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.
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“Look, I am not here to tour-shame,” humorist and former Fox News personality Andy Levy tells Molly. “And I think people have different ideas of vacation. Some people like camping, some people like to be in a really plush five-star hotel, and other people like to go to the nation’s capital and erect gallows.”
“Violent insurrection: It’s the new camping!” quips Molly.
When the conversation shifts to House Republicans removing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from leadership for refusing to perpetuate former President Donald Trump’s election fraud conspiracies, Molly and Andy say they’re no fans of Cheney—but the GOP is working overtime to make her look like a hero.
“If you’re making Liz Cheney look good, your party sucks,” Andy says. “Like, your party is so bad if Liz Cheney is coming out smelling like roses.”
Next, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) comes on the show to talk about what’s happening on the border and how his state’s wacky election audit is going.
“Just to be clear, in the minds of Republicans, there’s always going to be a border crisis,” Gallego says. “They need that in their lives, in order for them to justify a lot of the bullshit that they do. I’ve been in Arizona politics for 15 years, and every year there’s always a border crisis and every governor will throw on a flak jacket, get in an SUV, and then tour the border with aviators on and call himself a tough guy.”
Asked about the “cyber ninjas” conducting a fringey election audit in his state, Gallego says it’s important to battle “all the misinformation that's coming out of there. For example, yesterday, they found a bunch of line codes in one of the servers or data. And they try to make that accusation that this is proof that the ballots were uploaded and then it was deleted, when in fact it was just regular coding. So a lot of us are watching this every day and we just get on there right away and we push back, and basically they either take it down or it just doesn’t become as viral as it is. So it’s all about stopping misinformation.”
Finally, economist Marshall Steinbaum joins Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon to get to the bottom of inflation, unemployment benefits, and why we shouldn’t worry about raising corporate taxes.
Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.
