for me. Like, in general, fuck that guy. You know that Bernie Carrick wrote a book From Jailer to Jail?
You're welcome. Wow. Wow, that's right. Props on a good title.
I mean, okay. You want to know who my fuck that guy is? Yes, please. You know what I love about him is that he's just a fucking idiot.
Now, I want to say he's polling way behind. This is Russia Ron Johnson, or as I like to call him, Ronanon. He's polling way behind, but in his last Senate campaign, he also polled way behind in August. So let's see where this goes.
I'm not going to count this moron out until it's over. But I have to say, I really do love what a fucking idiot he is. So Russia Ron says that it wasn't such a big deal. You know, he's been implicated in the fake electorate scandal.
And he says it barely happened. You know, I think the line is it was just a few seconds long. He was only involved in the fake electorate's plot for seconds. This is like when people are like, well, Trump wasn't able to.
I had virtually no involvement. He said, literally, okay, my involvement lasts seconds. Okay. It reminds me of when people are like, you can't prosecute Trump for attempting a crime.
Attempting crimes are crimes. It's like, tell that to all the people who are in jail right now. It's amazing stuff. I think Ron Johnson, you know, I actually do spend a lot of time thinking about this because I have pundit brain worms myself, a pretty bad case.
And so I do spend a lot of time thinking about Ron Johnson. And I do think he's just really stupid and also maybe evil. Yes, I think there's no reason it can't be both. But I also love the, like you said, you know, it only lasted seconds.
Like, I only, you know, I only pulled the trigger. It's incredible stuff. And I'm a big fan of Ron Johnson confessing. The weird thing is, though, what they actually asked him was about making his children.
And he said, my involvement lasted seconds. Okay. And I just thought that was kind of weird. But anyway, our next comic hells from tip your server.
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