Behind the Bastards - Bonus Ep: Debate Review w/ Katy and Cody

Episode Date: June 29, 2019

The ol' gang gets together to discuss the debates! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's debating? My almost certainly hopeless opponents of a fascist monster. I'm Robert Evans. This is Normally Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we talk about the worst people in all of history, but we're doing nothing like that today. Today is prep for the election podcast that Cody, Johnston, Katie Stoll, and I will be launching in 2020,

the worst year ever. We are doing an episode covering the Democratic debates, which could not be further from the premise of my show, where none of the people involved in the debates, regardless of my issues with them individually, qualify as true bastards, but it's an hour or so of free content. What are you going to do? I'm going to whine at me. I already gave you two episodes about bastards this week. This is just deep.

This is icing on the cake. If you whine, he can't hear you. I can't hear you. Complain more, but please do listen to the podcast. I love all of you. Yeah, we just thought we would get the ball rolling on our eventual show. Yeah, we're trying to figure out exactly what it's going to be, so that we aren't just throwing another nonsense political podcast into a crowded field of misery that makes everyone hate themselves.

Much like the candidates in the debates themselves. So this is a little bit of a refining process. It's kind of like if you're shooting missiles at the moon, you're going to hit Mars a couple of times. Yeah, exactly. It's hard to hit the moon with a missile. You're going to get a few bettos up there. So this missile might hit Jupiter. We might hit Europa.

We might hit the sun. We might hit Manhattan. Either way, the next missile we fire will be closer to the moon. I don't know why I'm comparing this to missiles. I love it, though. Thank you. I'm going with it. Jupiter or Manhattan?

Yep. Okay. Classic one, two. Those are the options. Yep. Hey, everybody. One way or the other, you heard either Katie and Cody's intro or my intro, and now what the actual podcast is starting.

And I arrogantly grabbed leading everyone in and stole it from you both. It's disgusting, honestly. It is. I'm a monster. Absolutely not. This is going to be fun. For everybody who's listening who might be confused that listens to both, we're sitting here.

We're recording two different intros for the episode. It'll cut together. Yeah, but we're beyond them. We're here. We're in it. We're with you now. All right. Let's talk about the debates, guys.

Who, I want to know first off, who surprised you? Who were you discounting? And then you came into it and you're like, wow, man, if anybody, that person was interesting. I mean, I'm going to be honest, I know. Castro's name was not at all in my mind. I wasn't even really aware that he was running. Yeah. And he performed very well.

Yeah. Really good. If for debate two, I would say the person who surprised me, who was not, I mean, I knew she was running, but she was not on my radar. I think Gillibrand did a lot better than I expected. She absolutely did. She didn't earn my vote, but she did better than I expected. I was completely blown away that Marianne Williamson was even on the stage.

I don't know how that went over my head. She got a few really good answers. Like, oh, that's actually true. Like you shouldn't really be here, but what you're saying is true. But you're not wrong. You're not wrong. It's like, what are you doing here? I would almost like it if in the future for debates, we had the candidates and then like

one person who was popular in America and who just came on to like drive home an issue. Yes. Okay. Yeah, everybody. But like the ice caps are melting and the world's dying. Like maybe dressed up. Right. Bring it back.

Because the moderators definitely aren't going to do that. No. Because they're all bad at their jobs. Not Chuck Todd, for sure. So, yeah, having someone be the actual voice is like, but like, here's what we're really talking about. One thing we've learned as a species is that regardless of our ability to put human beings on other planets, to create electric cars.

We have not invented a human being who is capable of moderating a political debate. It has never happened. Do we need robots? Yeah. Robots, maybe. Or Werner Herzog. Well, Werner Herzog could totally do it. Werner Herzog could fucking do that job.

Yeah. He would do that silently. Yeah. Like he could command that. Yeah. Just like his presence would do that. One thing it would help probably is fewer candidates and more hours. But we can talk about that.

Would you have preferred five candidates a night for four nights? I would have been fine with that more than what is currently there. I would have preferred even then like 10 candidates for four hours or like even longer. Like I have no problem with a longer debate. Like that's why we're here. We have literally 24-hour news channels and people are like engaged in that kind of thing. And we want to know that, oh, whoever's going to be can like stand on a stage for six hours and talk about the issues.

And we live in a world where people routinely will spend a dozen hours in a weekend been watching television just to chill out. Like I feel like we can devote 10 hours to debates about the future of our species. You think so? It seems reasonable. It seems like that. Yeah. It's difficult because watching these, yeah, you don't really get a clear sense of people.

These are the most important. Yeah. So they say. The most important people in the world right now. Right. Yeah. They have that many opportunities to get to know them outside of Twitter, outside of the headlines that we see, the random clips that are passed around.

And you don't really have the time to hear anything of, like it's a quick sound bite, 30 seconds. Yeah. I think in general it's kind of like, I don't think it's exaggerating necessarily. I think it's kind of shameful what they have done. Horribly so. Like, yeah. Disgusting.

Yeah. Like that's fair. Yeah. I didn't want to oversell it. That's the whole thing that the media has allowed to happen. It shows that they didn't learn anything from 2016. But if they did, they learned the wrong thing. It wasn't even just 10 candidates over two hours.

It was 10 candidates over two hours with five moderators. Yeah, that was wild. And like a bunch of commercial breaks. The whole thing is it's like. Well, there weren't that many commercial breaks, but yeah. There shouldn't have been any. Like they didn't. I could be.

Moderator switches. It's not that long. If it was a six hour debate, it'd be like, yeah. Yes. One hour. Two people for one hour. Two people for the next hour. It's really.

Is that just because everybody wanted to be involved or all that, because they're from different networks, I guess? Yeah. It must have been something like that. It's mostly MSNBC, isn't it? No. I mean, yeah. I don't know.

Either way, it was unnecessary and like, no one, like no one. That position. Is it like, ooh, they got like the best question in like. I will say that. I thought, especially on night ones, Savannah Guthrie did a good job of. She could have done the whole thing. Yeah. She was holding people to task.

I know. Exactly. And I like, I'm one of the people that like Rachel Maddow. Not obsessively. I have. Yeah. She's fine. She's fine.

I mean, I think that she's an entertaining person. She made some bad mistakes. Ari, the Mueller report this year. Yeah. I completely agree. And I don't watch her show nearly as much as I used to, but I think that she is good at breaking down stuff and she's like a really good on her feet. Anyway, this isn't about Rachel Maddow and I like her fine, but I could have just stuck

with Savannah Guthrie. Yeah, she's a great job. She's doing up really aggressively and keeping people on points and like, you know, answer the question. But anyway. How do you expect a single human being to function for four hours in a week? Ah, that's good points. It's impossible.

No one here on that job. Cut it up. Cut it up. Get more people up there. Oh, I do. I did want to mention this because this is what you asked at the very beginning. I think Cory Booker also surprised me. Okay, great.

And I didn't, I wanted to give him credit where it's due because I've, I think he's corny as hell all the time. Cory Booker. I know. I avoided saying that. But yes. Well, I know. There we go.

And I got delighted to say that. I agree with you completely. Rachel, completely. He's super corny and I don't think he comes off as very authentic, but I thought he did a really good job. Yeah. Surprisingly so. Right.

And I guess the limited time, I wanted more time to see what he had to say. I mean, everybody. Yeah. Because I don't. There were 10 of them. But like what we were talking about, like the idea that he even brought up like African Americans, trans women in America are the idea that he, that he, in his very limited amount of time, an issue that will not gain him a single vote because there's very few

trans people. Right. First off, not like, not just said that African American trans women are being murdered at a nightmarish rate, but first off, introduced that like transgender people in general are victims of violent crimes at huge rates and then specified that. And this is particularly a problem within the black transgender community. The fact that he took that time is a, and I don't like the guy, but is a very significant credit to his person.

Yes. Absolutely. And I give him a lot of credit. I was kind of, I was surprised and kind of blown away and that he brought it up. And also like it's, cause it's no one's ever going to bring that up. I don't know if it's just me being cynical when I see him do that because I have this idea of him and I know that he's a politician and I have fears that he's inauthentic. I immediately go to, are you just saying that?

Someone told him to say that. I told him to say, but I don't, I don't want to operate like that. And I do agree. I really appreciated it. And I think it's important to say this and like start saying this on the debate stage that people start getting used to this being an issue that we discuss. I hate the Democratic party almost as like much as I hate the Republican party for very different reasons, but it is a credit to the Democratic party that the issue of violence

against trans people came up more than once in this debate. In spite, like it is not, it's not a vote getter, it's an issue they could ignore and not lose a vote. And the fact that it has been made and not insignificant part of at least one of the debates is, is a real credit to the party. And I'll say that to him. Yeah. That matters a lot to me.

Yeah. I wanted to say that cause. Yeah. Well, we're talking about this. Julian Castro was the first one to bring on trans women and talking about healthcare and how it's necessary for us to include them when we're talking about women's reproductive rights. And I, I clapped.

I was sitting by myself and clapped. It's so rare to see anything that even vaguely resembles at a distance if you squint and take mushrooms courage in politics today. And that's, I would, I would, I would call standing up for trans people from a mainstream politician courage and it shouldn't be. And it's horrible that it is, but it is. And we're thrilled to see those steps being taken. Yeah.

I think it's important. Even though this was kind of a cluster fuck. We can say that on here cause it's a podcast, um, let's call it cluster pee pee, a cluster pee pee. Since this was a, this was a bit of a cluster pee pee. I do feel good about a lot of the stuff that we've talked about. I do feel like even the candidates that I'm not thrilled about people throwing out stuff, I, especially on night one, I liked seeing again, Julian Castro standing up there saying

I'd like to see everybody else on the stage, the other candidates commit to, and, you know, and that happened a couple of times in different, in different capacities, and we saw it happening. And that is the beautiful thing about this part of the process, seeing where we land on certain issues. I would like more and longer debates where they all radicalize each other. Joe Biden is wearing like a chairman Mao shirt and shouting about taking the factories back. And that's, well, that's like, I'm not, not to say that like chairman Mao, but I would enjoy that from a, from a viewer perspective.

And we saw a little bit of that and it was really cool, and I think we've talked about leading up to this, that like, like the winner of the democratic debates is like, well, what does the platform end up being? What are the issues and plans people gravitate towards? And if you have 10 people for two hours and five moderators, it's really hard to get to that point. And it's actually kind of amazing that there were a few moments like that. You have four hours, you have, you are able to say, you get two minutes to talk about

this. And if someone's like raising their hand, you can actually say, okay, I actually have a conversation instead of like really forcing it and trying to get the sound bites in and so on. And for the purpose of intellectual masturbation, I would like to talk about how we'd like to see this happen. And for my own self, what I would enjoy saying, we have the same 20 candidates, if I was picking the rules, I would want five of them to get two hours each, four nights in one week.

And then six weeks later, you look at who they are and you pick the top 10 and then you have a four hour debate with the top 10. And four hours is a long time. People might say that's unreasonable, but like one of the things you vote for and you should be voting for in a president is their stamina, their ability to function and focus for fucking four hours of a hardcore debate. That's important. Because we currently have a president who can't do that.

Yeah. And like I think a lot of people that were in the debate tonight and last night couldn't do that. Yeah. I mean, how many lines can Beto say in Spanish and English? Unbelievable. Just one based on. Well, now it's time to talk about that.

Did everybody gasp? Everybody gasped and that was the most likable Cory Booker's ever been. When he gave him that, are you kidding me, look, like that was perfect. Yeah. But then Cory Booker speak, then he did it later too, right? That look, in hindsight, that look had even more meaning because we knew he was going to do it. You did it first, you fucker.

I think they all did it more reasonably. He did it in an issue where it was like, no, you're just repeating your point in Spanish. Yeah. For no reason. Yeah. And that's weird. Yeah, it was weird. And he brought it out really early on and really like, this is me, this is the thing

I'm going to do. And it did have nothing to do. And he made sure to be the first person to speak Spanish on a floor with a Latino candidate. With a Latino candidate. That's the part that was painful. Come on, man. It's not that I disagree with the. Yeah.

No, speaking Spanish. Being bilingual is great. Wonderful. Wonderful thing. Yeah. But obviously this whole debate isn't in Spanish. You're doing something, and out of the gate, the white man that stands on tables, that everybody rolls their eyes at, how little self-awareness does he have?

If it had been, if the question, the first question, if it had still been the first question, but it had been like about immigration reform or about something directly tied to that as opposed to just like, I'm going to answer a question and I'm going to do it again in Spanish. And it's like, what are you, Beto? Right. And he didn't really answer the question. Yeah.

I mean, I don't. No, he did not answer the question in either language. Which, yeah. And he ran out of time. He's also just super fucking. I'm not a fan of Beto O'Rourke. He's such a dude. He's such a dude.

He didn't win me over here. Yeah, I don't care for him, but yeah, Julian Castro really did, and I had zero expectations for him. Yeah. I was not aware he was really running, to be entirely honest, at the risk of decredifying myself. There's too many people. There are, yeah.

There are, yeah. I absolutely still cannot. I didn't even know the Oprah book lady was going to be there. Right. That was a surprise. Well, they would, towards the end of the debate, they'd go to somebody and be like, wait, have they gone to this guy yet? I know.

I'm always surprised that John Hickenlooper exists, 100% of the time. He looks nothing like I imagined. It's really funny too, because it's like, there were like four Hickenloopers tonight, and there were four Hickenloopers last night. Too many white men. Like it's just, but it's not even like white men. It's just like a very specific type of guy. It's the guy that you wind up in line behind at the co-op buying a lot of organic soda.

Yeah. Like all of them are that guy. Yeah. I have tweeted about this and talked about this before, and some people are like, that's racist when I say specifically this type of white man. And I'm only doing that because I'm describing literally who it is. If it was a white man, like a Bernie, who was something a different kind. And I'm not a Bernie person, but per se.

But like, you know, something unique, something different. But these guys are very hard to differentiate between in these 32nd increments, in these little snippets that we get, and they're not bringing something new. And every time a new person knew one of them through their hat in the ring, it just frustrated me a little bit, because we've got all these unique candidates that are really exciting. Well, that's the other thing, because I think that they're not, they're not necessarily, it's not like they're all the same, but like when you have such a limited amount of time, it is hard to differentiate them.

There were a few moments, let's say like last night, and maybe a couple tonight where we're like, oh yeah, that guy's right. Yeah. That's a good point that guy made. That's a good point. Wow. Who the fuck is he? Yeah.

Where did he go? Oh, well, never seen him again. Now he's gone. Right. But if you had like more time. It'd be nice if this had time to breathe. Come back to that guy. And now I, now I actually know who he is and what he stands for and how he, how he's different

from all the other people on the stage. Not just, that was a good sentence I heard from somebody. If number one news networks were not entirely a for-profit endeavor, it existed for the, call me a crazy fucking communist here, betterment of society rather than shareholder value. And if also the democratic party was more competent, having 20 candidates at this point in this, it could be real strength. It could be great chance for university of ideas for real debate, for inability for people to have a real choice and to hear a lot of issues and to have issues that wouldn't otherwise

get pressed in a campaign be pushed in just based on necessity. I could see that being a real strength, it's not the way they focused it. Instead, it just, it just hurts the entire cause of sanity. And that's frustrating to me. Right. And then just like all the like, all right, we're going to do a real quick down the line. And then they do the one, one word answers or five word answers ever. And it's like, you're just, it's just this onslaught of information you can't really

parse. And nobody answers the question the right way. Nobody answers the question. They were like, I will say in the, instead they were like one, one part, I think it was just Hickenlooper who was just like fucking climate change is my one issue. There were a few people who was like, okay, John, like you got me there. It's so interesting because that stands out, whereas people that say, well, go run off and start listening, shoving as many words as they can into that 10 seconds.

But the people that are concise and answered did stand out in those moments. Yeah. I hated everyone's answer to the question, who is the biggest threat to America? Because in a sane debate, my opinion is there's one answer and it's, oh, the biggest threat to America is Americans. It will always be, it has always been, and there's no one else that comes close. Run for president. Yeah.

I'm sure I will. I agree. It's frustrating. Just these media twerps. Chuck Todd bothers the hell out of me and he has for ever and he didn't change my mind. He's not good. He's not good. He didn't win you over.

He didn't win me over. No. Not going to his job. Quick question, Cody. How many times do you think he could buy and sell you? Oh. As many as I could start counting now and by the time this episode is done, that number would be less than the actual number.

You know what the best thing about capitalism is, is the meritocracy. I believe that. I believe that thoroughly. I believe in that and I believe that you think that too. Yep. Big fan of the meritocracy, which is really a thing that happens. Chuck Todd deserves everything. He has.

He's good at his job. Yeah. Fantastic. Real smart cookie. Genius. Last night, going down the line, what do you think about that and then they do their quick answers. He's like, this is my favorite part.

This is the good part. You know, this is the part where you really get into it. What? What? Chuck? The fuck? I will say the best part of these two debates and I can't imagine even another competitor is Kamala Harris, who I don't like because she's a cop.

Really fucking grilling Biden. Yeah man. Let's talk about that. That was awesome. Absolutely. That was great. Yeah. The best moment of night two for sure for me was that and emotional about it.

You could tell she was damn near at tears when she finished speaking and was fighting for composure. You could tell like it really affected her and she really meant it at the same time like she was going to do that no matter what. Like she was planning on like, we're going to talk about this on stage. Yeah, that's what we've been talking about for a long time of like, I can't wait for Joe Biden to be next to people who actually talk to him about this stuff. I was a bit, I mean, I, Bernie didn't really go after Joe Biden and we were expecting that

but I'm thrilled that Kamala did. Yeah. It was so good. And again, this is one of those things like they're in a- He did not look her in the eye. He didn't. Man. He gave her a glance and then he looked away, he could not do it.

He got mad. Yeah. You know, as a journalist, your goal is to try to be, to look at things from an objective point of view. As a podcaster, your goal is not that and I find myself torn between the two and I feel like, I feel like I need to emphasize, I very much dislike Kamala Harris. Sure. I do too.

I do not like the idea of voting for a prosecutor. I think her job, the job that she did for years is fundamentally unable to the world. She fucking nailed that moment. Well, that's, that was perfect. And I completely agree with you. Those are all of my reservations against Kamala and when I talked to people about it, you know, some people don't like that I don't like Kamala. And yeah, I'm, I'm capable of giving fucking credit where it's due.

Yeah. Yeah. She's so good at that. And she's so good in all of the Senate hearings. Yeah. She's so, and that's the prosecutor in her. She's concise. She's smart and she's aggressive and, and that showed tonight.

And one of the things that I really liked about the moment because she is, she is concise. She's very polished. She's very good at speaking. I liked the raw emotion, especially the very end. And I really, everyone find that, find that like the YouTube video of this and like really look at after she delivers her last word, what you see on her face is like something you get so rarely in national politics is like real emotion that moved her body. Yeah.

Like, and that's important to see. Yeah. And I really liked to see that. Seeing that it really affected her and she had to sort of take a moment and like. As it should have. Yeah. As it should have. Like, that's like a scary thing to do on a stage and like really raw and open.

It shows character and, and courage and I'm impressed by her. Although I'm sure. Someone who doesn't like her. Some people would skew that as being emotional in some kind of way. Those people are dumb. I want to know that my, I want to know that my president has human emotions. Yeah. The most I've ever been sympathetic to Donald Trump is hearing that his daughter described

him what chemical weapons did to kids and that he had a gut reaction to it. I want that. Yeah. Like he didn't do anything effective about it. Right. Like you want to know that like the president's a human being. Yes. Who can hear something and be like, well, fuck it.

We got to take action. This, this can't be allowed to happen. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. I agree with you all completely. I think it's funny. Someone pointed out, I think this is perfect that, uh, so like Kamala took a moment to call

Joe Biden racist. Well, she said, I'm not calling you racist. But she did. And if you guys need reminding, this was about the issue about busing students and how states rights, how, how Biden was against busing children into different districts. If I'm not mistaken, she was supposed to have had a 30 second timer on that. No, they didn't even thought about it. Nobody.

I love that. I was, I was, I was like, well, she blew past 30 seconds. I was like, are they going to stop her because that would be like that was well done to say like, well, this is the moment that we need to let breathe. I feel like Walter Cronkite's ghost would strike you down for trying to stop that. Right. Like questioning. That would have been the most embarrassing moment of the night if, if someone tried to

stop her from, let her speak. It's like, God, Chuck, shut the fuck up. Yeah. But he didn't. But he didn't. It was credit. Yeah. To Chuck Todd's credit.

Fucking Chuck Todd was like, yeah, this needs to happen. To Chuck Todd's credit. He didn't do anything. Yeah. So the best thing he's done is not anything. Um, but I think all this is really funny that, uh, in response to that, so obviously Joe Biden got really, really mad. He sure did.

He sure did. So like, so she called them racists and then in response, he called her a cop. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, oh, so like you're just like living Twitter out right now, like you're doing it all. I would have loved it if Joe Biden, the only thing you could have gotten to get my, my support after that is if he'd called her a cop, put on a black mask and then spray painted

the Antifa. That he would be on board, that would have been amazing. Yeah. Just, just fucking Joe Biden goes like full Banksy. Yeah. Yeah. I think he really did a bad job tonight. Oh yeah.

He wasn't, he wasn't great. I mean, after that, like there was no going back room because it made him so mad, I think. And he should have even before that, even before that. And again, in terms of like, theoretically things that he could have done to earn my support, if he just been like, you're right, I came up in a different era. I learned things that were wrong and I was wrong then and you are right now. Let me explain why I still think I can do a good job as president. And that's human.

That's why the night, well the night before when Tulsi talked about this and we've got the various opinions of Tulsi Gabbard, but like saying like, I think a lot of people watching can relate to growing up at a conservative household and, and growing and changing your mind. And I was like, that is exactly what you say. Yeah. Like as someone who hate, like I hate Tulsi Gabbard, I also grew up hating gay people because of how I was raised and I identified with that statement and that was a very good

way for her to answer that. That's how you deal with that. That's how you address it. Because it's true. Yeah. Or how. And hiding, hiding from it is a real big mistake. How Buddha judge handled that question about the shootings in his town and the, in the

start. The start. At the start at the intro to it. Yes. I completely agree. But that was human and honest and he was saying like, I don't know. This is, this is a nightmare and it's very difficult. We couldn't get it done legally.

I couldn't get it done. That's what he said. I couldn't get it done. That gutted me a little bit. I was like, not gutted me, but hit me in a way of like, I, I just so deeply appreciate it. And this is where. So I'm getting a little bit like off here, but this is where I get to like the fundamental

issue of, of, of the, the, the still lurking curse, the lurking ghost of authoritarianism that is at the core of every system in the world that's still left over from the days when we were ruled by kings. The fact that an acceptable answer to that question wouldn't have been Buddha going, we couldn't get it done. This is a nightmare. Nobody knows how to fix this entirely. And the only answer will come from sustained long-term nationwide dialogue to figure out

how to fix this problem because it's not a problem that can be solved by a person at the top. It's a problem that starts from the bottom and percolates up like the solution starts from the bottom and percolates up. That's, well, see that's another reason why Mary Ann Williamson was like, well, she's actually right. She's right. When she said that, I was like, why are you doing railing?

This is weird. And then she got to it. Oh, she's right. It's exactly what you just said. Wait, what moment was this? When she was talking about how it's not just, I mean, it seemed like it was sort of getting into a holistic medicine sort of thing. She went to some weird digressions and stuff.

The idea of, and she also called universal health care and whether or not I have Medicare for all of my superficial solutions, which I don't necessarily agree with, but the idea of just like, why do people get sick, why do we have these problems, what are the roots of these problems? That's an important conversation. And we have to be able to talk and really explore what causes the problems that we're making policies to solve the symptoms of. I know that she doesn't think she's going to win.

And I don't think, you know, I think she's the Inslee of this. Exactly. Inslee like knows he's not going to be the presidential candidate. He just wants to make sure climate change gets talked about, which they're all doing the Grevelle thing. And it might take a while for that to seep in, but it is true. That are the other things that are factoring in to this bigger problem. Can I throw in a free ad plug?

Oh, sure. Try sandwiches. They're great. They're just great. Any sandwich? Yeah, any sandwich. Really good concept. Bread and then things in between the bread.

Great idea. Try a sandwich. I want to talk about Elizabeth Warren. I love talking about Elizabeth Warren. Are you a couple of Warren bros? Yes. I'm a Warren babe. No.

I am a... Nothing. Comprehensively planned out and logical solutions to basic problems, bro. Wild. Wild stuff. You name a problem. She's got a plan for that. It's not the number of problems that she has plans for.

It's that she specifically, the things that she's focused on most seem to be like breaking up big tech. All the fucking Nazis. She literally has a billboard that says, those were break up big tech. It's so simple. Yeah. Good. It's also real quick, just something that's been bothering me, because the whole breaking

up big tech and that is, I think, an issue that everyone can kind of come together on. It seems like the right and left direction. It's the right and left thing. It's extremely frustrating to watch that the right's concern about big tech is solely about conservatives being censored. No, because they would like everyone else to be banned from existing. Right. And I know why.

Not the right, but the people who are part of that grift are literal Nazis in many cases. Right. And there's a clear goal and mission from a lot of them. But just like you see Ted Cruz and he's in the hearing and he's like, conservatives are being censored. It's like, no, no, that's not the reason. It's just very bizarre. It's frustrating to watch.

It's not the reason because like David Newart, who is like one of the things I do for a living is anti-fascist research, David Newart is the very best of us who got banned from Twitter for the fact that his book cover had a stylized image of a guy in a clan hood on it because his book is about racist groups in America and he got banned from Twitter for weeks. Like David Newart's not a conservative. The problem isn't that Twitter bans conservatives. The problem is that Twitter's decisions as to who to ban are completely inconsistent, have nothing to do with their actual written rules and are often done by random robots

and then justified post facto by individual human beings trying to avoid like making a bad news cycle. Yeah. And that's dumb. Yeah. I agree completely. We're talking about Elizabeth Warren. I'm sorry for tearing off.

Elizabeth Warren. Okay. So in terms of her debate performance, I feel personally that she stood out, you know, different phrases, heads and shoulders, miles ahead of all the other candidates. She is the person that answers the fucking question. That is true. She answers the question. She answers the question.

She doesn't pivot. You see so many people are like, I know, it's so basic, but everybody else will take it and pivot to something that they feel comfortable talking about. Even Bernie, he did it tonight, makes me crazy. He did it a couple of times. We just avoid talking about a racial issue to start talking about, you know. Getting to your comfort zone. Yeah.

He's got the message that he sticks to and so he's jumpers up. They want you to do that, but it's it's not authentic and you're not actually, you're not answering the question. You know, there were so many times when like one of the moderators was like, okay, I'm going to give you 12 more seconds. Do you want to answer the direct question? Like they like, I love the wording. Yeah.

Because I really, I really do the thing we asked you to do. Do you want to answer the direct question was said a lot like the phrase direct question and not Elizabeth Warren, not Elizabeth Warren and you mentioned, you know, that moment with Kamala, you see her, her humanness in that moment. But I, I, I felt that with Elizabeth Warren on most of her answers, that I wasn't just looking at a politician. And we talked about this earlier, how maybe she didn't always have the, the canned line answer.

No, she did. Oh, so if I were to like evaluate Elizabeth Warren's whole performance, her, her first answer and her last answer were both very polished, very well scripted, what a progressive politician would say in a movie and between then she talked like a normal person, having a conversation with you, which is why I would say from a presentation standpoint, she did not come across the best because she came across as a person who is thinking through answers and having a conversation with you, trying to answer them, which I don't know if it is a weakness or a strength because Donald Trump comes across as a drunken farmer.

Um, when, and, and like anyone, the presidency, that turned out to be great. And we're all if fucking exhausted of people who sound like politicians. And she sounds, she sounded like a politician, like a good politician at the first and last answer. And in between she sounded like a person trying to find solutions. Yeah. And that's, that resonated with me. It seems positive.

Um, I would say. But I understand like that's, it's just important to note that that is very true. Um, and different people are going to take that in different ways. For me, I found it refreshing. Also she taught special ed and, uh, as a person who taught special ed and was bad at it. I didn't know that about you. I did and was bad at it. My job was mostly to get punched in the face, but having literally gone to war zones and

been shot at, I can't imagine a harder job than teaching special education. Anybody who dedicates a chunk of their life to doing that, except for me, because I was bad at it, is a hero. Your mother does. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Of course that risk kids.

Fucking amazing job. And I would love to have a president who understands that. Yeah. Um, and I want to talk a little bit about her. Uh, I don't have the answers to this, but maybe you guys do. I've seen a lot of pushback or some amount to Elizabeth Warren online, um, specifically about her stance on Palestine as well as Medicare for all. Do you guys know anything about that?

I've heard about the Medicare for all I've interviewed. What the fuck is she saying about Palestine? I don't know. I don't know. I actually don't know. I don't think that she has a hard stance against Israel as I think the point. I don't know. I have trouble imagining anyone having a hard stance against Israel and running for president

in the United States. That's the thing. I think that seems like everyone is the same. Like no one, no one is, is making that an issue for them. No one's trying to make themselves stand out. But I've seen a lot of people and people even have been DMing me being like, I'm concerned about your support of Warren because of her. Really?

Because of her stance and Palestine and, and what are, what are, what are they specified on what they're concerned about? She doesn't seem to have a lot of empathy towards Palestinians. Oh, then yeah, I would consider that an issue. And, and yeah, that's what I will say and what I can say without being more certain about her specific views is that like, I'm sure she has more empathy for Palestine than Donald Trump. Yeah.

Yeah. That's where, yeah. They all do. Yeah. And I guess that she was for Medicare for all and then seemed to take a step back. But then she seems like she is. But now she's all in. She seems in.

She waffled on it. I think she mainly waffled on it because it's just not one of the core issues that she's focused on. And I mean, she literally said, I'm with Bernie on this one. Yeah. Yeah. So fine. I think we have to take right our word for that.

Well, and it's one of those things where like, part of what you're voting for is not what the candidate espouses and what they've believed all the career, but whether or not they are a sane person who could be pushed. You will not push a Republican to make, it's like with climate change. Joe Biden, who I don't like, if he is elected president, doesn't have a good policy on climate change right now. It doesn't have a great history with climate change. But I do firmly believe could be pushed by a Democratic electorate who cared about climate

change to embrace effective policies to address it purely because he wants to win re-election and because he's a political animal. Donald Trump will never do that. I believe that he could be pushed during this process. I believe that we could get him saying X, Y, or Z. And I think he'd go along with a Democratic Senate and House. He will not take any step on his own. He won't take any step on his own.

And that's why I don't think that's what we need. I mean, I think I'm preaching to the choir here. I'm not talking about what we need, but just like if we're talking about should you vote for Biden if it's Biden or Trump? Yes. Oh, for sure. But I do feel like that has to be, like it's the kind of thing where it's like there's a lot of criticisms to lobby against everybody on the stage and there's a lot of reasons

to not like Biden. But if he was president right now, we would have a lot of the same problems we have, but children wouldn't have died in concentration camps. And that's not a nothing to me. That's not nothing. And also, trans people wouldn't be banned from serving the military. Also true. I'm mostly worried.

With Biden, I'm just, I'm mostly worried about post-Biden and who the Republican candidate is after Biden. No, I hate the idea of promoting the election because I think it's a huge step back for us. I just think that the response to Joe Biden would be someone smarter than Donald Trump who still embodies the same kinds of things and that's super fucking scary to me. I just think for how terrible these years have been with Donald Trump, the sort of positive that you can take away is that we, everybody's riled up in a way and paying attention in

a way that we've maybe never been before. And if any of these big, broad changes that we dream about happening are going to happen, they're going to happen now because everybody's engaged. And I just feel in my bones that getting Biden in there would be a huge step back from all this stuff. Oh yeah. It would bum me out in a way that I actually fear a lot and I will vote for him. I don't think he's going to make it.

He seems like he's been bleeding support at a rate that makes me think it may not be sustainable. That said, again, as somebody like, you know, you've got the part of me who's like trying to approach this as a, what I believe in a part that's trying to approach it as a journalist, he has really fucking solid support among the black and Latino community. That's so interesting. And it's the same thing with Hillary Clinton. This is what I argued with Bernie people a lot during the election is it's like, no,

she objectively won a larger chunk of the non-white democratic vote than he did by a substantial margin. And that's not because of the DNC. It's because she devoted a lot of time to campaigning in those areas in those communities. I'm speaking here. And you have to acknowledge that. I'm curious how true that will be for Biden. I am curious how that will change.

Especially tonight. We're moving forward. Yeah. We're very early yet. And I think it's just been a lot of, it's been a lot of name recognition and a lot of the like. He was Obama's VP. Yeah.

The institution and just like the idea of Joe Biden and then as time went on, more and more stuff came out about him that should have been talked about maybe when he was trying to be the vice president, all that kind of stuff. And now that you have actual people on stage introducing those things, I just don't think he'll, I don't think he'll hold on to that. Yeah. That's my hope. That's my hope.

Because like he did not do well tonight. No doubt. No. He looked, he looked real bad tonight. Let's talk about gun control. We got to talk about gun control. Both debates did. I didn't like what anybody had to say.

Yeah. Which is usually the case when I hear Democrats talk about gun control. Swawell's the guy I like the least. One of the issues I have with him and I want to make it clear to the listeners that as a guy who owns a shitload of guns, I've never voted on guns. I will never vote on guns. I do not make any of my voting decisions based on people's gun policies I make. Because like if I were voting on that, then I would be throwing all of my gay and trans

and non-white friends under the bus. I would be throwing the climate under the bus and I'm not going to do that. That said, when Swawell made the statement that like, I don't care about your handguns and your shotguns, 90% of gun crimes and murders are committed with handguns and shotguns. Right. You look at all of the top gun guns that actually kill people in this country, all handguns and shotguns. Awesome.

He said, I have no issues with that. I want to go. Yeah, I didn't catch that. Which is just a public-sized problem. Because I'm not going to say mass shooting is not a problem, but like really small chunk of gun crime actually. Really small chunk. Yeah.

Which doesn't mean we don't address it. But like. The assault weapon focus is always. Because that's an easy way out. That's an easy thing that I can say. And they look scary. They look scary and it's easy to. And that's an easy talking point.

Like okay, we can all agree that this is unnecessary. Well, no one wants to say, yeah, no more handguns. No one wants to say what the real issue is that that is really fucking intractable, difficult. Is that there are a couple of simultaneous truths. Number one, one of the single most important laws of this country built into its nervous system, its fucking spinal cord, is the right to bear arms. The vast majority of gun deaths in this country are suicides and no restriction of firearm save a total ban on gun ownership will stop people from being able to kill themselves

with guns. That's the single, that's the issue that nobody talks about because there's no real way to address it. Mass shootings people do discuss and I think they tend to get wrong, but like that's one of those things. And this is one of the issues again where I have with people like Swallow who talk about like gun buy backs where it's like, you realize there's a constitution and there's the Supreme Court and there's like, there's a body of law and like what you are saying might not

be legal. Right. And in fact has been categorical bans on weapons after D.C. versus Heller like, R.M. constitutional. And again, there are states with individual assault weapons bans. So you could argue, but those assault weapons bans like California has some assault weapons ban and I was still able to own an R15 and AK-47 because their assault weapons ban did not ban semi-automatic weapons, they banned certain features on weapons which didn't

actually make it ever because again, the most recent mass shooting we had in California where we had like 12 dead was the thousands oak shootings with them with a Glock handgun I think. I really wish we had people talking about guns in the Democratic Party and how to effectively legislate them and restrict them that understood them. And I also wish people understood the fact that Buttigieg served in the military does not mean he knows a damn thing about guns. There's some of the dumbest people about guns served in the military.

Ask a soldier. Yeah. That's my rant, what do you guys think? Sorry, I monopolized that there. That's what we're here for. Yeah, the suicide thing is a real problem and concern and it's one of those things that is linked to so many other problems and it kind of gets to what Marianne Williams was talking about.

Yes, it does, surely. Like what are the things that are causing this and you don't hear a lot of people even talking about like when you talk about universal healthcare and Medicare for all and those things like mental health is important and like people don't, a lot of people don't have anyone to talk to and if you give them that outlet, it helps with a lot of problems. I don't know, like the idea of like, well, no, if you give everyone the mental and physical care that they need, then a lot of these problems, not immediately, but like over time, you'll see it's like Switzerland.

Every adult pretty much has an assault rifle in their home. I did not know that. Yeah, because everyone who serves in the military, which is like most of the adult population, maybe I'm getting the exact, but a lot of people and they take their weapons home with them. It's a G36C, which is a pretty potent gun. Also, I had an editor at a website I wrote with who was Swiss and when she got pregnant, she and her husband both got like six or seven months of maternity leave, which is just part

of like the package that they get, like, and I think, you know, there's a lot of other stuff at play as to if you're trying to wonder like why the Swiss don't have mass shootings and we do, because one thing that the right brings up a lot when they talk about gun controls like look at Switzerland, they all have machine guns and like they don't commit nearly as many crimes as us. It's got to be a separate issue. They're not entirely wrong. It's wrong to blame every mass shooting on mental health because that unfairly stigmatizes

mentally ill people, but it's also wrong to pretend that like the fact that most like therapy is something that has proven benefits for virtually everyone who engages in it and the vast majority of Americans could not possibly afford to engage in a therapist. Right. Reject the concept of it, but also couldn't afford it even if they didn't. That's a problem. Yeah. And it's a problem in a place where also while you can't afford a therapist for the cost

of four hours of therapy, 100% of us could buy an AR-15. Yeah. That's an issue to me as a guy who owns an AR-15. How much does an AR-15 cost? You can get them as cheap as $400. Unbelievable. Very cheap. Yeah.

So that's like a month of therapy? Yeah. Maybe less. Yeah. But none of our conversations about guns include this. No, they don't. And that's what... And then when they do, it's sort of in a reductive way.

Yeah. If it like doesn't really, yeah. Well, it's similar. I mean, this is a transition, but all of our conversations about immigration rarely include talking about going into Latin America, going into the air. That was the best fucking time. Amazing. The debate.

Great. Bringing it back into the debate. We addressed that. I was like... We kind of fucked up Latin America with the wars we caused. Yes. Unbelievable. I mean, I was truly...

Yeah. We all were watching together. I was really impressed by that. I was impressed by that. It was especially impressive that it did seem like the majority of people on the stage knew and said that. Yeah. For all that I and all of us, I'm sure, will continue to shit on the Democratic Party in

frustration for the next year and a half, kudos on both really focusing on trans people and how America fucked up Latin America. Yeah. That was the credit to the party. Yeah. Even Biden was like, by the way, he gave millions and hundreds of millions of dollars and... Yeah, that sucked, right? Yeah.

And then they stopped it and it started to reduce the number of people and then here we are. Maybe you guys, you remember the Marshall Plan, the single most effective thing that our government ever did, maybe in its whole history? Maybe that again? Maybe. No, Germany and Japan don't seem like they're doing well. How many, they've both reverted to fascism so many times since 1945?

Well, it's an easy thing to revert to. Constantly. Just do it. Right, so many years. Germany is the worst. All the worst. Since we built the country. That famously still fascist state, Germany.

I just, I remember how Japan has continued to invade China for the last 80 years. Yeah. We all remember. Constantly. We all remember the things that happened in real life. Constantly invading China and not making incredible products. I love products. Like the Priests.

And services. And services. Speaking of which, here's a no, we're not doing it. No more ads. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was a great surprise. I was very surprised, actually.

I also like, Klobuchar last, on the first night. Klobuchar. Klobuchar? Klobuchar. I think it's Klobuchar. She does remind me of your friend in high school, her mom, that you never wanted to be stuck. Yeah.

Along with. But every now and then you get stuck with her and she actually says something. She's not a bad person, but she makes you nervous. Like, where are you guys going tonight? Oh, wait, no, Klobuchar. Sorry, I was thinking of Gillibrand. You were thinking of Gillibrand? No.

Klobuchar was nonsense. Klobuchar is like the short brown hair. Gillibrand, yeah. No, Gillibrand seems nice. Klobuchar is the one that eats with a comb and is mean to her, right? Gillibrand. She sells with a comb, right? Yeah.

In a pinch, which is fine. She's resourceful. Gillibrand is the mom who like you think that you wouldn't want to be alone with and like you kind of dread it. But then you do and she's like. No, she's a cool mom. You ever smoked weed? Yeah, she's a cool mom.

Yeah, I don't worry about it. I'm not slandering her or spreading rumors. All I'm saying is 100% if you walk up to Christine Gillibrand, she will give you weed. Free. Free weed. Absolutely. Everyone take that to heart. Last night didn't have as many, I don't remember them talking about that aspect of the immigration

problem. Oh no, I don't know how to call that. But I did like that Klobuchar brought up the economic imperative of immigration and that is another thing that I don't see people talking about enough. They're like freaking out about everything that's happened in the border and nobody's really hammering down the point that we actually are in a situation where we need immigrants. We have a dearth in the service industry. What are old people going to do without them?

I mean, what is all of our companies? My mom grew, I grew up with my mom as a caterer, had a catering company and we relied and she had all sorts of different like Hispanic immigrants that worked for her and she paid them well and she gave them healthcare and not that my mom is some amazing person, but it was an imperative. Nobody else would take that job. Katie's mom, 2020. Your mom is some amazing person.

She is an amazing person. Katie's mom, 2020. We needed them. She needed them and they were better than everybody else. Yeah. It's one of the things that eternally frustrates me and then I frustrate me with Bernie Sanders, who was a guy who I, on an emotional personal note, when the rest of my family went for Trump and broke my heart in 2016, one of the people who raised me, my aunt, who was a lifelong

Republican, voted for Bernie Sanders and the fact that because she was like, I think he's the only honest man in the election and he will always have a piece of my heart for that. I am eternally frustrated with his insistence that borders are important and I know, I know this is a ridiculous hope. I will never have a party in either side of this country, left or right, who feels the way I do about borders, which is that they are a cancer destroying our entire species and that until we get past the concept, we have no hope of long-term survival. That's just me being wild-eyed radical, but I wish Bernie Sanders had said, fuck all borders,

thrown a smoke bomb and skateboarded out of the way. Sure. That would have been sick. Shit. She stole Beto's skateboard. Yeah. Fuck you. Punched him right in the jaw and like right out the fucking door.

I'd love to see that in the debate. Yeah. I've never felt that I'm in Spanish or something. Yeah. Yeah. I call them a fucking puta. Yeah. Yeah.

What do you think is going to make it to the next round? How do we eliminate people? Do we know? I think, isn't it just like about the amount of popularity they have? It's polling and stuff, right? Yeah. It seems like that would be the only same way to do it. Yeah.

All I want to see, I want to see, I guess, Warren, Bernie, by Conor, Castro, I do want to bring up one other thing that frustrated the fuck out of me. One person, unless I'm missing my guess on the first debate, because I missed a little chunk of it because I was in transit while I was listening. I think one person in both debates brought up white supremacy and it was fucking Joe Biden. Yeah. Yeah.

That's disappointing. That's disappointing. I mean, good on you, Joe. Yeah. We're not trying to be like one of those fucking nothing but nihilistic podcasts here. So I'm going to give people credit where it's due. He brought it up. He brought it up.

And everyone should have. Yeah. Because of all the dead people. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. There's an alarming lack of that.

There's credit for that in my book. He gets credit for that. I don't think he is capable. I don't think he has any kind of plan. I don't think he has a plan. I also don't think he's really capable of talking about it in a way where he really understands it. No, I know what he does.

And I think it's kind of a negative that when like his first question, I forget even what the question was, but like one of the first words that came out of his mouth was Donald Trump. Yeah. And it seems like that's just. Oh, the literal. His whole thing is just like, oh, the Charlottesville and Donald Trump and it's bad in the soul of our country.

But he doesn't really know where it's coming from or like why or. Yeah. Like he brought it. He had Charlottesville and a couple of my friends were in the ad that he put up and we're very frustrated. Yes, I saw that. Yeah. I will say also in credit to her, she didn't fucking bring it up in the debates and she

should have. But Elizabeth Warren has suggested plans and made it a focus of her campaign. I did not know that. Yeah. She's talked about that like white supremacy needs to be a problem. We need to start prosecuting these people as domestic terrorists, which we're not currently doing. She's kind of playing for everything.

I think she's incredible. She should have fucking said something. She should have. That's my big bummer about Elizabeth Warren. She's like, how do you not do that? It's a fucking debate, Elizabeth. Talk about it. Well, they don't have very much time.

They don't have very much time. There's time people. They don't have very much time. But that's kind of a big one. I do agree. I do agree. That's disappointing she didn't bring it up. Yeah.

But the Joe Biden thing just seems like it's kind of lip surface and like it's like, oh, I know that people care about this and it's like a hot button emotional topic that I can bring up as opposed to knowing where it comes from and what to do about it. Right. I would call it lip service if he wasn't the only fucking person to mention it. Right. Sure. I can't call it lip service because no one else said anything.

Right. So like, yeah. Well, Joe did. He brought it up. Yeah. That's the thing that I'd like to keep an eye out for the next one. Yeah. Are there other things that you guys want to see people talking about in the next debates?

You know, the most frustrating moment for me was when they got asked what they would do if they could deal with one problem and like two people brought up climate change and like someone brought up like guns and someone brought up about like like income for families and stuff. And it's like, yeah, man, both, both gun control and improving family income are important. But like, you know, the planet's burning up like, no, there's no other answer. But the most important thing is to stop the environment from collapsing. Yeah.

Yeah. Nothing else is that important. It's the literally the thing that I need. Yeah. I will not vote for you unless you've got acknowledged just better and Warren, I think who said climate change? Well, that was the first debate. It was the first debate.

Yeah. The second one, some people said it. Yeah. I don't even want. I don't even want. Chicken Looper and whoever else. Right. Right.

I do not like the answer. Like, well, the first thing I do is rejoin the Harris Climate Agreement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, at least that's acknowledging climate change. Great. That's acknowledging it. But that's not what we need. We need much more than that. No. And Gillibrand was the only one with a really good answer on like that. Yeah.

So speaking of what people want to see, one of the things we're doing here. You know, we're trying to provide all of you with an effective and useful podcast series about this election that keeps you informed and hopefully helps not just drive interests, but relieve stress and provide some value to people trying to navigate what will be the worst year of all of our lives, 2020. And we want to, you know, not just talk about what we thought about this election, but also because the people we assume are listening to this are the folks who like us the most and the folks will be the core of the audience of our new podcast, The Worst Year Ever.

We want to open this shit up to your suggestions about what you want to hear covered, what you want to see addressed, what you want to see us go into, because there is a crowded field of political podcasts and I find most of them deeply frustrating. And I don't want to make a frustrating and unlistable podcast and I don't want to make a reflexively ideological podcast, which I hope we've avoided in this and sort of dealing with the people as they present themselves. You've complimented Joe Biden a couple of times. Yeah, he didn't fuck up.

Everybody more credit is due. So we have an email and we want you to reach out to us if you have things you want us to cover, things you really want to see dealt with, suggestions for how we handle this election because we're all going to be doing a podcast, Katie Coney and I, The Worst Year Ever, where, you know, I think maybe we should give them a little bit of an idea of like what we are currently planning to hit in that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you want to, because I've just been ranting myself.

Yeah, I mean, like, a lot of this stuff, I think one of the things I think we all agree on is that we're not going to, we're going to do our best to avoid making it the Trump show at all. Yep. And it's not going to be about him. It's not going to be about the things he says or the stuff he tweets about it. And I like that about these debates also. I love that we haven't talked about him until now.

For the most part, they really avoided it. Yeah, they avoided making him the focus, which was good, which is very good. And so we're going to avoid that, we want to talk about what they're actually talking about and the issues there and how they actually affect people and like talking to, talking to people and what affects them. We will be going to various conventions throughout the year. Talking about stuff like the Shot Show, CES, CPAC, obviously like the Iowa Caucus. Right.

We'll go to the Caucuses, we'll go to the events. Yeah. What was it, autism now? I think we're going to go, which is like a crazy convention of people who think that it's not like a normal autism thing. It's like a convention of people who think you can shoot bleach up your kid's butt to cure autism. Yes.

We want to see other stuff just like those people are political. I want to know the elections. Right. You want to know where they're coming from and what they care about and like maybe how you can bring them back a little bit. So if there are any issues or groups of people or ideas that you have, things that you'd like to have more insight into, that we should look into, we really want to hear your solutions and suggestions.

And things you can do. And like, yeah. Yeah. So the email is worst year tips at gmail.com. That's correct, right? Yeah. You're the one who made the email. And not tips on how to have the worst year ever because we know the answer to that.

Exist in 2020. Yeah. So just your tips. And it's mixing acid with 2CE. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Now, mushrooms and 2CE, also not a great idea.

I know. But 2CE and acid. Great idea. Oh, okay. But acid and 2CE? Bad idea. Yeah. Good idea.

We got to a good idea. 2CE is a rough one to mix with some substances, but a fun one if you mix it with the right ones. So check out our podcast next year, Mixing 2CE with Various Substances at CPAC. Yeah, and we're going to have Robert as our, Robert's going to be our drug guru on this journey. Mm-hmm. I guess that's the end of our debate.

I think so. For Rich. Yeah. It's been real fun. It's been real fun. Actually, it has been. I've enjoyed this. It's been great.

It's more than the debates. Yes. This is the best part. I want to ask one quick question. Please, yeah. Before we move on to the next thing. Do y'all think Joe Biden is a better kisser than Bernie Sanders? Because I feel like Joe has the passion.

Yeah, I think he might be. I think he might be a good kisser. Depends on how wanted the kiss is. No, that's an important point when we're talking about it. Absolutely. Yeah. Because Bernie does double consent checks. Yes, yes, he does.

We know that. This premise is. He signs a contract. Yeah. Everybody's on board. I don't know that Bernie's that interested. I mean, I think he's just got a lot going on. I'm assuming Bernie's down.

Like maybe we have some sort of pheromone spray, and so we know that the interest is there. No, I can't imagine being kissed by Bernie. I can't imagine being kissed by Bernie. Or either of them really, but I think that Joe Biden cares about making sure his kisses are good. I don't know. I do think Joe Biden cares about that.

I can imagine being on a beach and in Sonata and like sort of the wind blowing through my hair and like a little bit of sand in between my toes. And then he's smelling it. Sipping a... No, I'm talking about Bernie. Oh, Bernie. Sipping a little bit of like a nice like mess cow and Bernie Sanders puts a sand on my shoulders and like leans into me and whispers into my ear, Medicare for all is an achievable

dream and works in most of the developed world. And that gets you to realize... See, that's the thing. Whereas like, I feel like Bernie can sweet talk you, Bernie can get to your soul, Bernie can get to your emotions. Bernie can... I don't know if he cares about sweet talking though. No, he mostly shouts.

Yeah. Sure, sure, sure. I don't think I think... Yeah. ...who you are, you know, if, you know, idealistic, strong in their convictions, socialist is your best thing. I think he can get you going. I just don't think he's like a sexual being.

But I think that Joe Biden probably has spent a lot of time protecting that would be my best. Biden fucks. That's the thing. Biden fucks. Yeah. And I think that we know that. God.

I also think he probably would give a really good shoulder rep. I will say one thing that would make, almost make Biden being the Democratic candidate worth it is if the competing hats of 2020 will make America great again and just Biden fucks. Just... We can make those shirts, put them in our store. We can make those shirts. Honestly, if it were literally anybody. Buttigieg fucks.

Buttigieg fucks. Buttigieg fucks. Warren fucks. They all fucks. We all fuck. Except for Beto. I'm not going to believe that. Beto does not fuck.

Beto does not fuck. He just doesn't know what to do. He's all thumbs. He's just like ranting single words in Spanish like a white boy trying to like shop in Guatemala every two week vacation. Yeah. Trying to do a kickflip. Yeah.

Yeah. I hope he's gone by the next one. He's such a dork. Yeah. Okay. That's it for tonight. We love you very much. It's true.

We do. We do. Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying

to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Lance Bass is a Russian-trained astronaut that he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space. Well, I ought to know, because I'm Lance Bass, and I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down.

With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science, and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday.

Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.