The Daily Beast

An initial draft majority opinion obtained by Politico shows that the conservative majority of the Supreme Court voted after oral arguments to strike down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that created a right to privacy including abortion. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel Alito writes in the 98-page draft labeled “Opinion of the Court.” “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” and that “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” This is a breaking news story, and will be updated. Source link

LUDOVIC MARIN French President Emmanuel Macron is going head-to-head with far-right challenger Marine Le Pen in the decisive second round of the presidential election. You can watch live coverage broadcast in English from France 24 here. Read more at The Daily Beast. Source link

“I asked, you know, ‘Does it give you pause, or does it inspire any self-reflection, that someone like Nick Fuentes would want you at their conference?” That’s the question Christopher Mathias, HuffPost’s senior reporter who specializes in covering right-wing extremism in America, had for Thomas Homan, who was a director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) back when Donald Trump was president. Late last month, the HuffPost reporter had learned that the former senior Trump official was scheduled to speak at the Fuentes-hosted and hyper-racist America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC, or simply the “Nazi conference,” as it’s called by detractors) […]

In a book set to drop in the thick of Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine, William Barr writes that “demonizing [Vladimir] Putin is not a foreign policy,” nor “the way grown-ups should think.” In a copy of the forthcoming book by Trump’s ex-attorney general, One Damn Thing After Another, viewed by The Daily Beast, the hatchet man writes that an imminent conflict with China means America should try to find “a more constructive relationship” with Russia. But: “Unfortunately, with the media ready to pounce on President Trump as a Russian stooge—if not a Manchurian candidate—at the slightest sign of détente, the […]

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is no stranger to weird claims. The cushion kingpin is one of the country’s loudest election denialists. But Lindell (apparently joking) added a new conspiracy theory to his stump speech this weekend, falsely accusing Fever Dreams host Asawin Suebsaeng of forcing the voting machine company Dominion to sue Lindell. “I don’t think I have that clout with anybody in my family or anybody I work with,” Suebsaeng says of Lindell’s comments. Election fraud fantasies aren’t the only wild claims we visit on this week’s Fever Dreams. Guest co-host Kelly Weill reads an excerpt from her just-released book […]

Could modern social movements exist without the internet? Gal Beckerman, editor at The Atlantic, thinks so. When writing his book, The Quiet Before, he noticed that spaces with old-fashioned human-to-human connection can be just as effective, if not more, than spaces like Twitter. Beckerman tells Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus episode of The New Abnormal how the Black Lives Matter movement is a prime example. In 2016, activists leading the “Abolish the Police” drive decided to take their organizing efforts off the internet altogether for a period of time in what became known as a “blackout.” In the process, they discovered […]

The first thing Donald Trump noticed about Sarah Palin was her looks. “He saw her on television and he thought she was hot… although I won’t use the exact words Trump apparently used to describe her appearance,” New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters, the author of Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted, tells New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast. That’s not all that caught his attention. Source link

When writer and filmmaker Rupert Russell sat down to write his book Price Wars, which covers how price volatility is the root of global chaos, he didn’t expect Alan Greenspan, the longtime former Federal Reserve chairman, to be a “villain” in the story. But in this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Russell explains how a move by Greenspan to deregulate the commodity markets in 1998 has caused decades of market trouble and sparked a “butterfly effect” of problems around the world. This leaves Molly with a burning question: Why did Greenspan do what he did? Source link

When writer and filmmaker Rupert Russell sat down to write his book PRICE WARS, which covers how price volatility is the root of global chaos, he didn’t expect Alan Greenspan, the longtime former Federal Reserve chairman, to be a “villain” in the story. But in this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Russell explains how a move by Greenspan to deregulate the commodity markets in 1998 has caused decades of market trouble and sparked a “butterfly effect” of problems around the world. This leaves Molly with a burning question: Why did Greenspan do what he did? Source link

It’s no secret what keeps Russian President Vladimir Putin in power. As Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov puts it, “he controls directly, indirectly more money than any other individual in human history.” Kasparov is one of the great strategists and a longtime critic of Putin, so naturally, we asked him how he thinks the current crisis in Ukraine and Vlad’s stronghold on Russia will end. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, he shares the “moves” he thinks are needed to checkmate Putin once and for all—and how Biden’s presidency is part of the endgame. Source link

One America News Network, also known as OAN, is dangerously close to extinction—and not for a lack of American interest in right-wing extremism and conspiracy theories. OAN essentially shot to media fame during the 2020 election, pushing Fox News even further to the right. It’s also where America’s MAGA sweetheart, Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, got her cable start. So, how is it facing its demise already, and why? According to this bonus episode’s New Abnormal guest, Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, the answer has nothing to do with advertisers or viewership. It stems back to recent […]

The Daily Beast has scooped 18 nominations at the Los Angeles Press Club’s 14th National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. Senior Editor Tim Teeman scored 12 nominations, including for Online Journalist of the Year, an award he has won twice before. Teeman was also nominated in the TV Critic and Theater/Performing Arts Critic categories, in the Business: Music/Theater/Performing Arts category for “Broadway May Make Vaccinations Mandatory. That’s Only One Reopening Challenge”; in the Soft News: TV/Streaming category for “The Queen Banned the BBC From Showing ‘Royal Family.’ Now We See Why”; in the Celebrity News category for “The Famous Love Keith […]

Sir Isaac Newton coined the phrase that became his third law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But this isn’t just true for science—it’s painfully true for politics, too. Canadian author Stephen Marche, whose new book The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future chronicles what he saw while reporting on the far right in Ohio aka Oathkeepers’ Country, came on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to talk with host Molly Jong-Fast. “Things feed into each other,” he explains. “Inequality feeds into bad electoral decisions, which leads to bad policies, which leads to…” Well, not great […]

The pause on federal student loans, which the White House says “has saved 41 million borrowers tens of billions of dollars” so far, is set to lift on May 1 (after another extension) as The Daily Beast previously reported advocates had made last-ditch efforts to extend it from the Jan. 31 deadline. But they don’t want to stop there, they want President Joe Biden to cancel them entirely. It doesn’t look like Biden is budging even though—as Melissa Byrne, founder of Project Springboard and former Bernie Sanders campaign staffer, tells Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal—it would […]

Every cocktail fan has a favorite holiday drink—and bartenders are certainly no exception. To help inspire your mixological creativity we asked five top bartenders from across the country for their favorite seasonal recipes. From a rich Ardbeg Scotch and apple cider concoction to a delicious Belvedere Vodka and cranberry spin on a classic Moscow Mule, you’ll hopefully find something that you’ll love and add to your recipe repertoire. Happy Holidays! “I love serving this drink during the holidays because the tequila gives me a tropical vacation feel,” says top bartender Karl Franz Williams. And “the menthe and the rosemary bring me […]

It’s a palace with one of the greatest tales in French history—a minister overshadowing his king only to be pulled down to nothing. That’s the long and short of Nicolas Fouqet, King Louis XIV, and the fabulous Vaux-le-Vicomte, a chateau south of Paris that is the subject of a delightful new coffee table book from Flammarion, Vaux le Vicomte: A Private Invitation. The book is the latest selection for our series on gorgeous new travel related coffee table books, Just Booked. Despite its thrilling backstory and its central role in the development of French style—the architect (Le Vau), decorator (Le Brun), […]

Balls & Strikes Editor-in-Chief Jay Willis is a white man and even he admits there’s enough of them talking abortion rights. However, he is also an expert in topics related to the Supreme Court, and host Molly Jong-Fast has him on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to parse them out, namely the future of Roe v. Wade and the truth about the conservative justices on the bench. With abortion back in the news cycle again as SCOTUS heard arguments this week about certain abortion rights cases, most recently the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization out of Mississippi, there’s […]

In a new account of his time as Donald Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff, former Freedom Caucus Rep. Mark Meadows writes that the 74-year-old commander in chief would have beaten up protesters himself if Secret Service agents hadn’t made him hide in a bunker beneath the White House that the then-president later insisted he’d only been “inspecting.” “A few hours later, the White House entered Code Red. Protestors had jumped the fence on the Treasury side of the compound, and they were running toward the Oval Office. I’m sure that if President Trump had the choice, he would have […]

To say that contemporary Japanese architecture is cool would be an understatement—it might just be the world’s coolest. The face of the country’s building designs is Tadao Ando, one of the world’s most sought after starchitects. A total of seven of its architects have won the Pritzker and its architects’ designs, both at home and abroad, remain some of the most cutting edge, creative, and beautiful globally. It’s no surprise, then, that Taschen’s sleek new survey, Contemporary Japanese Architecture, is our latest selection for Just Booked, our series on exciting new travel-related coffee table books. Edited by Philip Jodidio, the extra […]

Can you name five missing Black women? Filmmaker and Emmy Award-winning director Geeta Gambhir’s latest documentary, HBO’s Black and Missing, tackles this question, and is unfortunately very timely, in large part because of the Gabby Petito case. And Gambhir came on The New Abnormal to break down why. Everyone followed the murder case of Petito, and her missing/suspect fiancé, in real-time. As enthralling, eye-opening, and devastating as the case was, it was a classic instance of Missing White Woman Syndrome, which also extends to missing white girls and teens. Who it does not extend to are missing people and children of […]

One-man YouTube brand and far-right darling Tim Pool came down with a nasty case of COVID-19, along with many members of his staff, after hosting a maskless comedy night with far-right performers. This, however, did not make him a vaccine convert. Instead, with the help of podcaster Joe Rogan, Pool—who started as an Occupy Wall Street livestreamer and built a video empire out of white nationalist talking points—has become the latest poster boy for the dubious treatment of the virus with ivermectin. On the latest episode of Fever Dreams, journalist Robert Silverman talks about how Pool’s team handled their COVID outbreak […]

Linda Hirschman is a veteran lawyer, and she’s confident that the Texas anti-abortion law, SB8, directly challenged the power of the federal court system—and that may be pro-choice activists’ saving grace. The law says that the onus is on the public to report people in violation of the law, aka women and abortion providers, instead of the court. After hearing arguments this past Monday, it’s highly likely, Hirschman conjectures to The New Abnormal host Molly Jong-Fast, that the Supreme Court will take offense to that system, and won’t stay it. But not because they truly care. Source link

Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz had no idea that one of his sources at Facebook would open a vault that would expose so much fuckery within the company—how it drags its feet about human trafficking cases on the platform, how an “elite” group of people who abuse the system are exempt from the rules, and how Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls and doesn’t seem to care. But that’s exactly what happened. Horwitz tells Molly Jong-Fast in this episode of The New Abnormal that he reached out to employee Frances Haugen and with her help, the story just […]

So much of our travel, from museums to historic neighborhoods to reenactments, are an attempt to travel back into the past. The same goes for coffee table books, whether they be photos of Paris by Marville or the Golden Age of Hollywood. That’s why our latest selection for Just Booked, our series on gorgeous travel related coffee table books, is the latest in Taschen’s series on various destinations at the turn of the century—Japan 1900. The extra large book is filled with more than 700 photos from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th and have been […]

Joseph Weisberg’s book Russia Upside Down started with a lecture he never gave. The Americans showrunner worked briefly in the CIA, where his fascination with, and research about, Russia began. However, the lecture would be on counterintelligence, which wasn’t his field of expertise. Instead of throwing away his Russia notes for the canceled class, he decided to write a book about it. And his stance is clear: Russia is not as bad as we think it is. “I read this book by a guy who had been a KGB officer and his book was about him and his friends [in the] […]

This week on The New Abnormal, our bonus episode takes you inside the fight against two men producer Jesse Cannon calls “the GOP’s worst congressmen.” Cannon and host Molly Jong-Fast interview Charles Graham, who is running as a Democratic challenger in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District against Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), and Matthew Diemer, who is running against Max Miller in Ohio’s 16th District. Did you know you can listen to The New Abnormal bonus episodes in your member dashboard or a podcast app? Click here to get set up and sign up for new episode email alerts here. Source link

Former President Donald Trump tried so hard to emulate Russian President Vladimir Putin while in office. “He saw Putin as the kind of epitome of the badass populist, frankly, you know, the kind of person that he wanted to be: super-rich, super powerful, no checks and balances, and essentially being able to stay in power forever,” Fiona Hill tells Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. But according to the former U.S. national security council official specializing in Russian and U.S. relations, the relationship was and is one-sided. Source link

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty “I think it’s clear that people have become obsessed with fighting against things that seemed basic and acceptable just a few years ago,” Keith Boykin, author of Race Against Time: The Politics of a Darkening America, tells Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. The people who he is referring to are white people. In fact, his whole book is about the idea that all of this divisiveness in our country and the rise of white supremacy movements happening in and out of politics all comes down to one thing: race. The […]

Phoebe Robinson, comedian and author of Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes, knows it’s not easy to make serious topics funny, but she does it anyway. The actress, known for her roles on 2 Dope Queens and Broad City, also has an HBO Max standup special coming out in October called Sorry, Harriet Tubman because “Harriet Tubman, you worked so hard, and here I am making jokes about my boyfriend’s penis. All the apologies. I’m so sorry Harriet,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. But Robinson knows when it’s time to […]

Single malt Irish whiskey is in distiller Darryl McNally’s blood. His ancestors made the historic spirit for centuries in Ireland. Now he’s trying to rebuild his family’s Limavady distillery at the northern tip of the island. On this episode of the award-winning podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum are joined by McNally to talk about his project and his new sherry cask–finished single malt Irish whiskey that just launched in the United States. The trio also chats about the McNally family’s long and spirited history, the state of Irish single malt and his plans for the Limavady […]

It’s not just people who can get pregnant in Texas who are afraid and upset about the state’s draconian new abortion law. Men are, too. Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah came on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to fill in Molly Jong-Fast on what’s going on in her home state. And it’s not good, for either gender. “This is not just a political issue, but what they’re creating is a culture of fear,” she says. “Ultimately, what this law is about is the intimidation [of] people and abortion providers. Not only the people who want to get abortions, the […]

PBS documentarian Ken Burns, known for his films The Civil War and Country Music, didn’t start working on a new Muhammad Ali documentary eight years ago thinking that the boxer’s story would be just as relevant today as it was during Ali’s prime, but that’s proven to be exactly the case. “When you make a decision in 2013 to do something on Muhammad Ali, you don’t think, ‘Oh, we’re going to be arriving in a post-Trumpian, COVID world that has Black Lives Matter,’” he tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest bonus episode of The New Abnormal. The film covers all aspects […]

Fancy hotels come and go all the time in New York City. There are a handful, however, that not only stick around but come to represent something—an era, an ethos, a vibe. Few are as storied as Madison Avenue’s The Carlyle—the Art Deco tower that rose to fame in the period after World War II and became a center of glamour in the Kennedy years—a position it has never relinquished. Thus our latest selection for Just Booked (our series on gorgeous travel-related coffee table books) is Assouline’s new tome, The Carlyle. The book beautifully encapsulates the hotel’s history. There are original […]

From bartenders to craft spirits brands to liquor behemoths, everyone seems to be launching a new canned cocktail these days. On this episode of the award-winning podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum are joined by acclaimed Half Full columnist Wayne Curtis to discuss the historic roots of these pre-mixed beverages. (Spoiler alert: They’ve been around in some form for about 150 years.) The trio also talks about some of their favorite canned cocktails, the ground rules for picking new ones to try, and how these drinks will transform the bar world. So pop open a canned cocktail […]

“The fact that everything collapsed so quickly to me vindicates Biden’s decision,” Jeet Heer says on this week’s second episode of The New Abnormal. “If you read the Afghanistan Papers, none of what’s happening is shocking. One of the big things that comes out of [the story] is the weakness of the Afghan government, which is really a pumpkin government,” he tells Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon. “Like it’s like a bunch of guys with a phony baloney jobs and offices and big sacks of money.” Heer, a columnist for The Nation and writer of the newsletter The Time of Monsters, […]

We’re enduring our current crush of COVID-19 cases in large part thanks to Republican governors like Texas’ Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who has instituted statewide bans on vaccine and mask mandates as the state’s health-care system is being crushed under a new surge of cases, according to Andy Slavitt, the former head of coronavirus response in Joe Biden’s White House. Slavitt said of DeSantis, “He’s saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to throw you in the water. I’m going to tell you, Hey, feel free to swim. You have the freedom to swim, but I’m going to bind your hands or […]

If there were an award for worst attorney general of the Trump administration, Bill Barr would win it. Even with Jeff Sessions in the running. That’s Molly Jong-Fast’s take, anyway, and Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst and author of the new book about Barr called Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor’s Code and Corrupted the Justice Department, agrees. “Jeff Sessions has, I hate to say it, an advantage over Bill Barr, because at least Jeff Sessions did the right thing. He recused himself. He pulled himself off the Mueller investigation. Bill Barr’s conflict of interest, by the way, was […]

Jeffrey Epstein and his enablers—and there are allegedly many—are evil and his victims deserve justice. That is not debatable. What is debatable is whether the convicted pedophile killed himself in jail as authorities said he did, or, if something a little more complicated occurred. Julie K. Brown, the reporter who pursued the Epstein story at the Miami Herald and author of a new book on the case, Perversion of Justice, came on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to share her take on the whole thing. And while she does not have proof, she is confident that Epstein did not […]

Did you know that there was a female version of the Tiger King in New Jersey? Most people wouldn’t, but stories like these are the kind that Orchid Thief author Susan Orlean loves. Happenings and creatures that are just in the margins or that are, for lack of a more eloquent term, weird. It makes sense, given that Orlean’s book is about a man who stole orchids. But she has an affinity for animals, too. “I wrote this piece about a woman in New Jersey who had 27 pet tigers,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New […]

Critical race theory is the right’s latest scare tactic and Fox News is eating it up and spitting back out its scariest takes on it to their audience. Where did this theory come from, what is it and why the hell are conservatives talking about it right now? Historian Kevin Kruse has answers for all of the above, but first, he says, let’s get one thing straight. “If it’s being taught to your kids, your kids are in law school,” he tells Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. Source link

You know those lawn signs that say things like “Hate has no home here” or “Water is life?” Well, Thomas Frank, author of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism and the guest on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, cannot stand those signs. They’re well-intentioned, but he claims they’re missing a huge part of what it means to be a liberal, like supporting labor. “It’s not a badge that you wear. It’s about reform. We’ve got to achieve those reforms,” he tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast. “There was always something about those signs that rubbed me the wrong way. […]

Republicans all over the country are pushing hard and pushing fast to make sure as few people vote as possible. In 11 states, they’ve already passed laws restricting voting rights, and more laws are coming. It’s not just a response to the Trumpist lie that the 2020 election was rigged. It’s basically an extension of the Capitol riots, argues Mother Jones’ Ari Berman—a way to “accomplish the aims of the insurrection through ‘legal, legislative’ means.” And so far, the Democrats’ response has been the rough equivalent of hitting the collective snooze button. “A lot of people, they just checked out after […]

Those Trump supporters inside the Capitol on Jan. 6? The guy who made off with the lectern, the woman who stole Nancy Pelosi’s laptop? They weren’t actually rioting. No, they were just tourists, seeing the sights in our nation’s capital. At least, that’s what some Republicans would like us to think—and co-host Molly Jong-Fast can’t get enough of this new line of defense on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “They’re just tourists going to the Capitol insurrection because as you know, tourists love to build gallows and chant ‘Hang Mike Pence!’” she says. “Look, I am not here to […]

Imagine traveling Europe solely based off citrus trees. It’s a novel approach (and certainly an aromatic one!), and while we’re not sure the path that would lead you on today, 300 years ago it would have taken you into some of the most spectacular gardens and homes on the continent. That’s why the latest selection for Just Booked, our series on gorgeous travel-related coffee table books, is Taschen’s J. C. Volkamer. The Book of Citrus Fruits. The European fascination with citrus trees originating in Asia dates back at least to Roman times, but it accelerated in the Baroque era. The Medici […]

From important still designs to the real reason why distillers began charring barrels, many important details of bourbon history are often missing from modern accounts of the spirit. On this episode of the award-winning podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum talk about some of the most interesting American whiskey discoveries they have made over the years—including six varieties of so-called “Kentucky whiskey” made back in 1870 that are no longer available today—and how those findings have changed their view of spirits history. So pour yourself a glass of bourbon and listen to this episode of Life Behind […]

To say we’re nostalgic for Paris at this point would be a gross understatement—we’re positively aching for it! Luckily, our latest selection for Just Booked (our series on gorgeous new travel coffee table books) is the fascinating Paris: From the Air by photographer Jeffrey Milstein and published by Rizzoli. There is something utterly captivating about seeing central Paris’ geometric grid from above—the triangles, trapezoids, and parallelograms of city blocks. But the book also takes us from the ornate dome of Invalides (which we’d never seen up close) to the public parks and gardens that even though they were laid out centuries […]

Rudy Giuliani insists the FBI raid on his apartment was a total miscarriage of justice. His Trumpy allies swear the feds had no reason at all to execute a search warrant on his home. George Conway, a former top Republican lawyer, has a slightly different take. “I think he’s in deep shit,” Conway tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “The Justice Department doesn’t like to execute search warrants on lawyers, right? And the reason why they don’t like that is because they don’t want to get into messy disputes about attorney-client privilege… So they basically, if […]

A hundred days into his first term, it is clear that Joe Biden is a much different kind of president than his predecessor. But even as new political eras are born, public opinion shifts, and leaders come and go, one thing remains constant at The Daily Beast: our commitment to uncovering the truth. Since the early days of his campaign, and now administration, we have worked tirelessly to hold Biden and his people accountable, expose behind-the-scenes hypocrisy, and call out the promises left unfulfilled—giving credit where it was due along the way. For the Presidency’s first big milestone, we took some […]

Feds raided Rudy Giuliani’s New York City apartment on Wednesday in regards to his dealings in Ukraine. No one has much doubt that the Trump crony is extra shady, but the question many folks have, including The New Abnormal listeners, is whether he will actually be held accountable for his alleged criminal activity? On Thursday’s bonus New Abnormal Live Zoom! episode Molly Jong-Fast and producer Jesse Cannon spoke with Daily Beast White House reporter Scott Bixby and Daily Beast politics editor, Matt Fuller, about what could become of the infamous former NYC mayor. “It seems you don’t do something like this […]

Prince Phillip passed away on April 9, 2021 at the age of 99 and his legacy as a person, and member of the Royal family and husband of The Queen, is an interesting one, to say the least, especially given the “access” the public has sorta gotten of him and the Royal family through Netflix’s The Crown as well as the Meghan and Prince Harry interview with Oprah in March (Which Phillip allegedly thought was “madness,” by the way.) He accomplished a lot as far as performing duties for the monarchy are concerned and his passing should be marked in history. […]

What’s your favorite post-game drink? “Vodka.” The White Sox recently teamed up with Goose Island. Which Goose Island beer is your favorite? “312 Urban Wheat Ale.” What’s the best way to drink beer: in a can or in a glass? “A cold one in a glass.” Chicago or New York, which city has a better hot dog? “Chicago.” What Major League Baseball stadium has the best food and what do you like to eat there? “White Sox stadium. I eat a few elotes before games.” What’s your favorite bar in Chicago? “Cog Hill Golf Course or my house.” In Chicago, will […]

Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, come eye-popping new details in the Matt Gaetz scandal. But perhaps the worst thing of all for the Florida Republican, who is accused of underage sex trafficking, may be that Donald Trump thinks he’s useless. Yes, the congressman spent years sucking up to the former president—and even said he’d give up his job to defend him. But Trump has only managed to offer a tepid 24 words of support since the scandal broke, and George Conway has a theory about why. Joining co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The […]

On Friday’s The World This Week, The Daily Beast’s Nico Hines and The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Dalton discussed President Joe Biden’s monumental infrastructure bill—describing the plan as a potential $2 trillion sign of a “paradigm shift” in the way Americans view government spending. “During the financial crisis of 2008, America passed a 700-something billion dollar stimulus package and everyone thought that was huge,” said Dalton. “But this is 2 trillion dollars. It’s almost a paradigm shift in the way America thinks about macroeconomics.” Dalton argued that the bill has the potential to shift America’s perception of the government’s inability to […]

The New Abnormal’s least favorite Florida congressman, Matt Gaetz, is in hot water over mounting allegations that he’s been involved with underage women and taking them across state lines. To discuss the burgeoning scandal, co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon brought on The Nation’s national affairs correspondent, Jeet Heer, who says he isn’t the least bit surprised. “It’s the ones you always suspect the most,” he says. Noting Gaetz’s strange appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, where he tried to get Carlson hitched to his sinking ship, Heer says he sees a connection with what other people in the alt-right […]

GOP senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn led a tour for themselves and others in their party at the border on Friday, but according to congresswoman Veronica Escobar, who took over Beto O’Rourke’s former 16th District in Texas, it’s all “political theater.” They want to “use the border as a prop, do a whole lot of complaining and finger-pointing. But these are the same people who’ve been in the Senate for a number of years when their party had control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, [and] they did not solve this problem,” she tells co-host […]

China’s recent boycotting of Western brands that have denounced Xinjiang over forced labor reports was spotlighted on Friday’s The World This Week—and the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly hostile reaction to any criticism from other superpowers took center stage in the discussion. Le Figaro’s Laure Mandeville said the boycotts exemplified “rising assertiveness from the Chinese” who have become “less and less accepting of criticism or raising flags on what they do.” Nico Hines of The Daily Beast described the latest actions by China as “a real challenge to globalization” and speculated about whether growing tensions between world powers could lead to “a […]

What’s our wildly divisive political climate doing to today’s 20-year-olds, who will be our political leaders of the future? That’s what Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) asks co-hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. In the past, Kinzinger says, Americans could look to Ronald Reagan and Democratic leader Tip O’Neill having a beer together, despite their differences. Today, Kinzinger says, we’re not seeing similar examples: “All we do is go on Twitter and TV and call the other side douchebags.” It doesn’t bode well for us getting back to normal politics, he warns. Still, says […]

When we think of presidential pets, we think of their cute moments and endless photo-ops on the White House lawn—but the reality is you sometimes need to acquire a pet to distract from a scandal. So it was in the 1990s, CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca explains on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, when the Clintons got Buddy the dog. “The Clintons had Socks,” Rocca tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast. “And then in the depths of the Lewinsky affair, when Clinton was in real turmoil, Dick Morris advised him to get a dog. This is totally true. And because […]

Since the spread of COVID-19 launched a global pandemic in 2020, over half a million Americans have been killed by the virus. And experts agree the death and infection rates have been much worse in the West—mainly the United States and Europe—than many other places in the East. In other words, while other countries like China, Cambodia and New Zealand were able to temper the spread, the U.S. had its ass handed back to it. There are a lot of reasons for this, says David Wallace-Wells, New York magazine writer and author of How the West Lost COVID, in this bonus […]

One of the issues discussed on Friday’s The World This Week was the escalating—and seemingly endless—disputes between the U.K. and EU in a post-Brexit world. Their most recent squabble? A blame game over the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the EU threatening to block imports to its former member on grounds that the British haven’t been reciprocating with their own vaccine deliveries to the continent. “It’s one of many examples of post-Brexit diplomacy, or maybe, lack of diplomacy on the part of Boris Johnson’s government in London,” said Patrick Smith of The Africa Report. “Every single time when it comes to dealing with […]

It’s not hard to see that the Republican Party was the Party of Trump during the four years he was president. But what kind of party are they now? Honestly, it’s hard to tell. “When you looked at the platform for the 2020 election, they didn’t create one,” says New Yorker writer and Columbia professor Jelani Cobb. There is one thing about today’s GOP, however, that is very clear: “They’ve doubled and tripled down on a type of politics that is very appealing to disgruntled white people or white identity politics.” If history repeats itself, as it often does, this tactic […]

If you’ve relied on our coverage at all in the past year, please continue your support by becoming a Beast Inside member today. Hi there—It’s been a year. A year of perfecting Zoom setups, of part-timing as teachers, of waving at friends and family from a safe distance. A year of sourdough starter and double masking. It’s been a year—more than a year—of the Daily Beast covering this crisis from all angles. Since the first news of the novel coronavirus, we’ve written over six thousand articles covering all aspects of the pandemic. We put a spotlight on the people using the […]

It’s safe to say that the people of New York City are ready for a new mayor, and certainly one who isn’t Bill de Blasio. Sure, he gave the city universal pre-K but had some faux pas over the years—most recently in 2020, when he was accused of anti-Semitism for a tweet addressed to the Hasidic Jewish community over social distancing rules during COVID and also (this one was big) for not standing up to the NYPD who had shown excessive force toward citizens during the George Floyd protests this summer. One of the many candidates stepping up to take his […]

How did Joe Biden manage to eke out a presidential win after washing up in fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire? Co-host Molly Jong-Fast still wants to know. “I’ve spent much of the week talking about being wrong about Cuomo, but I would like to take a minute to talk about being wrong about Biden,” she tells NBC News’ Jonathan Allen, co-author of the new book Lucky: How Biden Barely Won the Presidency, on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. While Molly and others were writing Biden’s political obituary in February 2020, his staffers were suggesting the […]

The theme this year, stupidly enough, is ‘America Uncanceled.’ But the only real way to get any kinda cred at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, is to make a stink about how you’ve totally been canceled. One easy way? Refuse to wear a mask, even though the host city and the hotel both require it. “We’ve seen these conservative influencers who, it seems, are deliberately getting kicked out of CPAC by not wearing a mask,” The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Because for them, CPAC is sort of […]

We know how the story went: Trump was impeached for a second time. There is a trial. He is found not guilty because there are not enough votes needed to make it happen, despite the majority of the Senate voting against the former president. Lots of people have questions in regards to this process. Namely, what the hell? But also, why didn’t the Democrats forgo their right to call witnesses? Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CA) told co-host Molly Jong-Fast his perspective on things in this member-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal. “Whether it’s five witnesses or 5,000 witnesses, it would not […]

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert weren’t elected to their positions in the House of Representatives by accident. They ran campaigns like everyone else, and won. Given Greene’s “nutty” aka QAnon-supporting and anti-mask-censorship antics in particular, it may be hard for lots of people to understand why. In this bonus members-only episode of The New Abnormal, co-host Molly Jong-Fast sat down with Dr. John Cowan, the Republican surgeon who lost to Greene despite both candidates supporting Donald Trump, to get an idea for what people may have had in mind when casting their ballots for her. “I think this is why […]

For years, Facebook has been a cesspool of conspiracy theorists, political ragemonsters, and quacks pushing cures for decaying Boomers. But as dangerous as these creeps were, they were mostly contained to the social network. Until the pandemic hit. Now, all of us are locked down. And Facebook’s worst actors and brainwormiest thinking is bursting out into the real world—and threatening to take it over. “I see it a lot actually in local community pages,” The Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill explains on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “To give an example, I was looking at a page, a local news […]

Few books have opened with truer words than the latest selection for our Just Booked series (on beautiful coffee table books) than Assouline’s Miami Beach. “Miami’s time is now,” it boldly declares—and boy is that the case. Miami Beach is the current destination of choice for the New York and California exodus, and its warm weather has given residents (and visitors) a degree of sanity during COVID that is the envy of all. And in an era where a photogenic setting is, well, everything, it’s hard to beat the pastel wonders of Miami Beach. The World’s Playground, as it’s sometimes called, […]

So how are House Republicans dealing with the fallout from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s freshly resurfaced 9/11 trutherism, school shooting denialism, and threats on fellow lawmakers’ lives? They’re giving her a standing ovation. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is House minority leader,” co-host Rick Wilson says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “She runs the House.” The newly elected Georgia Republican, Rick says, is the GOP’s equivalent of the “crazy uncle”: “We know he’s drunk. We know he’s crazy. We know he comes to Thanksgiving dinner every year lit to shit. And we’ll just pretend it’s not happening.” And even though […]

Lots of us have been asking ourselves (and Twitter) many questions over the last year. Questions like: How did about 74 million people vote for Trump, again? Why do people actually believe in QAnon? And, more recently, if Republicans can see Trump for who he really is—and how he has become a hero among a sect of the party that, at their worst, believe celebrities are part of a global pedophile ring, and at their best, think that masks are a form of censorship—than why do the majority of them still support him? Norm Ornstein, an American political scientist and The […]

It is said that before Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, a group of Republicans got together and vowed to oppose everything that he would do, or rather, try to do. Did the Trump loyalists on the hill and Mitch McConnell’s Republicans huddle together last night and make a similar vow, this time for President-Elect Joe Biden? It’s a possibility, says Michael Tomasky, special guest on today’s members-only episode of The New Abnormal, which happened LIVE on Zoom. Even if they didn’t, Tomasky, and co-hosts Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast, know that Mitch’s sneakiness isn’t ending with the Trump administration. Take the […]

As leaders come and go, The Beast remains steadfast in our commitment to uncovering the truth. On the cusp of a new administration touting a return to “normal,” it would be easy to breathe a sigh of relief and tune out for the next four years. But that’s not what The Beast is about. Since our earliest days, we’ve made it our mission to hold power to account no matter who’s in charge. Over the last four years, we called out Team Trump’s audacious lies and despicable behavior, from uncovering the shady campaign finance scheme that led prosecutors to indict Rudy […]

How will we bring the Trump supporters who live in an alternate reality back to the real world? A recent Pew poll asked who respondents thought was to blame for the Capitol riot—and an “astounding” number said President Donald Trump bears no responsibility, Rick Wilson told his co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers “really want to close their eyes and say, it didn’t happen. Oh, it’s just going to go away. Well, it did happen. You made it happen. It’s not going away. It’s going to be with you for a long, long […]

Trump did a lot to roll back women’s health care—from enacting a global gag rule, which prevents non-American health organizations from receiving monetary aid from the U.S., to stacking the courts with anti-choice judges all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. Add the threat of losing Roe to the mix and Biden will have his work cut out for him after he takes office in January. Should he appoint a “women’s health czar?” Molly Jong-Fast asks Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in this members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal. She was half-joking, but also […]

Thankfully 2020 is finally drawing to a close. On this episode of the award-winning podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum discuss what they are planning to drink during the rest of the year and the appeal of starting the new year out with a run. They are also joined by Knob Creek® ambassadors Amanda Gunderson and Tim Heuisler to chat about a new jogging program for professional bartenders that they are helping to organize, which starts on February 28 and lasts for 12 weeks. The 100 bartenders from across the country will be split into four teams […]

Rudy Giuliani tried really hard this year soil himself: the hair-in-the-can, the Russian agent pal, the presser by the sex shop, the buckets of conspiracy drool. But it wasn’t until he got caught red handed with Borat’s daughter that his reputation was smeared fully, finally, and forever. The hand-down-Rudy’s-pants incident was one of a whole bunch of different ways that political comedians rammed into Trumpworld in 2020. Matt Wilstein, The Daily Beast’s resident comedy guru, breaks down the highs and the lows with Molly Jong-Fast and Jesse Cannon on a special crossover episode of The Last Laugh and The New Abnormal […]

This year spent mostly in quarantine produced some of the strangest (and let’s be real, cringiest) content this side of Priyanka Chopra clapping for essential workers from her mega-mansion’s balcony. Creaky Zoom jokes and saccharine storylines invaded our TVs. And then there’s the curiosity of Law & Order: SVU’s, uh, loose understanding of how masks work. But life in quarantine also pushed creators to new levels of insight and originality. TikTok hosted some of the funniest reflections of our new stir-crazy states of mind. Borat made an unexpected return—and nailed the people in power bungling our nation’s pandemic response. John Wilson, […]

We have all certainly earned a decadent treat this holiday season. While you could whip up a big bowl of Eggnog, there’s another traditional (and no-less rich) concoction we recommend: Hot Buttered Rum. This delicious mix of dark rum, hot water and—you guessed it—butter is historic and delightfully appropriate for the season. On this episode of the podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum are joined by award-winning Half Full columnist Wayne Curtis to debate the different methods of making Hot Buttered Rum and to discuss why rum has historically played such a significant role in holiday drinks […]

Scotland has claimed ownership of single malt whiskey for years. But the spirit is now made around the world, including in the U.S., which boasts a thriving industry of its own. Can Scotland maintain its supremacy in the face of ever more competition? On this episode of the award-winning podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum are joined by Matt Hoffman, co-founder, managing director, and head distiller of Westland Whiskey; Becky Paskin, award-winning Half Full columnist; and Iain McPherson, pioneering Edinburgh-based bartender and bar owner. While enjoying a dram of whiskey, the panelists discussed if American single malt […]

Political pundit and author Zerlina Maxwell was booed and hissed at during a Politicon a few years ago (which is “a ComicCon for political nerds”) because she said that if Bernie Sanders ran in 2020, which he did, he’d have to improve his messaging toward communities of color. Fast-forward to this year and Maxwell has a book out on the subject and stands by her statement. “It seems like I was psychic or something, but really I was just saying a thing that seemed to be an obvious point that somebody needed to say, and I think Republicans understand this,” she […]

They’re the two most important women in Donald Trump’s life. And they absolutely loathe one another. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former Melania Trump confidant, spills the tea on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, starting with the very first days of the administration. “Melania didn’t come to D.C. that week, but Ivanka stayed and Donald stayed there. And all of a sudden, that’s the weekend, Donald signs the, immigration, what was it called? The ban. Yes. Ivanka shows ‘Finding Dory.’ Now, if you couldn’t be more tone-deaf. Children were being separated from their parents. And here you’re screening a film […]

What gift will arrive before the holidays, requires no wrapping, and supports independent journalism? A subscription to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. With a few clicks, you can gift a year of Beast Inside for only $35. Just enter the email of your giftee and select when you’d like them to be notified of your generous present (so you can pay now, but keep it a surprise until you’re ready). It’s perfect for: —Your uncle, who shares questionable memes on Facebook and could use a better news source —Your sister, who always HAS to be the first person in […]

It’s getting near closing time for the Trumps at the White House—Monday’s electoral college vote made that official. Which means folks like Ivanka Trump have to GTFO and find themselves new careers. It might be a bit tricky, Daily Beast contributor and Hysteria host Erin Gloria Ryan explains. Just about everybody hates Ivanka these days—well, except for a handful of Fox-addled octogenarian creepers. That corporate feminism she used to try to embody? That “Hallmark feminism where there’s absolutely no substance behind any of the things that she’s saying”? It might’ve worked before. In the dying days of 2020, it just makes […]

COVID whistleblower Rebekah Jones always thought that having a gun pointed in her face would be terrifying. But she says when the Florida state police raided her home and held a gun inches from her face after she told them her two children were present, she felt “nothing.” She even let them enter peacefully, she says. “I was prepared to be arrested,” she tells Molly Jong-Fast on this special members-only episode of The New Abnormal. Jones claims she was fired from her job at the Florida Department of Health months ago because she refused to manipulate data, and she went on […]

It takes courage to create cocktails with older whiskies, but it’s more than worth the effort. To help you overcome your fears of ruining a dram, on this episode of the award-winning podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum share some tips and advice for using mature spirits in mixed drinks along with a chaser of spirited history. They are also joined by Knob Creek® ambassadors Amanda Gunderson and Tim Heuisler who offer insights and their favorite recipes featuring older bourbons. So fix yourself a whiskey cocktail and listen to this episode of Life Behind Bars. Cheers! By […]

You’d think they’d have learned by now, just a few weeks from the end of the Trump presidency. But people are still falling for the same head fakes and tricks. Take, Molly Jong-Fast says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Trump’s recent trip down to Georgia. “It was one of those many Trump’s speeches where you saw on Twitter for the first 15 minutes people were like, ‘sometimes Trump can stick to the teleprompter’; ‘teleprompter Trump, bravo for just, like, reading the words.” And then, of course, things went off the rails. Like they always do. “These people always […]

The gods of comedy have heard your prayers—and just might make them come true. “Veep,” the greatest political comedy of all time, could return, somehow, some way, in some form, if only for a short while. “We’ve certainly discussed it,” star Julia-Louis Dreyfus tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “Everybody’s sort of gone off now and everybody’s doing other projects and so on. But I don’t rule it out entirely, doing some sort of ‘Veep’-related thing. I mean, there’s an area that we could jump back into. I think [showrunner] Dave [Mandel] and I have talked […]

Trump is headed to Georgia this week, where there’s about to be a pair of special elections to decide the balance of the senate. But don’t expect the president to really talk up his Republican, MAGA AF buds, George Conway says. “It’s better for him and better for his ego if they lose.” Trump has a problem, George explains to Molly-Jong Fast and Rick Wilson on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. Well, two. First, “Republicans did better than he did” in the general election. Not only does “that undercut his claim of fraud… it means that there were significant […]

Alec Baldwin has given serious thought to running for office. He already knows what it’s like for people to hate his guts, for things like playing the president on Saturday Night Live—“They say things like, ‘I don’t know who we want to get rid of first, Alec Baldwin or Trump.’” He has considered diving head-first into the political world, and there is a chance he still might, but there are a few things he’d need to take care of first—and someone he’d have to convince. In this episode of The New Abnormal, the 30 Rock actor tells Molly Jong-Fast about his […]

Team Biden has made his incoming style of presidency very clear: Keep the peace. Or in his aides’ words, “move the country forward.” Unfortunately, moving forward doesn’t include prosecuting Trump and his band of thieves, er, White House staffers and campaign confidants. In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, which happened LIVE on Zoom, The Daily Beast’s DC Bureau Chief Jackie Kucinich confirms this to co-hosts Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast. “Where we’re at in the process, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen,” she says. Source link

Molly Jong-Fast and Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, an avowed QAnon supporter, fell out on Twitter over different interpretations of government interference in a woman’s health. On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Molly explains to Rick Wilson why she got into a brouhaha with the Congresswoman from the First District of QAnon. “I did make fun of her because she used the phrase ‘My body, my choice,’ when referring to not wanting to wear a mask, which is of course an expression that is used by the pro-choice community,” Molly said. “So, I may have suggested that she might also […]

“It’s all over but the crying,” says Rick Wilson in the second-ever The New Abnormal LIVE, alongside co-host Molly Jong-Fast, The Beast’s legal columnist Jay Michaelson and Daily Beast Politics Director Sam Stein. While the official results won’t be verified for a few days, especially given these extremely close swing state races and runoffs happening in Georgia, there is strong reason to believe that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States. One thing we all know for sure: Trump isn’t going down without kicking, screaming and lying as much as humanly possible. Source link

This isn’t your typical election in any way. We may know who wins today, or at least this week, says Rick Wilson, but as far as getting those results certified? That can take a lot longer. Like, more than two weeks longer. In this special recorded episode of The New Abnormal LIVE, which took place today on Zoom, as things do in 2020, Rick and co-host Molly Jong-Fast spoke about what’s to come today, and beyond. Source link

Trump’s hype men like to say that he’s so smart. A tactical genius. Always 14 moves ahead of you libtards. Surely, the Trumpkins say, there’s a deep logic to the president spending the waning days of his campaign attacking America’s most respected public-health expert. Under no circumstance is Trump just blurting out a bunch of… Oh, who are we kidding. The guy has the emotional control and strategic wisdom of a toddler. “I feel like it’s important to remember: He is never playing three dimensional chess. He’s just eating a checker,” Molly Jong-Fast quips on the latest episode of The New […]

Crooked politicians, Russian spies, and Fox News knife-fighters—those are just some of the folks The Daily Beast exposed in 2018. From the White House to the courthouse, from scientific triumphs to unspeakable tragedies, The Beast was there. Thanks to the support of our members, we were able to dive deep into exclusive investigations, gripping yarns, and saucy stories from inside the halls of power. Here are some of our favorites from 2018: 1. How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions It’s the story that broke the Internet—and set off an epic Hollywood bidding war. The Daily Beast’s long […]

Molly Jong-Fast, like many of us, is nervous about the election. Sure, the polls look pretty decent for Biden; they looked good for Hillary, right? Not exactly, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report tells Molly. In the last couple of weeks of the last campaign, there was so much attention on those freakin’ emails. “You could see the race tightening. Hillary went from up 11… and then in the very last NBC poll, she was up four points, with 16% undecided,” Walter recalls on the latest episode of The New Abnormal. This time, though, the pandemic is the focus. And […]

Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York, joins “The New Abnormal” host Molly Jong-Fast to chat about the last presidential debate, the story leading up to his resignation, and why there could be an “avalanche” of new revelations if President Donald Trump loses the election. Bharara said that the presidential debate was “relatively normal,” but that’s no thanks to Trump or his opponent Joe Biden. “The person I credit most for that as most people do is Kristen Welker,” he said. Jong-Fast then reminds Bharara of one of his proudest moments from 2016: Not calling […]

Rare is the person these days who thinks of airlines as sexy. Sure, Virgin brought some cool back and some of the Middle Eastern and East Asian airlines can be luxurious. But the airlines are generally more utilitarian now. That wasn’t always the case, and that’s why the latest selection for our series on gorgeous travel coffee table books (Just Booked) is the updated Airline Visual Identity: 1945-1975 by M.C. Huhne. Published by Callisto, the giant book is a spectacular collection of the ways in which airlines portrayed themselves in this glamorous 30 year period when flying, as Huhne writes, was […]