Jimmy Pesto Goes To Washington, Feat. Dick Lehr

Fever Dreams

The Daily Beast

News & Politics, Government

4.4 • 767 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Some internet mischief-makers created a fake DHS website purporting to show President Biden’s plan for COVID concentration camps—and rightwing Senate candidate JD Vance fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Elsewhere on the podcast, The Daily Beast discovers the answer to whether character actor Jay Johnston—who voices the villainous Jimmy Pesto on Fox sitcom Bob’s Burgers—really did storm the Capitol on January 6. Meanwhile, the Proud Boys are teaming up with a radical Black nationalist organization called The Black Hammers, who are darlings of right-wing media for doing things like bashing Holocaust victim Anne Frank. Journalist Dick Lehr drops by the pod to discuss his new book, White Hot Hate, on a domestic terror plot to bomb an immigrant mosque in Kansas. And James O’Keefe is entertaining the crowd at rightwing conferences with songs from the musical Oklahoma. As co-host Asawin Suebsaeng notes, further proof that “failed theater kids will destroy us all.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, welcome to Fever Dreams. My name's Will Summer. I'm a political reporter at The Daily Beast and the author of an upcoming book on QAnon for Harper Collins.
0:07.8	And I'm Aswin-Sub-Tang, but please call me Swin. I'm a senior political reporter at the Daily Beast and co-author of the book Sinking in the Swamp.
0:15.2	All right, here on Fevered Dreams, we're going to take you on plunges into the sometimes hilarious and sometimes scary world of the American right as they continue to influence our politics. Even in the aftermath of the Trump administration,
0:25.4	the energy of these conspiracy theorists, these grifters, and these influencers is still pushing
0:30.5	our mainstream political landscape closer and closer to a breaking point. All right, Swin, the mistletoe
0:36.3	is hanging. The snow is not exactly falling, but you know, I'm in a Christmas mood.
0:41.7	And that's why I'd like to open up with a little tale of a mischievous Christmas elf,
0:46.6	J.D. Vance of Hillbilly Elgy fame, now running for the Ohio Senate.
0:51.0	Okay.
0:51.5	Now, J.D., obviously, he's been getting in a lot of antics on Twitter lately,
0:55.7	but did you see his latest one about COVID concentration camps?
0:59.3	No,
0:59.6	no,
0:59.7	no, no,
0:59.9	please tell me.
1:00.5	And also,
1:01.5	did Mandel,
1:03.0	who's also running in the Republican field in Ohio,
1:05.6	also getting into this?
1:06.6	Or is this just a J.D.
1:08.2	Vance production?
1:08.9	No, because Josh Mandel has swag, dude.
	...

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