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Refried Beans | Inside The Perfect Phone Call (feat. Simon Shuster) | 1/17/2024
00:49:58
Wednesday, January 17th, 2024 Jury selection and opening statements kicked off day one of the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial in New York; Trump won the GOP Iowa caucus with embarrassingly low turnout; Capitol Police and the FBI have opened an investigation into Roger Stone’s comments about assassinating Rep Swalwell and Rep Nadler; President Biden invites the top four congressional leaders to the White House to discuss Ukraine funding; the US will re-list Yemen’s Houthis as global terrorists; Trump loses a string of appeals in court; the House Republicans are backing down on holding Hunter Biden in contempt. Plus Allison and Dana deliver your good news.
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- [00:00]
Alison Gill
MSW Media. Hey everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two or three years ago so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro.
- [00:22]
Dana Goldberg
Refried beans. I like refried beans. That's why I want to try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're wasting time.
- [00:32]
Simon Schuster
Larry Daily Beans. Daily Beans. J BE.
- [00:45]
Alison Gill
Hello and welcome to the Daily Beans for Wednesday, January 17, 2024. Today, jury selection and opening statements kicked off day one of the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial in New York. Trump won the GOP Iowa caucus with embarrassingly low turnout. Capitol police and the FBI have opened investigation into Roger Stone's comments about assassinating Representative Swalwell and Representative Nadler. President Biden has invited the top four congressional leaders to the White House to discuss Ukraine funding. The US Will relist Yemen's Houthis as global terrorists. Trump loses a string of appeals in court. And the House Republicans are backing down on holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress. I'm Alison Gill.
- [01:27]
Simon Schuster
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
- [01:32]
Alison Gill
Who. Boy, what a Wednesday.
- [01:34]
Simon Schuster
Yeah, news jam packed. Lots of stuff going on. Some good, some bad as normally is. But we've got a lot of good today, too.
- [01:41]
Alison Gill
Yeah, we did. Also. This is kind of cool. Later in the show, I'm going to be joined by author and reporter Simon Schuster. He's written a book called the Showman Inside the Invasion that Shook the World and made a leader of a lot of Mayor Zelensky. It's a really great conversation. I hope you enjoy it. We have so much news to get to today. Almost a record breaking news day. So that means, as you know, as per usual, we have to do some quick hits. First up, Trump lost a few more times in court today. First, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump's old immunity claims and has dismissed his argument that his comments weren't defamatory in the Eugene Carroll case. We still don't have the D.C. circuit Court trump immunity decision in the D.C. coup case. We're still waiting for that. Next up, the D.C. circuit Court denied a rehearing on bonk. That means of the full panel of the court instead of just a three judge panel. They denied, you know, Twitter and Trump's appeal of Jack Smith's search warrant of Trump's Twitter account information. So you lose. And TRUMP Adjacent, the D.C. district Court denied former Trump adviser Pete Navaro's request for a new trial in contempt of Congress. His case for that, because Navaro said that the jury took a quick break outside the courthouse and ran into demonstrators. And that could have corrupted the whole shebang, not the fact that Pete Navarro is a piece of shit. Okay, so all those losses came down today. I was hoping for that D.C. circuit Court of Appeals decision in Trump's interlocutory immunity case, but that didn't quite happen.
- [03:18]
Simon Schuster
All right, well, hopefully soon. And House Republicans are backing off of a contempt charge for Hunter Biden. That's according to Politico. One leadership aide said that Biden's team is currently negotiating a date for a closed door interview with the Republican led House Oversight Committee. So the Rules Committee has decided to hold off on launching a new resolution to recommend charges against the president's son to the Department of Justice. And we now know why he doesn't want that closed door hearing is because they only release what they want. And that's why they won't let him speak publicly because it's going to make them look bad.
- [03:50]
Alison Gill
Yeah, and we knew I told you that that wasn't going to happen. They, they issued that subpoena illegally, per a Bill Bar Donald Trump office legal counsel memo that says you have to have a full vote in the House for impeachment before you can start issuing subpoenas. It was never going to work. All right, you can hear me, by the way, laugh about that on today's cleanup on aisle. And Trump won the Iowa caucus with about half of 14% of registered Republicans. He got a total of 56,280 votes. We're talking about 56,280 people here. I have tweets with more likes nobody came out to caucus. Here's some examples. GOP caucus turnout in Polk county, where Des Moines is in 2016, 31,000 people came out. This year, 17,400 in Johnson county, where Iowa City is 7,200 people came out in 2016 to caucus and only 3,500 came out this year. So that's incredibly low. Just 14.4% of Iowa's registered Republicans showed up, 14.4%. That lags past caucus participation, which is usually in the high 20s, around 30%. So like less than half. And one third of the Republican voters who turned out, the MAGA voters said they wouldn't vote for Trump if he's convicted of a crime, which he will be by the general election. So that's 2/3 of 1/2 of 14%. That's like nine guys. So it was embarrassing. Yes, he won. Got 51% of the of the vote. And Haley and DeSantis split the other half. So half of Republicans went out in negative 37 below temperatures to vote for Donald Trump. So that, you know. Yeah, he won, but did he anyway?
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Simon Schuster
I don't know.
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Alison Gill
Yeah, I told you we would talk about it. But the, you know, the media is like, oh, my God, a landslide, you know, okay, nine people. Okay, I'm exaggerating with the nine people. I'm sure it's more than that, but you know what I'm saying?
- [05:50]
Simon Schuster
11.
- [05:51]
Alison Gill
11. All right, everybody, we have a lot of news to get to. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. First up from Mediaite, not Mediate Mediaite. I've been pronouncing it incorrectly. Thank you, by the way, to everyone who wrote in to school me on how to pronounce that. The Capitol Police are investigating remarks made by pro Trump political operative Roger Stone discussing the assassination of two prominent House Democrats. That's from a source talking to Mediate. Mediaite. Excuse me. And the FBI is helping with this investigation. And by the way, CNN has confirmed this reporting that they are investigating Roger Stone. Last week, Mediaite published an audio recording of the comments which were made weeks before the 20 in a conversation between Stone and his associate, former NYPD cop Sal Greco, about Representatives Jerry Nadler and Eric Swalwell. Quote, it's time to do it. Let's go find Swalwell. It's time to do it. Then we'll see how brave the rest of them are. It's time to do it. It's either Swalwell or Nadler that has to die before the election. They need to get the message, let's go find Swalwell and get this over with. I'm not just putting up. I'm just not putting up with this shit anymore. That's what Stone said on audio tape. In a new statement to Mediaite, Swalwell said the comments should be taken seriously by law enforcement and Congress. That he said the Roger Stone assassination plot recording may seem like the ravings of a wannabe gangster. It's not. This is what Trump and his real life thugs do. They try to intimidate opponents and they will always choose violence over voting. Because I'm one of Trump's loudest critics, Stone put a hit out on me. This threat and other threats of violence by Trump and his supporters must be taken seriously, not only by law enforcement, but also by my colleagues. Both parties, not just Democrats, must condemn this violence unity will always be the best antidote against further violence. Now, finally, Stone said that I and Trump's enemies need to, quote, get the message. Well, I and the voters have a message for Stone and Trump. We are still here, and we're not going away until we bury MAGA ism and make sure America's democracy endures. The FBI, which does not confirm or deny ongoing investigations, declined to comment when reached by Mediaite. The U.S. capitol Police did not offer a comment. Both Swalwell and Nadler serve on the House Judiciary Committee, have their own histories with Roger Stone, who was convicted of federal crimes in connection with Bob Mueller's investigation. His sentence was commuted by then President Trump just days before he was set to report to prison. A few months before the Cafe Europa audio was recorded, Nadler announced the Judiciary Committee would be investigating why Stone's sentence was commuted by Trump. Stone has adamantly denied making the comments even after the audio was published. The infamous political operative claimed the audio was poorly fabricated. AI generated fraud. All because I'm loyal to Trump.
- [08:39]
Simon Schuster
Oh, my God.
- [08:40]
Alison Gill
Stone has previously claimed that comments he made, apparently calling for violence that were caught on video by a documentary crew. Okay, so this is not, you know, AI, this is there. This is a documentarian. But he calls them deep fakes as well.
- [08:53]
Simon Schuster
He's such a schmuck. He's just, I hope he goes, he's got to go to prison for something, and then he and Nixon can both go together with his tattoo. All right, next up from cbs, A federal jury was selected in New York on Tuesday and tasked with determining how much money former President Donald Trump must pay Eugene Carroll for his comments he made in 2019 denying he sexually assaulted her. The trial is the second related to Carol's allegations and Trump's subsequent denials. In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a separate case awarding Carroll $5 million in damages. That case focused on comments Trump made about Carol in 2022, when he denied the abuse and called Carroll's claims a con job and a hoax. The current case is centered on different comments Trump made in 2019, remarks the judge has clearly ruled were defamatory. The trials focus solely on the damages Carol should be awarded. Her attorneys are seeking $10 million for reputational harm as well as other unspecified punitive damages. And I hope she gets every penny. The former president, fresh off his victory as we talked about in the very low turnout Iowa caucuses, attended the opening day of the trial in Lower Manhattan. Carol immediately sat down and Looked straight ahead after he walked in the courtroom. Trump, seated in the third row of the area for attorneys, Plaintiffs and defendants, sat directly behind her by two rows. It just reminds me of the whole debate with Hillary Clinton where he was just fucking stalking her on stage. He's just an intimidation. He and Carol, by the way, did not appear to even look at each other. The nine member jury was finalized in the afternoon, and each side delivered their opening arguments to close out the day. Trump stayed to watch the jurors questioned and chosen, but left before opening statements began. Sean Crowley, who's the attorney for Carol, repeated at least 10 times that Donald Trump sexually assaulted Carol. And I love that he is repeating that. I'm sorry she has to hear it. Crowley recounted the original allegations that a jury last May found Trump liable for that. Trump attacked Carol during a chance encounter in a New York department store in the 1990s. She said Trump had continued to deny the allegations publicly and repeatedly, even though the jury in a unanimous verdict determined that the attack happened. It did happen based on a preponderance of evidence. Crowley noted that the original defamations were done from the White House lawn in 2019, when Trump was in office, and I quote, he had the biggest microphone on the planet, and he used it to tear her reputation to shreds. She added that Trump and I quote, sat in the courtroom this morning. You saw him, and he posted more lies. Alluding to social media posts that Trump made Tuesday. He cannot actually keep himself from doing it. Crowley said the jury must decide basically how much money Trump has to pay to get him to stop doing it. Now, Haba claimed Carol has sought to capitalize on her cases, becoming, and I quote, more famous than she's ever been. Gross, just gross. And she continued to say, we will show you that it is Ms. Carol's intention to continue to capitalize. I just. I know there's a lot of good women lawyers out there. It's so hard to watch one try and tear down someone you know is telling the fucking truth. It's unbelievable. And decided by court. Like a court has decided this already.
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Alison Gill
Yeah. And to say, oh, well, she should be happy that he raped her because now she's more famous is just, like, awful. So fucked up. There were a lot of objections today. Boris Epstein tried to speak up and the judge is like, I'm sorry, are you barred here? Or do you, Are you, you know, do you, Are you. Are you part of the bar for this court? And he's like, well, I am in state court, and she's like, yeah, I thought so have a seat. So it didn't go well and it's not going to go well for Trump. And today on cleanup on L45, Pete Strzok and I actually interviewed Meryl Governsky, who is an attorney for Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss. And we talk about Dr. Ashley Humphries, who is going to be testifying in this case, in the Eugene case. She's the one who got, who helped get the $148 million award for Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss.
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Simon Schuster
Oh, amazing.
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Alison Gill
Because she's the expert who can testify how far the defamation reached, like how many people heard it.
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Simon Schuster
Wow.
- [13:17]
Alison Gill
She's a super incredible expert at that. And we're going to talk about how that could have implications in the Eugene trial. This is could be far north of the 5 million he got when he defamed her when he was out of office because he made these comments that are on trial now while he was president with a much bigger megaphone. So we'll see what ends up happening. But I think it's going to be way more than 5 million. All right. From the Associated Press. The Biden administration is expected to soon announce plans to redesignate Iranian backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, especially designated global terrorists. According to two people familiar. The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and US Assets. The group says it has attacked the ships in response to Israel's military operations in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel. Three people familiar with the decision were not authorized to comment and requested anonymity. The administration is expected to make the announcement today. Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delisted the Houthis as both foreign terrorist organizations and as specially designated global terrorists In February of 2021, a month after, you know, Biden got into office. They wanted to make it easier to get humanitarian aid into Yemen. In its waning days, the Trump administration designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization over the strong objections of human rights and humanitarian aid groups. The foreign terrorist designation barred Americans and people and organizations subject to U.S. jurisdiction from providing material support to the Houthi, which the groups said would result in an even greater humanitarian catastrophe than what was already happening in Yemen. So shortly after Biden took office, Blinken removed the designations in a step that was roundly criticized by conservative lawmakers and others. But it was intended to keep much needed food, medicine and other aid flowing to Yemen. The specially designated global terrorist label to be reimposed on the Houthis does not include sanctions for providing material support. It does not come with travel bans that are also imposed with the FTO label. Thus, it may not pose a substantial impediment to providing aid to Yemeni civilians. So that's the difference here. That's the difference between the global terrorist moniker and what Trump had placed on them. Because what Trump did prevented aid from reaching Yemeni civilians. What Blinken has done would not.
- [15:40]
Simon Schuster
Okay, thank you. Thank you for that, ag. All right, this one's from NBC. President Joe Biden has invited the top four congressional leaders to the White House on Wednesday afternoon to discuss his request for national security funding, which includes aid for Ukraine and Israel as well as border security. And that's according to multiple sources. So we've got House Speaker Mike Johnson, as we know, unfortunately, the speaker, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and we've got House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. They're all expected to attend, along with some key commitment leaders. Excuse me, committee leaders. For both parties. The meeting comes at a critical moment for Washington. Congress has to pass a short term funding bill to avert a government shutdown again before the money runs out on Friday night. Bipartisan Senate negotiators are simultaneously trying to hammer out a separate agreement on increased border security measures in exchange for additional military aid for Ukraine. Though Johnson says the supplemental package won't fly in the House unless it includes the tough House passed border bill known as HR2. Well, it did not appear that members of the bipartisan Senate working group were invited to the meeting. The group, which includes Senators Chris Murphy, who's a Democrat, as we know, from Connecticut, we got James Lankford, Republican from Oklahoma, Kyrsten Sinema, independent, whatever, from Arizona, has been negotiating, by the way, all of them have been negotiating behind closed doors for weeks. But some sticking points are still there, including GOP efforts to restrict humanitarian parole, which allows the President, by the way, to temporarily admit certain people into the US that he can admit who he would like. So that's a sticking point on the negotiations.
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Alison Gill
Yeah, I just have no faith that Republicans will ever pass any kind of border security they need to run on that problem. And if they try to solve it, then they don't have a problem anymore.
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Simon Schuster
Mike Johnson literally said the quiet part out loud. We can't fix border security until Donald Trump is reelected or there's a Republican Republican in the White House. Right.
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Alison Gill
He said it because think about it. Let's say they pass some border aid, border security some border measures and then also Ukraine aid. And then, then, you know, Republicans want to say, look at this border crisis. Everybody will be like, you did a thing to fix it. Why didn't, did you, did you not fix it? You suck. You know, so they can't. That's why they won't. They don't care about the people. All right, everybody, I have a really great interview coming up for you, and then we'll read some good. Stick around after this break because you're going to want to hear this discussion with Simon Schuster about his new book, the Showman. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I am happy to be joined today by a reporter who's been reporting in Russia and Ukraine for 17 years, and he has a new amazing book out. It comes out on January 23rd, and it's called the Inside the Invasion that Shook the World and Made a Leader out of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Please welcome Simon Schuster. Hi, Simon, how are you?
- [19:01]
Dana Goldberg
Thank you. Good. So good to be with you.
- [19:04]
Alison Gill
I am so happy to be talking to you today. This book is incredible. This is, I mean, your coverage of this war began in 2014. You were the first foreign correspondent and journalist to arrive in Crimea as Russia, Russian troops took over the peninsula. And in 2019, you got to meet and interview President Zelenskyy for a profile of his campaign. And then you continued covering the administration in the years that followed. And this is, as far as I can tell, the only and most comprehensive inside look at the president of Ukraine and his absolute incredible leadership. What led him to be where he is? He started out as a comedian. Can you talk? What prompted you to write this book?
- [19:53]
Dana Goldberg
Well, I had the relationship with him as he just described. I met him in 2019 for a profile, and I continued to cover his administration very closely. You know, I'm the Ukraine Russia correspondent for Time magazine. So, you know, I've been doing this a long time. President Zelenskyy is the third Ukrainian president I've spent time with and profiled for the magazine. So it's quite normal for me to stay in close touch with him and his administration. But what it led to in the beginning of the invasion, February 2022, is I was able to approach his team and suggest this idea to write a book. It was clear to me from the beginning that obviously these are historic events. And I made a conscious decision to focus my reporting on the presidential compound in, in Kyiv in the government district on bank of a Street, and to the exclusion of basically all other forms of war reporting. I had done a lot of that in 2014, 2015, traveling around the front lines, meeting with soldiers, visiting military bases and so on. But I decided this time that I would not do that kind of reporting, and I would focus only on the high command in Kyiv to try to use the relationships that I had established over the years to shed light on how the leadership in Ukraine were experiencing this war and responding to it.
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Alison Gill
I want to talk a little bit about that, especially his relationship with one of the higher ups in the military there. And, I mean, there's so much in here, so much breaking news that we haven't read before about the first lady being able to get out with the children. But I want to talk about what kind of led up to Zelenskyy being elected, because I am absolutely fascinated by his life before he was president. But a lot of what he did, I think lends to the leader that he is. You know, inevitably, we all are who we are. Talk a little bit about that, how you saw that sort of come through and how it impacted sort of, you know, the relationships in the high command.
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Dana Goldberg
Yeah, fundamentally, his skill set, his experience as a person, his entire career, these things were shaped by his time as a comedian, an actor, a TV producer, a filmmaker, a script writer, and a performer. And that's one of the reasons why the book is called the Showman. But as it turned out, and to my enormous surprise, as I observed his leadership during the invasion, his showmanship turned out to be his superpower. Once the Russians were on the march, this war, one very peculiar thing about it is that it required Ukraine, for its very survival, to grab and hold the attention of the world and to maintain the support of foreign countries. Not only the leaders of foreign countries, but also the voters in foreign democracies. For those people in. In those foreign countries in the west especially, but also countries like, you know, Japan, South Korea, Australia, to. To pressure their leaders to keep sending Ukraine weapons, keep sending financial aid. So Ukraine was not going to survive this thing without a massive amount of international support. And how do you get the world to pay attention? You know, we all experience the world to a large extent these days through our screens. President Zelenskyy knew that most of the world would be seeing the war and absorbing the war, engaging with news about the war through their cell phone screens, smartphone screens, television screens. And he concocted a plan with his advisors of how to make. To shape the narrative, to show the world the picture of the war that he wanted them to see, that he needed them to see, to maintain that support. That's what he's good at. And the reason he's so good at it for to a large extent is his experience as a showman, as an entertainer.
- [24:03]
Alison Gill
But it seems. Also seems so genuine to me. Like, I feel like being a show, like, you know, a showman and a comedian didn't make him who he is. I feel like he was naturally that way and that's why he became that. Like, it seems all very natural. Like that's his natural state of existence. Do you know what I mean? It seems like it's. It seems less like people sitting around in a back room being like, how are we going to present this to the world? And just being like, this is who I really am, and it is going to be presented in the way that it truly is. And I think that that helped capture sort of this global unity behind him.
- [24:48]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, I mean, I think he's flexible. It's hard to pinpoint. There are certainly qualities and characteristics about him that. That are fixed and consistent throughout his life. But I think he, more than most people, is very flexible in taking on new Personas. I think that the career path would have been impossible that he had. He has lived many different lives. And that kind of chameleon like quality of being able to take on new Personas was really helpful to him both in transitioning from comedy to politics and then transitioning from politics to wartime leadership. I don't think anyone's really prepared for the kind of challenges that he faced. Anyone who would be thrust in that position, as he was in February 2022, would need to take on a new kind of Persona. There's no graduate program for wartime. Nothing prepares you to be Churchill. So he. He had to kind of perform. Perform. And, and he. We. We talk about this as described in the book. He kind of gave himself a pep talk early in the invasion, as if you were about to go on stage. He told himself, they're watching, meaning the world is watching, and you need to act the way a head of state must act. You're a symbol now. And then he sort of, you know, quite conscious and to some degree later on, subconsciously, as he kind of became this Persona, it took over him. He is now indistinguishable. There are no moments where he kind of slips out of that Persona and becomes the old Zelenskyy he is now that all the time. He is now the wartime leader we see on our screens.
- [26:35]
Alison Gill
Yeah, for sure. And, yeah, I mean, like, I was a comedian for 10 years. I couldn't do what he's done. It's really fascinating to me, and that's why I think this account is. So talk a little bit about something that we all followed very closely, the listeners of this show. Details of Zelenskyy's entanglement with Donald Trump's first impeachment and how that shaped his wartime Persona, so to speak. Can you talk a little bit about seeing that from behind the scenes? Because we saw very little of it. We would see Zelenskyy meet with Trump and Zelensky, we would see Zelenskyy's face, and that was basically all we got in response to what was. Was being blackmailed. He was being shaken down by this American president. Can you talk a little bit about what was going on behind the scenes at that time?
- [27:24]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, thank you. That's a great question and a very accurate point there, that the American public, to a large degree the international public, saw that scandal of Trump's first impeachment from the perspective of the witnesses who testified against Trump or testified at the impeachment hearings and so on. Right? Sort of the American point of view. You know, we saw the transcript of the phone call, right, the perfect phone call, as Trump calls it, between Trump and Zelenskyy. But what I. The way I experienced and reported on that scandal was from Kyiv, from the offices of the presidential compound. I was hanging out with Zelenskyy, his advisors, as they were seeing this storm gathering and breaking over their heads. And, you know, it was a crash course in international politics, in the meanness of American, you know, political warfare and the unreliability of alliances, fundamentally, that, you know, supposedly the United States, Ukraine's most important ally, can do this, can freeze aid in order to extract political favors, can. Can bully and pressure the Ukrainian leadership this way. It was a really, you know, a dramatic cold shower for. For Zelenskyy. And it's important to remember that this scandal began a few weeks after he took office. So it was really his first encounter of his life with international politics and diplomacy. I interviewed him in November of 2019 about this and what he told me and described in that chapter of the book that I devote to the impeachment scandal. He said, I don't trust anybody at all anymore, man. He's like, that's it. Everybody just has their interests. And he became quite cynical about alliances, political alliances, which is a quality that he never really had before. Cynicism, pessimism, these things were the Opposite of the Persona he tried to project all his life as a comedian and showman when he was a very kind of happy, go lucky, charming, optimistic guy. After six months in the presidency dealing with Trump, he was like, man, this place is messed up. I don't trust anybody.
- [29:40]
Alison Gill
I know. And I feel so terrible that that was his first experience with an American president. Was Donald Trump, Trump. And, you know, I've long wondered, what must Ukraine think of the United States and their vulnerability, Americans vulnerability to what Russia is capable of. They must look at us and be like, what are you new? Do you not realize about. Do you not know about Russia's election interference and psychographic targeting and exploiting, you know, existing issues to drive wedges and sow chaos? Like, it's something that I think very few of us over here in the United States have ever been familiar with, but it's something that Ukraine is so very familiar with. It just must have been, like, very frustrating from that point of view. Let's talk a little bit about some of the getting to the wartime situation. And there's an untold story in here that I think is so important, and that is President Zelenskyy's relationship with his top general and how they had a lot of disagreements behind the scenes that none of us were privy to. Can you talk a little bit about what you found out there?
- [31:00]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, that's one of the relationships. I say there are two relationships at the core of the story. One is. Is his relationship with the first lady, with his wife, and how that evolved and kind of her perspective on the invasion, which is quite a new look at what this was all like. And the second one, also really at the heart of the book, and I trace it over the course of the book, is the relationship between Zelenskyy and his top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny. They knew each other from the first days of President Zelenskyy's tenure. They met in the spring of 2019, when it fell to General Zaluzhny to sort of br incoming administration of former comedians on the realities of warfare at the time, as you know, the war in Eastern Ukraine had been ongoing for five years and had already claimed more than 10,000 lives. So. So Zelensky to, to a degree, was a wartime president from his first day in office. Anyway, the book traces basically how that relationship evolved. In the beginning of the invasion, President Zelensky left the fighting to the generals. He trusted them entirely with battlefield decisions to a large extent, because he just didn't have much of an idea of what. What the correct battlefield decisions would be. And when I first met President Zelenskyy in Kyiv during the invasion, our first meeting during the invasion, he talked in such glowing, admiring terms about General Zaluzhny, you know, as like a savior. At one point witnessed a telephone conversation. I was with the president and he was speaking to. On the phone to Zaluzhny. And just the admiring tone is almost, you know, yeah, it was like love. So much respect and admiration for this military leader for saving the country over time. What you see over the course of the book, and I want to summarize this because we don't have a lot of time, but what you see over the course of the book is that President Zelensky Trotsky develops enough confidence in his own decisions as a military strategist, and he develops his own set of priorities for what needs to happen on the battlefield, when to attack, where to attack, what resources to commit to what part of the front line, and so on. And these don't align with those of the general, and they begin to have disagreements about that. The allocation of resources fundamentally is the main issue I found that caused them to. To clash behind the scenes and.
- [33:33]
Alison Gill
And did that play out in any public battles that we may have learned about or. Or like it? Like a decision that. Where Zielinsky won the day and they did that instead. And it would, you know, it succeeded or failed. Do you have any examples of that?
- [33:50]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, I mean, the main one, you know, there are a number that came. Came up in my reporting. The one I chose to focus on in the book is the decision to. This was in. In August September 2022, the decision to attack the Russian positions in the region of Kharkiv, which is in the northeast. There was a debate between President Zelenskyy and General Zaluzhny about that. President Zelenskyy wanted to do that because satellite images showed that the Russian lines in that region were soft. They're weakest there. So. So Ukraine had an opportunity to basically have a demonstrative victory, to push the Russians back, to show that they can break through the front lines, the defensive lines of the Russians, and to show that the Western weapons that they were receiving were not just disappearing into some intractable war, but having an effect on the battlefield, that the lines were moving, that Ukraine was pushing forward. Zelenskyy needed to show this, to demonstrate this in order to maintain his wart priorities, which, you know, as the book also describes, was getting more help from the West. He needed to show that the help was having an effect. General Zaluzhny took a somewhat different perspective. He felt that the Kharkiv direction was not strategically important enough and that Ukraine needed to concentrate its resources on the all important push to the south, which is toward Crimea. Right. So it's a different, different, totally different side of the, the war zone, a much more difficult challenge because the Russian forces were more concentrated in the south. That was the nature of the disagreement. President Zelensky kind of won the argument in a sense. He overrode the, the, the objections of General Zaluzhny and ordered another general, one level down from Zaluzhny to conduct the operation in Kharkiv, which if, if you or some of your listeners remember, was, was a tremendous success. Back an enormous amount of territory.
- [35:57]
Alison Gill
Right. That's so fascinating. I wonder, like short term victory, long term battle, how it's going to end up playing out. And then, you know, now of course we have all of the dallying in the United States Congress to get more aid that is needed in Ukraine and we're all pushing for that here, at least over here on my side. So we continue to do that. And so hopefully those kinds of things can be used to illustrate the importance of the aid that needs to be sent to Ukraine. I wish I could talk to you about this for another hour, my friend, because there are so many other amazing things in this book, but I'm just gonna have to tell everybody to get it. It's available on January 23rd. You can pre order probably now, wherever books are sold. And it's just absolutely incredible. It's called the Inside the Invasion that Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodym Zelensky. Thank you so much. The author is Simon Schuster. I appreciate your time today.
- [37:00]
Dana Goldberg
Thank you so much everybody.
- [37:02]
Alison Gill
Stick around. We'll be right back with the good news after these messages. We'll be right back. Everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?
- [37:17]
Dana Goldberg
Everyone?
- [37:18]
Alison Gill
Then good news, everyone. All right, everybody, if you have good news, confessions, corrections, what the mutt, what the hecwine? Cat me. If you can opine on the bovine, what's the model of your axolotl? Any animal guessing game, please send it to us. Also if you have theses dissertation titles, you have a student debt relief story you want to send to us would be stories, stuffed animal stories, happy places, holiday photos, baby pictures, frog orders, orgies, anything at all you want to send us a shout out to yourself or a loved one, small business in your area. Adoptable pets in your area. Send it to us@dailybeanspod.com and just click on contact. First up from Triska Decca, which I think is the beginning of Triska decafobia, which I think is the fear of the number 13, but I'm not sure. Hello. This is an older throwback picture as the girl is closing. As this girl is closing in on 50. Can you guess the horse breed? We called them Dolly Parton horses as they were all chest and mane. This looks like a palomino to me, but, yeah, I can see why you would call it a Dolly Parton horse. Let's see. The answer is. Oh, a Tyrolean mountain horse, better known as a halflinger. Well, wow. When we first married, we lived in northern Illinois on Temple farms, more known for the lipizon horse breed. But the owner had a liking for halflingers, so there was a small herd of them on the farm. Too. Many years have passed, and although we didn't stay together, I remember warm. I remember warmly the temple farm days. Okay, halfling arrived. This is a new horse breed I'm learning today. That horse is gorgeous, isn't it?
- [39:06]
Simon Schuster
Yeah. They're so majestic. They're powerful. Beautiful, beautiful animals. Thank you so much. All right, this is from Phil. Pronouns, he and him. Greetings, beans queens. I've been listening to you every day for coming up on seven years now, but I haven't written in in some time. I've been racking my brains for a new name for the animal guessing game. Best I've come up with so far are, number one, critter outwitter or critter getter, if you want to sound more optimistic. And then the second one is, don't be fooled by that. Animule can't have pets right now, so pet tags. I submit this photo of river in his natural environment. River belongs to two of my closest friends, who I'm sure will be pleased as punch to hear him featured on your show. He was always a bit standoffish, but has really warmed up to me once the new kitten moved in. You know how it is.
- [39:57]
Alison Gill
Look at the baby box. So cute. Phil. I like it. Don't be fooled by the animal. Animal. Love it. All right, next up from Danny Pronoun, she and her. I wanted to share my loan forgiveness story. Excellent. I graduated in 2006 with my master's in education, and between my bachelor's and master's, I had around $40,000 in loans. I've worked in public universities my entire career. And I love working with college students. Even though I've never made a lot of money. I have faithfully paid every single month on an income based plan. And when the Public Service Loan forgiveness program started, I diligently worked to qualify. I submitted paperwork every single year since 20, my 10 years. And was denied due to how complicated the process was. Okay, Danny, I am with you on this. You know, I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs. I tried to get the public student loan forgiveness program. Working for the effing. I should just say fucking this is news. With swearing government was like, who are you? I was working for the Emmer effing government. G. Demet. No. And so. And they still would deny me like, oh, you didn't cross this t on page 76 and resubmit the whole thing? And then something else would be wrong. It is a pain in the fucking ass. Danny goes on. After President Biden's administration cut through all the red tape, suddenly five years worth of payments that previously didn't count suddenly counted. I got the news in 2022 that my entire loan was forgiven. And I'm not ashamed to say I sat down and cried. See, even though I paid every month due to the crazy interest rates, I still owed more than I borrowed even after 14 years of paying it off. I had been resigned to the fact that I would be paying that for the rest of my life. But suddenly, now I have money to put into my savings and retirements account. Retirement accounts. And I can breathe a little easier. I've never regretted working in Public Service, but thanks to President Biden, I can continue to do so without sacrificing my future. Oh, it's so wonderful. For podpet tax, I'm submitting my 8 year old shih tzu. Winston.
- [41:56]
Simon Schuster
Excellent name.
- [41:57]
Alison Gill
He was a rescue I adopted last year and he's brought nothing but joy and sunshine to my life. Winston, do you know how many bark boxes you're going to be able to enj because your mama doesn't have to pay that high interest bullshit student debt because of the stupid red tape and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Oh my God, it's amazing. Look at this sweet baby. This looks like my friend Joelle's dog, Marloo.
- [42:22]
Simon Schuster
Shih Tzus are so damn cute, especially when you get their little hairs cut. I know, I know, I love it. Thank you so much. This one's from Chris. No pronouns given. 22 years ago, I got a student loan for $8,600 to go to WyoTech, a Corinthian college. Few years back, I became part of a lawsuit against Corinthian for their unethical practices of enrolling students. After two decades of paying on my student loan, last year I got a letter in the mail saying that I still owed $24,000. About eight months ago, I got a letter in the mail that said not only were my student loans forgiven, but I would be repaid everything that I paid toward them. Six months ago, I got a check for just over $17,000. So to recap, I took out a student loan for 8,600. I paid over 17,000 on it, and I still own 24,000 on it. If you happen to be wondering why Gen X hates everybody, this is pretty good news.
- [43:24]
Alison Gill
Chris, I love you.
- [43:26]
Simon Schuster
Oh, fuck. That was a good comment. Thanks to my student. Thanks. Thanks to my student loans going away, my credit score is now over 700 for the first time in my life. How's that for good news? Pod Pet Taxi rescued Ray a few years ago. We have our guesses as to what ingredients made such a sweet pup, but we welcome your expertise. If it helps, she may just be the fastest thing on four legs, and she loves trying to prove it.
- [43:49]
Alison Gill
Okay, this is part dachshund. It's a tall dachshund is what you.
- [43:52]
Simon Schuster
Which is so crazy.
- [43:54]
Alison Gill
You have a tall dachshund. That's all I could think to say. Maybe greyhound, Ridgeback, maybe Vizsla Ridgeback, something, but a adorable pup. Look at that second photo.
- [44:07]
Simon Schuster
So cute.
- [44:08]
Alison Gill
That dog, if it looked at me like that, could get anything it wanted from me.
- [44:12]
Simon Schuster
Very long and tall.
- [44:14]
Alison Gill
Yes, tall dachshund, adorable. Next up from down, by the way. That's crazy. $8,600 loan, 17,000 in payments, 24,000 left to go.
- [44:23]
Simon Schuster
That's so up.
- [44:25]
Alison Gill
I mean, yeah, Gen X is pretty pissed off in general. All right, next up from Dennis. As I said, pronouns, he and him. Hello again. I'm glad you enjoyed meeting Squinton. Squintin turns Tarantino. Before sharing the couple's photos, I seemed. It seemed fair to introduce Beatrix. This is Beatrix Kato, I assume with her own glamour shots. First. She's beautiful blue eyed goofball, born in March of 2023. My wife and I were concerned that Squint, Squint and Tarantino was getting lonely while we were at work. So we got him his own kitten. We should have known he wasn't ready for that responsibility. He plays with. Plays with her enough. But we have to do all the work of feeding, brushing, and cleaning the litter box. Yeah, Dennis, I've tried that. It doesn't at work. Look at this beautiful baby.
- [45:07]
Simon Schuster
No, I was like, that looks like a cat with a bow tie, but I guess it's just a collar.
- [45:11]
Alison Gill
So cute.
- [45:12]
Simon Schuster
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. All right, this is from Carisa Pronoun. She and her hello AG and DG and all y'all who aren't on the mic but help get the beans out. Thank you, thank you and thank you. Just need to share a sliver of good in some red state dystopian. The unhoused population in my beautiful weird, small purple dot town in red, red, red, Oklahoma has grown greatly in the last couple years. Churches do drives for supplies and support the shelter and help with bills, but they haven't faced this crisis before and are restricted legally and prepared and unprepared logistically. We have one official no pets place for folks to shelter from cold and it's small and already at capacity with arctic air here and worse on the way. A marine veteran here was just freaking stepping up in the last couple weeks, coordinating delivery of food and clothes, blankets directly to folks in the hidden recently criminalized camps. Today, folks and organizations from all over town are paying for hotel rooms at La Quinta that is welcoming folks with their pets. An advisor for student org asks for deets because the students wanted to put in money. I mean, amazing. Our usual cesspool of community Facebook group is even lit up with people asking how they can help. It's not enough and it's only the beginning. And there is so much good out there. So many people, especially post pandemic somehow just need a human to step up and say, hey, I'm doing this now. Help if you want and you can. And if help comes out of the and you see help comes out of the woodwork pet tax is Gretchen Green Eyes. You read her adoption story in the summer of 2020 and she's now the big bossy bo boss of everybody and demands hammock time with or without her human pillow.
- [47:02]
Alison Gill
Hammock time. Cute little sweetie. That's incredible. You're so right about that. Just it all it takes is one person to step up and say, hey, I'm gonna do this. Help me out. And people, people do it. It's incredible. So, and I know that everybody who listens to this program has. Has done things like this. Us. We'd love to hear about it and we'd love to hear about your student debt, forgiveness and anything else you want to send to us. You can do it. @dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. Thanks to Simon Schuster and his book the Showman. You can pre order that now. Wherever books are sold. Do you have any? Oh, this is kind of cool. I have an announcement.
- [47:40]
Simon Schuster
What's up?
- [47:41]
Alison Gill
We're going to be booking a tour of live Daily Beans, live me shows and whoever else wants to show up this summer and, and into the summer and the fall. Because that's when I figure the trials will be going on and I think we're gonna get out and hit the road. So we'll keep you all posted on that. So I'm just excited about that, that's all.
- [48:04]
Simon Schuster
I love it.
- [48:05]
Alison Gill
Do you have any final thoughts? I know you got some shows coming up.
- [48:07]
Simon Schuster
I want yours to shine. Sure. I can announce my shows. For those of you that are in Florida, I have that show at the Tampa Funny Bone that's going to be January 28th. It's a matinee show, starts at four. We'll be done by dinner. And then I've got a bunch of HRC galas and a Child Rescue Coalition gala. Lots of galas in there. But then I've got another comedy show in Bend, Oregon. When you go to the website, you're going to see that. It's part of a gay and lesbian ski week, but it's open to everyone, especially allies. They want as much support as they can get. So you can also just get tickets to my show. It's Friday, March 8th. That's gonna be a blast. And then on April 12th, which is my birthday, I'm gonna be in Fort Lauderdale. So I've got two shows going down to Florida. I'm gonna make some noise, tell some Rhonda jokes and bring some super fucking gay shit to Florida because we need it. So any of my shows, you can get information on my website, danagoldberg.com right now. Those three comedy shows are there. Tickets are available. I'm going to be adding all of the galas in the coming weeks. So I hope to see some of you at these shows.
- [49:06]
Alison Gill
I love it. Dana's going to go to Florida and say gay.
- [49:09]
Simon Schuster
Say gay, lesbian, trans, bi, queer, intersex. Anything. Anything.
- [49:14]
Alison Gill
Hell yeah. Awesome. Thank you, my friend. All right, everybody, we will be back in your ears tomorrow and maybe we'll have a D.C. circuit Court of Appeals decision. Perhaps maybe by then, if you're listening, D.C. circuit Court, maybe you can, you know, get on that. We'd love to hear from you. Absolutely. About, about absolute presidential immunity and what a bunch of it is. Anyway, thank. I hope you guys listen to clean up on L45 today. We'll be back in your ears tomorrow on the beans. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mouth, mental health, take care of your family. Vote blue over Q and take everyone.
- [49:49]
Simon Schuster
You know with you.
- [49:50]
Alison Gill
I've been he and I've been dg. And them's the beans.
- [49:53]
Dana Goldberg
Refried beans. I like refried beans.