“I actually don’t believe that Congress is that dumb. No, I’m just kidding. I do,” says co-host Molly Jong-Fast, who notes that some of this is “performative moronic” like when MIT graduate Thomas Massie tried to blame COVID-19 deaths on Medicaid or Sen. John Kennedy, who attended Oxford, circulated fake news about President Biden handing out crack pipes.
On the other hand, when Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses Nancy Pelosi of leading the “Gazpacho police,” she’s just a moron—albeit one cunning enough to turn around and promptly raise money off of her own stupidity.
“I know you always say Louie Gohmert is the dumbest member of Congress,” co-host Andy says to Molly. “And that’s true on some days, but I think it’s like watching the sports standings, where one day someone’s in first place and then another team gets on a real streak and then they’re in first place. It’s the same thing here. Gohmert was definitely a preseason favorite to win the division, but you have people like Greene who go on these hot streaks of stupidity and they climb up the standings. And next thing you know, they’re only a take out of first place.”
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The problem, says Molly, is that “we are in a situation where Republicans are genius messengers… You don’t have a democratic messaging operation like this. MSNBC has people like me saying things that Democrats are doing wrong. And I say this as someone who is a Democrat! But on Fox News and Fox Business, you have people who are literally saying ‘Donald Trump is a genius. You should just watch what he does. He’s amazing.’ They’re so focused. And they’re so on-message, and they basically say the same lies over and over again until there is no truth.”
Indeed, “the Democrats need to fight back on this,” says Andy, and own the truth “the same way that the Republicans own the lies and repeat them over and over again. What I’m saying is it would be nice if the Democrats did that with the truth—just own the truth and get it out there and hammer it home.”
He concludes that “the people they’re afraid of getting mad at this, they’re not gonna vote for (Democrats) anyway, that’s my firm view and maybe I’m wrong… but I just sort of feel like you go down with your best shot, lay out your case.”
Plus, The Daily Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo breaks down another wild week of right-wing media fuckery, and former Rep. Max Rose rejoins the pod to talk about his forthcoming rematch with “Never Trumper” turned Trump fanatic Nicole Malliotakis and the prospect of “worst mayor in the history of New York City” Bill de Blasio challenging him for the Democratic nomination ahead of that.
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