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- [00:00]
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Jennifer Welsh
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- [01:47]
Joanna Coles
I often wonder, what does Donald Trump do when he's on his own in his bedroom? Do you have any thoughts as to how he sort of manages on his own?
- [01:56]
Jennifer Welsh
I think he's in his bed. I think he's eating filet o fish quarter pounders. There's been reporting that he eats his meals in bed. I think he psycho tweets on Lysocial. You know, all of this crazy stuff. Like he has these crazy delusions. He started to believe his own propaganda. I think he sits there like a, like a little junior high school girl with his phone and junk food and probably talks to whichever sycophant he can get on the phone. I mean this is not a deep person. He's not reading the reports of the next day. Everything is Centered around him.
- [02:37]
Joanna Coles
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And I don't know where to begin this morning. There's so much going on. Do we start with the 3 million new Epstein files that are dropping and Todd Blanche, number two in the Justice Department, told us about Plus 2000 videos? Do we start with the Georgia raids that Tulsi Gabbard has overseen of their election files? Do we about how Melania is still furious that her movie has been overshadowed? Do we talk about Don Lemon, who was arrested on Thursday night? What is going on in this country? Are we just all distracted? Who knows? But we're going to discuss it all with I've had it podcast co host and founder, the brilliant Jen Welsh. Help us through this, Jen Welsh, you and your partner Pumps, who. Who isn't here with us. But. But you go through this several times a day. Your podcast is like self help for many of us. What the fuck is going on?
- [03:44]
Jennifer Welsh
Okay, so Don Lemon is a personal friend, and this is a really serious issue because I believe that he is the canary in the coal mine for the administration. And a magistrate said there's not probable cause here. A federal magistrate said no. So then the Justice Department, they were trying to charge him with a misdemeanor, and this magistrate said, no. So then the Justice Department does something very unprecedented. They appeal the magistrate's ruling that there's no, no reason to bring charges. And then the appellate court says, no, no charges. So then Pam Bondi executes Lawfare, what they accuse the Democrats of doing all the time, because every accusation is a confession, and then get a grand jury to indict him on felony charges. My husband, who's a criminal defense attorney, not Don's lawyer, but has been talking to Don about the case. You just never know with this doj, because this is clear that they just want to fuck with him. And they want to test the waters as to independent journalists, because all of us, including Don, put a mirror up to the debauchery and the lawlessness of this regime. And they are so incredibly thin skinned, insecure and diabolical that they want to silence everybody.
- [05:04]
Joanna Coles
Don is a very popular independent journalist. He's getting far more views now on his own YouTube channel than he ever was actually at the breakfast show or his evening show at cnn. How does this play out for Pam Bondi? I mean, and we love Don, too. He's a regular visitor on our podcast. How does this. I mean, what are they thinking? And when you say canary in the coal mine, do you think that this is the beginning of trying to arrest more independent journalists, or do you think they're testing the water?
- [05:39]
Jennifer Welsh
I think a little bit of both. I think if they can get traction with Don, they want to. I think all of us are on the chopping block. The media has been one of Donald Trump's biggest targets long before he ever descended from the elevator. I think it was the Vanity Fair editor who said he had little hands and.
- [06:00]
Joanna Coles
Right. It was the spy editor. It was Spy magazine going back all that time. Graydon Carter and Kurt Anderson.
- [06:07]
Jerry Insurance Advertiser
Yeah.
- [06:07]
Jennifer Welsh
And so he has constantly been upset, Barbara Walters asking him about reading Mein Kampf. And so he has had a bee in his bonnet for the media for quite some time. And then when you think about the psychology of somebody this thin skinned running for such a big seat, such a big boy chair, and if you run for president of the United States, you have to sit there and you've got to take it and he can't. He's incapable of doing it. And he's surrounded by obsequious sycophants that are loyal to him. And what's so fascinating to me is this MAGA movement is wrapped in masculinity, this form of masculinity. And all of the people that worship him are so submissive. All of these men, J.D. vance, is submissive. And he worships a man that wears a full face of makeup every single day, who throws a fit when the press says something unfavorable.
- [07:02]
Joanna Coles
This is such a good take.
- [07:04]
Jennifer Welsh
Elementary school toddler stuff.
- [07:05]
Joanna Coles
This is such a good take. Talk to me about the sort of male, the male verse of the podcaster and all these guys who sort of flex their pickup trucks and, or their sort of pickup truck signaling, but in fact, as you say, are just prostate or lie prostate in front of a man who wears makeup and has a sort of acrylic weave.
- [07:32]
Jennifer Welsh
So this type of culture, this type of pickup truck, truck culture I'm very familiar with because I lived in Oklahoma City for 50 years and I've noticed that a lot of these men are happiest in homo social relationships. So interesting look at the gross fear. It's men interviewing men talking about working out, talking about cars, talking about tires. And, you know, it's all of this obsession. It's a very homo social environment and it's always masking, in my opinion, that they feel so inferior. You know, they have a narcissistic disorder where they feel they need to compensate. And if they join ice, then they're gonna have a badge And a gun and they can put a mask on, and that's somehow gonna make them feel like men. And really, it's this whole incompete, incomplete feeling of masculinity with, I think, a lot of sexual suppression that they live with. And so it's a really fascinating take because what we have been programmed to, through Disney films, through all of the art and literature, is that the hero stands up for the little guy. And now we have a culture where the villain is beating down the little guy. And all of these men are celebrating this, celebrating the skirting of the system of masculinity, where they're completely even breaking what we thought about that.
- [08:54]
Joanna Coles
Can you talk more about the repressed or the suppressed sexuality and what you actually think is going on there? Because I don't think. I mean, I don't think you're implying everybody here is gay. You're implying something else which is much more sort of culturally interesting.
- [09:11]
Jennifer Welsh
Yeah. So in evangelical circles, where people are very wrapped up in Christianity and nationalism, so people that live in big swaths of the United States of America, there's not a lot of culture, so they identify with this awesome military that we have and wrap it up in the flag. And then their social life is on built in the church. And there's inherently. I wasn't raised with religion, but a lot of my peers growing up, it's this focus from a very young age about you cannot have sex. If you think about sex, it's bad. If you masturbate, that's the devil. And all of this sexual shaming, which if you think about us as a species, we're genetically hardwired to reproduce, those hormones come and you can't really suppress them. So this causes a type of psychosis with a lot of peers that I've seen. And I think that there is a lot of shame centering around sex. And so for a lot of these men that happen to be hetero, they want to be misogynist to put women, the object of their affection, in a bad light so that maybe they'll be less fuckable. Or if they get pregnant, let's make them have an abortion so that everybody knows that they were slutting around before marriage. And then I do think there's a lot of men. This is anecdotal, but I have a lot of gay friends in Oklahoma City and grinders full of married MAGA men in red counties and in red cities and smaller cities. And I do think that there is a lot of suppressed homosexuality in this. Not all of them. But I do think that's a component of it. And all you have to do is track Grindr, and every time there's a Turning Point rally, you know, they start reporting outages. And I just think that there's this sexual component to this where the misogyny is. We demonize the object of our affection. If they're attracted to men or maybe bi curious, then let's demonize the LGBTQ people. And then maybe that will fix me, because they have been inherently propagandized and indoctrinated to believe that sex is shameful and bad.
- [11:20]
Joanna Coles
So how does Donald Trump, a man who's had three wives, cheated on the first two, you know, had. Had a one night stand that we know of with a porn star. How does he. And of course, famously talks about grabbing women by the pussy. How does he get to be their cult leader?
- [11:42]
Jennifer Welsh
For me, it always made perfect sense because when I was younger, my friends, I was raised by atheists, and so I was number one on the prayer warrior list. We have to get Jennifer saved, and you have to go to church with us. You have to accept Jesus as your Lord and personal savior. So I went to church with some girls in my cheerleading squad in junior high. We pull up to this big, garish church, right? And then the preacher pulls up in this Rolls Royce. He had a real tacky suit on, and his wife gets out of the car and she has this big white mink coat. All of these allegations that he's been, you know, tapping the secretary and tapping this Bible study teacher. So this is a cult that gives forgiveness without growth, and they just sweep things under the rug. And Donald Trump is an evangelical preacher. He's a grifter. This is familiar to them. This type of moral rot is familiar because these preachers, their number one goal is to get more money, get more members. They lie to the congregation, and it's all a grift. And so having a grifter as a president, they're accustomed and primed to that style of abuse. It's familiar to them.
- [12:56]
Joanna Coles
But I've always wondered about the disconnect between being a member of a congregation and having a preacher drive up with a wife in a mink coat in a Rolls Royce. Don't people realize that that's a weird disconnect?
- [13:10]
Jennifer Welsh
I would think they would. The people that I wrote up there with, I'll never forget it. The girl, her mother was working class. She was a ups. She worked for ups. And my parents were upper middle class, but they were more working class. And she had a $20 bill in a cup in the car. And we pulled over to get gasoline, and she said, girls, pump $5 worth of gas. And I said, okay, you pump it. I'll go pay. So I grabbed the $20 bill, and she said, no, no, no, that's for the pastor. Count out the quarters for the gas. They feel like they're pitched this prosperity gospel, that if you give your money, then you will be rich, like this pastor. And this is where this sect of Christianity intersects with capitalism that Trump wants with oligarchy, that this overwhelming, like, if you give your money, then you will be rewarded. And it also intersects with the simple language that Trump uses, like psychological. I'm sorry, spiritual warfare, like good versus evil, us versus them. Every church I ever went to, it was very, like, it was very scary, all of the recruiting that they did to me. And I really wanted to kind of fit in with my peers, but I always thought it was bullshit because I wasn't indoctrinated at a really young age. But it's a very terrifying atmosphere. But they believe if they don't give, then that's Satan at work. It's a really weird cult, but it's 80% follows Trump. They got him elected Evangelical Christians.
- [14:45]
Joanna Coles
So how do the evangelicals that, you know or that culture, how do they handle the Jeffrey Epstein of it all? We're recording this on Friday morning. And as we're recording, Todd Blanche is the number two in the Justice Department, is giving. Giving the latest statement, the latest update on the Epstein files. They're releasing 2,000 videos, and they're releasing 3 million fresh papers on it. How does evangelical community, as you understand it, deal with. Deal with Epstein?
- [15:18]
Jennifer Welsh
The way I interpret this is if it were a lot of Democrats that were in the epicenter of it, I think they would be guns a blazing. We are pro life. We stand for children. And then when the camera focus gets put on them, you have to realize, like a lot of these churches, there's a famous church camp where there was an active pedophile at this church camp that the church organizers cover, covered and covered up and covered up. So, again, there's a familiarity with this. These type of egregious human rights violations. And their coping mechanism is pick up the rug, sweep it under it. Jesus, please forgive. And then there's no growth or no work after that. And so there's a familiarity to these type of abuses that are ambient in their lives. Because if you look, there's not one church that hasn't had some Sort of pedophile scandal. I mean, Catholic most famously. But you go to the Southern Baptists, the Nazarenes and on and on. They are ubiquitous in these churches.
- [16:19]
Joanna Coles
And do you think that Donald Trump's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, are they concerned about that or they just assume that this is part of life, that everybody has some sort of pedophile in the corner of their life somewhere and it's to be ignored?
- [16:37]
Jennifer Welsh
Number one, I don't know that a lot of them, because these are people that freebase Fox News. And then when they're not a great.
- [16:44]
Joanna Coles
Description, free basing Fox News.
- [16:48]
Jennifer Welsh
So good basing Fox News, they go in their pastor saying, jesus wants us to support Donald Trump. So a part of it is, I don't know how much they really know. Now, Pumps, my co host, she comes from an evangelical family and her, your parents, they watch Fox News all of the time and go to like a real hellfire damnation style church. And I don't know that they're even privy to how I like to say cankles deep Trump is in these Epstein files. I don't even know if they're privy to it because they're in such an ecosystem and surrounded by so much pro regime propaganda that I don't even know if they know. And if they did know, they would immediately go because Trump has primed them. It's a Democratic hoax, this fake news. They're primed to think everything that's said negatively about the Strongman is some sort of conspiracy and fake news.
- [17:45]
Joanna Coles
It's fascinating. I love your term free basing Fox News, which I was doing yesterday because, and I know you saw the same thing the first lady was on talking about be best my movie out. You also do a very good first lady impression and you've got the hair for it. I don't have the hair for it. She is apparently furious that Minneapolis has overshadowed the rollout of Melania the movie. Are you going to see it?
- [18:14]
Jennifer Welsh
Okay, no, I'm not going to see it. But to be really honest, like Pumps and I were talking about this, like, do you go buy a ticket for something else?
- [18:24]
Jerry Insurance Advertiser
Yep.
- [18:25]
Jennifer Welsh
And you're totally in disguise because you don't want to give her a sit and then sneak in. But no, I'm not going to see it. I think that this Melania Trump, so many of these forces want to force people to like you. Melania, this was a big shakedown of Amazon. She didn't earn this on merit. This is the woman that plagiarized Michelle Obama. This is the woman that claims that she speaks seven languages. And every time I see her in an interview, I'm like, how has she lived here for 30 years? And that's her quote, be best form of English. It's fascinating to me.
- [19:02]
Joanna Coles
I think she speaks more languages than her husband has stopped wars. Do you. What kind of marriage do you think they have?
- [19:13]
Jennifer Welsh
Oh, totally transactional. I mean, I think she. I think he's a monster, and I think she's a monster. I don't know if she's always been a monster, but I do know this from observational skills. It seems like everybody, once they start capitulating and succumbing to Trump, they become worse. Look at Marco Rubio, look at Ted Cruz. I never thought that m effort could be worse of a person than he was before Trump. And by God, he has outdone himself. And so I think Melania is. Now, if you think about who gives a fuck about the Christmas? And you know, I don't care, do you? And then my husband is a unifier, and my husband doesn't want women raped. And I'm like, who's gonna tell her?
- [19:58]
Joanna Coles
Who is going to tell her? Who's gonna tell her? Who's gonna tell her? That's brilliant. And also, we haven't seen her for a year. We haven't seen her for a year. And lo and behold, now she has something to promote. She's suddenly everywhere.
- [20:10]
Jennifer Welsh
Oh, I just think she's such a thirst trap. And sometimes, you know, we want to. When we're talking about politics or public figures, we want to be intellectual and say deep things. And sometimes it's very simple and very elementary. These are not intelligent people. These are emotionally stunted, damaged, broken dorks. I mean, like, I think AOC said it best. Like, I thought the villains would be cooler than this. And you have all of these dipshits like Stephen Miller and now his wife Katie and JD Vance and Melania Trump. And they're all thirst trappers, narcissistic thirst trappers that are dying for people to like them. And I think it's Donald Trump's niece, Mary Trump, that said too much is never enough. And I think that relates to all of them. And I think Melania is butthurt because Anna Wintour didn't put her on the COVID of Vogue. And she and her husband have that in common. Just petty resentments. And they want to skirt the system and be the most famous and the most popular. And let's just say they were. They're still going to be broken Sociopaths.
- [21:23]
Joanna Coles
Both of them broken sociopaths. Do you think that Donald Trump will survive this the next three years? I know that you, like us at the Daily Beast, are close monitors of his cankles going up and down. Your close monitors of the bruises on his hands and the puffiness around his eyes and how much he falls asleep in cabinets meetings, often when Marco Rubio is talking, at least obviously the soothing tones of Marco Rubio, you know, somehow trigger trigger somnolence. But do you think he survives the next three years? Do you think his health is up to it?
- [22:01]
Jennifer Welsh
I mean, here's the thing. I keep thinking no, but I had four grandparents and the meanest one, I had a grandmother. She was meaner than a rattlesnake. She outlived everybody. She lived to like 90 something. And she was so insufferable. My maternal grandmother, I mean, just a horrible person. And so I don't know why it is that mean people live so long, but they seem to do so. I read an article recently that he has stopped dyeing his hair and I've noticed that it's getting wider. But I'll tell you, I do think it's best if he were to die in office because then the he couldn't pardon everybody. And strong men believe, they don't think about their deaths, they don't think they're going to die. And of course he feels it, but nobody around him could do that. So he plays Marco against JD Vance and there's probably all this. It's probably the most toxic work environment on the planet because look at how they treat us. So, you know, they treat each other just horribly. But if he did die in office, I think it's the best case scenario because there's no pardons for these people and JD Vance has no Riz. Nobody likes him except for Peter Thiel. And I don't think he could keep the cult together. And I think Congress might actually grow a pair against him. I say that I think they will. I keep defaulting to what I think Americans should do, and I keep getting just profoundly disappointed each and every day.
- [23:27]
Joanna Coles
Yeah, I know it's very tempting to resort to what should feel normal. And yet we are so not living in normal times. I often wonder about Donald Trump in the White House when he's on his own at night because we know that the first lady doesn't spend much time there and when she shows up, she's treated like a guest. Do you ever think aboutand perhaps you don't. Perhaps this is just my Weirdness. But I often wonder, what does Donald Trump do when he's on his own in his bedroom? I'm assuming the room is kind of surrounded by television. And he goes to sleep with television and he wakes up with television. But do you have any thoughts as to how he sort of manages on his own?
- [24:11]
Jennifer Welsh
I think he's in his bed. I think he's eating filet o fish Quarter pounders. There's been reporting that he eats his meals in bed. I think he psycho tweets on Lysocial. You know, all of this crazy stuff. I think last night he was like, Tulsi Gabbard has found information about Obama. Like he has these crazy delusions. He started to believe his own propaganda. He's starting to. I mean, I think if it were up to him, he has these ambitions to arrest Obama, to arrest Hillary Clinton, you know, his weird jealousy with Joe Biden, who's like 83, you know, and I think he sits there like a, like a little junior high school girl with his phone and junk food and probably talks to whichever sycophant he can get on the phone. I mean, this is not a deep person. He's not reading the reports of the next day. Everything is centered around him. And the most recent conversations he had. I just had Timothy Snyder, he's a scholar on the podcast and he said he could tell that like every single time Trump has spoken to Putin the next three days, it's just Russian talking points. And so I just think he probably calls the most toxic people at night. Probably Stephen Miller is just sitting there waiting by the phone non stop so that he can make sure he stays close to him. It's really, it's really wild.
- [25:37]
Joanna Coles
It is wild. It is wild. How concerned were you about the raids in Georgia? I mean, you mentioned Tulsi Gabbard appeared in one of Donald Trump's tweets. Tulsi Gabbard oversaw the raid that happened in Georgia yesterday. How concerning is that to you?
- [25:56]
Jennifer Welsh
I think it's as serious as it gets. I think that it's twofold. Number one, he can. He is dying to tell everybody they cheated. I won 2020. He's dying to say that. And they will cook the books. He's surrounded by immoral freaks that won't manufacture evidence. And he will have. We're a few news cycles away from him marching out to the presidential Walk of Fame that's now labeled in gold and him removing the immature sophomore auto pen portrait that he has in the place of Joe Biden and putting himself up, which then he's going to be like, oh my God, I'm now a third term president. What are you going to do? Supreme Court and all of those, you know, fascists are going to say, oh yeah, okay. Because the problem with Georgia is they took the evidence. They took it. So if there's any claim in the future, the evidence is now in the hands of his corrupt DOJ at the oversight of Tulsi Gabbard, who is widely rumored is a Russian asset. And then number two, everybody needs to wake up to the fact that ICE is being funded like this and sent into a blue state like Minneapolis that has zero immigration issues at all. For the record, because this is the going to be the voter suppression machine on voter day. These people are governing like they will never face consequences and they are going to do everything in their power to make sure that they never face consequences. And so this election thing, I think it's been in the works for a long time and I think it's, it's a, it's a twofold thing. He's going to try to heal his ego that will never be healed about the 2020 election. And then he's going to claim widespread voter fraud. And we have to have ICE everywhere to monitor the election day. And they're going to go after black and brown neighborhoods, immigrant neighborhoods. You're going to see immigrants that are going to vote that they're going to, you know, take away from polling lines and rough up. And this is really serious horrible shit that we're watching.
- [28:05]
Joanna Coles
Jen, just hold on a moment. We're going to take a break for some ads.
- [28:09]
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Jennifer Welsh
Can I make my sight softer? Can I make my site firmer?
- [29:46]
Sleep Number Advertiser
Can we sleep cooler?
- [29:48]
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- [30:10]
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- [31:02]
Joanna Coles
And I'm back with Jen Welsh, the co host of I've Had It. Do you know Trump voters who feel that they voted for one thing and got a fake bill of goods and are now concerned about this? Do you think most people are not that engaged? I mean, I sometimes wonder why isn't there more of an outcry about what's going on? But the outcry isn't useful until the actual election Day.
- [31:28]
Jennifer Welsh
Yeah, I think that there are probably a lot of buyers remorse Trump voters. We're seeing that with like Andrew Schultz, the podcaster and some of these bro podcasters that are like, oh, even Joe Rogan, oh, I didn't know that they were going to go to Home Depot. And I'm like, I guess you didn't see the signs at the RNC that said mass deportations now. Nor hear Stephen Miller say, yeah, we want to deport 100 million people. And so I think that There are some, I think there's degrees of Trumpism. There are the die hard evangelical holy war. Trump is the second coming of Christ and they're beyond help. And then you have what I call the country club Republicans that in social circles, like if they're in New York, they're going to be like, oh, I'm a moderate, but every single time again, free basing Fox News because it feeds the racist kind of default setting and they want to vote for tax breaks. And I think some of those people might be saying, oh God, he's, I don't like the personality. I hear this all the time in Oklahoma City. I don't like the personality. But I sure do love his policy and I think it's escalated to such a point now that his policies are indiscriminate killings of American citizens turning his gestapo. In my opinion, that's what it is on a city that, that didn't need it there. This is all created. And so I do think that his approval rating is going to continue to plummet. But I think that cult bas like the January 6th apologist and the January 6ers, I think they eat this shit up.
- [33:04]
Joanna Coles
Well, you're right in terms of why didn't people have a bigger understanding of what was going to happen? I mean, Project 25 laid this out and everybody was like, oh, he's not really going to do that. The thing I hear most is that I don't like Trump, but you've got to admit he gets things done. And the speed with which he has railroaded through so many things, I mean, so many things to list. And Steve Bannon's whole flood the zone, it's very difficult to cover. As you put your podcast together and you're thinking ahead about who do you want to have on, what do you find the most useful in terms of engaging with the audience.
- [33:43]
Jennifer Welsh
Lately I have had experts on like Professor Ruth Ben Guyot and she is a historian and she has written a book called Strongmen. She has provided get information that I think is helpful. She has said she believes the rate at which they have broken this may actually backfire. Because if they really wanted a autocracy, you would move incrementally, you would make people feel it slowly. But this flood the zone is actually backfiring and she calls it the autocratic gamble. And as they continue to get polling dropping and so many scandals, they double and triple down on it. And almost all of these times, the autocrat loses the gamble. And so that's really helpful. Another person talked about an expert that I had on, I think it was Jason Stanley. He talked about the degrees of incompetence. Like you have Stephen Miller, who's pretty competent. I mean, he's a diabolical psychopath, but he's competent about how he wants to do it. Kash Patel is breathtakingly incompetent. Pam Bondi, breathtakingly incompetent. That narcissist that runs the, the defense has all those kids.
- [34:58]
Joanna Coles
Pete Hexa. Yeah, Pete Hexa.
- [35:00]
Jennifer Welsh
Signal chatting, you know, bombs and, you know, thumbs up emojis and bro culture. So the incompetence combined with the speed and these experts saying these are red flags that tell us that it would be difficult. Another thing that's provided kind of a bombing salve is this country geographically is so spread out and to spread like in Germany, it was, you know, the size of Texas, it was very concentrated. But to try to get all of the United States, when we have all of these local governments and state governments and governors, it's going to be a big swing for again, the majority of these people are incompetent.
- [35:44]
Joanna Coles
So what do you think about the Democratic leadership at the moment then? Who are you seeing emerging? How do you feel the Democrats are using what feels like it should be an opportunity for them?
- [35:58]
Jennifer Welsh
Okay. The Democratic leadership right now infuriates me. It is unacceptable. Unacceptable. I just read online this morning that Chuck Schumer has folded like a cheap suit and he's reached a bipartisan agreement. I'm like, you should not.
- [36:16]
Joanna Coles
This is for the shutdown. Right? Right.
- [36:18]
Jennifer Welsh
Yeah, you should. Yes, for. And to fund dhs.
- [36:22]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [36:22]
Jennifer Welsh
You should not be using the phrase bipartisanship with fascists. It needs to be a resist of the highest order. Quit playing patty cake with these people. They're shooting American citizens. They're arresting journalists, they're covering up for pedophiles. He's tanking the fundamentals of the economy. He's blowing up all of our allies. He's playing patty cake with war criminals Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin and screwing around with Canada and Greenland and all of this American arrogance and they do all this crap. The Democrats drive me crazy, Joanne, because then you find out that they're polling and I'm like, that's the problem. Don't crowdsource your morals. Find something. Stand in and believe in it. Now there are Democrats that are rising up around that. I think Ro Khanna recently at the Hakeem Jeffries advised for people not to go to Minneapolis. Ronna went, anyway. I just recently had Greg Cassar, progressive congressman from Texas. On the podcast, Robert Garcia is doing incredible work with the Oversight Committee. And I just think we need a younger generation of Democrats that believe in something and don't crowdsource. I just, I think Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, I don't think they're bad people. I think they're wholly unqualified for this moment. I think this is a moment when we're seeing all of the things that we're seeing. That the sense of urgency that I feel that your people watching this right now are feeling, I don't feel like the Democrats are feeling that. And then especially Tulsi Gabbard in Georgia, like, what are they up to? You know, it's not good. You know, they don't want to give up power. So I think it needs. The Democrats are always outmatched with this. Always. I mean, look at how Biden handled Trump and how Merrick Garland handled Trump. I could sit here and talk about it for hours and how mad I am about that, that they didn't handle an insurrection, but that would be regressive and not healthy. And I'm not going to do that, Joanna. But it just shows you the Democrats need to fight this stuff the way Republicans do.
- [38:40]
Joanna Coles
If the Democrats do win the midterms, at least for the House of Representatives, what do you think they should do? What should their attitude be towards the more democracy? Do they hold people to account? What should be the plan going forward?
- [38:59]
Jennifer Welsh
I think that they should put the. Their foot on the accelerator and smash it so far down that it pokes a hole through the car, and then it starts scuffing up their foot on the street, but they just keep going until they hit the core of the earth. The Democratic Party failed to address this during the Biden regime, and they have to address every single thing that they've done. Done every single thing. And Elon Musk, recently, I said this with Jim Acosta, and the world's richest, most oppressed man on the planet was tweeting about me, because I think they all. I think that they all need to face investigations, and if crimes occurred, they need to be tried, and we need to have a national reckoning with this. And you know, they're all going to be like, oh, God, Jennifer wants to prosecute us all. And I'll just remind everybody, I'm a podcaster. I don't have subpoena power. I preach that. Y' all like to freak out on social media because you're so submissive and Triggered. But it's just they have to be pit bulls. No disrespect to pit bulls. I know there's a lot of nice pit bulls, but the mean ones, you know, that you hear about in the news, they have got to be serious about this.
- [40:16]
Joanna Coles
Jen. Let's take a break for some sponsors.
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Jennifer Welsh
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Jennifer Welsh
And there it was. That hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set. Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams.
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Joanna Coles
One of a kind.
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Joanna Coles
And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you.
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- [42:25]
Joanna Coles
And I'm back with Jennifer Welsh and we are discussing. Well, we're discussing everything. Are you going to run for something? I mean you, you. Why not?
- [42:35]
Jennifer Welsh
I mean, here's the thing. I, I don't. I, I told Keras Wisher I'd rather earn my money on my back than be a politician. You know, at least it would be super transactional and up for front. I don't, I don't want to. I like what I'm doing now. I like commenting on it. I like building the community that we're building with our independent media channel. I, I don't want to be in Washington, D.C. around Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz and complicit Democrats. I think my voice is better reporting on it, gossiping about it, pontificating about it, than I would be in it.
- [43:19]
Joanna Coles
Well, your voice is certainly being heard. You've got enormous number of followers on YouTube. Many congratulations. Are you still. Because I know you come from an interior design background and I know you've just left Oklahoma and you've moved to New York. Are you still doing design? I mean, you're set behind you or your home, which is where I am assuming you're podcasting from, is very stylish. Are you still doing that?
- [43:44]
Jennifer Welsh
Yeah, I still have, like, four projects because these interior design projects take two or three years if somebody's building a home. And, and I love it. And there are many days where, you know, I get multiple death threats because the Five on Fox News is like, jennifer Welch is a radical wine mom. That's antifa. And then I get snail mail, DMs, all of it. And then I think to myself, oh, my God, I had a great career. I was an interior designer. I didn't have to deal with this crap. I was always a political junkie. I think just living in a red state around Christian nationalists. I felt the urgency to stand up for democracy and human rights long before Trump came down the escalator. I've been fighting these Christian nationalists. I've hosted more fundraisers for losing Democrats in the state of Oklahoma than I care to admit. But I tried. I really, really tried. And so some days I think, God, this sucks. This is so hard. And then I'll go into the comment section, which I rarely do, of our YouTube, and it's comment after comment. Thank you. This is my therapy. You're harnessing my anger. Thank you for speaking out. I'm a black woman that lives here. I'm a queer person that lives in this, you know, red county. And it just all different ages, all different colors. And then I think I have to stand up for them. I have to use my privilege and my skin color and my socioeconomic standing for good I have to stand up for these people. I have to stand up for our country. And so that's why I continue to do it. Despite now fantasizing about fighting with my clients about paint colors and other petty, frivolous 1% problems. This is where I need to be right now.
- [45:25]
Joanna Coles
Well, there's something very soothing about thinking about paint colours and wall hangings and all the things. My colleague, my co host on Inside Trump's Head's wife designs their home all the time and he's constantly podcasting from there. And there's something very soothing about looking at a beautiful interior even while you're hearing the horror of the moment.
- [45:50]
Jennifer Welsh
Agree. I completely agree. I mean it. You know, I always thought it was such a cool job because when I would install somebody's home, I would leave and I would say, think this is the backdrop of their childhood or their memories of their Christmases, their Thanksgivings. This is when I go back to when I was growing up in the 80s. I remember the avocado washer and dryer that my mother had and the avocado refrigerator. Do you remember the green appliances?
- [46:15]
Joanna Coles
Of course, yes.
- [46:16]
Jennifer Welsh
And so you remember those things and you're creating this ambient memory and it is very soothing and it's a great. And I still do it some, not to the extent. I used to have 20, 25 projects at a time, so I've really scaled it back. But when I do multiple times a week, I have to check in on my projects and with my clients. It is a very therapeutic profession.
- [46:37]
Joanna Coles
Yeah, it's kind of grounding, in a way. Even if you're dealing with people's hysteria around, you know, very expensive furniture or whatever. What is the secret, do you think, to a good podcast studio? What are the kind of vibes one should try and create?
- [46:52]
Jennifer Welsh
You know, I. So this is my apartment in New York and I just rented a space in Manhattan and I'm in the process of designing it right now. I'm going to have you in person since you're New York based, and I'll show you what I'm thinking. We'll give you a sneak peek. So I am obsessed with, like cowhide textures and so I'm thinking of doing this as the background kind of a blush.
- [47:18]
Joanna Coles
Okay. Is that left handed?
- [47:20]
Jennifer Welsh
Yeah, it's a cowhide.
- [47:21]
Joanna Coles
Right. Okay.
- [47:22]
Jennifer Welsh
And I, in our Oklahoma City studio, it's kind of blue, which kind of made my hair look kind of brassy. And so I thought if I went kind of blush. So this is a little sneak peek. But here's the problem when you're a designer and you're designing something for yourself. I'm as tortured as every client that I've ever hated. That's been a thorn in my side when I have a client. Like if you said, jennifer, come to my apartment, I want you to design it, I would be 100% decisive on every decision. I could design it in my head in record speed, and I would have all the confidence in the world. But when it comes to me personally, it's difficult for me to make the decision. So I understand the torture with it. But podcast studios, it's really interesting because there is an intersection between what I do podcasting and what I do with interior design. And when I first started design a lot of older homes, the kitchen was isolated from the. From the house, and your guests would never go into the kitchen. And now architecture has changed and we live more informally, and the kitchen is the nucleus. And likewise with media, nobody's watching, really, CNN or MSNBC anymore. Their numbers, year after year, down and down. And people don't mind that I'm in my living room reporting. Everything has become less formal.
- [48:41]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [48:41]
Jennifer Welsh
You can look at, you know, the way we. We used to dress up. I remember when I would go on a trip before, I'd be like, what am I going to wear to the airport? My airport outfit was a. Now it's like, what's the most comfortable thing I can put on to get through this flight? And so there's an informality that is kind of everywhere right now.
- [48:57]
Joanna Coles
Well, Sean Duffy, the Transport Secretary, is trying to bring back people dressing up for the airport, which actually I approve of. I still dress up to travel.
- [49:05]
Jennifer Welsh
I do, too. I will do what? Athleisure chic, you know, so I'll wear something comfortable, but if I have on leggings and a tank top, I put a blazer on over it. So at least, because I agree with you, I miss the days where you could look at everybody, everybody's airport outfits. Now, here's the thing. I think podcasters, we should be the ones saying that, not some prick that works for Trump telling people that are struggling, you know, to buy airfare. But I agree, I agree. I think we do need to dress a little chicer in airports.
- [49:38]
Joanna Coles
Jennifer Welch, thank you so much. I'm dying to come and see your podcast studio. We've sort of got a blush behind us. We should have you back just to do a podcast on Robert Kennedy Jr. I mean, we need to dissect him. We need to dissect him and Cheryl Hines. I mean, the whole thing. The whole thing.
- [49:53]
Jennifer Welsh
I want to dive right into that because my favorite television show of all time ever is Curb youb Enthusiasm, of course.
- [50:00]
Joanna Coles
How did she go from that to marrying RFK Jr.
- [50:05]
Jennifer Welsh
The betrayal that I feel because I would always have several downloaded in a pinch. On a flight, I'm like, I'll watch an episode of Curb.
- [50:12]
Joanna Coles
And do you know what? It's actually funnier on a fly. I started watching, binge watching when I was flying back and forth to the West Coast a lot. It's funnier. Whenever I watched it at home, I was like, this isn't so funny. But on a plane, it's very funny.
- [50:26]
Jennifer Welsh
I know. And then she has to go off and marry RFK Jr. And she just fucked us. Just like every single buddy, every single person in this regime. They just take away every bit of joy that we had. All right, I want to have you. I'll have you in studio. And I'm so glad to meet you. Let's dine. Let's start a new friendship.
- [50:45]
Joanna Coles
Let's do all of it. Let's do all of it. So there you have it. I was quite surprised to hear that Jen was nervous about looking at the comments on YouTube. I love reading your comments on YouTube. I get the sense of community. I love your responses. I love your suggestions. So feel free to leave a comment on Jen's particular viewpoint on the world, some of which I agree with. And I find her insight, insights into, certainly people in Oklahoma and their weird adulation of someone like Donald Trump, who, as she says, wears makeup and has this kind of strange confected hair when they're all driving around in pickup trucks expressing. Well, expressing one version of masculinity, truly intriguing. Anyway, leave us a comment. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Video Beast. We are independent media, so we really appreciate your support. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and I'll be back on Tuesday. Inside Trump's Head with Michael Wolf. Which is a very strange place to be indeed. But we will be there. Big thanks to our special Be Beast tier of members. Here they are. Yvette Johnson, Me Thinks Batsio Farrell Mills and Lynns Shelby, Max Cubitt, David Sherry, Thomas Moore, Maria Voltain, D. Huger Watts, Cynthia Lund, John H. Overocker, Deb K. Ostrander, Sandra Clark, Travels With Carl, Andrew Beaver, Capinator Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel dog lover M. Griner, Dyestone Fulvia Orlando Herbie Andrew Mellor, Tat Val Love, Francisco Will Hutchison Andrea Hodel, Bocock, D.C. sharon Shipley, Connie Rutherford, Karen White and last but never least, Heidi Riley. Thank you to our production team, Devon Rogerino, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil.
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Jennifer Welsh
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- [53:52]
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- [54:24]
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Jennifer Welsh
Laugh and our Star Studded the Daily beast podcast@thedailybeast.com, podcasts.
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