Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and welcome to the Daily Beast, the new abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor-at-large at the Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned upside down.
On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. Today's episode is short, but boy, is it packed with interesting stuff.
First, we're going to talk to Congressman Adam Schiff, who of course represents California's 26th District and sits on the January 6th Commission, and is of course the author of Midnight in Washington, how we almost lost our democracy and still could. Then we'll talk to NBC News Digital reporter John Allen, who also authored the book Lucky, How Joe Biden Nearly Lost the Presidency. John Allen! Molly John Fast, queen of the podcast.
Welcome back to the new abnormal. We are friends, so you will not be mad at me when I give you a very hard time. Is it about how I look on television when I have too much facial hair growth? No.
You'll always look gorgeous today. No, I want to talk to you about the media's coverage of Build Back Better and the American Rescue Plan. I have been watching television this morning, cable television while trying to figure out what's going on, and I think that the mainstream media is being kind of unfair, almost like a little bit hostile. The mainstream media, hostile, I don't think anyone would believe you.
I don't think anyone would agree. The Biden White House wouldn't agree with you, that the mainstream media is hostile. The Trump White House wouldn't agree with you. No, everybody would agree with you.
The mainstream media often sounds hostile. What I want to talk about is when we're recording this right now, Biden has given a speech where he has said we have the framework, numerous Democrats have come out and said we have the framework. I've watched a number of pretty tense interviews with members of the media, who have tried to get Democrats to say they're not going to vote for it until they see what's in it. It's not clear if Pelosi is going to do a vote today.
Where are we here? Let's start with the two senators, management and cinema. What they want right now, which is the same thing as what Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate and President Biden want, is for that infrastructure bill to become law. Biden has talked about it.
The White House has talked about it as Europe trip and having some of this stuff set for a Europe trip is a big deal. But the real political driver on this, because there's no actual debt on the real political driver, is the Virginia government tutorial rates next Tuesday. And there's a belief that it is helpful for moderates to have the infrastructure bill signed still delivered and specifically for Terry McAuliffe, who probably defines himself as president some days, but has generally thought it was a fairly moderate assumption. So there's that impetus, right?
And certainly for me, I shouldn't say what they want to get the infrastructure bill done whenever they can get it done. There's a lot of feeling in the pundit class that if this gets passed, it will help Terry McAuliffe in Virginia. Right, that's sort of the conventional wisdom. Is there anything tangible that people are going on or just?
No, it's just a field. Look, McCall has asked the White House to move on the infrastructure bill. Certainly his camp believes that it's helpful to him. I think they probably believe that it would be more helpful about the government is now, but you know, there's no empirical evidence about it.
It's simply what they think, you know, what the people around it think. Now, if you're mentioning cinema, you want to get this infrastructure bill done. And so when the framework when the White House comes out and says, Hey, there's a framework, you are going to say the most positive thing you possibly can about that framework. And so that's what we're saying, right?
So we're giving on some of the things that Congress looks forward to getting this done. But does not mean she has signed up on the Build Back Better bill, but the idea is to try to get progressives comfortable with the idea that they're not going to lose the Build Back Better bill if the infrastructure bill becomes law. Do you think that happened today? I don't think that they bought it.
That doesn't mean that they won't vote for the infrastructure bill. They should go to the floor. Right? That is to say, like, I don't think they're convinced that like, soon they'll do what progressives want on a reconciliation bill.
That's a different question than like, how do you vote the Republicans infrastructure bills on the floor? And will they really take it down? And if they do really take it down, you know, what is that due to the process, right? That the there's an argument between made that like some steam needs to come out of the room.
And maybe that, you know, maybe a defeated bill on the floor, even though it's supposed to do that for a legacy, you know, for a variety of other reasons. You see a world where Nancy Pelosi takes a bill up that doesn't pass? I don't. Can people say that she won't do that?
And there's all this like sort of, you know, sort of revisionist history that she's never brought a bill before that lost. That's just not true. I watched it from people's look for a news before. The biggest example is that the financial services bill that basically the bailout package in 2008, the candidate for it failed.
Now, she wasn't doing it two weeks. There wasn't like a deceptive vote going on there. It wasn't actually brought it with the intention of the system. And I don't think she would bring the infrastructure to build to the floor with the intention of losing, like I said, it may be difficult to get those two or anything votes.
And you say, like, the media is asking people, is this enough for you? One of the reasons is so many of them have gone out there on a limb on the rest of them is because I'm trying to limit that we're not going to vote for this unless we write legislative texts, right? They don't have legislative types of all these proposals. They are literally dropping tax with complicated tax policies into this framework at the last possible moment.
That happens. I mean, that's what happened with Obamacare. I mean, you know, that's how a lot of legislation gets passed is like, you know, are we going to crash the economy with the debt ceiling? Are we going to?
I mean, I feel like the hostility that the mainstream media has towards this. Like, I mean, isn't that how it often goes? Yes, the mainstream media's job is to point out the difference between what the politicians within the agenda are saying and what the truth is. So they will always sound less bullish about whatever than a politician who's trying to get the thing passed sounds.
Right. Like the journalists don't, if they're doing their job, like they don't have a rooting address, except to try to show that the difference between what's being said about the reality is. Right. But I do think you can see how Biden, he knows how to do legislation.
He was in the Senate for a million years. Like, and part of it is kind of bullying people to go along with things. Yes, but right now he needs to be bullying the progressives. And that's basically what he's doing.
Like, this is the moment at which the White House decided to roll, try to roll the progressives. And the question is, does it work? Right. And, you know, we live in an era in which, you know, like, still here 40 years ago, a president could legitimately say, no, no, no, Congress, if you don't go along, you will not have my support in your next election.
You will not have the support of the party in the next election. Nobody cares about that. Right? Like, or at least it's a much smaller factor in their thinking.
So like the tools that the White House has to lobby and bully and cajole and whatever, like they have disappeared, your marks are gone. I mean, all of these tools that they used to have are gone. And so it's you really have to really either has to be that somebody agrees with you on the policy or that your personal relationship with them is strong enough that they're willing to take some hits for you. But if you're one of the progressive leaders right now and you agree to go forward on this infrastructure bill and some of your other progressive leaders don't, they will then be able to point at you and be like, that person's the traitor.
Right? Like, there's this whole incentive structure that is to be the most extreme, the most strident, whatever. I think the vast majority of the Democrats in both the House and the Senate would vote for pretty much anything that falls between 1.5 trillion and 3.5 trillion dollars and has some of the policies that have been discussed. Right?
Like, they just want to get these things done. And it is mentioned in the Senate, some extent party senators in the Senate, and the House progressives and an actual House moderate to the House that are frustrating the desires of the White House and also the vast majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill and the vast majority of Democrats in the country. So what do you think happens now? We'll have to see, you know, because we're talking about this before the infrastructure bill comes to the House for what to see.
But one of the things that's very instructive about the scramble to get this framework done this week is how far away they are from actually mailing down the details that can get both modern and conservatives on board for the reconciliation bill. And there's going to be an effort to re-litigate it, right? Like, no matter what happens to the infrastructure, there are going to be people who say, look, there needs to be a paid family and medical leave in this bill, and it's going to drop on the wayside. Or, you know, it's amazing that, you know, vision and dental under Medicare will drop from this, right?
The thing that Bernie Sanders cares about. So I think there's a real distance between a framework and legislative language that the bill wrote for. And so no matter what happens to the infrastructure bill, they still have a lot of work to do under the reconciliation bill. Right.
I know this is partisan, but I'm partisan. I'm on the opinion side. So it's so summy, but don't actually summy. I listened to the Biden speech and like, it is amazing to me that Republicans are going to vote against all of these things that are seemingly very good for their constituents.
Welcome to America in the 21st century. Right. I mean, like high-speed trains, climate stuff. I mean, who doesn't want that?
Well, some of them are likely to vote for the infrastructure bill, but if it was the reason for the floor and it's a post vote, you can see that handful of Republicans hold back their votes until Democrats get 200, 15 on their own. But as far as the reconciliation bill goes, all the Republicans are against it. They're against the tax increases. They can justify it through that.
They're against the overall size of the spending. They're going to be like, they can justify it through that. So, you know, they feel comfortable politically that they can say, look, I'd love to expand the child tax credit, but I'm not going to do it at a cost of 1.75 trillion over 10 years, or I'm not going to do it with increased taxes and they're going to make businesses less competitive. Yeah.
Interesting. Thank you so much. This was great. Thanks, John Allen.
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How many almost lost our democracy? It still could. Welcome to the new abnormal Adam Schiff. Great to see you.
I have a lot of questions for you. The first is Jesse and I have become increasingly concerned about democracy. And I mean, we were always concerned about democracy, but I don't know if you know this, but last night... Now, it's like a teenager who seems like they're going to crash the car and has a bottle of their head at all types.
Right. And last night, Tucker Carlson started, he's doing a movie about January 6th called The Patriot Perch, which is painting the entire insurrection as in fact, like a way of punishing Trump supporters for supporting Trump rather than an insurrection. What do we do? You know, I saw the preview for that.
It was chilling. It's not only revisionist history, but it's also filled with these violent images that seem to be encouraging arm rebellion against the government. It is just so breathtakingly irresponsible of them conducive to violence, you know, in terms of what can be done about it. You know, we're at a very tenuous point in the history of our democracy, where in addition to, you know, these singularly destructive voices like Tucker Carlson, who are holding up the victor or bond in Hungary, they want to be dictators, the model we should follow.
You have people running around the country still pushing the big lie to strip independent elections officials at the duties and give them over to Trump-acculance who will overturn the next election if they lose it. It's a pretty frightening moment right now. And you're right about this in your book. I do.
I really, the book made I didn't watch, it's designed to sound the alarm about the fact that our democracy is not self-effectuating. It's a great risk right now. And I wanted to tell the story of how that happened. There's been a lot written about what happened in the Trump White House, but not much written about what happened in Congress and without all the enablers in the US Congress, Trump would not have been able to tear down any of these Democratic guardrails.
How's that happened? The good people that I work with come to surrender everything they believed in, their ideology, their morality in the service of this law, man. This is a question I often have, like that I ask myself that's sort of philosophical. Are they pretending to be crazy in order to like fend off a primary challenge?
Like what's happening with Governor Abbott? Or are they genuinely crazy like MTG? No, they're not. I think the MTGs are legitimately nuts.
But most of the Republican confidence that's pushing the big line understands it's a big lie. They're not stupid. They know exactly what they're doing. And it is just a craving for speculation to Donald Trump because they fear a primary, because they want to advance within the party.
You know, you have figures of courage like this Cheney say, I'm not going to do that. That's destructive hard democracy. But for everyone of this Cheney, there are five, like at least a five willing to say, well, if you're not willing to push the big lie, I volunteer. Nothing's more important to me than my ambition.
And if it means it's tearing down one of the pillars of our democracy, the pillar that says that we allow elections to determine who should govern, then sign me up. Sadly, that's where most of the Republicans are right now. And it's astonishing how quickly Donald Trump was able to remake one of America's great two parties in this case, a two in autocratic cult of his personality. So one of the things that Mashigatson told me, which has really stuck with me and obviously Russia is a good example, though, and we've had people on here who've said that Russia was never a democracy, but still Russia is in a place where we would like America to never get.
They said that narrative is the only way to fight fascism. You have an opportunity with January 6 to have hearings and narrative. Where are you with that? Well, I think that's exactly right.
I mean, the antidote to this effort to rewrite history and to push out lies under my democracy is the relentless pursuit of the truth. And I think we're making great progress. We are interviewing and exposing people almost every day. People are cooperating.
We're getting documents from different agencies. Not everyone is operating certainly and those that are fighting us are very public and we're holding them in from a consent like Steve Bannon. But we're proceeding with great speed and diligence and with a uniform of a purpose. We want to get out the truth.
We're going to have more public hearings and we inter-identify the defendant report about this dark chapter of our history. Just from a personal standpoint, I think public hearings are going to be more effective. I don't think those reports, I mean, I wrote something on one of the Senate reports and it is really, they just come and go. So, you know, people don't.
It's like the culture just is not. It's no longer book based. Yeah, well, I hear you and I think the public hearings are going to be extraordinarily important. But we've done in many investigations like we did in Ukraine investigation, which we began with private depositions and interviews and then we both public hearings.
And I think that's what we're doing here. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you about what Steve Bannon is. So we talked about that the last time someone was held in contempt of Congress was like in, you know, was a guy who fought with the postmaster general and, you know, when he was held in the Willard Hotel. I mean, Congress really has the power to hold Steve Bannon in contempt.
Can you talk about that? Yes. I mean, there are some of the words we could take. I think the most powerful is the one we have pursued first, which is holding him in criminal contempt.
And so, when he failed to appear without good cause, so we voted the report on a committee called in the criminal contempt. We passed it on the House floor, the speaker sent it over to the Justice Department to be prosecuted and the statute says they have a duty to present it to the grand jury. Now, as you say, they don't always follow that duty. But here I think there's a reason to believe they will.
The Justice Department has made available to committees on Congress, top ranking, former Justice Department officials without any assertion of privilege. They're not asserting privileges with respect to thousands of documents we're seeking that were created to put on the Joint of Administration. And I think that Merck-Arland understands the need to reinstate the rule of law that no one gets special treatment that no one's above the law. There are other alternatives.
And I think what you're maybe referring to is the process of inherent contempt. We don't even need to refer to something with Justice Department. But that's not a perfect remedy either because for one thing we don't have a jail anymore to pay someone. And if we did, they would file a previous court petition and we would have to be litigating the court anyway.
But I think the fact that we're seeking prosecution of that has already had a salutary impact on other witnesses and their attention to making sure they understand there were consequences of the abuse. And I mean, Steve Bannon has been to jail before. He does know what to pack. I have to make that joke one more time.
I have to make that joke one more time. Yeah, I have to add to that point on something that to me just sums up how this today's GOP has become a quote, a man runs for president on a platform, a building wall that he says Mexico is going to pay for. It's absurd I need to begin with. He becomes president.
Of course, he doesn't build a wall because Mexico is not going to pay for him. And then his buddies, including Mr. Bannon, raise money from his own supporters to properly build a wall, steal it, and then he pardons them for stealing from his own people. It's the most testament den of themes and thrifters imaginable.
That is a really good focus narrative. So let's talk this morning. Morning Joe had a big break that Biden has negotiated a deal. It's coming.
This is all done. We're going to have Bill Beck better. Then about a minute later, Jake Sherman, who does punchball, retweets Brendan Buck, who used to work for Paul Ryan. It's not even believable, Spinn.
You'd have to not be following Congress to believe that there's really a deal. What's going on? Well, the truth is, I don't know whether we have a deal yet. I think we've been narrowing in on an agreement whether we've got there yet or not.
I really don't know. The presence is going to be meeting with us. I think we're getting good since then. But I do have confidence that at the end of the day, I don't know if it's today, but at the end of the day, we're going to get this done.
And a combination of the human infrastructure to go back better, build the physical infrastructure bill and the rest of the plan are going to be combined. The biggest investment we've made in the American people, at least since the Great Society of Nonsense and a deal. No, I agree. But it is interesting to watch this sort of, I mean, there's a lot of machinations going on and it's clear that it's not, but there is a certain amount of like, it strikes me that there's a certain amount of pundit hostility towards the deal.
Yes. Well, I've been astonished to actually listen to the coverage of it, which has been so focused on what's the number that they assigned to it. But I'm really talking about what's in it and the impact they'll have on the country. I think the country is much more interested in sort of inside the belt way fighting than they are.
And what's the change in the country? Yeah, I think that's right. Again, I feel like we're up against this democratic messaging problem. Like Democrats are doing good things now.
They need to be sure that Republicans don't take credit for it. Well, I think you're right. I mean, we set expectations so high that even when we get this massive investment done, we were disappointed people that there's not even more. You know, one of my colleagues said, send it up so well, when we asked me the other day, you know, what if I told you at the beginning of the year that we were going to pass a wrestling plan that would lift half the kids in the country out of poverty and we're going to pass a huge infrastructure bill, we're like, well, I'm going to do investments in infrastructure, that we're going to pass a bill, I'm going to do all these things.
What if I told you we're going to get that all done in the first year, what would you say? I said, I would think that would be incredible. I've been an amazing record of achievement. And we're going to do all that.
But I think we're very sexification so high that for some that may not be enough. I also think there's fundamental democratic messaging, you know, that demi- I mean, Republicans are so committed to messaging. That's all they do. Yes.
And, you know, of course, they've got Fox and Newsmax and O-Ann, which are essentially state-run TV for the Republican Party. And it's easy to harm measure message when you get this huge megaphone that there's nothing but try to allow the farmers to live in an alternate world. So let's talk about a non-alternate world, which is California. Let's not get carried away with that, Molly.
Listen, most of my family lives in California now. You fit largest economy practically in its own country. And you guys are feeling the brunt of climate change before the rest of us in certain ways. What is going on in California?
Well, I mean, that's right. We've had the hottest summer, I think, ever. The driest temperatures in 100 years are, the water supply is literally drying up. Our state is off and on fire.
And we are really feeling the effects of climate change. Now, we're trying to move aggressively as a state to dealing with this. But, you know, we can't wall ourselves off from the climate impacts of other states and other countries. And so, it's a really room-stirous situation in California.
Really, we're on the bill. I'm hopeful that we're going to have a major and, I think, unprecedented investment in the bill-back better bill and attacking the problem of climate. And in my little lane and intelligence committee, we put priority on making sure the intelligence community is where the national security impacts the climate change. And we may have seen recent community put out, I think, a path-breaking report of the national security dimensions of this problem.
We're trying to create an infrastructure within the intelligence community. So that work continues. But of course, that's just one little piece. The biggest piece is we need to invest in ultimate technologies, alternate energy sources, and we in the nation, are for fossil fuels.
So it's fire season in California, which is the new thing. Talk to me about the fire guard. Fire guard is a program also that has its origins in the intelligence community and defense community. But we have these satellite capabilities of identifying when an incipient blaze begins, so that we can tip and queue and alert firefighters to the presence of a new fire in a very specific location.
And they can open it out before it spreads. Now, this technology wasn't developed for the purpose of firefighting, but it's extremely useful and powerful. And it has to start to have to say to continue to get the defense department to do this, because they don't be with this part of their job description. But I think we need to take a broader view of national security.
People are dying from wildfires, then this is a security imperative. So we have been continuing this program for one year at a time, and I'm looking to give it long-term stability. Yeah, I mean, this is like national services, my raison d'etre, not to be too pretentious. But like, I'm sort of obsessed with the idea of American teenagers being able to do a year of national service.
And this idea of a climate corp, I don't know if it's in the final bill or not, but what is very cool, do you see a world where that's an option for teenagers? I think it's a great idea. I love the idea. And I love the idea of the idea of the service.
I think Teach for America has been brilliant. And at climate core, I think it would simply be a wonderful thing that young people would be excited about participating in. You want to hear it? Is that's not part of the Build Back Better Bill?
I wish it were. But that's the kind of thing that I think it passes a standalone measure. And it would just have so much benefit to the planet and to the young people. Yeah, no, I think that's right.
Thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back. I would love to come back. Great to talk with you.
I love that cameo by your dog in the back. What's crazier than QAnon? More outlandish than Pizza Gate and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next.
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Movie franchise's name in the history of movies, The Purge. Yeah, that's clearly the biggest problem there. You've really nailed it. Thank you.
Listen, I my priorities straight. Don't disparage the purge. Democracy. That's kind of that kind of sucks too.
We're all gonna die. Don't you find it really insane that Fox News mega Leviathan is going along with this? I don't because I think they'll just go along with anything that I mean, Tucker Carlson basically runs the network now. Right.
I mean, he's the boss. He's Lachlan Murdoch's boss and Lachlan Murdoch doesn't care and Rupert is 900 years old. And so together Tucker Carlson just undermines democracy and maybe he's psyched. Maybe he owns some company that's going to do very well in an American Civil War.
But for those of us who are normal and saying this whole thing is just a complete disaster. Are you saying he's gambling on the world? Can he frozen fish sticks in? That's right.
He's obviously doing this for the fish sticks. I mean, that's the only thing that makes sense. No, I mean, the whole thing is a complete and utter total nightmare. I mean, I don't know if you saw this polling yesterday, but a large percentage of the American people believe that I mean, it's not a large percent.
It's about a third. A third of the American people don't really want democracy anymore. And that doesn't end well. That ends with bad stuff.
And as you and I talk about all the time, it's very scary and it's being made every day worse by one Tucker Carlson. Agreed. Jesse, who is your fuck that guy? Well, I'm going to pick up where I left off on the last episode and go in on one alien looking weirdo Mark Zuckerberg.
On the last episode we were talking about that so much of the analysis was no no Facebook is filled with good people. They're trying their hardest. Yeah, no one liked that. Yeah.
Well, anybody with a half a brain could see that that was what was going on. But for some reason, people love carrying water for them. But now what we see is there's this new account of a policy that they were going to implement at Facebook where they were going to do more Spanish voter outreach. And Mark Zuckerberg decided that now they shouldn't do that.
That might be partisan. So that would mean debated. Are they just stupid? Are they just doing it for growth?
We have to say they're more concerned with growth in the country and they are absolute fucking idiots. This shows that they're not up for the job that they have and that they really, really, really need regulation and they really, really, really need to be less powerful. Oh, yeah. The good news is they need to be they're expanding into the metaverse too.
Oh, yeah. So they can ruin the real world and the fake world. Oh, can't wait. So even better than space force.
Yeah. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media.
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