Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Jon Lovett

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Neal Brennan interviews Jon Lovett (Pod Save America, Lovett or Leave It, Crooked Media) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. 00:00 Intro 1:55 Surprise Party Story 4:03 Writing background 4:49 Pod Save America 8:30 Rehabilitated Sad Sack  10:03 Depression, ADHD, Edibles 11:21 Relationship with Ronan Farrow ending 16:38 Finding love again 25:04 Afraid of being alone 26:56 Never felt like part of the gay world 37:36 Victimization & Liberals 54:09 Sponsor: BetterHelp 55:45 Sponsor: Mando 57:55 Democrats Rollout of LGBT Issues 1:03:30 Being funny 1:06:03 Democrat Leadership 1:15:36 Accepting voter limitations 1:30:28 Ronan Farrow Investigative Journalism Backlash 1:39:40 Crooked Con ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is a guy that I fell in love with. I believe it was 2011. Yeah. It was pretty romantic. It was a rooftop bar, Washington, D.C., MSNBC party. Rachel Maddow, I remember, was bartending. It was like you wouldn't, it's like a time capsule. Yeah, it's from another era.

From another era. This, my guest was a writer for Barack Obama, who was a black president. And by getting elected black president, it was somehow a betrayal of a, his wife from what i understand and all the press she does again these are not my words i'm just literally reading things she says and i'm like why she's so mad that her husband was president anyhow he's hard trying not to laugh about it because he's going to get in trouble he wrote for hillary then he wrote for obama then he started pods of america and love it or leave it and the the pod save network and his name is john levitt and he's a good boy and um

we're going to get to the bottom of it today and uh thanks for coming Thanks for having me, Neil. You've been on my list for a long time. I'm glad I'm here. I didn't know that. Yeah, well, I think I, did I text you? Whatever, don't let's not get into it. Let's not part.

I'm sorry. Hey, I'm sorry. Thank you. If I didn't respond to an invitation, I deeply, read that. You're not a great texter. I'm not a great texter. It's actually on my list of blocks. It's on my list of fucking blocks.

Including, you didn't even send me your blocks. Well, that did say optional. It said optional to send the blocks. It said optional to send the blocks. Maybe it says optional to send the blocks. It's black tie optional. You wear a black tie. Okay.

I wrote a list of blocks. Isn't that what you want? Yes. Text them to me, would you? Would you mind? Okay. Or write them down. I did write them down.

But write them down and handed me because I don't know if you've ever hosted anything. You kind of need to know. I'll just take it from here. Somewhat. Let me do it. Somewhat. All right. All right.

All right. All right. I have a bunch. You can choose from any of these lists. Text it to me. Okay. While you're doing this, I'll tell the story of John was once in a relationship marriage. And there was a surprise birthday party for his husband, boyfriend.

Buy him for me. Oh, it was for you. Okay. So it was a little murky what time we were supposed to be there from my point of view. From my point of view, it was a little murky at time we were supposed to be there. So I get there, let's say, at 8.15. At which point, John and his husband will call him Ronan arrived. Yeah, we were in a long-term relationship, yeah.

We arrived, and I'm on the sidewalk, at which point I just hide behind a giant tree. Yeah, and whenever I think of you, I do think of that. It was, you failed so, your hiding was so funny because at first, you didn't, to be clear, you didn't just hide behind a tree. At first, you froze as if I was the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. like my my vision only worked with motion keep absolutely still and then you jump back behind the tree

which I saw in full like I just saw the whole thing happen and was a delightful memory I remember you saying it seemed it didn't wasn't even a giveaway that there was a surprise party because it seemed like something I would do if I was just walking in your neighborhood

and saw you yeah it see I didn't know if it could have been I didn't occur to me surprise party that would have maybe been the third thing The first thing was you were doing a bit. Right. The second was you weren't in a mindset to engage with someone you knew and just didn't feel like having a conversation.

Completely in character for me. Which were both what I thought of never occurred to me at the time because I was focused on those two options that there was going to be a surprise party for me. Yeah, I'm glad that I didn't blow it. So anyway, happy birthday. Oh, thank you. Surprise.

Um, so love it, what do you, how, how are things going for you? So, because let me, I'll inform people, he came out here, did a sitcom for 10 episodes or something about life in the White House. 1600. A good idea, like a good like, yeah, why don't it's a, you're right when you know, et cetera, et cetera. Didn't really work. You never looked back in terms of sitcoms or anything from what I can tell you were just, you

didn't see it, but I did look back for a while. Oh, you did. It was just something that didn't, it was such a quiet look back. It had such a little effect on the world that my lookback didn't register for you. But no, I sold another couple of pilots and then I ended up doing the newsroom with Sorkin. So I moved over and did that, did like a drama.

You love drama. Love drama. And it was in that time. I was figuring out what I was going to write next. I was failing to write something that we started doing the podcast. Great. And that was pretty much out of the box popular.

Yeah. So we had taken out a TV show about that was similar to the podcast, basically a television version of POTSave America. Yep. No, no takers. And at the time, the ringer asked John and Dan Pfeiffer, John Favre and Dan Fiper to do a podcast. Tommy and I joined that in the run up to the 2016 election. That became popular after Trump wins. We decided we want to focus on politics again full time. We'd all been doing our own thing. And we launched Potsave America in January of 2017. And it just took off. we were very fortunate. I highly recommend being in the right place at the right time or the right place

at the wrong time, as it were. Really, that's a great thing. You got to be in the right place at the right time. Oh, boy, the best. Yep. And how do you like it? So, stressful, more stressful than you would have thought, too much business. What's it like? Because I'm always serious, like, how do you like running, whatever, having employees? So, Cricket Media, which is our company, it's an independent media company, and we have a bunch of shows. Patti of America remains our biggest show,

our flagship show, but John and Tommy and Dan and I all do separate shows, and Dan writes a newsletter. And then we have a bunch of other hosts that are part of the network. And the challenge over the years has been, how do we focus on what we do best, which is not management or finance,

which we have no experience in, but hosting. and building out a network that reflects our vision for what we're trying to do here without getting bogged down in the parts that we're not good at. And that's hard, right? And so as you get bigger, we just rely on having really great people take that on. And it's hard to find really great people, but we've been lucky. And you just learn as you get bigger what you need to step out of so that you don't get sucked into meetings

and decisions that you really don't bring anything to other than the fact that you were here first. So that's always hard, and as you grow, you kind of hit find new stress points. But I should just say, because this is a show about things that have gone wrong or that you're stressed. Or that you feel problems.

Yes. That my joke has been, like, the country is in an absolute dire position. Authoritarian is on the rise. I've never been happier. Is that true? I really am at a, I, that is just true. I believe.

I'm in an incredibly good place. Great. As a person. And you're aware of it. Yes. And look, you bring your flaws and baggage with you, even in the good times, of course. Yep. But I'm in a very good place that was hard to get to and I feel proud of that.

And so it's this weird tension between my life feeling like I finally made a lot of progress. then in what we're covering what we're talking about, it feels very dire because it is. Yeah. I want to say that you guys have a, you're doing a Crooked Media convention called CrookedCon. Yeah. November 7th in Washington, D.C.C. So I wanted to promote that. Thank you for doing that. CrookedCon. And CrookedCon. First one. First one. Yeah. Either first annual or one of a kind, depending on how it goes. Maybe too unique. Okay. Well, did you, do you feel feel like you earn man not earned did you work hard to get okay because you were a you know we were both kind of like sad sacky like we like our both of our sort of roofs or our ceilings were

sort of sagging yeah i think that's why i think that was like a yeah a find each other we met each other yeah it was like oh that's a sad boy there's a guy you can find uh find what's wrong in any situation yeah how did you get out of it because i used dmt and i waska F. Scott Fitzgerald, this is me so, I know, just even saying that, you everyone heard it. Hold, I'm going to ball my, let me ball my fist up. Yeah, just get ready to bully me. I think there's like, I have an energy. There are some people, I feel like we have a great dynamic, but there's, I feel like part of our dynamic is like, you, you, you bully me in a fun and sweet way. There's a party that enjoys that, right? Yeah, but I, but you're too successful

now, so it's not, it feels like weird or something. It feels off. Yeah, it works better at the beginning. It did work by the beginning. It was Chappelle's it more recent and you were just to write it for stupid Obama. So he wrote this essay called The Crackups, actually a couple essays. And they're really interesting and I recommend people read them in part because he's writing about experiences that he didn't have words for because they didn't have depression or, you know, all the terms that we use so commonly. They just didn't have it. And he's clearly in the midst of some kind of deep depression with through period and there's periods of mania maybe in there. He's obviously drinking a lot. But he describes a deep depression, and then he says, says some version, I'm paraphrasing it slightly, but, and then I got a little better and I crack like a plate when I heard the news.

And I feel like that happened to me that basically I was struggling for a long time with depression and anxiety and a little bit of just like, and this is so, I know, cliche at this point, but like unmanaged and unaddressed ADHD that was causing me to kind of fuck up a lot of stuff all the time. ADHD is a big one because that's someone who doesn't necessarily have it. I'm a bit like, oh, yeah, but the people that have it, it's significant. I think that like there's a lot of people who weren't meant for, like whatever you want to call it like ADHD, like, oh, is it overdiagnosed? Like, there's a lot of people who maybe wouldn't have had any kind of problem if they woke up every morning, made a chair and then got some potatoes and put it in a bowl and called it a day.

But in a world of constant communication, keeping up with a lot of complicated things. like a fast-moving kind of life. I think there's a lot of people who innately struggle with that. That is why we are finding it more. I'm one of those people, I think. But I really struggled, and I especially as we went into the pandemic, I was managing it with a lot of like edibles or just like closing myself off to the world. And I would end each day feeling as though I had a list of things I hadn't done

and a list of problems I hadn't solved. You take an edible, you step outside of yourself. That's like the magic of what weed can do for. for good and for ill. All of a sudden, you and your problems are just a couple feet further away than they used to be. But you do that every night over and over and over again, and all of a sudden you're missing your life. And I feel like I did that for a while. Part of that was being in a relationship that wasn't working. And you are a, like I am an ambitious, anxious, smart, talented person, as was my partner at the time, an ambitious, anxious,

talented, smart people have an experience of pointing their intensity at something to fix it. Whether that's journalism or comedy or writing or whatever it is, you have this growing up. You learn, I just point my laser beam at something. It melts. How cool is that? And you do that and it leads to success or failure or whatever, but you learn that it works. It can work. It doesn't work in love.

You can't point your intensity at something until it fixes. Maybe there are problems you can address. No, no, no, it's an interesting idea. But you can't, you can't use your intensity to fix something even if you want to fix it in a relationship. And all of that culminated in kind of getting to a pretty dark place. And was it, when you say dark place, was it frustration? Was it like all this effort and nothing? Was it?

I think it was more. And we're worse off. We're not, we're treading water. It was more. I think it was more, nothing was so terrible. It wasn't about like low lows. It was just not really feeling invested in anything. Just feeling kind of disconnected. In the whole life? In my life, like just feeling outside of myself. Like I, like feeling like I was just trying to get to the next day, losing a lot of what, what I think has driven me and helped me along the way, which is intensity and passion and excitement. And like, getting really in focused on something. And I just had lost a lot of that. And I don't know, maybe it was because it got so bad, but all of a sudden I said, you know what, I got to talk to a therapist. BetterHelp.com. I got a promo code, Neil. That's right. And I got, I have to cut back on these edibles. Like, it's really gotten out of hand. And I got a little better. And then I crack like

a plate when I heard the news. And what was what, I mean, without, and obviously there's no direct news, but I'm saying it or other than Trump getting elected. But what is that what, what is, in your mind, what is it, is it gradual and then all at once? Yeah, I think it is, I think it is real. Like, I will just say I was, my life looked one way when I was 39 and it looked different when I was 40. The relationship ended and that was very hard, but ultimately necessary. I, and with nothing but love and like nothing but appreciation for the person I was with,

but we both had to realize it had to end, and that was very hard because we were very connected and there was a lot of good there. And part of it was just a mindset change about recommitting to work. Part of it was just cutting out edibles as a way of avoiding kind of being in my own head. People don't talk about the deleterious effects of weed enough.

It's, I, look. Again, we're not here to, we're not, you know, We're not judging. I'm just like, I just know. I think everyone knows. It's one of these things that's like open secret of like weed's kind of not the best thing for people long term. It's really pernicious because if you drink every day, it destroys your life. You crash your car.

You cheat. You ruin your marriage. You become a menace to yourself in some way or another. If you use weed too much, you just. You eat to an extra cupcake and you don't reply to an email, right? Like you can, it can hide, the effects of it can really hide. But in the same way, alcohol is great in moderation. Like every once in a long while now, I'll still take an edible just to like have a different experience.

But I think when you, I was using it to get out of myself too much. And all I had, it wasn't, and because it is also different than alcohol, it wasn't like I, like stopping it was not, was changing a habit. And I, once I chose to do that, I could choose. to do it, it didn't like pull me back in in the same way I think alcohol or other drugs can do. So there's there are ways in which it isn't as dangerous. But in any event, I like felt like I made a lot of changes in that year. What year was this? This was like I was turning 40. So that was 2022. Okay. Then all of a sudden, you know, I was I was single when I was 29 and then I was single when I was 40. I was never single in my 30s. And boy, that is.

That is a big period of time to forget how to be single. Yeah. Because you go out there, you know, and also of the years 2009 or whatever the year, yeah, 2013 to 23. Right, like I hadn't been on an app. Yeah. Right. And so all of a sudden, you're, you know, you're going out there and you're,

you're like trying to do your old card tricks and you're like, oh, I'm not as dextrous with these. Is this your card? It's not. It used to be your card. Okay, okay. Let me try to get, yeah. Yeah.

So that was, that was hard. but it was all, I think, necessary. And I ended up meeting the person I was absolutely meant to be with, just unequivocally, certainly the person. And that was really clarifying. And we had been friends. And I've told us in some fashion before, but this was... Tell it better this time. Yeah.

Well, I've worked on it. I've worked it. Now it's ready for the big time. sit back and enjoy this. So I think you'll, I think you will find this interesting too. And like, obviously, it was interesting just intellectually. And, but when I met the person that I am currently with, who I'm engaged to marry, I'm a gay person.

You ever say that? I don't think we did. It's obvious. I mean, it's, it's the, the gay is silent. Right. The gay is silent. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's right.

Something. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, no. It's unspoken. It's in, it's in, but assumed, assumed with my mannerism. I didn't, I, although I will say, I didn't assume when I met you. Because it could just be Jewish. Well, somebody I worked with in Hillary's office said, I didn't know if you were gay or just arrogant.

Also, we also would have accepted arrogant. And it's like, yes. The answer is yes. Yeah. But. Precocious. Sure. You can't be. Back then.

No such thing as a precocious 40-year-old. But when I met the person that I am currently engaged to, they were a woman. I was a gay man. And so we were just buddies. We were just buddies. And we worked together. And everyone's like, oh, that's so cute. They're just, you know, basically, Ari is their name.

They had only really been in relationships with women. I only had dated men. And so we were just friends. Yeah. And we were friends for a long time. And you can say stuff you wouldn't say to somebody that you're trying to be in a relationship with. Right.

Which just wasn't even, it wasn't even a thought. It wasn't even a thought. It wasn't even a thought. But they had begun their transition. And over the course of our friendship, they transitioned into someone that whether or not we would date is in the realm of possibility because...

But at least the right category. Right. At least the Venn diagrams are starting to overlap. And it was this strange experience where, look, sometimes when you meet somebody, there is intimacy, but no attraction. And over time, the intimacy leads to a connection

that becomes romantic. That happens. Other times, people just meet. They have an instant sexual chemistry or romantic attraction. And then over time, like intimacy follows. But in most cases,

they look the same the whole time. You know? Yeah. It is really strange to have a friend and an intimate friendship and then they slowly evolve into your type. Like that was a trick.

It's like, are we just getting closer? Is this becoming something else? Every time they go. to the doctor's office they become warrior that almost never happened strange right yes so it was very confusing and it was confusing for them that must have been really interesting where you're like wait is this how am i you're become you're literally turning into a guy and i'm getting it's like the reverse uh back to the future right yes sure wait what but like you're getting an erection i mean if i can be crass you're getting an erection

maybe this is wrong maybe it's wrong but maybe it's right i don't know how we got to back to the future you know how we got there i don't i do i don't because marty mcfly is running out of time and he's his his uh hand is disappearing and you're running into time and your erection's growing and you know that you've you've had smarter points before we all have almost everyone's had a better point than this. So it was this, so that was very confusing and especially because we worked together, uh, it may, it meant like the possibility of us of ever pursuing it, like the stakes were higher, right? Because you can't just like see what happens. You got to go like tell HR like, hey, um, it's my company. It's like a, you have to be, we, we took it really seriously.

They worked at Crooked. Yeah, they still do. Wow. And so we didn't pursue it for a long time. We just really were friends. And there were like rumors. And we really weren't. We like just, we're going to be friends because you know whatever is going on here like you've only dated women I've only dated guys like we're just we're just meant to be friends and a year or two years later it just the like the for me like the the feeling hadn't changed and for them uh and for me like the pursuing it felt so risky because a we'd have to tell people we were going to pursue this a lot of pressure right and because they had only really had relationships with women in the past there was this fear that you know that we act on this because it's feels like there's an

obstacle and it feels romantic and interesting and then three months later we've fucked up our friendship everybody at work is aware of this relationship we have to re figure out how to like be in the same room all the time for what for so it's not worth there's a very good quote I've heard attributed to Warren Beatty, which is you can sleep with your leading lady. The problem is you can't stop sleeping with her, which is like, yeah, because the problems are not on the, on the ascent. It's on the descent when it stops working. And they start being hostile to each other in work environments. And you can really care about each other and you can go into something with eyes open and say no matter what happens. And you can mean it and want to mean it, but life is life and life is hard

and people are people. But after several years of not pursuing it, we both went our separate ways. I had other relationships. It just felt really powerful. And I... So you floated with the idea and said... We talked about it.

We literally talked about it. We're like, no, we shouldn't do this. Like, let's just not open this. It feels unlikely. It feels like we're acting on like, a like that the obstacle has made it more interesting that it actually will be like let's stop let's stop not kidding ourselves you're going to marry a woman I'm going to marry a cisgender guy and we're just going to be friends and let's stop pretending otherwise we're going to go old-fashioned

yeah yeah yeah sure I mean relatively yeah yeah yeah yeah we're going to we're going we're going we're going to we're going we're going we're going we're going we're going we're going we're not stream this is we're gonna yeah yeah yeah Thursday night night yes so we go our separate ways but but the feeling was so strong and so after uh I was now single again after another relationship ended that didn't work if I'm being honest in part because I think there was this unanswered question mm-hmm with Ari which is their name and we talked about it and I said some version of, I've never really worried about this because our friendship and connection was so strong that I felt like if it could happen, it would.

And if it couldn't, it wouldn't. And I'm okay with that. But if you think right now there's a chance, it could work, even if just a chance, and you can say no, I think we should take that chance. and they said they felt like there was a chance that it could work, and so we tried, and it was instantly and obviously correct. And we have been inseparable ever since. And they're loving my life. And I feel very fortunate about it. But I feel like I got this romantic star-crossed love that made me a happier and better person, full stop.

Yeah, but the plate had broken prior to that? Yeah. I think that probably part of what made it possible is a lot of the ways I had approached previous relationships, which were about anxiety and being afraid of being alone and wanting to prove myself. What was your fear of being alone? Because I don't have much of one,

and I'm wondering what it's like. Do you, would you prefer, you like having people, I'm from a big family, so I'm still excited when I get home and no one's there? I love a night of just being by myself, eating food on the couch, watching TV till, of whatever I want, sure. But for the most part, like, I love people, I love being around people. I get antsy and sad if I have too many nights alone in a row. and I like being a couple

I do. After a full day at work you're with people you're hosting your yes in the same way that like people say they like remote work but then you look at it and everyone's really fucking depressed

yeah it's easier to do nothing and be by yourself at home but it's not better for you and so like for example on Friday I'm usually pretty tired but like man do I know it's good for me to kind of like

tie myself to the ship and on like Tuesday like invite two or three friends over for Friday night and say, I'm going to cook dinner, because then even though I'm tired, even though I'd rather veg out and just do nothing, it is better for me and like better for life to know that like, you know what, I'm going to get home. I'm not going to take even a break. I'm going to start making dinner. People are going to come over. We're going to have a conversation. We're going to sit around the table. I'm going to bring food out. We're going to talk for three

hours at like 10 o'clock. They're going to be like, all right. And then they're going to do the dishes. Then I'm going to get into my room. And then I'll be like, oh, I'm exhausted. But it feels good. It's good to force yourself to do that. So that's how I am. Like I know it is better for me almost universally to like be with my friends to be with people and I like being in a couple I do think that I was really insecure about how I looked I was really insecure about dating I never felt comfortable when I was growing up because I was gay but I also never felt fully like part of gay world right just the classic we're going out gay world like yes this is one of your blocks and I'm extremely interested in it because

I've all I can I tell you what it look like from the outside or my questions from the outside before before you get started with your absolute direct first person experience I need to meddle you you don't present especially gay right is that intentional or that's because part of me it's like I don't know just you don't seem but at the same moment you seem like yourself. That is the question. I think a lot of gay people struggle. Everybody struggles with it. You know, like the Rupal line, like we're all born naked and the rest is drag. Like, am I less flamboyant because I am self-hating? Is it my natural instinct? Was it because I was trained to not be my true self? Why is it that when I'm having a serious conversation,

I sound more like this. But if I'm getting silly, the lilt gets a little bit stronger. What does that say? Is that natural? What is the cause of that? But then the other part of it that's like and kind of like making me kind of question things is you just did a shiver that was pretty pretty maybe the best shiver I've seen on that certainly on this podcast go ahead great for the youtube is okay well I ended up with a trans person mm-hmm like I was never straight I'm not straight right but like I always assumed when I was a kid when you were a kid there wasn't a there weren't so many letters, you know, there weren't just, there just weren't so many letters. Like, if you weren't straight, you were gay. When I was a kid, being by was a joke, right?

That if a gay, if a guy said he was biased because he's secretly gay, and if a woman says she's by it's because she's secretly straight, whatever, it was like a joke. I didn't know about the T, the Q, I was just hearing about the Q. The Q was just coming out. And so I was just gay. Are you, are you writing for Chappelle now? What's happening? Are you, did we switch places? Yeah, this is the alphabet people all I was going to say is like I think probably part of why I never felt totally at home in like capital G gay culture is like maybe I didn't totally fit into that definition right that like my that like I am like I because of my generation like I don't feel comfortable calling myself queer it just feels wrong like it feels I don't know it just never felt right to me but probably like just the way people use it it more accurately describes me as a person and that's it doesn't matter like yeah that's but that's just the reality of it which is why I think it's like now I look back and it's like well yeah I was like never totally at ease in this world because not totally my world

and from the outside end like you're you you're like I am queer but to me it sounds like Dungeons and Dragons language like I don't know what are you quit I don't know I don't it just doesn't matter yeah of course yeah it also like I'm also a weird guy like it's like I'll struggle at any party. There's no, there's no party where I'm not going to be at the outside of it being like, how do people talk to each other? What are they talking about? Yeah.

And then you, well, that's what I think a lot of modern life is like life's hard. And then we try to ascribe the reason why it's hard. And it's like, no, it's hard because it's hard. It's not hard because you're a fish out of water or you're black or you're gay or what. It's just like that's part of it. Yeah. But it's hard. it's hard independent of that.

Yeah, and I do like, I think we intellectualize our feelings a lot and we are, we use our brains to tell stories to put, to put kind of meaning and narrative to why we do what we do or how we, why we feel the way we feel. It's like you wake up in a bad mood. It's because it's raining. You wake up in a good mood because it's sunny, but it has nothing to do with that. You're looking outside and ascribing a cause to a feeling. that was in your body when you woke up that morning.

Yeah, it's just chemical, most likely. Or, again, who knows? But we know that there are just like in a, you're gonna be a good, mid, bad mood, too much sleep, R.E.m. If you have a fitness watch, then you can get into types of sleep. I'm a big R.A.m.

Great. People wear these Apple watches to the movies. Yep. And it's like, hey, that's a screen, you fucking jerks. That's a bright little screen on your, I don't care that you're keeping track of your steps. Turn that thing off. I'm young. What's a movie? What is that?

I don't, old man, please tell me what a movie is. Okay, I want to ask one more question about, did you find being gay and being, you were not in especially hetero spaces, right? You've always been in like, you're a democratic, you're a democratic up. So you're pretty, you know, it's pretty comfortable. Was it ever excruciating?

Was it ever like I wish this wasn't the case or was it just like, ah, this is what it is and it's awesome, whatever, tons of benefits. So I went to Williams College, which is a sports college in rural Massachusetts. Great decision for a closet of Jewish gay kid to make from Long Island. Great decision. Why did you make that decision? It's a great school. They had a great math.

There were reasonable reasons to do it. I joke about it now. But like it was a strange place for me to choose. I'm glad I did. I made great friends. I had a great time there. It was a strange choice. But I remember when I got there, I was meeting people for the first time that grew up around money and who went to elite private schools and had like been on private jets and had been to Europe and all these things.

And like I had a very privileged upbringing, but like my family had a box factory and they did well. But we had a middle class energy. And that was their childhood, that was my childhood. And I remember learning that like, oh, there's like a breeziness to the way these people interact with each other. A kind of perfect balance between gratitude and belonging. Like never acting as if the world totally is theirs for the taking, but never acting as though they should be bashful about taking it. There's a difference. There's a difference.

It's an ease that I had to learn to pretend to have. And I learned from it that, like, oh, this is a language of success that we have everywhere. That, like, that is an energy people who successfully do job interviews bring to that interview, right? You know, not too much gratitude, not too much arrogance, right? Like, it's just, it's an energy that you need to carry. That feeling of being on the outside of that is similar to, like, a few. feeling of being on the outside of a certain kind of ease that straight men have with each other. That only really exists when straight men are alone and comfortable and gay guys can gain

access to it when they can hang. But then if they're like that that like if you have a feminine energy in that space, you are coded differently. And that's not anyone's fault. It's not even bad, right? Gay guys together have a language that a straight guy would have to kind of delicately balance. And women, when, like I remember worked for Hillary Clinton, that was an office led by women. And men were sometimes a little bit on the outside of it and had to learn how to navigate it. Right.

Like, that's true of any state. Everyone's code switching all the time. This idea of the last five years where it's like, only we have to code switch. It's like, no, everyone is code switching. from interaction to interaction. Like, I do Pilates. They're straight guys that show up at Pilates. And like, they're welcome, but they got to be on their best behavior.

Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a feminine space. And whenever I go to Pilates, I, like, kind of really throw on the gay. You got to just like, just to just be like, you're doing, like, you know, just my, you know, just to just because I mince. I mince a bit. Yep. I mince. Mm-hmm.

You know? I'm not ashamed to admit it. No. I turn it up. Yeah. I turn it up. Yeah. I turn it up.

You know there's a gauge. I don't want to say where it is, but there's a gauge. Oh, there's a gauge. Oh, there's a gauge. And it's where you think it is. Yep. And you twisted and. Boy.

What? Let's leave it. Love it. Welcome to love it or leave it. But like I like that's that to me is what for me like a lot of like the experience of being gay can be outside of like relationships like in in work and in life. It's like, oh like navigating when you're when you're kind of. And by the way, same on the other side. Like when you're like one of the girls.

and when you're one of the guys. And the great, great part about it, the best part about being gay outside of, you know, not any of women is, you kind of fuck that up,

but go ahead. I know. Yeah. You find a way, you find a way to ruin it. That's your thing. That's right. But I think what you said was wrong.

But the, I know. Well, no, what's funny is you've never really been that. this kind of person that you've never you've never been that into condemnation i want to talk about that all this whole yeah let's talk about section of the last so you were saying that you've been

code switching i want to finish this thought which is you've been code switching it's fine it's understandable it was never a albatross no all i was going to say is i've always felt and similar to the way i think you sometimes feel which is like always and it's a comedian's energy too which is sort of like you're kind of on the outside a little bit and you're like are these people not thinking about how they're talking? Are they just talking? That's amazing. They're just in there talking.

They're not saying something and thinking about how it's playing. They're just talking. And I feel like I did that when I was in the closet and I did that when I was trying to fit it in school and I did that when I was with gay people. I did that with women. I did that with straight people. I just like I've always done that and it's just

been part of what I've navigated and then you think well that's not because of my That's just because of my fucked up brain. Yeah, I know. And we've ascribed, okay, so that'll, we'll use that as the, a way into the last 15 years of American life, right? Or 17, since 08. Let's select Barack Obama. There's been a premium put on victimization and meaning it's kind of a victimization.

Olympics, we're code switching. You think you have to code switch, we have to code switch. there's all this all this like sort of competitive i'm going to stick with victimization despite your facial expressions i'm thinking about it i'm thinking about what you're saying yeah i i kind of believe that right i some of it was we need more civil rights name 10 groups they want more civil rights and deserve more civil rights protection under the law some of it was just for advantage for social advantage for professional advantage interpersonally some of the people were grifting right my question for and i asked as a client this do you think

that the the big my my explanation of the case for for why uh democrats lost in 2024 was because social media made it so that the aggrieved groups basically rose to the top of the hierarchy of of urgency or or issues really like what you What should the issues be, right? And Democratic politicians were unable or afraid to say, that's one of the issues, but it can't be our main issue. So can I show you a photo that I, it's, I posted this the day after the election, the top of Democrats.org, okay?

Yeah, yeah. 17 black people and a white guy with dreads. Yeah. So, right. And by the way, like, okay, so. And I, again, I'm not, I don't. think like it's you. I don't think it's anyone in particular. I just think it was the momentum of social media and people getting of being afraid of being called a bigot in a public square.

So I think there's like I think a lot of things happen at the same time. But like so there's social media. There's policy. There's what elected Democrats say. That's what activists say. That's what normal people say. Like there's just a lot of people that are kind of having different experiences of what of this dynamic. Yep. So one big thing that I do think happened because of social media is millennials are the first social media generation we embrace it and we're trying to figure out what it means to live online and what did millennials decide was the way you live online you have to put on a perfect show and so you never show people sweat your sweat you never show people that you're fucked up you never show people that you're upset you post a perfect picture of something you made you

post a perfect trip you're perfect unless you're perfectly upset unless you're perfectly upset but that that even that came later like the forget like people being influenced I'm just like people. Yeah. We all trained ourselves to kind of put on a show of perfection, and we brought that that kind of performance into our professional lives, right? It's hustle, hustle culture. Hustle is putting it all in a line. It's like the wing. It's a set of, of like expectations around how you show up as a person, and you save your flaws and the ways in which you feel hurt, the ways in which you've been wronged. That you keep at home, and you show out, and you show up, and you out-hustle somebody else no matter what's coming your way.

And Gen Z comes up and they see that and like that is cringe, first of all. It's embarrassing. It's not real. And you're ignoring all this shit. And you're ignoring all the ways in which things are unfair. You're ignoring all the challenges we face. We're ignoring the way in which our generation was punished by having to grow up online. And so there is a reaction to that.

And that reaction is to show your floss and to talk about how much, how hard it is. And the ways in which, yeah, you are a victim. of circumstance, racism, homophobia, misogyny, whatever, an asshole of a boss, whatever. Bigotry in general. I agree that like some of our politics has been a backlash to that. But what's interesting is while that backlash has played out in politics, kind of have seen in the last couple years the ways in which those two things have come a little bit more together.

And Gen Z's growing up a little bit and realizing that sometimes you do need some grit and to not worry about so much about what's broken. And you see millennials admitting like, maybe I have ADHD, right? Like you see a little bit of like those two things coming together. I think that's like a really good thing. But that doesn't change the fact that there was a big political backlash to us like to Democrats embracing, you know, activist groups that claimed the way you appeal to Hispanics is by saying you will decriminalize the border or the way you. you appeal to black people as by saying, embracing abolish the police. And that was a bit of a, like a moment of mania where a lot of elected Democrats so unmoored

by Trump winning, so unmoored by the first time, so unmoored about what people think and how to appeal to people that they went along with that. You see people raising their hands during debates. You see Kamala talking about taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens. But that was years ago. Democrats realized that that was fucking stupid, that they went too far and that those groups didn't speak for the people they claim to speak for, right? Because it was a lot of Hispanic people that moved towards Trump.

It was black voters who were saying over and over again that they actually didn't want to abolish the police that they thought police, good policing, may their neighborhoods feel safer, right? That's just the reality. But Democrats learned that. Kamala Harris was punished with an ad from when she embraced that point of view. Kamala's for they, them. President Trump is for you.

But Democrats had learned that that they had gone too far and tried to correct. It just didn't work. There was enough time. Maybe she wasn't the best communicator on that. Do you believe that transgender Americans should have access to gender affirming care in this country? I believe we should follow the law. Joe Biden left the bully pulpit open for years. He cares about holding on the power.

I care about you. But the truth is that like we paid for lessons we had learned is I think part of why I like kind of. I'm with you in terms of timeline explanation. And by the way, one part of all of this, that like part of another reason I'm like a little bit like I kind of have this reaction to what you're saying is there was a whole media ecosystem, a whole political apparatus designed to take the most annoying college professors, the most fringy democratic statements, the dumbest thing a Democrat's ever said and make that news. Yeah. That's still true. I agree. I do pay for that, right?

You know, there was just the third way as a think tank. They just came up with a list of words Democrats should stop saying, right? fine don't say birthing person i'm engaged to a trans person yeah don't say you know like don't birthing person like you can say that there are pregnant women while also acknowledging that there are trans people who don't identify women who get pregnant and that could be a pregnant person but that doesn't mean you have to stop saying pregnant women that's ridiculous like like they're there's just we can use common sense and you're one of the people who would this would birthing person would be the correct word and even you're like don't do many favors because it's well that's the thing that

I feel like there was a lack of people going like, don't make us the main thing because it's, it is unusual and it's going to be easy to paint the whole party with this brush. And like there are all kinds of other words on that list. Intersectionality, heuristic, whatever. But here's the thing. Mainstream Democrats don't say that stuff. They don't. I agree.

But they also haven't been allowed to say this is silly. So this is this type of language is. And this gets that to me, this is why, like, this is the problem. Yes. This is the problem. The problem is not that there are activists saying things that mainstream Democrats don't say. Look at Donald Trump.

Donald Trump puts RFK Jr. in his cabinet, a pro-life, a pro-choice Kennedy. Imagine if Kamala Harris in the campaign said, you know what I'm thinking about making my Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Pence. There would be an out there'd be an uproar, an intense uproar about how wrong that is. It would be, what are you talking about? No, no, no. she would never be in a position to do something like that. Why? Why? Well, I don't think she should make Mike Pence Secretary of Health and Human Services. How about Liz Cheney? Go on.

But like Donald Trump has space to operate because his base trust him because of because his authentic motivations around immigration, around like the border and a bunch of issues where people think, look, I don't know what he thinks about all this other stuff. But I know he really cares about this thing. That is a signal to me about his beliefs. I trust him. And that gives him the space to operate. It gives him the space to be heterodox. It gives him the space to do politics. There are some Democrats who have been able to do that over the years.

Barack Obama could do that. Bill Clinton could do that. Bernie Sanders could do that. AOC could do that. Mamdani can do that. They build a real connection to people where people understand who they are. People say who they are. But what motivates them in a deep level about politics, why they're in this.

And that means they are someone that people trust to push back on their own side to, to, like, Mamdani talked about how, there's a big fight about abundance, the details of which are very, very boring. But he made a point about how we do need more market rate housing. And actually, those abundance guys make a bunch of good points. Nobody's outraged that he's abandoning the movement because people know what he stands for. Like, Bernie has been able to do that. Democrats, current Democratic leadership, like, we talk a lot about politically homeless Republicans that are anti-Trump, but like the leaders, the current leaders of the Democratic Party, they have no passionate constituency. There's no one out there who's, who, who, like, people may not dislike

Chuck Schumer or dislike Keem Jeffries, but they don't have an incredibly enthusiastic base of support. And that means they have to be a little bit more afraid to be to push back on the base to either push to the left or push to the right, whatever it may be. And to me, like, I look at that and I say, how can we build, how can Democrats regain trust with people so that when they disagree, people don't take it as just political machinations, but actually as an honest person sharing what they genuinely think about the world that you may not agree with all the time. And we're in this vicious circle where Democrats feeling like they're disconnected from people do all this poll testing and message testing and then they get the perfect sentence.

And the perfect sentence is inevitably something like Donald Trump shouldn't be putting national guard on our streets. He should be protecting your Medicare. And that polls, I'm sure, through the roof. But it's not a way people would talk. Build back better. Right. And so we're in that vicious circle and the question is how you get out of it and you do it by having leaders people genuinely trust believe in who are building that on specific issues which gives them the space to operate outside of them i also think it's leaders or anyone being okay with a difference of opinion just going like like gavin newsome is now basically i here's what i think if you don't like it,

I'll get you on the next one. Like I hopefully we agree, hopefully you agree with me more. Hopefully you'll still vote for me, but I, I, this is my seemingly genuine belief. And I feel like,

like I was saying earlier, I think there was such a fear largely from my point of view based on social media that once you get branded as something, you can't, you just are that. If you're not sufficiently pro-trained,

if you're not sufficiently anti-ice or whatever, all the things. And I think it's, it's so frustrating that it's, they're, they're releasing that list now in 2025 where it's like, you didn't know that intersectionality was like nauseating to 80% of the voters? Well, but like, as a term. No, of course. But the thing is, again, it's like, that's not a term Democrats are really using. And by the way, like, why do those terms not work?

There's nothing inherent in the words. It's because the people using them don't have enough reach, base to support, people that agree with them. Like, cringe is just, what is cringe? It is what cringy people say that makes other people realize they shouldn't say it, right? Like, that happens with slang all the time, right? Slang comes out of basically black people or, or drag queens or gay people. And it's fun. then all of a sudden it's on a, you know,

Brat summer post and then it's cringe. Literally when that Brad thing happened, I was like, oh, they're done. They're done. She can't win. I literally said it before I was like, she might win, just never bring up being a woman, never do any of this goofy cultural shit.

And then, and then. But like we just, it's not the words. It's not the words. It's the disconnect between the people using them and the majority of the country we're trying to reach. And the lack of leaders, that have an ability to kind of live in both worlds.

Like the transit, like Gavin Newsom took a ton of shit for saying what he said about trans athletes. You say no men and female sports. Well, I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. Pete Buttigieg had his time in the barrel. A lot of Democrats are going to have their time in the barrel. These decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues

and school boards and not politicians. Why? Like, what do Democrats think should be the policy at a high-level competitive sports? I really have no idea. Biden tried to do a kind of bridge the divide policy that that was against blanket bans but acknowledged that there are people with concerns. That was that was said to be wrong by a lot of people that he was sort of conceding to the

right. Like I've talked about this with people that are involved in this fight. And I always say the same thing, which is some version of. I want kids, teenagers that are trans to feel safe to tell people and to get the help they need so that they can live as themselves. I want trans adults to not be worried about getting fired to be able to access the care that they need. I want broad trans acceptance. I want trans people to feel safe in this country to be able to go to the bathroom at the airport.

I want, like, as a culture for America, to realize that trans people shouldn't just be tolerated, but actually show us something beautiful about humanity and like what we don't understand about being a man or being a woman, being feminine, being masculine. Like it can open our horizons and show us the ways in which even cisgender, straight people are locked in the prison from the inside, right? Like, there's beautiful. I have a, as a, as a, I'm like, I hear this and I go, come on, man. I don't give a fuck about swimmers at the highest level.

I don't give a fuck about that. Yeah. I don't know. Even the, the flowery language you just used is like, I'm at the airport. I have to fucking get to my flight. I don't want to have to worry about whatever you were just saying of like revealing a human spirit. That's not about the, that's just about the fucking airport bathroom.

I'm just, I'm just, people need to go to the bathroom. Yeah, yeah. I'm not talking. talking about having a romantic experience at the airport bathroom. I'm saying that in life, once you get past the bigotry and the confusion and the lack of acceptance and just the uncertainty and the needing to learn about it, what you find is that actually, like, if you, that like, non-binary people, trans people, they show us that like, you know, there's a lot of assumptions in our culture about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. And that

questioning that is good. And maybe it's hard, right, because I think there's a lot of specifically men who have allowed what it means to be a man and to be strong to narrow and narrow and narrow what they are allowed to do. You see like Jesse Waters on Fox News, he's like, men don't have soup, men don't use straws, men don't dance. Men don't wish men happy birthdays. What kind of strength is that? I got to watch this clip. I can't wait to do it. Strength is shouldn't be that you're restricted, right? But all that's a way of saying like we don't get to have any kind of debate about that because we're stuck on this issue, which is should trans people serve in the military, people support that. Should trans people be able to live as themselves? People support that.

We get stuck on the 3070 issue of high level NCAA sports. I don't give a fuck about that. And I get that there are activists who are like, no, if you give on that, they're just going to come for the next issue. But part of why Democrats get shit for being honest about not caring about that and recognizing concerns people have is they're not trusted as fighters on anything. So when they give on that, they think they'll give on everything. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Guys, you know, October 10th was World Mental Health Day, and this year we're saying thank you to therapists.

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Mando's got you covered with the owner plus sweat control. Say goodbye to sweat stains and say hello to long-lasting freshness. Mention us in the, if they ask you, where you heard about it. Say, oh, do you know, Neil? Neil told me. Bye. My point of view, if I may, is, as you mentioned earlier, about the rollout of these issues. yeah right the civil rights in the 60s the civil rights movement the most effective social movement

in world history i've heard it referred to as which i think is true was really well managed you know it's almost written state like thought out planned i think the the problem now is the roll out with all of the alphabet issues the again uh is like this assumption that it's There's nothing unusual about it. When you, and you just sat here and told me when we were younger, it didn't really exist. And I think a lot of times they pretend it did

and that I'm the bigot for kind of being like, wait, what? Bill Burr has that great. Bill Burr has that awesome bit about loving Bruce Jenner as a kid and not being able to say Bruce Jenner not getting to say the words Bruce Jenner. You have to only say Caitlin Jenner,

but I never got a chance to say goodbye to Bruce Jenner. It's a version of that. It's great. it's like yeah Kevin Nealon has my favorite joke which is I used to golf with Bruce before he died and he was friends with Bruce

so and he was friends with Bruce so so and which is like yeah I can't say anything because what he's saying is true the so what I'm saying is it's this thing of like this matter of fact this it's they're rolling out the metric system we're still on feet and inches and you're going

you're ignorant and a bigot for not going to metric quickly. It's like a better or another example is I still call my sister by Mary Brennan. I don't call her Mary Cochons. I don't call her. He's Mary Brennan. I don't know. It's Bruce Jenner, whatever you want to say. So there's a huge divide between people that have, like, view activism as something

that takes place online and people have view it as something that takes place. place in the world. And I've, like, just over years of doing Crooked Media and Pots of America in these shows, you just learn that, that when you talk to organizers on whatever issue that are on the ground, they understand what you're saying. They're much more conciliatory because they talk to people. And they view that, they view their mission as building a bigger tent and persuading people and helping people understand and getting people involved and getting people to care. You see that, by the way, with Sarah McBride, who's actually taking shit as a trans person for what she has said about LGBT issues. She's not sufficiently,

trans enough as a trans person that that that she's in some way conciliatory or that she's given in some way and that divide is just there's something that happens to people when they live online it really pickles your brain and you're in a closed loop with a bunch of people who agree with you and it radicalizes people in all kinds of directions and that's really unhealthy and so you do end up with people that are kind of doing like language policing and and politicians are afraid of them And you have a, you have, you talked about this in, in, in, in, in, in your special about the problem being liberal is there's no amount of liberal that's ever liberal enough. Like, if there's a bunch of Republicans standing around and someone comes up and goes,

hey, I'm Republican. They go like, come on in. There's a bunch of liberals standing around. A liberal comes up and goes, hey, I'm liberal. They're like, we'll see. And like, that is absolutely true. And I'll just say, like, it's a huge fucking problem. Yeah.

And I feel very proud of like what we've built over the last eight or nine years and a proud of longevity, right? because things come and go but we've like stuck around and as we've done it we've sort of seen like when we first started crooked and POTS of America we really defined ourselves against the way the mainstream media was letting people down here we are eight years later it's like a shell of itself right it's basically gone and now what are we trying to do and we what we've been talking about about like how to think about the mission as an independent progressive media company is We need to help people understand that the answer to what Trump is doing is as big and diverse

and welcoming pro-democracy tent as humanly possible. And to remember at all times that Trump wants, the Republicans want, a left that is, angry, divided, embittered, sour, mean, unwelcoming. That's what they want us to be. They want us to be the worst versions of ourselves. Trump is great at turning people into the worst versions of themselves. supporters and his opponents alike. We have to fight that. And we have to be a fun, raucous party that people want to attend. If we're going to be a movement, people want to join.

And that means being honest about the ways in which being liberal scolds, which again is a subset of people, is not just unhelpful. It is extremely harmful. And to act like that wasn't a part of what led us here is totally wrong. It absolutely is. And we got to figure out how to fix that brand. That is up to leaders of the party and what they stand for in their policies. But that's also about us as members of this movement to be people that others might want to join, even if they were wrong, even if they voted for Trump, even if they didn't follow politics before, even if they don't have the right words on all these issues, that like whatever you feel, come on in, the water's fine. You're welcome. Well, that's why you're my favorite pod saver. All of us are all the guys.

We all, I mean, we could, we could do this. We don't have time. Oh, it's a shame. That's, by the But that's like, that's our collective view of what we have to do. Okay. We have different points of view. But I also think I, I, having, I don't listen to all of it and whatever. Who's got the time? But I'd also like to say, you're fucking very funny. And we have, neither one of us have said we've sort of like gray's basset.

You're very funny. That's all I want to say. Love or Leave it is funnier and it's funny than this. And it's, uh, it's also, Well, it's your care. It's hard to get your care at someone's personality into a kind of a game show format, but you did it. You said something to me right when we started it about about the show that has stuck with me from the beginning. Good.

Because I remember saying it. Because you said what you're doing is right for this moment because like Trump, you're a bully that you're root for. And being a bully you root for has stuck with me from the beginning. And by the way, like I, we have, there's, um. This is not my observation, but there's a difference between charm and charisma. And charm is about wanting people to like you, but charisma is people want, charm is trying to get people to come to you. Charm is people come to you on their own.

You said it wrong twice? Yep. Fix it for me. The definition of charisma is not, do I like that person? It's does that person like me? Yeah. And that's what it is. But having said that, you, you, you.

have like I have the same thing which is like sort of a stub a spiky charisma or charm I think you have I think that you you you hang back and and let people come to you and there's like a confidence to you which feels more like charisma I have more of a charm energy I'm like trying to get people to like me that's fair and I feel like that's a difference and so anyway I've always appreciated your I you you make your praise more valuable because you are less solicitous as a person I also just think when you were like, what a week. I don't know what week I did it, but just the minute you said, what a week.

What a week. It was like 2016. Or 17, and it was like, as a guy who's from TV, and I'm like, that's just a perfect distillation of like an energy. I didn't even remember saying the bully thing, which, but, but yeah. And I don't even know if you're, you're a stickler. is right and you have a standard um where just like trump you have a standard uh but what i was going to say is uh do you feel like a part of the party leadership kind of or the the communications arm of

the democratic party do you feel like i don't want to say that because eh you know what i'm saying like so here's i i hear what you're saying i would say all of us have kind of two instincts in what our role is, especially when it comes to being hard on Democrats, which is we want to be productive and we want to find the right balance between like it's not between like hope and cynicism. It's between like kind of where is pessimism correct? where is agency where we can actually move things around like where like what is the most productive way to be critical of your own side and like there have been times where like we have heard from like the democratic party leadership that like they're pissed because we're like fucking annoying as

hell and giving them a hard time and we don't really get it because we're outside but then at the same time we're constantly hearing that we're like we're shills for the democratic party And the truth is like neither is right. Neither is right. We just don't think about it that way. I do like think one part of building that big movement is you have to be generous with your allies, even when they're cringe, even when they're annoying. You have to be generous with them. And by the way, you have to recognize that sometimes a like, is Chuck Schumer saying the right things?

Is Hakeem Jeffries saying the right things? Of course not. Not all the time. Not often. Is that our problem, right? Is the problem that Hakeem Jeffries isn't saying everything right? like I don't know maybe right but they're not in charge who is right Republicans are in charge how do we get power back well it's about finding the right candidates at the local

level it's but it's broadly talking about our collective message going into the midterms right it's it's understanding where criticism is valuable where it's not where where like where what is annoying is important where it's not right like it's that that to me I think is what we try to figure out and help people figure out especially when I think a lot of people feel like Democratic leaders are letting them down, but also sometimes we're looking for Democratic leaders to solve a problem that even they can't solve. And our frustration is not necessarily with them or with their inaction. It was the fact that they are not in power and the people who are don't care. The people with power aren't listening and the people who are listening

don't have power. And that is a very frustrating thing. And channeling that frustration productively is, I think, part of what we're trying to do. I worry when you say that you want to be generous with your alice. Yeah. As a, because I think that sounds like you're going like, we're going to be a little dishonest. You get it.

You know. Because I don't think it's going to fly for much longer. Well, I'm thinking about what you're saying. Like, I'm thinking about it. And, like, even Tim Poole was like this, or some of the people on the right are like,

I don't like this Epstein stuff. Like, I don't like it. Like, it's, I'm, someone's going to probably call me, but I don't know if they, said that but like to the point where I'm saying to you guys or just as like I I think the it's a little old fashioned what you're saying it's not smoke filled room old fashion but it's a bit like ah is he perfect no but he's ours you know it's a bit yeah I would say that I don't think

it's an easy position no well I we're about to have a debate about whether or not, let's get specific about it. So the government could shut down if there's not a funding bill. I may get the details a little bit wrong, but Democrats have to decide in the Senate whether or not they're going to go along with the funding bill or fight it, right? Chris Murphy's out there saying, we've got to stop acting as if everything is normal. We've got to fight this every step of the way. They cannot have our votes unless we get certain guarantees around a host of other things.

He is dispatching the National Guard and secret police into our cities. He is not following the law. He's attempting to fire the Federal Reserve chair. Like, he is brazen and he is counting on our conciliation. Now, the argument against that is, well, if we shut down the government, he's just going to do what he wants anyway, right? He's just going to do what he wants anyway. And then you think, well, hold on a second. Your argument for why we need to, like, you're basically saying that Trump's abuse of power over here in the illegal realm gives him more power in the institution.

legal realm, right? Because you're afraid of his lawlessness over here, he has more power to put pressure on us when we're legislating. Well, that's given up the game. So of course you have to fight. But then you think, well, what happens if you fight? Democrats are now partially responsible for a government shutdown. Now, all of a sudden, instead of the country, disapproving Trump's management of the economy, disapproving what Trump's doing on immigration, disapproving what he's doing by distributing National Guard into our cities for a manufactured crime wave, they're focused on us. That's bad politics. Now, my instinct as a combative person terrified about what our country could be is i'm with murphy you don't give an inch you fight every day but they're going to people that disagree and it's probably going to be some of the more moderate and cringy people right that are ultimately going to relent i i come down on the side of murphy on that probably there are people that are going to disagree let's have but like i don't know for sure right well that's what i was going to say i don't know and so i like i I think part of what this moment has to be about is just being honest. Like, I don't know.

Here's what I think. Here's what I'm feeling in response to it. Here's what I'm concerned about. Here's where I ultimately land. But I'm not sure. And so let's just be honest about the uncertainty while being critical of the people that are doing what we don't think is right. But talking about what their motivations might be and seeing it from their side.

That to me is what it means to be generous with their allies. It's not avoiding being honest about their flaws or not making fun of them when they give terrible, boring speeches that sound like they were written by a pollster, right? Like, I don't think those things are incompatible. That's an interesting thing about your level of experience is like, you know that it's all so complex. And whenever people talk about, you know, the deep state or the Illuminati or whatever, I kind of think about the weekend I met you and meeting a bunch of government people that

I never met before and, you know, finance, whatever. And everybody just seemed tired, overworked, stressed out, like on duty, and not in a way that was on duty for their own glory or power or influence. Just like, fuck. Like working in a hospital. It's kind of what it seemed like. So I am sympathetic to your position. I guess I'm just wondering where you fall on like how honest can I be. Because you don't, obviously, you don't want to prime air everybody.

Yeah. You can't primary everybody. And is there a tough love version of you guys? Is and would that even be, is that anything? Well, I would say probably a lot of the politicians that we both find kind of like not right for this moment would be surprised to find out they're getting any kind of love whether it's tough or not from us. I think like what is the, what is all of this ultimately boil down to? If we're like going to talk about an issue and we feel like the Democrats have been really fucking it up, we're going to have that conversation, but we're going to button it up. We're going to make sure, right? We're going to do, like, we're not going to just going to go half cock. Like, if we're coming after people that we ultimately want to help win, right? Let's make sure we get it. Let's like do the work, right? Like, let's be specific.

Let's understand the issue. Let's know where they're coming from, right? Because let's start from a place where they have better motivations, which is all we're doing. Just start from a place of assuming that they have better motivations than their opponents, which I believe, right? It's a lot easier to go after Republicans who have sold their soul to get by. behind Trump. Because I don't trust them. I don't trust their motivation. And I and and there's a pattern. Right. So you can understand where you're coming at that. You still have to do the work. You still have to understand what's going on. But when you're going after somebody that is maybe

letting you down, but is on your side, I think that requires what generosity to your allies requires is just doing a bit more to make sure you understand where they're coming from. So that when you are critical, you feel more confident in what you're saying. And you're doing it with respect for people that ultimately you're part of a movement. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, and I'm also contradicted myself because I am saying like you need to be honest, but at the same time, you need to kind of take these half a loaf people. You know what I mean? Like I see the contradiction of what I'm saying. It speaks to the complexity of the whole thing. Nobody knows what to do right now. Like what is happening is unprecedented. Yeah. It really is. And it's hard.

And it's confusing. We've never had a Trump-like figure. Uh, uh, uh, illegally dismantling parts of the government, co-opting the Republican Party as the media collapses and people get all their information through tech-generated algorithmic feeds that confirm their worst prejudices and biases. We've never lived in that world before. How do we get out of it? I don't fucking know. I don't know.

And it's hard. And that requires, I think, having a little humility with people that share that same concern. I want to go back to some we were talking about, which is the amount of pushing people forward and accepting people's limitations yeah trans issues being a good one historically blackish is being a a clearer one because it's like sort of historic yeah where do you fall on it because there is the you've got definitely are invested now and how much is like do you go ah these people aren't ready and do we need to like make them ready do we need to force them to be ready because I feel that way and you can let me let me make the question even bigger Trump's lost once

and won twice and he lost to a guy and and beat two women so what I'm saying is like it there's part of me is like are can women win a general election I'm sure you thought it it's a dark thought it's gross it's et cetera et cetera can Wesley the guy from Maryland is he is there is Westmore. Is Westmore? Is he as viable black candidate with Barack Obama? Is there? It's like kind of judging progress, the progress wheel versus like the art of the possible, right? Where do you fall on it? And I'm sure it's complex. And I, by your initial exhale, I know you've got a, you've got an answer. So let's just take the first part, which is when do you push people? When do you trust their limits? You have to just, I I think you have to separate what people's opinions and what they care about. Those are different things. When you call somebody up on the phone or text them or have a focus group and ask them, what do they think?

They're going to have a range of views. And maybe you end up with a majority that thinks trans people should serve in the military, but only a minority that thinks trans teens should transition. For example, that might be what you get out of some polling. And so that might lead a Democrat to say, I must embrace trans people being able to serve in the military, but say, I have questions. about whether or not trans teens should be able to transition. But then you ask that same group of people, you just focus group, what are your biggest issues?

And actually, it's like, I can't afford groceries and my house is expensive and health care is unreliable. And then you think, well, hold on a second. What if there was a politician that was so motivated by health care and affordability and the need to build housing, that it was in every fiber of their being, why they were invested and someone came to learn that about them. And then that politician went to that person and said, I'm going to make sure your health care is cheaper. I'm going to fight every day to build more housing. I'm going to go through walls for you. We disagree on this trans thing. I think

trans teens deserve this care. Maybe you don't get that right now, but I'm going to win you over, but don't worry about that because that's not my focus. This is what I'm focused on. The thing that you care about. All of a sudden, that person has so much more purchase on these other issues. So it's not about where do you push. Can you think of anyone who's ever done that? Bernie Sanders can do that, right? AOC can do that. Has anyone ever said, I mean, Obama literally said, like, gay marriage, ah. I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.

I'm not, it's saying, whatever, his mealy mouth answer. But I do believe in civil unions. He can get away with it as discussed, but what I'm wondering is like, you're, I agree with you, but I have, I can't think of anyone that does, like, ah, it's not really my biggest concern. I don't think it's most people's biggest concern. I'm going to be the biggest concerns person. Well, I think there are politicians who try versions of that all the time. Like, I, you know, look, you know, that's not what I'm focused on. I'm focused on this. And like, sometimes that seems evasive. Evasive, right? But whether, what are this, whatever the specific

language is, I'm talking about a person who is building trust with people on the things they care about most. So that, however those other issues come up, whether they come up, when they do, they can either say, I disagree, or they can say, you know, like that's a distraction, that's what they want to say. Or they can try to persuade, right? And say, like, you know what? I hope you'll listen to me on this, because I hope I've built trust on this other thing that you care about, not just in what I've said, but by the way, delivering, right? Yeah. Like, that's part of the problem, right? People don't trust Democrats to deliver. And, you know, we can debate whether or not that's fair, that that Joe Biden did a lot of really important things to kind of prove the

depth that government could deliver and you didn't get credit for it. It's a lot of issues in the way this this stuff is translated to people. Couldn't speak probably a huge problem, not having a president who could form a sentence. Look, if we finally beat Medicare paid a pretty heavy price for it. We'll say. But to me, that to me is what that to me is what pushing and pulling is about, right? It's not about like, do you give here, do not give here. It's like, how do you build credit where you agree so that when the time comes, people are willing to trust you on something

else. Now, I feel like it was a big mistake after 2016 when a lot of people just said sexism, racism, right? Not just because it put off the hard questions about why Democrats were failing to persuade people, but also because it says a terrible signal about whether our country will elect a woman to be president. Look, look, 24 was an incredibly, specific election, unlike any we've ever run before. We had a deeply unpopular administration that people held responsible for inflation, helmed by a person who was inarticulate by the end that the country believed was too old, who had been defended by a party that made people feel as though they couldn't be trusted,

in part because it was telling everybody that Joe Biden was up for the job when they saw with their own eyes, he no longer was. Kamala represented that administration. And she was enough change to mean we didn't lose 40 Senate seats. she made up a lot of ground that Joe Biden lost, right? But she still carried that baggage. And she was unable, I think, to successfully explain how she would have been different in part by being when she's asked the question, she did not have a good answer. Now, that is one question and one answer. And Donald Trump fucks up 40 times a day and still manages to win. And so there's something deeper here

about why this was close in the first place and why our country doesn't trust Democrats when it talks about the threat Trump poses or what we claim we're for, right? That's a bigger problem. But I do think to then draw the conclusion of that well he beat it a man beat him two women lost that tells us more than i'm not saying you're saying that but i don't i don't i don't believe we know that yeah no but i like to reiterate i voted from all but what i'm saying is you know because i whatever no i don't even think anyone's going to paint me with a brush but i'm saying what if it's people not people's priority to have a female president do you know what i mean because and then but in the the explanation of that is like well then you're a bigot no

I'm not I don't it's not it's the joke I did on my last one I'm not a bigot I'm busy I don't but it's not important to me but you know what Kamala Harris didn't make her being a woman didn't make identity central to any of what she was doing it came this time yeah well 2016 they still tape they still had 4k tape so it seemed like she just said it fine but like wasn't tape but I'm saying as a candidate she she wasn't saying like we must select the first female president. In fact, they very carefully avoided doing anything like that. They put identity aside and made it much more about the threat to democracy and, you know,

the economy. So, so, you know, like, it's not like people felt like, why would I vote for her? Being, having a female president isn't the most important. Nobody made that the most important thing. So, so like, that's not. But I think the thing that you said about sexism and not even being able to say, like, she wasn't a great candidate in 2016 or. Yeah, either one.

Either anyone. Joe Biden won great. I mean, none of them been great since your friend. But it's, at least you're allowed to say Biden is a mummy. You know what I mean? I was, but you couldn't, I, you couldn't say anything disparaging about Hillary or just because it seemed coded in misogyny, et cetera, et cetera, which I just think is a bad. thing it's a bad position to put people in because you can't have a real conversation and you can't it you know yeah but then it's like but what are you talking about you're talking about

online criticism right is what you're saying you're talking about the general tenor of the argument but that you can't be like i don't know she's just not that she didn't she don't got it right i like i just where where couldn't you say i mean of course people could say that i mean part of what Well, part of what, look, part of a going once, once Joe Biden not only held on too long, not only fails that debate, but also doesn't drop out for several weeks after, right? The idea of having a convention, open convention, a real process is eliminated. She's the person. Yeah.

And so no, at that point. Did you like that? Do you think that was good? I like, me, not let it was heard that a result. So I will say that that they should have done maybe a primary. To your point, when we talked about an open process, people accused. There were definitely people online, they were like, because you don't want a black woman to have the job. Right.

Right. Like, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Totally. Absolutely part of it. Which, like it or not, seeps in.

We can say, like, it's online, but it's seaps into your spirit. I think the way online is real, like, we say online is not real life. Like, it has become much more real life. It matters. I totally agree. And like, that was very frustrating to be like, no, if, if Kamala is a strong candidate, I believe she is, then she will be a stronger candidate for having won that process. She starts out.

with an advantage, don't you want Kamala to come out of an open process having not just been given something, but taken something? Doesn't that make her politics stronger? Doesn't that give us an opportunity as Democrats to put her campaign on its feet and have a debate that allows her to be stronger when she heads into the general? Like, there are very good reasons for having that process, in part because when and if she became the candidate, she'd have been better for it. But and and there was also other people saying there shouldn't be an open process, not because it was to prevent a black woman from having the job, but because, hey, this will be damaging. We got to get moving.

We need a candidate right now. But it was all rendered moved by Joe Biden who took that possibility away from us. And so once she is the candidate, no, there's no more. We got to help her. We got to do everything we can to help her win. If there's criticism that's productive, great. But like, this is an emergency.

We are put in this position. Everybody should be moving in the same direction, for sure. That's how I thought about it. No, I'm with you. It's just an interesting thing where at first I said that you couldn't really criticize them. And your instinct is to say, no, what are you talking about? And then you admit, yeah, it was harder to criticize.

Well, I'm admitting that before she was the candidate, I'm admitting that there's some truth to what you're saying. No, I agree. And I'm not saying, it was in good faith that you're saying, but it is the truth. And what I'm, I think, I'm interested in the tension that you live in overall, the tension you live in between helping the party and being dead honest.

And because that's the knock on the near time, CNN, MSNNM70s, did da da da da da is that they're all in in the bag for these various interests and like and i don't know what i would suggest is the other thing you know uh we're watching vanderpump rules and which is fantastic uh and so often there are these just sort of rhythms to these shows and one of them is somebody gets drunk and says somebody like you know you're uh you look pregnant you're so fat you're so ugly god you wear that dress terribly and then they're doing they're like like at some point they'll say like what I'm just being honest right I'm just being honest and okay like you think

that that is technically you're being incredibly hostile yeah right and I think like there are people who view that kind of honesty in politics as like a badge of honor like a proof of their bona fides, a proof of their integrity, right? Like, just ready to jump on Democrats at every turn to show how much of a truth teller they are. And you're right, like, you're not saying things that I don't agree with or they're mean, but like I see where you're coming from.

Like, that was cringed, that was a bad speech. This is embarrassing. They should be, you know, of course, of course. But like, gotta be productive. Well, and respond, and you know what? Sometimes being a responsible adult and being productive means you don't just spout off even when somebody's annoying you.

Because you've got to work with them. You've got to figure out the best way forward. That doesn't mean you don't do hard criticism. It doesn't mean you're not honest. That doesn't mean you don't find your times to make sure that you're moving things in the right direction. But being responsible adults, being collaborative, being part of a big, fractious collection of people is building relationships. And in life, in politics, in a dorm, wherever, that means sometimes you tell people,

sometimes you focus on what's important and you let some things slide not because you're being dishonest but because you're trying to be productive and you can't spend every day talking about every single thing that annoys you. It's stupid. It's a waste of time. And I think that like that's the that's what it means to be a person in a political movement in a community. That's what it is to be in a community. Yeah. And you're not you don't want to be a flamethrower and a bomb a grenade tosser and a it's just not it's interesting because it it follows from your personality or most human personalities which is like I want to be not even like in the winter circle I just want to be in this society and you know you don't want to live in the woods

and have to and be but I'm honest all the time and it's you know where it's got gotten me in the tree house. Right. That's the, because people, I'm so kind of reviled or. And by the way, and then, and your criticism carries no fucking weight because, because all you do is criticize because because you don't view yourself, uh, on the inside with a bunch of people trying to do something together. You view yourself as an outsider.

And there, by the way, that's a great role for a journalist. That's a great role for somebody on the outside. If that's what they view as their job and mission is to be completely outside and critical and like as an observer, like, I respect that. I'm not, I respect it. It's just not what I view as like the, like for me, I don't,

it's not about being inside. It's like, how do we like, hey everybody. Yeah, what's the best way? We got to win. It's an emergency. Yeah, going way back when you're with Ronan. He's doing all this, you know, investigative stuff. Yeah.

Was it scary for you and you guys? Like I was always a little bit like, uh, Are you not worried, not like you didn't see more, but I'm just saying like, what was it, what was it like, is my question. I remember like before the story start, there's a big difference between before the stories start coming out and after, because he kept reporting and kept going. If you don't know, he was big Harvey Weinstein whistleblower. He did the less moon viz reporting, a lot of reporting during the Me Too kind of period, like period. And then the Israeli, yeah, the Israeli military and the way that like these like sort of intelligence companies would spy on people and work. and work for powerful people.

I remember before there was both the feeling like you were kind of suddenly bringing the evil eye, right? He was bringing the evil eye on himself and people around him. And then also a lot of internal pressure when he was at NBC to not run the story, to not pursue the story. And then for him it started becoming like, well, like do I, like it started to feel like, oh, I'm damaging my relationships here at this network to keep going. but it does feel important. Is it like before?

It's similar to what we were just talking about. Is it like the balance of like pushing and right? Like is it like and and I remember just sort of us talking about like no no, no, this story is really important and whether it runs here runs elsewhere. Like it's going to matter. Like it's a big deal and like anyone trying to convince you it's not because they're afraid is wrong. Right.

Like you're being trying to be you're being told to drop it internally and part of that argument is like it's not worth it. It is and like trust that. You're right. It is worth it. Then there's this outside pressure, both before and after. Once the story's run, people understand that this is a big deal, right? But then I remember, like, we found out that he was being tailed and I was being tailed

by some private security or investigative group. And I'm picturing you like on a recumbent bicycle. Well, what's so funny about this is we, the report. I don't remember. This is now years ago and I have to, I don't want to get the details wrong because the details matter. But the gist of it is that we got with, we, that the person trailing me called in and was like, this guy is so fucking boring. Please, we got to stop following him. And like, I like, I like defeated an Israeli intelligence with the edibles with just like I went to an escape room. That wasn't, you know, it's like I didn't do it. You know, like I was so boring that it didn't matter. But like there were all kinds of things. Like his phone was was was absolutely hacked. Like, there was strange threatening like posts and like a blackmail. Like there's like a lot of stuff like that. And yeah, it was it was nerve-wracking.

But part of it also is you're just sort of, I don't know. It was never like, boy, this is scary. It was just sort of he was doing his thing. You don't let it really. You don't even think about it. You don't consider it. You just sort of keep you almost like don't. It's not that you don't take it seriously, but like you can't imagine it being.

How can this? Come on. How can this be? What are they going to do? What are they do? Like how real is this? How scary is this? But it was, I think for him at the time, and I want to speak for him, but like it really was shaking, right?

You're, you're doing this thing and all of a sudden you feel like you're like, I don't remember. I don't know. I shouldn't speak about the specifics because I don't know what he's talked about or not. But all of a sudden realizing like, no, no, no, no, you weren't crazy. Like there really were people, like there really were people following you. Yeah. There really were people trying to get into your phone. There really were people trying to, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

threaten you like that was real that wasn't just paranoia during this like exhausting reporting period like it was real it was genuinely happening yeah and from the inside out you're just kind of like I remember when Ronan got his show on MSNBC there were people that were like oh we got it because of his family and and I think like for any for anyone that has like come from has had has maybe famous parents whatever like you know they're always those like the Nepo baby stuff yeah and that was and and and I For him specifically, he had such a hard time of it as a kid.

There was so much turmoil because of what happened with Woody Allen. It was so hard and he was getting tagged at having all these privileges. And what people couldn't see and what I could see is that he was the hardest working person I have ever seen in my life to this day. There is no one that I have ever seen work as relentlessly on something as Ronan did. Ronan was on his own competing against, I don't know how many reporters at the New York Times. Maybe he had a lot of support at the New Yorker, but he, first of all, NBC fucked him and lied about it and just like was just a gross. So he starts with that disadvantage. He takes the story to the New Yorker, which the New Yorker understood very quickly was serious and real to much of the claims, despite the claims that Summit NBC had made at that time.

He still runs with the story. He still manages to keep up with the New York Times and all of its power and all the people that are working on it. And that is because he was relentless. And I remember we went for a dinner, maybe it was my birthday or some special occasion, to a really fancy place and he just fell asleep leaning against the wall at a restaurant, just passed out because he wanted to do the birthday dinner, but he had been working for, he could just work like a night in a row, two nights in a row, just relentless. And like, that's where

that relentlessness meant that like there wasn't time for him. He didn't take a moment to think about what was happening around the report. He was just like doing it and wanted to get the story. And like when he focuses on something like that, like that's where it came from. Just a kind of like he's a brilliant person. But my God, like I was like an intimidating work ethic. Like you would be shocked. You could you couldn't conceive of a person sitting at a laptop for the length of time he could sit at a laptop and roll calls and do what he has to do. Did you make, did it make you work harder in your own life? No, I don't think so.

All right. What about, because you mentioned it earlier, like working hard at the relationship and what would you, what, what, what's that look like? Like, we need to talk more, we need to spend more time together, we need to do, we need, how do you aim, what's the laser beam at a relationship? I'm not going to, I know, I know, I know, I know, I'm going to answer. I'm just saying, like, I'm not going to get into the specifics of it. But I think you, like, like, we love each other.

We have all these good parts of the relationship. We must be able to make it work. Right. Simply must. What couldn't we make work? We'll put all of our energy to it. Yeah. Put the same relentless energy towards this.

It must work. And at a certain point, just like, you know what? Like, we, unlike how you. would handle anything in your professional life what if we gave up what if we just gave up you know that's okay yeah and it's hard like a joke or a show where you're just like I don't think this is a I can keep working this show or joke or whatever it's a dud yeah and it's a some are very good duds and by the way like with hindsight to like like let's you know part of what happens when a relationship isn't working is like you're not showing up as your best either you know you're

just you in and like my my like I was not showing up as my best self anymore and it's like there's just that's a hard thing to face right that like hey like I don't know that I'm I'm not how come out of frustration or being worn down I don't know I just sort of uh I don't know patterns you patterns and you're unhappy and when you're when people are unhappy like you know depression is like kind of outside of relationships like depression makes you a worse hang yeah you know it does and it makes you not want to spend time with people right it's not sadness it's something else and so i think that's true in a lot of dynamics like when something's not working you suddenly make it worse you know you just can't help but make it worse in some way

whatever that may be and so i don't know uh it was it was hard because we were together for 11 years and like I it was hard to let go that in part because I did care about him do care about him and but that's okay that's life and like I you know I want him to be so happy and I hope he is we'll never know what anything that we missed which that we should have talked about well one of the hard things with the relationship was like you know he's covering me too I'm going to Epstein's Island all the time and so that was a divide yeah and you have to say like are we cool on this yeah like you know it's like just like you can't cover this you're going to such different two different worlds you were going to have since island just a network

right yeah i mean my god like just the connections the connections the connections the connections yeah guys it's crooked con november 7th washington dc i don't know who's talking i don't know who's what kind of merch they're doing i don't know what sort of venues i don't know what sort of laminates. Do me a favor. So yeah, come to CrookedCon. We're going to have a, we haven't announced the guest yet, but a shocking number of people have agreed to come. And but if you're listening to this, do me a favor and follow Pod Save America on our YouTube, follow our shows on YouTube because the truth is like we are trying to build something that is welcoming to everybody and that can compete with a lot of the noise on the right and just to be an alternative to right wing media

and some of the all like kind of anti-woke media out there just to have another point of view so check it out see if you like it great if not it's free you know that's what I say you're I like I've always liked you I've always liked you we're going to shake on it my hands pclammy my hand clammy I mine is too but whatever oh then let's do it pretty pretty even yeah yeah I didn't feel it not a problem not a problem Similar shiny faces as well if you're not if you're if you're if you're I had to pretend that this giant screen with my face on. I wasn't here just to have a conversation. Yeah, to just ignore it. That's intense. You did great. All right great. John love it everybody. Do what he says. Mom Mim

Thank you.