The Daily Beast Podcast

J.D. Durkin tells talks to Molly Jong-Fast about how Democrats brought a stuffed animal to a knife fight, Dr. Peter Hotez joins to break down why MRNA vaccines won’t say save the world, and what might, and Leonid Volkov, chief of staff to imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, explains why Russia was never a democracy. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a...

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose explains why Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just can’t seem to let its high-performing conservative talking heads go, NBC News Reporter John Allen breaks down President Biden’s infrastructure plan for normal people, and USC law professor Franita Tolson retells how she avoided a Ted Cruz “gotcha” moment. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnorma...

Comedian, author, and “2 Dope Queens” actress Phoebe Robinson tells white people how they can step away from the “white savior” mentality (and the Instagram posts that come with it) and do things that will actually help Black people. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mary Trump explains to Molly Jong-Fast why she just might send Donald flowers to thank him for suing her. Crooked Media’s Brian Beutler looks at what Dems can do to deal with the Trumpy Supreme Court. And linguist George Lakoff breaks down how the party’s “false theory of reason and communication” holds it back. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode...

Jeet Heer tells Molly Jong-Fast about a candidate from the Canadian presidential race whose big issue was dairy control management. Will Sommer and Swin Suebsaeng, Daily Beast reporters and hosts of the Fever Dreams podcast, discuss the ways that outlets like Fox News and Breitbart are approaching vaccinations with their stubborn audiences. And Congressman Ro Khanna from California joins to discus...

Washington Post columnist Karen Atiah came on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal to fill Molly Jong-Fast in on what’s going on in her home state since the public learned the bill was passed. And it’s not good, for women or for men. Plus, she shares her thoughts on her late colleague Jamal Khashoggi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices....

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, author of ‘Uncontrolled Spread’ and a member of Pfizer’s Board of Directors, updates Molly Jong-Fast on the status of “COVID pills” and child-approved vaccinations in the works, Eric Boehlert, founder and editor of press run.media, calls out the media’s obsession with Trump's voters and not Biden’s, and The 19th editor Emily Ramshaw paints a grim picture of the “abortion touris...

Lee Papa, author of The Rude Pundit, discusses with Molly Jong-Fast the chances of Kellyanne Conway joining George W. Bush as a resistance hero, Washington Post’s national health reporter Dan Diamond sheds light on the big COVID booster debate happening amongst top health leaders, and Mike Duncan, host of The Revolutions podcast, tells us why our current state of U.S. politics looks a lot like Anc...

In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, documentarian Ken Burns talks about his new film on Muhammad Ali: how making it has taught him so much more about the late boxer and why one of the greatest athletes of all time is more relevant than ever in “a post-Trumpian, COVID world that has Black Lives Matter.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad cho...

What the hell is Joe Manchin doing?! Max Rose, who served in Afghanistan and won a term in Congress as a Democrat representing a red district in Staten Island and Brooklyn, explains where Manchin is coming from given that “there’s not another Democrat who could win that seat”—and without it Mitch McConnell is running the Senate. Then Molly has a great talk with American Crime Story: Impeachment pr...

Elie Mystal, Editor-at-Large at The Nation, has a wild, but potentially effective idea to help women impacted by the new Texas abortion law—if President Biden can make it happen. And Congressman Ruben Gallego defends Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan (and the idea that Madison Cawthorne is too dumb to lead a GOP revolution.) And then Elizabeth Shackleford talks her own experience pulling...

Tom Nichols, author of Our Own Worst Enemy, says Americans should stop blaming each other and making excuses for democracy crumbling when it’s their own damn fault—before James Madison rolls over in his grave (if the Founding Father hasn’t already). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

But the lawyer doesn’t regret his role in the Clinton impeachment saga. Also on the latest New Abnormal, whether Texas spells the end of Roe, where Georgia is headed, and more. Later in the episode, Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock, author of The Afghanistan Papers, talks about American officials’ doublespeak on Afghanistan over 20 years. He also shares with Molly his take on how Michael Fl...

MSNBC political analyst Tim Miller joins Molly Jong-Fast on this episode of The New Abnormal to discuss Biden’s weird, new callousness with Afghanistan and Matt Gaetz’ troll-y brother-in-law. Plus, Dr. Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and former head of the DNC, has some strong words for the judge who is making people take horse medicine. If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abn...

This week on a bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Soledad O’Brien joins Molly Jong-Fast to discuss trust in the media, Fox News, coronavirus vaccines, and Afghanistan coverage. “Misinformation is an amazing tool to get people to not trust in their leadership or in the government. And I think the government and the media, too, have done a very poor job in making people trust them.”  Hosted on Acast...

“What is your Afghanistan hot take? Go.”“My number one hot take is that I don’t like occupation. I don’t feel like we should be permanently defending ‘democracy’ in any given country. If they are not ready for democracy or to be run in the way that we want them to, we cannot use military power to force them to have a democracy,” said Touré, one of this week’s guests on The New Abnormal, former MSN...

“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....

Daily Beast reporter Diana Falzone reached out to a few different female reporters in Afghanistan to get their perspective on what is happening and what she heard from them is terrifying—from the Taliban beating people in the streets, including children, to allegedly going into homes in the middle of the night to shoot others. She relays their stories to Molly Jong-Fast on this bonus episode of Th...

The coronavirus pandemic, a fraught election, an attempted insurrection, more of the coronavirus pandemic...the United States is suffering from the mental version of long COVID, says Mary Trump. The psychologist and niece of former president Donald Trump joins The New Abnormal this week. Margaret Sullivan, media critic for The Washington Post, joins to discuss shortcomings in coverage of U.S. mili...

In this episode of The New Abnormal, former war correspondent, staff writer at the New Yorker and CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser explains how the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan is everyone’s damn fault, even Biden’s. Plus, Texas Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia rips into Gov. Greg Abbot and then Adam Harris, author of The State Must Provide, breaks down “racism hush money” that some states w...

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 healthcare 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...

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 healthcare 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...

The American public is being misled about the coronavirus vaccines, and it needs to stop now. That’s what Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Institute, tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast on the sobering latest episode of The New Abnormal. Fully vaccinated folks are walking around thinking they’re 95 percent protected from the virus, but with the Delta variant raging across the country, that number is...

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy shares his thoughts on the sexual harassment allegations and report against fellow Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and whether he foresees another COVID lockdown. Plus, Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and author of the new expanded edition of Endgame: Inside the Impeachments of Donald J. Trump dunks on Republican colleague Mo Brooks and Atlantic writer Anna Applebaum, aut...

In this bonus episode of TNA, journalists Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, authors of I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year, talk about Jared Kushner’s role during the early stages of COVID, why Trump’s whistleblowers stayed so long by his side and rumors from inside the Pentagon about Trump using the military to stay in power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...