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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 Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy and current table news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left.
Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist, but today I'm an unapologetic woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kenner, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.
We have one hell of a show today. First, we're joined by Black Cloters Matters and Tasha Brown. She's going to tell us about the Georgia runoff race. And it finally nears an end.
Then we'll talk to Daily Beast reporter Roger Sullenberger about the Uline family, who donates tons of money to Republican causes, as well as the latest on Mr. Marshall Walker. But first, let's have some fun. Hi, Danielle.
How are you? Hey, Andy. I'm good. How are you?
I'm doing all right. My understanding is we have maybe some rare good-type news to start the show off with. Oh, God, give me something. So the Democrats have a new leader in the House, and it's Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
He's a very young man of 52. This is a huge generational shift for the Democrats. I'm excited. I also find it hilarious that we think that 52 is young, but I guess that when we're comparing it to octanageriums.
This is ageism, and you're not going to stand for it? I do not appreciate it, and I'll be filing an HR report after we're done recording. Oh, okay. Well, love you.
Love you. You know, I think that people in there, 50, should be revered. Delete everything I said earlier. But no, this is good news.
I mean, it's a, you know, not to put too final point on it. It's a new-looking person in charge of the House, Dems, and something that feels long overdue. I mean, it's, you know, 2022. No shade at Nancy Pelosi, but she's been there for a very long time, and as she accurately herself determined it was time for new blood.
Yeah, I think that this is right, and look, while I still cringe at the idea that in 2022 we're celebrating first for black people, for women, for people of color in general, because it still shows you how far we have to go. But when I saw Hakeem Jeffries, you know, flanked by the other two leaders that are going to be heading up the Democratic Party, I said, this is America. This is what we should be embracing. This is what we should be uplifting, because in comparison, my God, when you look across the aisle, which I try not to, but when you look across the aisle, like, it's just a sea of whiteness.
It's a sea of old white men, and it looks like 1950. It doesn't at all represent who we are, where we're going. It does represent who they are and where they're going. But no, you're right.
You're absolutely right. Hakeem Jeffries is more than symbolic, obviously, but it is also symbolic. We shouldn't look away from that, and we shouldn't discount that, because these things are important, and as you said, the fact that it's 2022, and we're, you know, sitting here going, woo-hoo, there's a black leader of the House Dems is a little, like, cringey, but, you know, it's better than they're not having been won in 2022. Yeah, and I think, you know, look, I think that Hakeem Jeffries, he is a fighter.
I have loved watching him take down Republican bullshit on committees. I have loved following him on Twitter. I've had the opportunity to interview him before, and he comes with that fire and that passion that we need to invigorate the party in that way. So I'm about this move.
Also excited about, you know, the Democrats voting in and electing Ted Lieu from California to serve as the vice chair of the caucus next year, him being the first Asian American, the highest Asian American in Congress. So another first for Democrats. I mean, overall, it's a pretty good look for them, and as you alluded to before, on the other side of the aisle, which we don't have to get into all that much, but it's a shit show, and it can happen to a nicer group of people. I still think it will be McCarthy who ends up being Speaker, although the rumbling seems to have grown in the last few days that, you know, there's some opposition to that on that side.
So who the hell knows? I mean, it's just nice to see Republicans in disarray for once. I mean, for once, they're going to stay in disarray, and I can't wait until the Freedom Caucus gets a hold of Kevin McCarthy if he becomes Speaker, and then they use him to mop the floor up with the rest of our democracy, because that's what they're going to do. It's a disgusting group of people, and Kevin McCarthy is so happy to bow to their whim so they can seem powerful.
Yeah, I mean, there was nobody that I would ever feel less sorry for than Kevin McCarthy, so I don't feel sorry for him at all, but, oh man, that's going to be a job I think he's going to quickly realize he shouldn't have wished for. Yeah. Speaking of Congress, there was a vote on Wednesday to end negotiations between the railroads and the unions that represent railroad workers. There's a couple of aspects to this that are really off-putting.
It's being sort of heralded by a lot of Dems, up to and including President Biden, as a huge step, as something that is sorely needed to prevent massive economic problems in this country. And there's a big problem here in that the railway workers, they get no paid sick leave, which is just horrific. And again, it's like, with the leadership, it's the same thing. It's 2022.
How are we discussing the fact that these workers get no paid sick leave? And that's their sticking point in voting against this contract. And the Democrats have passed a bill to avert a strike, and they also passed a bill that would give the workers seven days of paid sick leave, which everyone knows is not going to pass the Senate. So that part is effectively going to be dead.
So what we're going to end up with is a whole bunch of railroad workers who apparently are not allowed to go on strike for better working conditions. And this is somehow being heralded as a good thing by a lot of Democrats, which greatly confuses me. You know, what confuses me is that members of Congress have unlimited fucking sick days, OK? Have unlimited sick days.
They have 10 federal holidays off per year. They work, ultimately, four days a fucking week because they leave the Hill generally on Thursdays. So my feeling is this is not a win. I don't know who this is a win for.
How in this day and age do we, especially, my God, we just came off, not come off of, because there are still 300 people dying a day of COVID. But 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. It's like, here I am sitting up high.
I can take as many sick days as I need. I can do whatever it is that I want and also have the ability to dictate to you that you should suffer, right? That you should go into work ill, that you don't have time to care for your family if somebody in your family falls ill. But you may raise your wages just a little bit.
Yeah. And again, so there's sort of two parts to this, one Democratic and one Republican. On the Republican side, you only have three members who voted for the paid sick leave. So you're talking about an entire party, basically, that voted against workers having paid sick leave.
So that's disgusting. And this is the party that they have been going around for, you know, their new shift is that they are the true party of the working class in America. And here they are not wanting union workers to have paid sick leave. So there's that.
The reason that becomes a bigger problem is because it did pass the House. But of course, we don't know that it's going to pass the Senate. And probably, I mean, it may not. In which case, these workers are going to be left without paid sick leave, regardless of what the House did.
So all of this sort of starts to feel like a little bit of political theater on the part of the Democrats in that they now get to say, we're the party that wanted these people to have paid sick leave, but the Republicans stopped it. Which, OK, fine, that's good politics. But it's playing politics with real lives. And for the Democrats to be a party to something that may end up forcing these people to accept this deal that, again, no paid sick leave, that's kind of gross.
And it kind of goes against the Democrats being the party of the working class. And it's almost starting to feel like neither party is the party of the working class. The reality is that Democrats will come out and say that we have to make compromise, right, that we are the party of compromise. What frustrates me and what frustrates many progressives is the fact that the compromise always comes on the backs of the workers.
The compromise always comes on the backs of the marginalized. And so while they can use sick days as some type of negotiating chip, there are real life consequences to people not being able to have leave in order to care for themselves, in order to care for people around them. We've seen this. We saw this play out over the course of three years with COVID-19.
And so it is just, it's so awful of a place that we continue to be in where those that have the most, right, which are members of Congress, I don't know who else has unlimited fucking sick days. There aren't a lot of places these days, you know, outside of maybe the tech bubbles and what have you, where people have that considerable amount of unlimited sick days, right? The whole course of work has changed because of going through this global health pandemic. And the reality is, is that our members are not moved by that.
They're not moved in any type of way. And so, yeah, you're right. I don't know which one could be recognized as the party of workers at this particular stage, because this to me is not a win. It is not a win to rob people of their ability to care for themselves and then say, hey, but we'll throw you a little bit more money.
Here's a couple of more coins. But, like, you can never take off, while the people that run these freight trains, that run these companies, are making money hand over fist. Exactly right. The other part of this is we keep telling these workers, and you have everyone from Pete Buttigieg to President Biden talking about how, well, if the railway workers go on strike, this will be catastrophic for the economy.
And so basically what you're telling people is that they are unbelievably important to this country on the one hand. And then on the other hand, you're saying, oh, and by the way, if you get sick, fuck you. And this is something we do as a country. As you said with COVID, this is what we did to, quote, unquote, essential workers.
And a lot of those essential workers were very low-paid workers. And we decided that they had to keep going to work and put themselves in danger and put their families in danger because of how important they were. But, again, they are not rich and famous. And we keep doing this, and we don't learn.
I'm really upset with Joe Biden on this. His whole thing is how much he loves railroads and all this stuff. Well, then show a little love for the workers. He talks out of both sides of his mouth.
He sits there and says, you know, well, we can't let them shut down because of the economy. And, of course, we support the right. The Democratic Party supports the right of all workers to have paid sick leave. Except you do, but you don't.
Because when it comes to shove, what you're basically saying is you'll take a deal for them without it in order to keep the economy humming. And I can't even speak because I actually get mad. I get super mad about this and just realize how bad all this shit is. Because it is bad.
Yeah. I won't bore our listeners with the details, but it's this whole strategy that the railways have called precision-scheduled railroading that has allowed them to basically cut 30% of their workforce. And because of that, they have, obviously, fewer workers. And if workers take sick days, it throws everything off.
But, meanwhile, they're making unbelievable profits. So hire some more fucking workers back to make up for the fact that, you know what, people get sick. But, Andy, how can they buy a second and third yacht? I know.
I mean, come on. How can they helicopter into the Hamptons? Like, you need to be better and stop being so selfish. I know.
Sometimes I get on these rants, and I don't think of the human cost of the helicopter companies. And I apologize for our listeners. I will do better. Yeah.
Be more sensitive to the needs of billionaires, honestly. God. So, once again, in looking at where we are in terms of putting the needs of people to the side so that Republicans continue to have their shots fired and hold things hostage, what we know, Andy, is that the debt ceiling. We have another big deadline for the funding of the government coming up on December 16th.
And we know that Republicans will take control of the House on January 3rd. So if we do not raise the debt ceiling once again, when Republicans take control, they are going to do what they do best, which is take the country hostage. Don't ask me why during midterm elections this wasn't one of the messaging talking points that were being used, which is that you give power to Republicans, and Republicans take absolute control and take this country hostage and will chip away at your Medicare and your Social Security, which they have said. They want to be renewed or voted on every year so that tens of millions of Americans can't rely on a social safety net that they have earned.
I don't know how this vote will go. I'm assuming it will go the way that it always goes, which is a nail-biter until the middle of the night, and maybe they'll do something about it, maybe, before Republicans take control and become the terrorists that they are. I'm going to be perfectly honest. Anytime we get into discussions of debt ceilings and stuff like that, I don't want to see my eyes glaze over, but I don't get it.
It just seems like such an artificial number that was sort of created by politicians and bureaucrats so that one party can say, well, we can't exceed the debt ceiling because horrible things will happen. But I'm never really clear what those horrible things are. But you're right. Democrats need to make it clearer.
So people like me don't sit here and know, ugh, the debt ceiling. Shut up. This is meaningless. And it needs to be made more clear that what this is about is cutting programs by Social Security and Medicare.
And that basically the Republicans want to cut those programs. So they come up with whatever excuse they can, and the debt ceiling has to be a convenient one. So that's what they use right now, and they'll use another one if they, you know, when they need that one. I just think we need the Democrats to get out there and say, no, we're not letting you take the country hostage on this.
And we're making it clear that this is not about you trying to be good fiscal managers because you're not. No, because they're not. This is about you not wanting people to get Medicare and Social Security. Basically, they continue to use the debt ceiling as a prop as a way to negotiate inconsistently bad faith.
And Democrats at times are way too chicken shift to do what they need to do when they have power, which is just raise it to a place that can't be used as a political prop or, as many have said, eliminate it altogether. But then they don't want to be tagged as being, oh, well, Democrats, you know, they're just spendthrifts, and all they do is spend, spend, spend. Well, here's the thing. It's our fucking money.
It's our tax dollars, right? So if my tax dollars aren't going to my end of life, like after work care, then what the fuck am I working for? Because you ain't giving me sick days, right? You're not giving me a good 401 case.
You're not providing anything. And so what the argument Democrats need to make is that it's our money. It's our money that should be invested back into the people, right? That it is something that we are entitled to because we've worked for it, period.
I just want to point out that the defense appropriations bill for 2023 is over $700 billion. So please stop telling me we can't afford to give people Social Security and Medicare. Yeah. I am so excited to get but a few minutes with the LaTosha Brown, who is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter and is founder of Southern Black Girls Consortium and is just on the ground in Georgia doing the most for the nation.
LaTosha, just tell me first off, how are you feeling right now with a handful of days until the last day of voting in this runoff election? I should be super tired, and I probably am in some ways, but I'm actually really encouraged and inspired. You know, being out on the ground in the community, this has been a long, arduous process. You know, the vote suppression is real.
You know, just because we are showing up does not mean that in the absence of, it is in spite of. And so we've been doing a lot of work, talking to communities, going around, creating spaces for people to actually know that there's this runoff election and get people kind of ignited about the election. It's interesting. The last few days I've been going out, as I'm approaching people, they're showing me their sticker.
They're like, look, got my sticker. Or folks are literally coming up to the bus just to show us they're sticker. There's some kind of collective energy and spirit. I'm not going to say that I feel it in every election, but it's really interesting.
It's actually, in some ways, more amplified in this runoff in the last few days that I've seen than it was in the primary. And I think some of it has been because, as always, Republicans always go a tad bit too far. And I think they went too far with a number of things in Georgia. Talk to us about a couple of things.
Because, first of all, call it's like georgia people are saying is the new florida when we thought that florida was going to be that purple state and now it is just hard blood red georgia because of the apparatus that folks like yourself stacy abrams and others that have been working on the ground tirelessly for years for years to build an infrastructure that combats the kind of voter suppression that georgia has been known for talk to us about what has been built that is allowing us to even have hopefulness to even have a reverend warnock on the ballot in a place like georgia and us believe that he can make magic twice you know i think that there are three things the first thing is it's similar to what you're saying just to lift up what you said around working stacy abrams and others one let me just lift that because therefore that you know have been even asking me you know aren't you disappointed or you feel defeated because stacy lost let me say this i am very sad that she lost that was a hit that was a blow but i don't feel defeated because she's not defeated the bottom line is although stacy did not win the seat that she was seeking her strategy won yeah her strategy and her vision for georgia and others like literally has opened up this pathway of why we're now in this runoff for the senate seat and so as well as other things i think sometimes we have to really recognize that the long-term game is really around how are we building infrastructure for our community it's never been about one candidate or one race or one campaign it is always around how do we get closer and stronger to be a collective power and so i think there's a number of things one i think that we absolutely have more infrastructure now and the state the ecosystem has been built out still a lot of work to be done but i think that we certainly have that more infrastructure on the ground and more groups that are working together in the last four years it is absolutely a beautiful thing to see when you've got lgbtq groups and african groups and latino groups and indigenous groups and aapi groups working together and it's sustained that we literally we talk to each other daily we're on threads we're organizing we're trying to figure out how we can build the gaps with each other there's something very beautiful and powerful about that because i think there's a realization for us that this isn't just about a campaign or candidate this is really around how we want to shift the future of the state the second thing i think is really important in this moment too is that we are responding to those that actually have tried to dissuade us from participating or make it harder for us to participate you know folks may recall that in this election the secretary of state who is the officer that is the constitutional office for the state of georgia who oversee the elections and also a part of their charge is around voting education and engagement that's their office charge here it is that the office that is supposed to be responsible for keeping voting on our minds that's supposed to be responsible for making sure that people have access to the ballot that is actually suing because they did not want early voting can you imagine that that's like an oxymoron right yeah and so the irony around that is that action while we saw bad actors having this action of literally not wanting to have a voting day by the way because it was robbie lee's birthday uh confederate general like give me right but what people did is the communities responded what you saw the war not campaign and several other organizations actually sued the state and as a result it opened up early voting and guess what we had one of the highest turnouts in the state that you had thousands and thousands of people who voted that day and on that weekend like set the trend of early voting which actually proves the point that they're one where they demand and they need for that it's preponderous to me that the secretary of state would actually sue to not have a voting day instead of to actually expand and have voting access but we know the politics at hand and what's behind that you know i think the third part too is that we're in this moment where we're in a shifting demographic that the state of georgia what we know is from the last census that in the last 10 years 100 of the growth in the state of georgia has been communities of color and that in itself shifts the political landscape it shifts who's involved in the policy making process and also can shift what policies are prioritized and what policies are being made and i think we're seeing that we're on the cusp of seeing this transition we're actually witnessing this transition of power and i think even leadership in the state of georgia you know and we know that there are younger voters what we saw that propelled what happened in georgia in the primaries in the midterm was that there were younger voters not just in georgia but throughout the nation and so we're in the midst of this shifting demographic that is changing the entire political landscape so what happened in georgia in 2020 folks who are listening like listen it wasn't a fluke it is the future of georgia you know and i love that you say that it's not a fluke it's a future because i think that this is what the republican party is afraid of right they are afraid of an activated citizenry they are afraid of young people of queer people of black people recognizing that they have power and they have a voice when reverend warnock his campaign were able to get that saturday voting you know the judge had said there's no standing here right from the secretary of state to be be like you can't vote on a saturday after thanksgiving that was some type of national holiday that needed to be protected and it wasn't you know one of the things that folks have seen over you know since the polls opened in georgia are these absurd lines that still persist and i can recall that wasn't there a passage of legislation that said that folks weren't going to be allowed to get water to get food to get any of those comforts that were going to keep folks in line so how have you and black voters matter how have you all been kind of dealing with that pressure and those really obscene kind of poll watches some of which we've seen on television that are armed and are there to intimidate thank you so much for asking that question you know i want to reiterate kind of a point that you made part of what we also see is i can't tell you how many folks have said well there can't be any voter suppression if we're seeing these record turnout numbers as if they are mutually inclusive the bottom line is that is taking an enormous amount of people power an enormous amount of resources enormous amount of work in ways that literally we should not have to work this hard just to get people to be able to have free and fair access to the ballot we're doing it because it needs to be done but we have to really recognize if we're going to say that this is a 21st century democracy we shouldn't have to do that but part of these conditions we know are being created out of some of the law as a result of the SB202 law for example just as you talked about in lines there's absolutely no reason why we actually should have long lines waiting to vote at this juncture listen you can average it out it's some simple math you could use that we know how many voters are in the districts or who are registered and can qualify to vote we know how many machines normally like the normal time it takes we can average the normal time it takes people to vote we can actually do much better there's absolutely nothing i think that is exciting about people having to stand in line for two three hours we actually take a bad situation and flip it to literally take lemons and made lemonade so that as people are standing in line we kind of lift up this kind of collective power as best as we can but it's really uncomfortable for people to stand in line for hours but part of that has resulted for a number of things and it didn't just start with SB202 i can go with the stripping of the voting rights act it started with one when we actually had section five stripped out of the voting rights act what we saw with the shelby versus holding case what we saw is the massive closing of polling sites all across the country particularly in the south and particularly states that have been bad actors that has had a tremendous impact because what you have now is you have less polling sites for people to vote in in addition to that what we've also seen with this SB202 just to get a little more granular of how it's happening in georgia you know mail-in ballot voting that the expansion of that during covid was not just a service around covid we know it worked in covid why in the world would we not continue to keep that infrastructure in place for the lies that's why right for lies only for lies right because ultimately what we've seen is in the previous election in the general election in georgia there were 1.2 million voters that used mail-in ballot voting this year in the midterms it was only 0.2 million that means a million people who accessed that as a tool to be able to vote did not utilize and i think it's for a variety of reasons i think a lot of it has been because of misinformation the other thing is that they reduce drop boxes that i've been riding the last few weeks we've been campaigning we've been riding all through i'm not seeing the drop box i know they're somewhere but i don't see them and we're out campaigning the bottom line is it is intentional to restrict accessibility for people to be able to go and cast their ballots in addition to that one of the things that SB202 did that the law in georgia did is that we've had eight to nine weeks after the election to actually gear back and get people informed and know that they gotta vote again now that's been truncated to four weeks and we didn't have the opportunity to be able to register new voters who may have turned 18 between the last election and this election they are denied the opportunity to be able to participate in this election because with the shorter period there's no opportunity within the register to vote to participate in this election like we've seen in previous elections and so part of this we have to understand it is a compounded effect that it's like death by a thousand cuts it's shave off a couple hundred here a couple hundred there make it difficult this way create this culture of fear you know in all those ways and so to your question part of what we've been able to do to address that is i always say you know black survival in america has always been based on our ability to actually take those things that have been meant to harm us or hurt us to dissuade us to marginalize us and my grandmother used to say we always find a way when it seems like there's no way and find a way that we can transfer that energy into something that really is going to make us propel us and make us feel empowered that has always that has been the key to black survival not just in voting and i can go on and on in a myriad ways of how we've done that but we've also taken that same kind of that tactic and that strategy around voting for example they said that you know part of the law prevents us from being able to give water and food out in line so what do we do what we've been doing is we've been setting up stations we're calling them power building stations and some of our partners like georgia stand up they call them party at the polls now we've literally been right across the street or right across where the lines are we actually have power stations where people can get snacks they can come get water we've got people right at the line matter of fact we even took it to the next level we actually have food trucks so you say we can't bring water we got food trucks we got hot coffee and donuts and voting around lunchtime don't worry get a hot catfish sandwich right for free in addition to that we've taken this idea of creating this culture of fear where that what we know is in some instances including with one of black votes matter workers without campaigning one day and this man just shows up challenges them about just just asking people to vote and takes his gun out and shows his gun and takes the book out of the gun as a form of intimidation and so what we do we actually come in mass and what we're doing is living it and creating a safe environment and space by having a collective of people there so we are having these party at the polls where we got a dj we've got sign waivers we got three or four organizations that we will escort you to the line you can come over matter of fact if you got to stand in line for two or three hours what would probably be the first thing on your mind when you're standing in line for two or three hours if you're like me and you got an iphone i need to charge through my phone we actually have charging stations where they can actually come right across the street or we'll take their phone and give them a tag and go charge their phone up for them we have always been creative enough to figure out how we can actually deliver and create an environment of community in spite of those that seeks to actually try to create energy of fear in addition to that some of the things that we've done because it has been a long long campaign season we want to make sure that people are feeling inspired and engaged particularly those volunteers that i know they're tired right because we've had to do an enormous amount of voter education work to combat the fact that we've got a shorter voter period to combat all those other changes that we've seen in the sb202 law and so what we've done is black voters matter has rented out 10 theaters we've actually bought out 10 theaters around in our surrounding areas and we're having a wakanda boat forever you're like you want to talk about some black power we're like come on let me tell you something about you you will find a way out of no way and the thing that i always love about you latasha and black voters matter is that there is no despair there is only we're going to figure it out we're going to keep moving through because i tell you that in these times there is a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that can take hold and just listening to all the ways that you are maneuvering around voter suppression that you are maneuvering around intimidation and threats of violence to get people to stay in line to get people to come out i can't thank you enough i could talk to you forever but i just want to say that i cannot thank you enough for your continued work for your blood for your sweat for your tears for your dancing for your joy because i honestly believe that georgia is going to do right again i feel it because of all of the efforts that you have put in that stacy abrams that infrastructure that you all have been building over the past couple of years has put in and that needs to be a model for the nation that we need to not seed red states what we perceive as red states to republicans that we have an opportunity and it's about putting in that effort so latasha brown i just want to thank you once again for your time and your effort i hope that we will have something joyous to celebrate come december 6 the final day of voting in georgia absolutely we can't stop won't stop our people's future our future is on the line we're gonna do what needs to be done i would hear folks say all the time in my family baby make it do what it do we don't make it do what it do i appreciate you thank you dick and elizabeth uline are the billionaire owners of shipping supply company uline and major donors to the republican party and in this past election cycle a lot of that money went to election result deniers like ron johnson steve scalise and doug mastriano and now it turns out the ulines gave quite a bit more money than we even thought through the use of a dark money non-profit here with more info on this is daily beast political reporter roger sullenberger who's been reporting on the ulines for some time in between scooping everyone on herschel walker uh roger thanks for coming on i appreciate it hey no problem thanks so i guess i'll explain what a dark money non-profit is because it just sounds like three words that people threw together dark dark money is a pretty common term it derives from the fact that you cannot see who's actually giving money to a group right so these are non-profits and they're funded by donors just like you know any non-profit that you know the american heart association something like that right but with certain non-profits they're not required to publicly list the names of their donors on tax filings so we see how much money they get uh we see that certain donors give a lot of money as is this case but we're not able to see everybody and so that's where the dark part comes from that's what we're dealing with here the interesting thing about the uline non-profit that we're talking about it's called restoration action and restoration action is funded by an anonymous donor technically but it is connected to this uline network and it's not really much of a secret that uline himself is you know funding this whole network there was one donor last year that accounted for 19.8 million dollars of the 20.5 million dollars that this group raised and so it's not a stretch to say well that's probably richard uline's contribution okay so i was gonna ask how much money we're talking here but we're talking 20 million dollars just through this one non-profit so what percentage of that is going to candidates who just basically refuse to say that joe biden was elected president in 2020 well two things one dick is two candidates direct right so he gives tons of money he is this year the top republican mega donor the top one and he gives 80 percent of that money i have gone to election deniers or people have you know questioned the integrity or the results of the 2020 presidential election 80 that's pretty crazy wow this non-profit though does not give directly to candidates groups like this cannot make a direct contribution to a candidate but they do give to other groups so he's got kind of like two arms of contributions here one going directly to those people and then this other group which gives out more money gives it out to organizations who are working on quote election integrity and who are backing these efforts to and subvert democracy generally because you know you can get to different groups you can get a lot more money so uline is not only funding candidates he's actually funding and helping to build and maintain further the infrastructure that would allow these anti-democratic forces to not only continue to operate but to expand those operations so these groups that are getting the money it's in addition to the groups that you mentioned we're also talking about other far right groups right i know uline is very publicly anti-choice he's anti-gay he's anti-trans he thinks critical race theory is the devil and all that really fun right wing culture war stuff so are those kind of groups also getting money from him through this organization yeah and you know there's sort of like those organizations do a lot of different things right so there's like the tea party patriots for instance that's a far right organization that busts people into january 6th insurrection right and so uline is getting a great responsibility so expecting and it's kind of a different so that's the size of everything right that's a new choice in the scam Thank you. them money the interesting thing about this particular year is that he has really focused his efforts it seems almost single-mindedly on what they call on the right wing election integrity efforts right yeah these groups do a lot of different things but uline's money here seems to have a pretty specific purpose behind it for instance one of these groups susan the anthony foundation it is a pretty well-known anti-abortion group but uline gave them 3.2 million dollars and 2 million of that was allocated to what the group calls a restricted grant and it doesn't say exactly what that money is for in the documents that i have these tax documents but like the month after the insurrection this group susan the anthony list launched what it called an election transparency initiative and they launched that in conjunction with another uline sponsor group called the american principles project and that group also got money from restoration action from the same dark money group from uline so he's giving money to his anti-abortion susan b anthony list but the money seems to be for another effort right it's a conservative group and they do different things and this is what he is really it seems to me almost like you know right so do you just have in your office or at home you just have like a wall that's like matthew mcconney had in true detective where it's just like the conspiracy board but it's just like all these lines connecting the dots between like uline gave the money this month and then next month his group did that and all this stuff because that's what it sounds like it's just amazing how you track this down i appreciate your uniqueness there most people say charlie day and his people see boards so i appreciate that but that's what my head looks like i think and yeah it's it's a lot to track but the top line that people need to know is that this is a billionaire who came into his money a lot of his money pretty recently right he's always been pretty wealthy but because the pandemic increased the demand for shipping products right those card boxes his company uline has really turned a healthy profit over the last few years because of the pandemic and he's taken that money and really ramped up his giving to anti-election causes and you can see it in the filings this group only got like 50 60 000 as recently as i believe 2019 and now it's getting 20 million dollars so you can see what he wants to do so when you're using uline when you're buying those cardboard boxes a few cents on the dollar probably more than that actually might be going to fund anti-democratic groups god yeah something that's good to know so there was a name that was in one of the pieces you wrote for the daily week about this i was interested in learning more about her gina swoboda who is she exactly yeah gina swoboda she's a republican official in arizona and she works for republican gubernatorial candidate defeated shall i say republican gubernatorial candidate and kerry lake has tapped her to head her quote election integrity division or whatever of her campaign and gina is helping kerry lake launched this bizarre challenge to the electoral count and the governor's race she's been out there before or you know the past couple of years ever since the 2020 election pushing this misleading information that the election results are not to be trusted at face value right and uline brought her on into the fold back in may of 2021 so she joined a group that is an offshoot of this money it's complicated right but it's really these little lines are there to just sort of make you know partition it a bit but if you want to speak in general terms you can sort of erase those lines in your mind like this is what this guy is doing and this woman is helping him do that she's tied directly to kerry lake amazing basically we've got a system set up where there's effectively no limit on how much a rich person can give if not directly to the politicians of their choice but to the causes or the groups that support those politicians that's the whole point of this dark money right this is on both sides george sorrows can spend 128 million dollars on the democratic side the u lines can spend i think it was like 67 or 68 million what's his name ken griffin the hedge fund guy also gave roughly the same amount of republicans and we're now just learning that sam bankman freed who was being touted on fox news and all these places have this huge giver to the democrats he has now come out and said well i actually gave pretty much an equal amount to the republicans i just made it dark money to keep it quiet and that's just the system we have now right i think the sam bankman freed example is a perfect example of dark money right so he gave openly to democratic candidates he can only give so much to each candidate he funded his own pack also he gave a lot of money the co-founder of ftx his co-founder was funding republicans directly just you know millions of dollars straight to republican groups as you pointed out because there's this dark money thing that republicans by the way are champions of that these republicans who are saying oh look he's funding democrats well their own system came back to bite them right there right it's like well actually he's funding a dark money effort to help republicans too and you know if the system were more transparent then you wouldn't be embarrassed by it and i think that's a great example of exactly why watchdogs and democrats other advocates you know want to reform the system to bring more transparency to it because we have just a handful of uber wealthy people in this country are able to put their thumb on the scale by tapping that wealth and funding it out in any way that they can while maintaining more or less complete anonymity the only reason we know sam bickman freed funded republicans is because he came out and admitted it he could have stayed quiet and no one would know and again like i don't care what side you're on politically this is just this is not good i mean it's not great that george sorrows can spend 120 million dollars it's not great that two republicans can spend roughly the same amount and have that much influence over candidates and on issues and i'm assuming that uline's use of dark money this is only going to grow for 2024 is it fair to say that i mean if we look at the trend i mean he's doubling the amount of money he's put in i'm not sure you know like how long he's going to keep doubling it right but it does seem like there's no slowing down i guess the next question is you know if he used 80 of this money to go towards these garbage election things does that issue sort of start fading for the next election cycle i know obviously as you pointed out carrie lake is still making sort of a deal about this but unlike with 2020 it feels like even republicans are kind of rolling their eyes at her yeah i think that's a great point we're seeing in the wake of the midterms republicans backing away from this election denialism we saw tons of those candidates just get trounced in the election you know in michigan uh mostriano like you know clearly a very forceful outspoken election denier right got beat pretty decisively and it seems that at least in the weeks after the election republicans were backing off of this what had become a key party plank for them is just saying elections aren't fair and they might be recalculating now and saying well this is not a winning political message if that's true then you have to wonder about in new lines case and other mega donors who are funding this effort are their hearts in it are they like carrie lake are they true believers like mike lindell in these operations because if they are they'll keep funding them but they might not have the same kind of political support so i'm not sure exactly what uline is going to do whether he's you know solely interested in getting in the ear of certain politicians and being able to help try to shape policy uh to his benefit and what exactly those policies are if he is single-minded on election nihilism like somebody like mike lindell is then yeah he probably won't slow down with his giving but if he recalculates like you know a lot of republicans seem to be doing at least now testing the waters then we might see some sort of change in the way he funnels his money right in the types of groups he wants to support the types of candidates that he wants to support i will say that there is looking at these documents it is undeniable that he is completely focused on this issue this is the thing that seems to drive him but we'll see if he makes a practical decision in the future yeah exactly okay so before i let you go i want to turn to a candidate that actually did uline i believe bankrolled pretty heavily and that's herschel walker the candidate for senate in georgia who is now in a runoff he broke some more news on herschel walker can you tell us about that i'm going to report that herschel walker's residence issues in georgia have another dimension which is that the house that he has claimed to live in there for 17 years he says that he and his wife were actually renting that out for a period very close to when he announced his candidacy he disclosed this in his financial disclosures and i went back and remembered that he had disclosed this previously in a financial forum in 2021 after cnn reported that his residence issues had cleared up again with a homestead exemption he had claimed in texas yeah i found out that he had not only you know rented this place out but it seems that there's you know something with his wife's company that's involved and a lot of questions about exactly his status as a georgia resident versus a texas resident and then there was some other news about an ex or an ex-girlfriend of walker's named cheryl parsa who says that she's kind of feared for her life a little bit or for her safety at any rate while dating him yeah i've been speaking with a number of women over the past several months who have had relationships with herschel walker and cheryl parsa is one of them cheryl came forward this morning as there's a cheryl came forward in a piece to give the first on the record allegation of domestic violence since herschel walker announced his campaign she said that he had taken a swing at her during a fight where she discovered him with another woman she also details her experience of five years struggling with herschel and his dissociative identity disorder how it was mismanaged and what she says manipulated by him and his doctor she details accounts of rampant cheating you know just lying in general instability and she is joined in this article by four other ex-girlfriends of herschel's who don't use their names but tell pretty stunning stories along those lines yeah it is really stunning and it's i mean it's chilling to read and just you know parsa herself talking about walker swinging his fists at her and her saying she thought he was gonna beat her it's just it's awful stuff and this is a guy who may be the next senator from georgia roger thank you so much for joining us i really appreciate it as always and hopefully we'll talk to you again soon i love you awesome thanks so much love doing the show andy leaving danielle moody so who are we saying fuck that guy too today the list is long yeah yeah as always it's a dishonor just to be nominated but my my winner for today is a florida sheriff named wayne ivy and he is from the brevard county and he has decided that he is going to impose what they are calling the most prolific school discipline policy that the district the brevard school district has ever had and among those things are going to be sounds like corporal punishment and uh in fact what the sheriff said was that the students are going to have quote the cheeks of their ass torn off for not doing right in class what the fuck again this is 2022 and i don't like to stereotype people but if you had to guess what wayne ivy looks like you would be correct you're somebody sam uh not far from that yeah kind of chunky white guy buzz cut just exactly what you'd expect from a florida sheriff who wants to tear the cheeks off of kids asses we need to put a stop on all sheriffs until we figure out what's going on i think there's a big problem with sheriffs in this country and i don't know you just don't see a lot of progressive sheriffs but this just sounds absolutely horrific and for some reason they always say this is going to make schools safer and prevent school shootings one of the things the sheriff did in his announcement was he blamed the shootings in parkland on the fact that students weren't punished hard enough i don't understand any of this again it's 1950s and and it's it's wrong and it's been proven wrong and and yet it appeals to people and i just can't take it anymore so fuck all these guys any particular fuck you sheriff uh ivy oh fuck that guy like all of them give somebody sam and the rest of them so danielle who's your fuck that guy my fuck that guy is actually a panel so it is the new orleans-based fifth u.s circuit court of appeals who has decided to reject the biden administration's request to pause the judge's order vacating the 400 billion dollars student debt relief program so joe biden comes out and says hey young people who are suffering and struggling under debt who are going to be less better off than your parents and their parents the first generation that is not going to be better off than the generation before them because they have six-figure debt just to try and get an education so that they can try and get a job that guess what they won't get paid enough for in order to pay off their fucking student loan debt joe biden says you know what young people here's what i'm going to offer to you i'm going to make good on a campaign promise which we know is really fucking hard for politicians to do and i'm going to say hey you're going to forgive up to ten thousand dollars for some folks and twenty thousand dollars for those who got money on pell grants and the u.s court of appeals is like yeah no we think that young people suffering working for 20 40 30 40 years and still not being able to pay off their student loan debt not being able to buy homes buy cars moving back in with their families is the future that we want for america i just i don't fucking get it and it's you know it's the idea that the people that are making these decisions these judges right these politicians these people went to school back when school cost a fucking dollar they have no idea what it is like to go in for a four year education and come out with six figures worth of debt when most of them either their school was free or it was so low in cost their families have the ability to pay for because that's the privilege that they had we know that that is not the case for more than 40 of the population so the idea that this court of appeals would object to relief then providing people with the opportunity to think about where they want to work how they want to live invest back into our economy because they're not living paycheck to paycheck is on some fucking bullshit so the whole u.s fifth circuit court of appeals fuck you all you amen to that and i think it's also we should point out or at least this is my theory i guess i can't say for sure that it's true but there's a lot of people on the right who talk shit about college and it just feels to me like this is part of that where they don't want people to go to college and they want to make it tougher people to go to college because guess what party the people who go to college tend to vote for not theirs maybe i'm making this up maybe i'm reading too much into it but you know there's been a lot of stuff in the last few years you see a lot on fox news and other places where people sort of trash in college and we see a lot now when they throw the word woke around and the whole critical race theory stuff and all the stuff they love to bring up they want to scare people away from going to college and this feels like part of that and harder they can make it financially for people to go to the better chance they have of people not going to college and maybe not voting against them but maybe i'm making all of that up i don't know but either way i agree with you fuck all those guys yeah hope you enjoyed checking out this episode of the new abnormal we're back every tuesday friday and sunday if you enjoyed it please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going this podcast is a daily beast production with production by jesse cannon and jamis calder want more great listens check out our comedy podcast the last laugh and our star-studded the daily beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcast if you enjoyed this episode consider becoming a daily subscriber subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline head to thedailybeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today