Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher (update links).
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has come under a firestorm of criticism in recent days following a number of reports outlining his past exploits—including allegations of sexual assault, lecherous behavior, anti-Muslim sentiments, and a history of mismanaging veterans organizations, among other things.
It’s unclear whether Trump is planning to drop his controversial nominee, but there’s one detail in particular that The New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy thinks has the potential to ultimately sink Hegseth: his alleged drinking habits.
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“Trump is fairly famously a teetotaler. He doesn’t imbibe alcohol at all,” Levy said. “That may be the thing more than anything else that maybe sinks Hegseth, not with the Senate, but Trump may end up withdrawing him because that may be a bridge too far for him.”
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Then, author Jared Yates Sexton joins the program to discuss his new book, The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and The Coming Crisis, and to emphasize the fact that nobody is coming to save us from the chaos of a second Trump Administration.
“What we have been taught from our childhoods on are childish notions: that all we have to do is take care of ourselves, go to work, buy things, live our lives. Don’t worry, the experts have it,” Yates Sexton said. “Psychologically, that is a childish notion, looking for politicians and institutions to be parental figures, thinking that they know better and that we do not have a role in any of this.”
Plus! A conversation with founder and editor of the popular blog Techdirt, Mike Masnick, about one of Trump’s scariest nominees: Brendan Carr, his pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher (update links).
