Going Deep with Chad and JT - EP 204 - Elex Michaelson Joins

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

What up Stokers! We're dropping the ep early this week cause the subject matter is super topical. Newscaster, Elex Michaelson, joins to give us the breakdown on The California governor recall. He's a beast legend chiller.    Sign up for new merch here: http://www.shopcgd.com​​​​​​​​​​     Sponsored by Talkspace: Match with a licensed therapist when you go to talkspace.com get $100 off your first month with the promo code GODEEP. That’s $100 off when you use code GODEEP at talkspace.com

What's up, Stokers? Before we begin this podcast, I want to let you know that we will be at the Hollywood Improv this Wednesday, September 15th at 8 p.m. We've got Eliza Schlesinger on the lineup. We've got Dom Herrera. We've got Strider, of course. And then Annie Letterman. And then I think we'll probably have one more comic. So check it out.

Go to HollywoodImprov.com. Locals only with chad and jt it's gonna be a banger i just ate a bunch of crackers so that's why i'm all fucking whatever come check out the show 8 p.m september 15th hollywood improv if you're in socal what up we're also brought to you by the legends at manscape manscape thank you so much for keeping our chins pew for looking after our hogs for making sure that our dinks are looking fresh and clean because autumn is in the air, the pumpkins are in the patch, and our friends at Manscaped are here to make sure you don't carve your pants pumpkins when you're grooming, if you know what I'm saying. So boys, get ready

for a cuffing season like no other, ready to take a leap in the fall with Manscaped. Join the two million men worldwide using Manscaped by going to manscaped join the two million men worldwide using manscape by going manscape.com for 20 plus free shipping with the code go deep sounds crisp look at that are we rollingpriced equipment you have here. Hell yeah. Shout out to Julie. Julie got this, right? Mm-hmm.

Shout out to Julie. What up? And yeah, let's saddle it up and ride. Keep on rolling, baby. Clearly there's some money in city council meetings If you get equipment like this Yeah Well there's no production value So we just you know

All the money we would have used to shoot those Put into the studio What's up Stokers of Stoke Nation This is Chad Kroger coming in With the Going Deep with Chad and JT podcast I'm here with my compadre John Thomas what up Boom clap Stokers.

And today we're joined by our guest. We've only known you virtually until now, but we've been on your show a couple times on Fox. Alex Michelson, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Stoked to talk to you. Stoked to be here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks for taking time out of your day. You've been busy, huh? It's been a crazy, crazy time.

We're in the middle of the California recall coverage. For people that may not know, I host a statewide political show talking about California politics. So this has been like the Super Bowl and then some recently. When did you realize it was going to get to this point, that there was going to be a recall? When did you realize it was going to get to this point, that there was going to be a recall? Well, you know, about a year ago, they were trying for a recall. A lot of people thought it could never happen. If you think back to the beginning of the pandemic, March, April 2020, Governor Newsom was the first person to lock down a state in the whole country. His approval ratings were close to 80%.

He was the most popular governor in the country. Wow. And then. Him and Cuomo. Yeah, him and Cuomo. You know, the phrase that has aged the worst over the last year is Cuomo-sexual. Right, yeah.

I didn't like it from the get-go. Yeah, not so good now. You don't hear a lot of people talking about being a Cuomo-sexual these days. I remember Trevor Noah coming out with that. And then around the time when he resigned cuomo he's like he like made some joke about it and everyone's like well what about a year ago when you're just like you're the proclaimed cuomo sexual fair weather fan he's just stick with him through thick and thin no way yeah yeah that's loyalty so then so then you know the the lockdowns started to get tiresome

for some people a lot of people were frustrated a lot of people on the right were frustrated we had a moment where you know i was actually sent these pictures of the french laundry dinner after that story had broken in the san francisco chronicle and nobody had seen images of it governor newsom had said i was outside i stopped by a table for a little bit and then you know i probably shouldn't have been there which were all and then we saw the pictures and he was inside it was a big table and a lot of people and i first i didn't think that it was real yeah because i thought there's no way because this is not how he described it And then we were able to verify it and verify it with his team and talk to the person that took the pictures and that were there with him that night. And it was, you know, that, that turned

into a thing. I mean, the, the week before that 50,000 people had signed the, the recall signature, 50,000 people had signed the petition for the recall the week after it had been to 500 000 uh so that really became the image that uh got people fired up to try to recall him it kind of became an image of of everything that he didn't want to be uh and then it's it's taken off um and so it has looked you know at points that he could potentially be recalled right now things seem to be going in his direction right and how many offense so going to restaurants once well i think you know it spoke to the elite yeah it looks spoke to the elite's hypocrisy right yes but how many signatures are they at now so they got a total of 1.7 million signatures.

That qualified it for the ballot. They needed to get 1.5 million. And so now comes the election. So they sent out ballots to all 22 million registered voters in California. And millions of them have already been sent back. And the last day to send back a ballot or vote in person is September 14th, which is less than a week away from when we're recording this. This will come out the day before. Okay.

How did they get the signatures? Who pays for that? Well, so a lot of that money was the RNC and other Republican groups paid for it, you know, and some of, a lot of it was volunteers. I mean, there were thousands of people that volunteered to stand in, you know, You know, and some of, a lot of it was volunteers. I mean, there were thousands of people that volunteered to stand in, you know, a grocery store parking lot on the weekend and ask you to sign the signature. But they sensed weakness there and they were like, all right, this is the time. Let's push some cash into this and see if we can get all these fired up.

I mean, it's a combination. I mean, to get that many signatures, it's a combination of a lot of different people. Some of it is, you know, national corporate interests. And some of it are people that are genuinely just upset about what's happening in the government and want to have their say that way. Yeah. I remember we shoot in Huntington Beach a lot. And there are always those tents set up by the pier.

The recall, you know, and you kind of just, it's sort of like you just figure that they're there all the time. And you never, I, when I, whenever I would see them, I never thought that that it would really take off i just thought it was sort of a small subset of california's but then it just sort of blew up it blew up and and so so now the question is you know is that representative of where the actual state is because the the reality is there are twice as many democrats in california as there are Republicans. So in order to win, they either need Democrats to not vote or switch. It's just a math game. They did it with Gray Davis, right, and Arnold.

Right. So back then, there were fewer Democrats. I mean, there were more Republicans back then. Oh, interesting. But then they also had a figure who was bigger than politics bigger than life right i mean literally i know you guys are our fans right yeah i was there i was there when he got i was at his uh not like inauguration party but his election night party you were with like tom arnold and the whole thing what was that what was that i just talked to Tom Arnold. He's the best, man.

I just interviewed Tom Arnold about that recently. What was it like? So this is 2003. Arnold Schwarzenegger wins. It's the only recall in California history. Maria Shriver, Tom Arnold, Jay Leno there, and you. And me. I was pretty pumped initially.

Because I was a pretty big Republican when I was 14 or 15. But I was starting to go the other way. I guess I was... You were a Republican when you were 14 or 15? I was like a Republican when I was like, yeah, like 11 to 14. Actually, I was such a hardcore Republican when I was like 10. Yeah, yeah. I really hated Bill Clinton.

Really? My dad, who is a Republican, he's like, you got to chill. And he told got to chill. And he had his friend tell me a story about getting punched at a country club for making a crack about a Republican guy saying he was Bill Clinton. And the guy punched him. And so his friend told me that story is kind of like a warning to don't become that guy. Yeah, to not become that guy. So what was that night like? It was festive.

I mean, everybody was just going off. It was just a lot of celebrating. And I think this one reads as more weird to me, not because of any of the factors, but I think when I was that age, I was like, oh, governor's getting booted and new guys coming in. I was like, that's no big deal. But now as an adult, I kind of crave stability more,

especially in my politics. So I was like, now I'm like, this is kind of cuckoo, but I guess it just happens. I mean, they tried to use the same phrase, Republican recall, back in 2003. But there were two things that happened then that we don't have now. One, a Democrat, high-profile Democrat, ran on the replacement ballot, which was Cruz Bustamante, who was the lieutenant governor. So he gave Democrats another option of where to vote. And Arnold Schwarzenegger was the biggest movie star in the world, who was married to Maria Shriver, who was a member of the Kennedy family, had a bunch of Democratic advisors and other sort of mainstream Republican advisors.

And so that narrative of this is just a Republican recall didn't really work in 2003, but it may work in 2021. Right. There was also a major power crisis before that. Is my mic on? Oh, yeah, the rolling blackouts and shit. Yeah, and we voted stupidly to deregulate the power industry right before that, which right what caused companies to

be able to gouge us in the first place and run and all the rest of that that was happening i remember i mean i i remember being in school don't you and then the lights would just go off like in math class all of a sudden it's dark that enron doc was crazy when you hear their traders like stealing energy from california and waiting for the prices to really and then there's fires which was going to boost the prices more and they have recordings of enron energy trade people going burn baby burn really yeah it's pretty it's pretty sadistic yeah uh i just quick question are recalls unique to california or is that are all states able to do this? So different states have different rules in place. California has the most liberal recall policies, meaning it's easier to recall somebody in

California than in any other state. These were policies put in place in 1911 by a governor called Kerem Johnson. It was these progressive things to try to keep people accountable. And one of the questions is, is it too easy? Governor Newsom has certainly hinted at the fact that if he survives this, that he would want to try to change the rules for future governors, not him, but future governors, so that there's a higher threshold and make it harder to do this.

Part of the reason that they were able to do it this time, and you got to get 12.5% of last year's, last time's electorate to sign a recall petition. And a judge gave them four extra months because of the pandemic to get the signatures. So if they didn't have that four extra months, they probably wouldn't have gotten signatures right and that we wouldn't have this at all um so we'll see if there are changes in terms of recall going forward interesting do we have term limits for governor we do and this is his second term so this no this is his first term he's only two and a half years into it so um he there's another election next year next november so there'll be a primary in june and a an election general election next year. Next November, yeah. So there'd be a primary in June and a general election next November. So all these same people could end up running again.

And we could be doing this whole thing a few months from now. But in that situation, the governor would probably have even more advantages based off of the way that the elections work. So yeah, you get two terms as California governor, which was put in place after jerry brown had already been governor so because of that he was grandfathered so jerry

brown our last governor had four terms as governor because he was governor in the 70s and then yeah he was governor at 36 and he left office at 80 so he had a big gap in between but how crazy to you know think of that and basically around our age to be the governor of california and some people think suspect he was doing like a reagan thing in his last term where he was kind of just like the governor in name but it was actually his staff was running the state because he wasn't around right like people never saw him or didn't interview him or anything i don't know anybody that thinks that he wasn't around, right? Like people never saw him or didn't interview him or anything? I don't know anybody that thinks that he wasn't like Reagan, meaning Reagan in his last term had Alzheimer's and was kind of out of it. That's what I mean.

As somebody who's talked to Jerry Brown frequently, including recently, he is one of the sharpest people I've ever talked to in any situation. So I don't think that that is true. I might have seen that on a weird website. I think he was very, very much in control. He's one of the smartest people ever in terms of thinking. I mean, Gavin Newsom described him once to me as, you know, when everybody's playing checkers, he's playing three-dimensional chess,

and that is kind of the way Jerry Brown's mind works. Have you talked to Gavin Newsom? Many times, yeah. He's been our guest on our political show the issue is more than anybody else have you seen like how the stress has been i mean he must always be stressed out but has it mounted has it gone up yeah so i mean it was really interesting because i talked to him about a month apart from each other. So the most relaxed he's ever been and the happiest I've ever seen him was on June 15th and June 16th. So June 15th in California is the date that he had set aside to

reopen the state, right? So the masks are coming off, the restaurant restrictions, everything was opening up, come back to 100%. He had done this this game show which was he did this thing to try to incentivize people to get vaccines so he was giving away a million dollars to like 10 people 1.5 million dollars and he was pulling like balls out of a lottery thing and he and he had he did this event at universal studios where he came out i I don't know if you saw this. He came out with trolls and minions and cartoon characters and then hosted a game show where they pulled out these lottery balls. And he was so happy because he was like, I'm through this thing. I've survived. The positivity rate was low.

The economic forecast was amazing. He had a $76 billion surplus. The recall poll results were terrible. He was so good. The next day, we were at Six Flags Magic Mountain, which was giving away tickets for people that would get vaccinated. And he was in such a good mood. He's like, hey, do you want to come ride the roller coaster with us i think it'd be funny to see a guy in a suit and a roller coaster like really his staff was like really i thought he was

he's like no really come on yeah and so we rode revolution together oh hell yeah it's a good coaster is it a good one is that the original no this is the this is revolution is from seven 1976 right okay it's the first uh loop yeah in the country so there's the first loop in the country. So there's just one loop. But I mean, it was literally the metaphor of being on a roller coaster with him was like the perfect metaphor. And then after that, things started going in the wrong direction. Then Delta variant comes in and the masks go back on and restrictions start coming back. And his whole theme of roaring back and California's going forward and the recall looks ridiculous went away to the point where we started seeing polls that showed the thing is basically even.

And Larry Elder. And so I saw him a few weeks back, maybe two or three weeks back, sort of at the worst moment with those polls. And he was really nervous. And you could tell the total change in his body language. You could tell he was pissed that he had to even face this recall. He thinks the whole thing is unnecessary, that it's distracting him at the moment when he's got to deal with COVID and he's got to deal with fires in the state and everything else that's having to do this. with COVID and he's got to deal with fires in the state and everything else that's having to do this. And then in the last week, I saw him this past weekend with Elizabeth Warren when the poll numbers look like they're opening up, that ballots are coming back mostly Democratic,

you can tell he's back in his sort of swagger and feeling pretty good. And I think he and his staff hope for an ability to sort of dunk on this recall and make them. So it'll be a good testament to confidence in him. Look, if he wins big, and we'll see if he does, basically he's won next year too. Yeah. Because he makes next year's election look irrelevant, right? I mean, it looks like a total waste. It looks like they shot their shot and they got rejected rejected and so he could just go barreling ahead and people will be fatigued

they'll be like i don't want to go through enough of this you did it we already heard from you you know so it'll be interesting next year if the governor wins you know is there somebody new that comes out because it's going to be hard if you're the recall candidate who didn't, you know, poll well last year to make an argument, you're the best candidate. And so one of the things he's done, you know, there's two questions on the recall ballot. One is, should he be recalled? Number two is, if 50% say he should be recalled, who should replace him? Newsom's argument has been, don't vote for question two, leave it blank.

Other people have said, that's absurd. If he loses, we end up with the most extreme Republican in that scenario, which they think is Larry Elder. Why would he say don't vote on two? Well, so, I mean, it's politics, right? So he's suggesting, one, that if you start thinking, well, that person's not that bad, then maybe you start thinking, eh, the recall's not that bad. So you don't even think about them. And who it really hurts, the person that hurts the most probably, is a guy named Kevin Faulkner, who's the former mayor of San Diego. Pretty moderate Republican.

I mean, he was a Trump supporter, but he speaks Spanish, pro-immigration reform reform says climate change is real is pro-choice i mean he's the kind of guy if you were to design a republican in a lab of this is the kind of guy that could win in california that's him but if no democrats are voting on that second question none of them are voting for him and and he ends up with like four or five percent on that second question all of a sudden he looks super weak. And next year, it's easier for Larry Elder to win in that election. And Newsom would much rather be up against Larry Elder than against Kevin Faulkner. So that's some 3D chess.

Yeah, and... How do I close this? It is closed. That's closed. Maybe we close that door. Sorry, Aaron. No, it's okay. We don't normally do these in the morning morning so we haven't really had this problem this is the earliest i've ever podcast when do you usually podcast five o'clock on mondays oh okay oh well thanks for making a special exception bro we we

moved mountains yeah wait so so basically if at this point, if Newsom is recalled, Larry Elder's kind of the top contender, right? That's what he says. And that's every poll, every indication is that it most likely would be Larry Elder. The big question is, do Democrats follow Newsom's advice and don't vote on question two? Or do some of them start to vote on somebody else that they think would be i mean there was a san francisco chronicle article about where the columnist interviewed insiders who are all democratic strategists and all almost all of them said that they were voting for kevin faulkner uh with the with the and one of the quotes was well we really really don't want him to be governor, but at least he's not insane.

Right, right, right. Have you talked to Larry Elder? Yes. Is he insane? I've talked to all of them. Is he insane? I'm kidding. That's kind of a leading question.

What's Larry Elder like? He seems very exciting and charismatic. Yeah, I mean, look, he's a broadcaster. So, you know, he's been doing this for 30 years. So he's good at being on TV. He's good at talking to an audience. And his whole thing, he describes it as Joe and Joan six pack, which is talking to people in kind of a simple way and not really getting into the political weeds. Trump, he's not a big believer in political correctness. He hasn't had years having to, you know, say on the one hand and on the other hand and try to do all that. He just sort of sticks to his guns. He's been kind of Trumpy in the fact that the stuff that he said that was super controversial, he doesn't apologize for any of it. He just backs up all of it.

And so there is like a certain id about him that I think strikes to a certain part of the political mood right now. I mean, if you're in favor of the recall, a big reason that you're in favor of the recall is because you want to give a giant middle finger to the establishment and giant middle finger to California. And Larry Elder, like Donald Trump, represents fuck you. Right. Fuck you guys. And all that you've done. And Larry Elder, like Donald Trump, represents fuck you. Right? Fuck you guys and all that you've done. And you guys think you're so smart. And you guys have your corrupt deals. And we want somebody who's outside of that system who's going to come up, come in, and mess it up.

And also I think there's part of them that says these guys have been so bad. Wouldn't it be interesting if all of a sudden Larry Elder was in charge and see what that would look like now of course there are people on the left and a lot of people in the center that said that didn't work out so well for the country but you know there are a lot of people on the right that think it did yeah I uh I've watched some interviews interviews with him and I can I can I can feel how uh he could be attractive to people because he has that sort of trumpian kind of like you know flair i guess but i do you think do you think the left um would do you think there's a possibility for like a democratic candidate to come along who has that

same kind of trumpian kind of career is it possible for a liberal to have that same kind of like fiery you know uh bluster yeah as as like trump or larry loviating well there's you know there's an there's an argument um and and not to compare them in terms of policy but there is something similar between trump and like bernie sanders right yeah right and obviously they're so different in what they believe in and how they would be as but but bernie sanders also represented fuck you it's anti-establishment right and they both read as very authentic and they read so they're so they connect to in aist way, especially to a lot of older white people. Yeah. In a way that, and they also feel to their supporters, you know, and I spent a lot of time at Trump rallies, spent a lot of time at Sanders rallies and Hillary Clinton rallies and there weren't really a lot of Joe Biden rallies because of the pandemic but um there there is this feeling among sanders voters and trump voters that

this person is uniquely fighting for me right he understands me that i've been left behind by a corrupt elitist system that in their view dines at the french laundry yeah you know a place that they could never get into it takes like years to get a reservation right and and so there's something about getting in there have you been i just no i just i was pretending like i had basically i just love the idea that a guy like trump who lives in a gold tower right represents yeah literally shits on golden toilets yeah yeah but he didn't i think because he grew up around the rich trump's like uniquely well they all pretty much a lot of them come from money i assume newsome probably comes from money right so newsome is like an interesting combo right so his mom was

mostly a single mom uh didn't have a lot of money. He had foster siblings, including a black foster brother that lived with them. So he lived in that world. But then his dad was this super powerful and influential judge who was really tight with the Getty family and all that money. And then also his dad had been appointed a judge by Jerry Brown when he was governor the first time around.

So he went back and forth in his life between his like sort of wealthy father and then his mother's world which was different that double consciousness yeah and so he comes from from both worlds but he's definitely been helped politically by his connections to the the getty family over the years who have a sordid history yeah yeah and so the one kid died and they kind of covered it up. And then the one kid got kidnapped and the big Getty guy refused to pay, right? Right. And they sent him like the kid's ear or a finger or something. It is a crazy story.

So Newsom's start, you know, he comes from the wine and beverage world. He had a... Big in California. Yeah, he had a, I think a restaurant and there were some weird regulations about how he needed a sink in order to serve stuff or anything. He got sort of frustrated by the regulations. He complained about it to the mayor of San Francisco at the time, Willie Brown. And he said, Well, why don't you go on, you know, this board and work on it yourself. he ended up doing that and he was elected mayor of san francisco at a super young age and but that's his business is uh is that world and it's called plump jack winery which he started with the getty family as a co-founder and he's got all these different restaurants and wineries up around california the gettys also helped start espn so all forever being dedicated to them and yeah

you're reading an espn book right i finished it how is it uh it was great but i'll say this about oral histories once you get to like more contemporary times they always get boring because no one wants to talk shit on people that they're still working with ah so when you're reading an oral history and it's like the 80s everyone's like that guy was a fucking asshole yeah right but once you get to like the 2000s they're always like no he's great yeah so so if they did a thing about the two of you you would say great things now but check back in 15 years i'm getting all the shit about how chad is the worst actually i don't think i don't think ours would change much but yeah i mean i'm right maybe look not these guys You're going to talk to Aaron. He'll give you the straight scoop. He sent me Fred Durst gifs every day.

I'm too in it to even see it. Yeah. What was I going to say? Oh, and Getty provides images, too. They're legends. Has Newsom ever confided in you? He's just like, bro, the timing of my governorship. Fucking bro, dude, this sucks. Has is he ever like i don't know uh

every once in a while you get like a little bit of a moment sometimes uh where he looks at you i mean we've i've interviewed him a lot i think i've interviewed him more than anybody in the state yeah um so we've kind of been there for the the journey up and down our first you know our show the issue is our first guest on our first episode was Gavin Newsom running for governor. Oh, cool. So we've literally been on a ride together. Yeah. On the roller coaster, yeah.

But yeah, to your point, though, look at the last couple years that he's had, right? And Jerry Brown made this point to me when I interviewed him, saying that Newsom has had a way harder hand dealt to him than any other governor in California history right I mean record fires record pandemic record unemployment that he had to deal with you know all of it he inherited that that wasn't a result of his policies which the unemployment or the unemployment's a result of the pandemic yeah yeah and so dealing with all of those crises at the same time is like unlike anything any governor's ever had to face nice um when people i get into these conversations all the time with people where it kind of depends what your personality is but some people are like cynical of all politicians and they're like look

if you trust any of those people you're kind of being an idiot because they're all looking out for themselves they're all kind of even if they're on republican or democrat they're all serving the political interests of all of them just keeping money in their pocket and and maintaining their power and then some people are like no some of these people actually want to change the world for the better and like they make mistakes and they get compromised but overall i think they're decent people and they're trying to do better we're from what you've seen so i yeah i call that are you are you more house of cards are you more west wing yeah dude that's a great way to break it down yeah yeah so i love the west wing in my heart of hearts i want it to be more West Wing. Honestly, I think that most politicians start out at least in it for the right reasons and want to do good. And that's people on both sides.

I think most of the staffers also are trying to do the right thing. I think they're really complicated things that are put on everybody and pressures that maybe change what and determine what people do but i think on balance i think people are more good than they are bad but maybe that's just my hopes i'm kind of the same way like i'm like i'm like there was a part in the movie vice where cheney goes to rumsell and he's like but we actually believe in this stuff right and the cheney characters or the rumsell character starts laughing and to me i was like i was like oh adam mckay is being too cynical because even though i think those guys did a lot wrong right i don't think if you put them on a lie detector they'd be like yeah i'm trying to do bad i think they would probably pass and be like no i think what

i'm doing is in the best interest of our country right and and like what you've seen from liz cheney now is kind of an indication of that, right? Of doing what she believes because of principle. What is she doing? So Liz Cheney is one of the Republicans that spoke out against, Liz Cheney is a congresswoman now from Wyoming, daughter of Dick Cheney. She's one of the people that spoke out against Donald Trump after what happened on January 6th. She voted to impeach him, which was, you know, a politically difficult thing to do. And she's now part of that January 6th commission.

That's investigating what happened. Her and this guy named Adam Kinzinger are the only Republicans that would agree to do it. And she did it. She lost her position in GOP leadership. She was the third ranking Republican in the house and they voted her out because she voted against Donald Trump. Wow. do you have a desire to go into politics um i don't know maybe that sounds like a yes i mean i mean the honest answer is i don't know yeah um if the if

the right you know position and timing so much of it's about timing i'm uncomfortable with a lot of the fundraising that's associated with it which is what leads to a lot of those weird deals I don't love raising money. I don't like asking people for money Yeah, but if I was in a position where that wasn't as much of a thing, I don't know I mean it's hard in California. There aren't a lot of positions that open up to yeah. We just have so many people It's so much harder to be elected a senator in a state with 40 million people than in a state with 300,000 Yeah, take that Wyoming. Yeah, we'd sort of go find me for you. Okay? to be elected a senator in a state with 40 million people than in a state with 300,000. Yeah, take that, Wyoming.

We'd start a GoFundMe for you. Okay, thank you. Stoke Nation. Yeah, he's backed by Stoke Nation. That's pretty huge. You've got to like people, right, to get into politics? You would hope that you like people to get into politics. Yeah, I feel like you have to because you just talk to so many. Right.

I heard George Will say about Richard Nixon, he was like, he was ill-suited for it because he hated people just all the time he was like fuck that shit yeah no i mean some of them are like that i think joe biden the you know really loves people and sort of an old school politician in that sense that he would rather work a world plane and spend time with people and really gets off on that where i think some of the others not as much i think biden is way more like that than like barack obama yeah he's probably happier by himself do all these guys have sort of a noticeable charisma that makes them stand out or do you think like like newsom for example when he when

you talk to him are you sort of like oh I can see how you've risen through the ranks? Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing that a lot of people don't get, especially when you see him in person, is in order to get to that level, like you're the governor of California, the fifth largest economy in the world, the state of 40 million people, you rose to that level. You've got to have a very high level of charisma and be able to work a room.

And all of them. I mean, Republicans, too. Like if Larry Elder came in, you and be able to work a room. And all of them. I mean, Republicans, too. Like, if Larry Elder came in, you would think that he's a charismatic guy. I mean, to make that work, like, that's a big part of the job. And so most of that, I mean, some of them have more than others. Some of them are more introverted than others. Like a guy like Pete Buttigieg, super smart guy, really nice, but, like, introverted. Yeah. You know, isn't going to come't gonna come in hey guys what's going on where biden would like slap you and and hug you and give

you like a kiss because that's who he is um but i think all of them have a certain level of that or else you or else you don't make it or else you lose right now that biden's older he can't regulate like the the boundaries as well so he's always getting roasted for it well i think he yeah he's clearly from another time uh with all of that and so i think his between covid and me too he's really had to pull back on his his gut instincts a lot it's like they took away my special power yeah yeah it's like he walks around with handcuffs yeah try to stop you talk to uh caitlin jenner too yes and her in her run up to going for the governorship. Does she have a consistent set of politics?

How would you evaluate her just as a political personality? Well, I think she clearly was new to this and hadn't done it before. I think she genuinely believes that you know there's too much regulation and that california has been unfriendly to business i think um you know she watches a lot of fox news clearly and like sort of talks a lot of the talking points um has she put in the work that other people have put in in terms of studying the issues in a really complicated state in a nuanced way. I think the answer to that is probably no. And she has an interesting, like, kind of like a lot of her politics don't

square, like with what we would normally think about someone's ideology. Right. Like, well, I mean, she zigs and zags a little bit less than you would think i think that the challenge of course is her identity i guess that's who is who is the who is the base voter for caitlin jenner and you've seen polls showing her at around one percent because we know that the republican party has not been especially open to trans rights. Most people in the party.

I mean, obviously there are exceptions to that. And then we know that Democrats have not been especially open to conservatives. So it's like, who is the pro-trans Republican, let's deregulate business person. There isn't a lot of that. I love that we have that, though. Yeah. Like, I don't want her to be governor, but I'm glad we live in a country where you have that freedom of choice on so many different fronts. Right, right, right.

Yeah. Right. Although she believes in Texas's ability to choose their own rules. That's what I'm saying. Including the right to not, or to, you know. Wasn't she against gay marriage too? She was for a while. Yeah. So she's a complicated, she's kind of hard to follow on.

Do you think Kim Kardashian will vote for her or not the way that she wouldn't vote for Kanye? Well, it's interesting that they, you know, so she made a point of the fact that none of her kids were going to be a part of her campaign, but there has not been a single endorsement, a single mention from any of her kids or stepkids. And you think about the political power that they would have if they did get involved, right? And the amount of attention they could get.

So then you wonder whether they are in favor of this or not. I mean, she said that it was harder coming out as a Republican than it was coming out as trans. I wrote a sketch about that. I don't think that's true. I wrote a sketch similar to that. Yeah, it's good. Have you interviewed like any of the crackpot candidates like have you interviewed angeline i have not interviewed angeline or like um i know i was looking at all the candidates because i was looking for someone to mark you know i voted no but like right question two who do i and there's like a guy who's only he's a civil rights attorney so i was like okay let's see what he has to say his bio on the in the booklet that they give you just says love you so it's a message

yeah i remember simple messaging yeah sure yeah not effective i remember in the 2003 gary coleman was running yeah right and then there was a i voted for gallagher i said no and then voted for gallagher yeah was he running oh yeah yeah and there was mary carrie the porn star that's right mary carrie i was like is it annicles and larry flint ran that's right and uh ariana huffington ran yeah so it was a it was a it was a much more interesting cast of characters back then mary carrie had said she was going to run but I think part of it was you had to submit financial disclosures and I don't think she wanted to do that. How did Angeline get through that? Do you have like broadcast? Who's like your broadcasting influence? Oh, I mean, a lot of different people over the years. I think my favorite in the political space was Tim Russert.

Oh, sure. He used to host Meet the Press And I got to intern at NBC in Washington and spend some time with him right before he died. Why did people trust him so much? I think he was, you know, a straight shooter. I think he was really fair and respectful to people. He clearly did his homework. And ultimately, it's like treating people with respect and and respecting their intelligence right i mean that's something i try to do is even if you disagree with somebody personally um it is like giving them a platform and giving them a voice where they feel like you're not taking unnecessary pot shots and gotcha i mean i think most people in politics are aware that they're going to be tough stories that the press isn't always going to be nice, that they got to answer tough questions

if they're going to put themselves in that position. But they don't want it to be from like a mean spirited place of we're out to get you, F you, it's unfair. And I think if you are basically fair to people, for the most part, they'll respect you. Yeah, and you keep it pretty objective it seems like or impartial when you're doing your interviews was that kind of a reaction to so much of media going the other direction becoming more overtly i don't think it was i think it's just who i am and what i was gonna do anyways but um i think it's it's it certainly feels different if you watch that show compared to the way that other people are doing it i think people prefer coming on a show like that yeah right how do you how do you feel about covid

these days where do you think uh where do you think do you think we're headed for a tough winter or do you think i mean i guess it's all unpredictable but do or do you think the delta variant is sort of the last sort of search yeah we don't know i mean it you know it gets back to you know people's decision not to get i mean we're we're look we're in a race against time right and the question is are we going to be able to get enough people vaccinated in time or is there gonna be enough natural immunity in time for this thing to sort of die out and if we don't you know the the dreaded scenario is that a new variant of covid is resistant to vaccines and then we start this whole thing over again yeah and so will the people of

our country step up and get vaccinated because they now have to in order to keep their job or do other things or are are we going to be doing this again yeah and and that battle uh i think is where we're at for the for the foreseeable future i'm worried that like even if everyone in america did get vaccinated so many other countries don't have the vaccine that variants will keep evolving in those places and then those people travel right and then so like what are the chances we get the whole world simultaneously vaccinated so that no new variants can spring up yeah right and then i'm like that's not possible and then with the boosters other countries are like hey before you start boostering your whole country how about share some of the wealth so we can get our country's vaccination rates up? And then I'm like, I'm a selfish person.

I'm like, y'all are on your own, dude. I'm like, I'm getting boosted, baby. And I say that kind of self-deprecatingly because I'm not proud of that part of myself. But it's, I know I just have, I have trouble believing we can get to that point and beating the clock, as you were saying. Right. Yeah, no, it's, and it is crazy. Isn't it how like you would be so happy to take a booster.

I would love one. And yet you can't give away the vaccine to millions of Americans who are just like, nope. And how many more, how many more radio hosts that are conservatives who are against the vaccine have to literally die of covid yeah before some people are like maybe it is real right and do you think do you think the vaccines are at a place now where it's sort of like the flu shot where we can are able to evolve so if a variant like that does come along that will be so far along and like the vaccine development that we'll be able to sort of counter it that's what some of the the vaccine makers say that they're doing and like they are working say for like a

delta variant version of this they seem to think that their current state is fine for the delta variant but i mean there is research into that but still i mean the how scary is that the thought that like yeah there's a new variant and the vaccine doesn't stop it is it's pretty scary and i i understand why people don't want to get it uh because it is i mean it's a little uh it makes you nervous that it's just this brand new thing but i trust scientists i'm like look and all the wealthiest most powerful people have taken it so i'm like they're not like they were like rushing to take yeah it's good yeah so that's always a good sign so do you have like a thesis with what you're doing like that you're like this is what i'm trying to do to move

the ball yeah i mean look i'm not trying to change all of society i don't think i can i all i can control is what i can control so part of the reason that you know i do the show that i do which i encourage people to check out is to try to present other sides you know, I do the show that I do, which I encourage people to check out, is to try to present other sides, you know, to have a debate with somebody like Tommy Lahren on the right. And then we just had one recent with this other guy, Ethan Bierman on the left, and they're going at it. I mean, there's people that listen to Tommy Lahren that probably never hear the other side because they only hear her monologues.

So at least they're hearing another argument. They may not monologues. So at least they're hearing another argument. They may not agree with it, but at least they're hearing another perspective and have an actual conversation. I don't think there are that many places left where there's an actual conversation. I mean, part of the, you know, old school when we were younger or our parents, if you read a newspaper, an actual print newspaper, if you're looking for the article, for me, it would be like, let me go to the sports page, because that's where I want to go first. But to get to the sports page, I got to look at the front page and maybe look at the B section, which is the California section.

And then maybe you're exposed to some stories that you wouldn't naturally choose, but like, oh, that's interesting. Or how about that headline or something else? Now people just have the sports app on their phone, and they don't ever see the other stuff and so how do we sort of get around that that can be a real i think it's a huge challenge for our society have you seen people's minds change like have you gotten feedback from people who are like hey i actually heard ethan i'm sorry i forget his last name ethan bierman uh i think some people in the on that are more in the middle have said oh that, that was interesting, or I didn't know that, or that made me think about them in a different way. I think also part of what I try to do with our show, especially the issue, is showcase a human side of politicians on both sides.

Get to know who people are. Talk about their kids. Talk about their families. Talk about their hobbies. Talk about other things. Get them off the talking points and i think people have said to me a lot that they get a better sense of who that person is from that sort of interview than just watching them say the same exact thing over and over again right that's good should we answer some questions

hell yeah let's do it i'll question who who's the most uh attractive candidate including newsome would you say like physically attractive yeah like who's most striking of a best-looking person you've seen in politics is that no no for california governor oh for california governor yeah are you suggesting that there's somebody more handsome than governor newsome i was just wondering yeah i was like i don't know because the one thing i like about newsome is you look at me like nice yeah yeah i mean john cox's whole campaign is right i'm not pretty like newsome right a lot of money on that yeah i like pretty boys i like as a pretty boy yourself is that is that where you're coming from yeah i guess i get the hate you get the hate on him? Yeah, I'm like, Gavin, I feel you, bro.

Yeah, your biggest weakness is you're too handsome. I do think that that's actually, you know, there's an interesting article that I think Times that said that people think that Gavin Newsom is this like pretty boy jock type who's really anti-intellectual and the reality is he's really kind of an introverted shy guy who's a policy nerd yeah and the other thing is kind of an act that he puts on and he's really kind of uncomfortable in that space which is why he makes some of these dumb mistakes like the French laundry yeah but who he really is, I mean, the guy's dyslexic. So it's not that easy for him to read. So he memorizes almost everything. So he does his presentations, his speeches. He doesn't use a prompter. He doesn't really even use notes. He does almost everything off the top of his head,

including like hours long budget presentations. So he's actually very different than I think most people think that he is. That's so interesting too. So the's actually very different than I think most people think that he is. That's so interesting, too. So the way you're kind of framing it, like when he made that mistake with French Laundry, do you think in his head, he was like, I really don't even want to go to this thing, but I kind of got to go to support my buddy. And then because when I see the photo, I'm like this asshole, like he's having the time of his life. He's at this fancy restaurant with all his she she friends. but like maybe in his head on the way there he was like oh man i can't believe we gotta go to this dinner i wish i could cancel but

it's my buddy i gotta go yeah yeah i don't know i think at the time also all of us had you know been locked down for so long that the idea of being out for a night was probably fun yeah has he talked to you about it like what, do we know much about how... Yeah, I'd love to know more about politicians' states of mind when they make the mistakes that they make. Because that kind of humanizes it for me, too. I think I always kind of perceive it in a... Well, it's interesting. I think they feel like they're getting one over on us.

I had seen him a week before that at Dodger Stadium. And he was really excited because he was going to go on that night to dinner with his wife for the first time in six, eight months. And he was so excited to have like a night off from the kids. Right. Because he had just been locked down in the house with the kids for like, you know, all that time. And I think he was starting to feel like, okay.

I mean, look, we, everybody's like, well, it was locked down. Like Napa was open at that time. And I think he was starting to feel like, okay, I mean, look, we, everybody's like, well, it was locked down. Like Napa was open at that time. Some counties were locked down, but some counties weren't. Napa was open.

The restaurant was open. It wasn't like illegal for him to be there. The, the knock on it, what was illegal was the idea that it was, he said that it was outdoors, even though it was indoors, but it was okay to be indoors. It was that he was with too many families at one table right but have you have you had a moment when you're interviewing

someone where you get upset and you have to like kind of contain it like do you ever just want to be like when you're hearing a politician and you disagree with them philosophically or you think that they're acting in like they're bad faith yeah yes do you so what do you what do you do when you get that you just channel it into a question channel into a question and try to try to keep your cool yeah sometimes i get irritated at people though and that's probably good television too yeah there's usually better good moments yeah not great for booking the guests another time so in your head you're like all right this is the last time the moment let's go at it do you find it

hard to challenge people on air you know like like to challenge what they're saying or do you sort of thrive off that would you say i think you gotta sort of thrive off of that if you're in this business but i think i don't get off on like making somebody look stupid that's not that's not fun for me um i think it's a relationship business. It's like, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint. You know what I mean? So you could blow, like I just said, you could blow something up and then nobody ever wants to come on with you. But I do think that challenging people in a fair way is important and good TV. Cool.

Yeah. And you probably get to a deeper point where if you can get them comfortable, then you can get them to actually really reveal what they're thinking and who they are. Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it was the first time he sat down with me. And I was like, they were only going to give me 10 minutes. And we were 25 minutes in because it was just going well. And I could tell he was in a good mood. And like I asked him about his son. And then he started talking about, you know, watching his son act in this new movie and seeing his son's naked butt on the screen and calling Maria about it and what that was like and how valuable maria was as a mom and talking about his kids and all that and it was like i didn't know he was gonna go there and like that's what made the daily mail and made all these other things was him like intimate and opening up and i think he only gave that to me because he was appreciative that i had given him space

right just like you guys now with these great advice we're about to give. Yeah, let's do it. By the way, I just want to say I saw a guy during the height of the pandemic wearing a Recall Newsome shirt at a department store, returning stuff to Amazon because that was still open.

But he was also wearing a covered California mask, which I thought was really contradictory. I wonder if he got it for free yeah of course he did um guys i'm interrupting this podcast so you know once again that we will be at the hollywood improv this wednesday september 15th at 8 p.m get your tickets now it's gonna be a fire show hollywoodimprov.com locals only with chad and jt we're also brought to you by the legends at manscape manscape thank you so much for keeping our trims p for looking after our hogs for making sure their dinks are looking fresh and clean because the leaders in male grooming are here

and they're here with the brand new fourth generation performance package what yep it's time to bundle up with the manscape performance package 4.0 inside this package you'll find their lawnmower 4.0 trimmer, weed whacker, ear and nose hair trimmer, crop preserver, ball deodorant, crop reviver, toner, performance boxer briefs, and a travel bag to hold your goodies. And I'm also talking about your nuts. The fourth generation trimmer has advanced skin safe technology.

It's got 4,000K LED spotlight on and off when needed for a more precise shave. Plus, it's waterproof. What? And they got the Weed Whacker, which is a 9000 RPM motor, 360-degree rotary dual-blade system. That just gets your nose hair and stuff. Maybe some ear hair if you got some of that. Dude, that's gnarly. And you want to trim that shit up because it's fucking weird.

Sorry to curse. But Manscaped is the best. You guys know it. You love it. Make sure if you're not on the Manscaped train by now, get on it. Because this train is a choo-choo-chooing all the way to Pube Town, baby. So get 20% off plus free shipping with the code godeepatmanscaped.com. That's 20% off plus free shipping with the code godeepatmanscaped.com.

Make your balls a priority this fall. And that rhymes. Choose Manscaped.com that's 20 plus free shipping with the code go deep at manscaped.com make your balls a priority this fall and that rhymes choose manscaped your balls will thank you all right back to the show baby all right first cue my baby boy chad jt aaron what up i just had a baby boy and he's an absolute beast i may be looking too far ahead but what is the appropriate age to drink a beer with your son i was raised pretty strict and couldn't drink with my family until i was 21 and in turn i went absolutely nuts in college because i was clueless to the power of the brewski fast forward to now and i'm a dad and i'm freaking fired up over it and i want to be the best dad but i just don't know when it would be a good time to whip out a cores or two maybe fruit smash they're our sponsor i don't know love you guys yeah you can take that with you, man. Oh, okay.

Yeah, you want to drink it now? Yeah, pop it open. Is he saying to drink a beer? Wait, do you hear that sound? Dude, I love that you're doing this. Let's go. The sound of Fruit Smash. Oh, baby. In the AM, too.

It's just that easy, Joe. You got some interviews today that's the best hard seltzer i've ever had really for real i mean they've got to be a great brand if they're sponsoring you guys oh it's good dude yeah it's it's real fruit you can taste it right yeah that's the thing like the other seltzers are kind of like when you when you drink them you're kind of like synthetic but that's it goes down smooth well done what's the thing. Like the other seltzers are kind of like when you drink them, you're kind of like, oh. Synthetic. Gross. But that's, it goes down smooth. Well done. What's the right year?

You know, I think actually my parents let me drink with them. I think they started letting me have like a sip or two when I was like 13 or 14. Bar mitzvah? Kind of the, I'm Catholic, but don't worry. A lot of people make that mistake. Kind of the Catholic model or not Catholic model, sorry, the European model. They just introduced me to stuff relatively early and kind of had a, not a laissez-faire, but like an open-minded approach to it.

And I think that actually helped a lot because it kind of demystified a lot of that stuff. And I still don't like the taste of alcohol. Because maybe because I tasted it then and I was like, this tastes like shit. So do you not drink at all? I drink a lot, but I just don't like the taste. Although I haven't been drinking the past couple weeks because I pushed it too hard for a little bit. Just a ton of mixer. Yeah.

Margarita guy. Yeah. Well, you know, in the Jewish faith, you're supposed to have wine at your bar mitzvah. Ah, okay. So at 13, you take a swig out of the wine cup. So they get you drinking early nice but i totally think that's true didn't you i had a friend like that a buddy that grew up down the street from me whose parents were super strict and really hard ass on that and really stopped

him from partying in high school and then he got to college at usc and just like became a crazy person yeah he just didn't so I think isn't there value in, in moderation and learning and compared to just, you know, keeping people down. Well, like it's the Europeans too. They,

they, they introduced that, you know, in the, it's like a part of your life from an early age and they have such a more sophisticated sort of mature approach to drinking. I think like when I, when I lived in spain and

they're like americans were so clearly just binge drinking you know and the spaniards were like take it easy bro don't they have a more sophisticated approach to eating as well yeah i think more just smaller portions and it's more of like an experience rather than like a feeding station yeah and not as many preservatives right well that's another aspect of covid which i don't think it's talked about enough is the uh you know the fitness aspect of it which we haven't confronted enough as a society dude i got a real problem with it yeah like when i see posts about people who are and like i vape so i don't have perfect health but like when i see posts where people like it's okay to put on like 40 pounds and no one says 40 pounds but when people

are like look if you got big during covid it's fine i put on like 40 pounds. No one says 40 pounds, but when people are like, look, if you got big during COVID, it's fine. I'm like, it literally kills big people. I'm like, I don't know if that's... I'm just saying, don't hurt yourself about it. Right. Don't feel bad. No, I think they... Don't get depressed.

Well, yeah, don't get depressed because that'll keep you from going to the gym. But I say, feel something. It helps depression, exercise. Yeah. We're going to lose a lot of people here. But I agree with you. No, I'm not saying that in a judgmental way.

I mean, I know it's a complicated thing, and weight is not always an indication of health and all the rest of it. But I do think that we could do more as a society to incentivize better choices and make it easier for people to make better choices. I mean, you look at a lot of low-income neighborhoods are food deserts. Why can't we subsidize fresh food and fresh fruits in those neighborhoods so people, it's cheaper to make a better choice? Why can't we use the tax code to help make personal training tax deductible

or gym membership tax deductible? This is a platform we can get behind, Alex. I i would announce right now if i was yeah i mean why can't we you know have a baby work with our insurance companies on on you know having health metrics to to just like if you're a good driver you can get cheaper car insurance if you're in good physical health why can't you get better health insurance you know all those things i think are not shaming anybody or being mean and acknowledging that it's a struggle for everybody, including me, who yo-yos all the time. I mean, I put on 20 pounds during COVID. But you're giving people a carrot to chase.

But give people a reward if they're doing the right thing. Love it. I'm writing you in. If you run for office, you should give that speech in an ice bath. Or on a treadmill. I picture him jogging on a treadmill. With Kevin Hart, launching his ice bath show. Is he in an ice bath or on a treadmill i picture him jogging with kevin hart launch launch on his ice bath show is he launching an ice bath show no he has an he has a podcast have you not seen that no no kevin kevin hart sits in ice baths with people oh really and it's like a lot of athletes but not just athletes and he's in a ice bath and they're in an ice bath and they have a conversation oh do i would crush that yeah you'd be really good he needs to have you on if you if you did that you'd get all of venice

for sure maybe not yeah mayor of venice we sometimes talk about going into politics mayor of venice is like a perfect place for you oh yeah i mean there's no mayor venice is technically the city of los angeles oh that's right so the mayor can't do a city council yeah the mayor of venice is uh eric orsetetti oh nice but who knows who it'll be next it might be karen bass is garcetti well he left right didn't he take some ambassadorship or something like that well he hasn't been confirmed yet so he's going to stay in the job until he's confirmed and confirming him does not seem to be a giant priority in congress right now sorry is the vaccine mandate in la like for businesses still happening i saw that but i saw i think i saw something saying it wasn't happening

so there's there's a negotiation and talks about doing a vaccine mandate for private businesses right now the vaccine mandate for employees of the city of LA is going into effect. And one of the deadlines to get the first dose was yesterday. Gotcha. So we'll see. San Francisco has a vaccine mandate, which says that for you to go into most private businesses like restaurants, things like that, you have to be vaccinated. And LA may follow suit, but hasn't so far.

Gotcha. Nice. All right. Last question. Friends wedding too expensive. What up, Stoke Lords? far. Gotcha. Nice. All right. Last question. Friends wedding too expensive. What up Stoke Lords? I've got a real hard situation going on right now. So I'm living with my dank SGF and I'm looking to her to make her my dank fiance. The ringing stuff is going to be pretty expensive. Over the past year, we decided to move into an apartment together and it is expensive enough that I haven't been able to save enough for my,

to save up enough for my buddy's vacation wedding. I told him I wasn't going to be able to make the bachelor party trip somewhere between $400 and $500 trip. And that I might make it to his wedding. His wedding trip looks like it's going to cost around $1,000 for just one night. It seems like everything is too much for me right now. Especially since I'm trying to get a dank fiance. My boys are mad at me and telling me that I need to make it happen. But I feel like if my dog really cared about his friends making to his wedding, they would have

paid for everyone's hotel room at least, or be more understanding that a lot of people in their mid twenties can't swing it. How do I make men's with the homie? Should they be more understanding? Do I suck it up and go for broke with limited PTO days I have left? I've basically been living paycheck to paycheck. I really need money. I feel like i need to start my own life with my dank gf that's a really good question i think a lot of people are deal with that situation dude i don't like if your friend's having an expensive ass wedding that's great for him but he has to understand that part of that is that you are going to lose some guests and some attendees and honestly sometimes they plan on that i know some friends who put their weddings in difficult to get to places and like inexpensive places because they were like this will weed out Honestly, sometimes they plan on that. I know some friends who put their weddings in difficult-to-get-to places

and inexpensive places because they were like, this will weed out the guest list a little bit. So I wouldn't feel guilty about it at all, dude. And I just hope you just don't have too much FOMO because there will be plenty of weddings. And at a certain point, they're all the same. Although they're super fun. I fucking love weddings.

But I wouldn't feel bad at all, man. I think you got your eye on the prize, and I would stay where you're at. Yeah. I mean, it is frustrating, though, that so many people do that and have no care about the fact that they're making their trip, their thing, so expensive. Especially girls do it even more because it's not just the wedding, it's the shower and the bachelorette and everything. I mean, there's like 18 parties.

How many times do we have to celebrate you? You're right. Get in the wedding and I got to buy you a present for that. And you know, it gets to be very expensive. Yeah, right on. How selfish do I sound? No, you sound like a populist yeah

you're like bernie sanders over here keep going i'm right yeah i mean yeah i don't know what do you think i i agree i think i think his friends will get over it in time it's causing him way more stress uh you know i i don't i don't think it's worth it in the long run i think you know this is causing you way more stress than it has to. And I think he should just save his cash. And I think they'll get over it. Yeah. And yeah, your friend RCP well in advance that you're not coming.

For sure. Because I had people not show up to mine. And that's fucked up. You paid for them already. I would say if you really want to go to this thing, get a credit card. Put it on the credit card. It sucks, but...

Bunk up with a bunch of other people too. You could do that too. If your GF's down for that. But I don't know. It sounds like he's pretty strapped. I think I would just punt on it, dude. Also, when it comes to engagement rings, look vintage.

It's cheaper. That's what I did. Look at the wisdom this oh yeah you're bringing he's done it all i have a fucking baby wow and a great et shirt that's that's alf my friend oh that's oh alf that's alf oh even better are you single look at this i am yeah no no No ring there either. No, I'm single as shit. How's the dating game going? It's going all right. It's going okay. How's it going for you? It's been okay.

I've been working way too hard lately. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. COVID's been a weird time. Are you on the apps? Not really. No.

What's your deal? I'm on the apps. You're on the apps are you single too i've been single since april yeah okay i'm on the apps big time how's that going do people recognize you from from from all of this yeah do they think you're real do they think that you're you're a fake account sometimes i get messages like that yeah yeah uh but uh you know they do but then a lot of the dates i've gone on they don't they're not familiar with like our work at all has anybody sent you a message saying do you really

have a small dong no but i've uh i've had i've had uh girls make remarks you know when they see it for when they see it for real they're like oh nice it's bigger than they expected right yeah you're setting very low expectations yeah yeah you gotta keep expectations low and then whatever you know comes out they're like oh it's refreshing you are setting yourself up for the greatest sexual experience yeah i'm anti p not anti but the opposite of pete davidson oh it's his it's, is that the rumor? He's got a rep for having a big schlong. Yeah.

He talks about that in his special too, about how he sets himself up for disappointment with the ladies. Yeah. He seems to be doing okay though. Yeah. He's way outkicked his coverage. Yeah. I mean, has anybody more outkicked their coverage in the history of men than Pete Davidson? He's up there.

I heard David Spade does work, too. Oh, yeah. He's pretty aggressive at it. Oh, really? Yeah. I know lots of people that he's reached out to on Insta and other things. He's a machine. It's a numbers game.

Just like California politics. Are you like, do you want to get married and have kids and do the whole? Yeah, eventually. Yeah. I'm not in a huge rush. I mean, thankfully, I think it's easier for guys. politics are you like do you want to get married and have kids and do the whole yeah eventually yeah i'm not in a huge rush i mean i thankfully i think it's easier for guys they don't have as much of a ticking clock on that do you feel the loneliness like do you do you get i feel like you're pretty comfortable sort of just being single and working yeah i mean i think there are moments for everybody i think i work a lot, which helps on that front. But I've, I've been at events where I see people in clearly unhappy relationships and it makes me grateful to

not be there. But yeah, there's something great about being able to be with somebody that you love and care about and spend time with and share with. And I hope to get there. Weddings are the best for that because couples are always fighting at weddings. Oh my God. Yeah. You go to a wedding, every one of your friends is in a relationship. Oh my God. I went to a wedding two weeks ago and I was kind of bummed about going single. I was the only single person at the table. And I looked around and everybody was in a fight. And I was like, this is so great that I'm not here.

Except for my brother and his girlfriend, never. else i know always yeah i think yeah that's that's another big like misconception culturally is that at weddings it's like a good place to like meet a girl oh yeah i mean it's like never happens the one time i was at a wedding there was one single girl i went to hit on her i had four of my single friends right behind me every time I went to talk to her. And then I was like, I'm just going to waste this whole wedding duking it out with these guys. Right. Yeah, just better off like hanging out with people you're friends with and getting to catch up with them. Do you ever do the scouting thing?

What's that? Like when you're going to like a wedding or something, you just look through who's attending. And then you're like, okay, there's six single girls. Nice. Potential for a match. A game plan. Yeah. Yeah, I have that with my siblings.

All my siblings have kids, my older siblings. And they'll always be like, you know, I'll be like, hey, are we going to go travel for the holidays? They're like, I have kids. I can't fly. I'm like, that sucks. I'm going to Hawaii. That's always a good reminder. Yeah.

We'll all have to hit the bars or something. Yeah, let it yeah yeah that's a good place to end it thank you yeah thank you very much for the invite honestly big fan of what you guys do i think it's it's super cool uh to be able to speak to our generation like this and to both bring humor but also depth and um talk about important issues and talk about stupid issues and like have a cool platform for all this. So I got great respect for what you do and thank you for kindness and coming on our show, being supportive of what we're doing.

And I'm really grateful that you invited me to come on. Oh, dude, it's so fun having you on. It was really an illuminating conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And,

uh, let the Stokers know where they can find you and the show. Okay. So, uh, it Elex Michelson with an E not with an A. E-L-E-X M-I-C-H-A-E-L-S-O-N on Instagram, on Twitter, on YouTube. And the show is The Issue Is, which

airs all across the state of California. You can go to theissueisshow.com for more. And then if you live in Los Angeles, I anchor the news every night at 5, 6, 7, and 10 p.m. on Channel 11, foxla.com slash live. It streams as well. Last one, why did your parents roll with the E instead of the A? So they named me for my great-grandmother, Ethel,

who had passed away. They took the E to honor her, and so they kind of made it up. That's nice. Right on. All right, well, thanks, man. Thank you thank you guys i'm stoked to be here yeah stoked to have you that was a lot of fun chad thanks to alex michelson for coming on that was great what a legend yeah great guy um not wearing my headphones i almost put my headphones on but i never wear them uh chad who's your beef of the week my beef of the week is with uh santa monica oh i'm gonna come out and

say it dude i think it's kind of a bullshit city damn dude yeah yeah i mean it here's here's the thing here's my beef uh i uh i i go to like i do workout classes over there and the traffic is just horrible it's so bad you know and it's like you know it's probably like six miles away from me but i have to you know it navigation i'll say like 20 minutes and then it ends up being like 30 minutes and i'm just and there's just so many tourists there you know every time i go there i'm like every time i go to santa monica i'm like what is this city what is it because it's tourists but there's no character you know at venice has some character as tourist but it has some character when you go to santa monica you're

kind of like this is like the city's like a mall for like this is like a giant pack son of a city it's perfectly put yeah and all the restaurants they have no character personality yeah i mean everything you're like there's probably 12 of these. Yeah. So, yeah, I just wanted to call out and say, you know, Santa Monica, fuck you. It's funny, too, because when you listen to, like, Sheryl Crow sing, like, and having fun under the Santa Monica sun. Yeah. When you're a kid, you're like, oh, Santa Monica's just got to be this beach paradise. And then you get there and, like, the beach kind of sucks, too. Yeah.

It's, like, it's too much sand. Like, it's just a tundra for, like, a couple hundred yards. Yeah. And there's just no, like, there's no pretty views. There's just a tundra for a couple hundred yards. And there's just no pretty views. There's no texture to it. Yeah. It's just a lot of kind of... It doesn't... It's just tourist.

It's just too touristy. It's soulless and it doesn't really know what it is. Yeah. And then trying to get to hot yoga there's just uh a pain in the ass you know and i'm trying to you know i'm trying to you know find my center and align my chi but it's hard to do that when you have to sit through bullshit traffic yeah so that's my beef aaron what's your beef my beef is with the um have you guys seen the show uh the movies that made us on netflix it's like a making of classic movies that we all i haven't watched it but i've seen the thumbnail for it

so the editing on that whoever's directing it i think i know who it is but whoever is in charge of the productions demands that the editors basically like when someone's telling you how they made a movie they say something as and then the editor treats that as though that is a setup for a joke and then they the answer or the finish of the sentence is a punch line it's very it's just edited in such a choppy way it's like they don't let the people just tell the story like they have like the producers and the writers and people you've never heard of before who are giving really good information stuff you didn't know about these movies you love um but they edit it in such a way it's just like

just let the fucking show tell itself like let the people tell it themselves rather than your ham-fisted attempt at humor right it's like written like a youtube review show or something it's just like oh no i can't do it is it sort of like where the host is trying to point out you know it's like this is where you should laugh yeah oh 100 and you're like it's in the editing like let me figure out where i should laugh yeah it's not really the narrator so much and the narrator is not good either but uh it's it's all in the editing it's really bizarre yeah and it's clearly a mandate it's been they've been i think they've done eight episodes and two seasons and it's been the same all through it's like oh it's so frustrating because they have great movies obviously i gotta

watch that yeah yeah my uh my beef of the week I got a couple one beef with myself me and Chad had a big tele-meeting zoom meeting on Friday I missed it we have like

new agents they've been setting us up on these great meetings and I just totally missed one why? because I was I was editing

but I wasn't doing anything I just get texts from Chad hey are you okay? I'm like, why is Chad so concerned about me? And then I call him and he's like, you missed the meeting. You're really nice about it too, I appreciated it. But that's not cool. My other beef is with just false notes and entertainment.

Dude, I'm like, I can't watch anything now. Every time I see something, I'm like, that's fake. That's fake. Not like it's a movie. This is obviously fake. But with acting especially, or even TV presenting, whatever it is, I'll just always be like, fake, fake, fake. And my antennas just go up so quick. But it makes it so like, even now, dude, there's all these.

When I first got into comedy, I loved comedy podcasts. And I'd listen to all the big ones. And what i always loved about them was they sounded so authentic and now when i listen to them i'm like these guys are full of shit everything they're saying is full of shit right and i can't like listen to anything without having that like cynical voice in my head which maybe is like right but it just kind of steals joy from everything yeah and so it's really hard for me to find something i like to absorb and then my final beef this is the most important one is with anyone who has the misfortune of being on the other side of me in a paintball game when paintballing in utah with my boys during our fantasy football trip and look we caught some flack for being too into fantasy or too into a

paintball last time and for taking too much pride in it i don't give a shit i rip it paintball dude i i when i see someone on the other side i gotta take them out and dude i do nice i murk on the paintball course i annihilate and do i take it too serious no no it simulated war, and it should be treated as such. And I do. I take it serious, and I treat it as such. It is war. I mean, you could get hurt. And I do.

I hurt other people. Chad, who's your babe of the week? My babe of the week is Mark McGrath, the self-proclaimed last douche. Nice. An article came out where he's like, you know i'm the last of the the douchey 90s rocker guys i'm the last of that breed and he wears it proudly and i'm psyched on how stoked on his doucheness he is you know just to come out and say what up i'm the last douche it fires me up and it fires me up on mark mcgrath and and uh that just made me think

this guy's an absolute legend and uh i hope someday to be able to say I'm the last douche, you know, I hope that for you too. I hope that for you, dude. I hope you get there. Thanks man. Aaron,

here's your baby of the week. My baby of the week is this, this guy, Jose Salazar Jr. He's, he makes their softball jerseys um oh nice and this one it was really tough because i didn't really have a i just had a logo i pulled off of google images like a long time ago and it's not even that like it's probably scaled too high and it looks kind of janky he came up with some beautiful jerseys

for us they've got like the team's called pizza party because i figure why else are men in their 30s uh gathering to play softball every week just to have a pizza party um he put pizzas in the like the details and the size and the in the sleeve uh real attention to edges yeah yeah it's so good and and and uh we we've settled on that design like a week and a half ago and we already have them like it's he made me like a hoodie to go with it and just for fun real just a sweet guy and and super quality work and super fast so uh i just want to give a shout out to that guy nice he's a tns So I just want to give a shout out to that guy. He's a TNS Creations on Instagram.

My Babes of the Week, I got two. So we went on this fantasy football trip, me and like 15 guys. We go on it every year except for last year because of the pandemic, where we draft our fantasy football teams at a location in Park City. Our friend Forsum, he's kind enough to open his home to us and we have a ball. And every year, you know, there's just some top performers, some guys who the whole weekend just bring it. And this year for me, it was Joe Pelazon and Luke Connor, just a couple of killers. Luke was on fire with the jokes the whole time. And then Luke got naked. That's always a great

joke. And he was just hilarious the whole time. And then Joe was just, he was just dialed with the competition. He ripped at paintball. He ripped at the drinking games. And he was just ripping it up in every aspect. Had a good draft. So a lot of respect to those two guys for just bringing it the whole weekend. Nice. Chad, who's your legend of the week?

My legend of the week is Fu. Fu Kwan. Yeah, man, this was a bummer. Fu Kwan, yeah. My legend of the week is Fu. Fu Kwan. Yeah, man, this was a bummer. Fu Kwan, yeah. My Legend of the Week is Fu Kwan Johnson. I know him as Fu. Yeah, it's a kind of tragic, a tragedy struck the comedy,

LA comedy scene over the weekend. Three, so there's an incident involving fentanyl that a bunch of four comics ingested fentanyl laced cocaine they didn't know fentanyl was in there and three of them died and then one is uh hospitalized uh but i think she's doing okay okay quickly she's she's i think she's still recovering but she's gonna make it that's good um but it's just a horrifying tragedy um and i knew foo you know i didn't know foo well but i knew i know he hosted an open mic that i was going to a lot over the past six months and he he's just like he's just like the sweetest guy very encouraging of uh other comics and just like

really hilarious and he nicknamed me malibu breeze and he was always just so nice to me and just sweet and um yeah i just wanted to you know and it's uh it's really sad that uh you know what what happened i just wanted to give him a shout out and say I miss you, dude. Rest in peace. And also to the rest of the victims. So, yeah. Thoughts are with their families and all that. Yeah, rest in peace, man.

And a speedy recovery to Kate. Yeah, Kate's great. I recorded her podcast for a couple of years. I did. Weekly. Yeah. It may still be on ATc i'm not sure but um yeah it's great she's just great yeah she's worked really hard to be more than just the pretty face that she obviously has yeah you know more than

just the like the model she looks like but like to be really funny and she really is yeah yeah so this this uh i know she's had her troubles but this this sucks yeah and to the stokers out there stay away from cocaine uh because just don't do powders right now yeah it's just not safe this fentanyl thing is insane and you just don't know if you're gonna have a laced batch of whatever it is you're taking you know it's it's it's really scary and people die i'm going on my brother's bachelor party trip and i was like bro hey no one can be doing coke like it's it's just not worth it yeah and it's uh yeah and and they're not the only ones are another comic her brother just passed a couple weeks ago same situation really yeah i'll tell your name off yeah but it was uh

i don't know it's really scary yeah really really scary um aaron who's your legend of the week uh my legend of the week is going to surprise some people, uh, knowing, knowing anything about me, but it's Derek Jeter, uh, and also Larry Walker, uh, who are going to the hall of fame today. Um, I just want to give a shout out to them cause they've unfortunately been

waiting two years to actually get in and their, have their ceremony and stuff, uh, because of COVID obviously it got canceled a year ago. Um, but obviously one of the best uh team leaders for sure in baseball history if not you know one of the best shortstops i mean i think he's a great captain yeah i think he's a great hitter i do have some problems with his defense but he's still good he's still very good i agree with you on the defense because he did the jump throw so everybody thought he was like a great defender but when you

look at the range on how far he's going to grab that ball it's like a ball that like viskell wouldn't have had to dive for like he just would have been there anyways you know and the position super hard and i and i get that i i think that particularly the one that irks me is the catch where he runs into the stands i'm like oh he caught that eight feet from the stands and still ran and dove into the stands like he thought it was theatrics it wasn't even the best one in the game in that game that game in particular pokey reese was playing for the red socks he made a play like he was better like he was he was right up against the fence when he made it like he was in danger as he caught the ball jeter jeter caught it and then flew but isn't it that jeter was bleeding

afterwards isn't that what makes it so heroic and then it's just the all-out dive in there but it's like that wasn't he could have turned left but he's a legend he's a legend for sure i mean he's still one of the best hitting short stops of all. Do I think he would have won as many gold gloves if A-Rod was still short? Probably not. He didn't win until A-Rod moved to third. But still, great guy as far as I know. I don't know anyone who knows him.

He's got a pretty clean record. Yeah, he's got a pretty clean record. We'll see if it all pans out in Florida where he's the president of baseball operations. I would say it's not going to. It hasn't yet. But they made the playoffs last year. I mean, what the hell?

Despite COVID, they did too. But they can win World Series and it doesn't move the needle. That's true. They've won two. It's incredible. Wait, what? He's president of what? The Marlins.

The Marlins. Oh, you just think there's no hope for that team? They win a World Series, and then the next year they have no attendance. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, nobody goes to games in Miami. It's just... And they've had... And they're very up and down.

Like, they're, like, the worst team in baseball, and then three years later, somehow they're, like, the best team in baseball. And then the next year they're the worst team again. Yeah. Oh, okay. It's, like, all peaks and valleys. But for whatever reason, they just can't get people to come watch. Yeah.

I was like, well, where's your faith in Derek, dude? Well, and also, I don't think he's going to be a good... Yeah, I have faith in him as a player, but I don't have much faith in him as an executive. He's not a Billy Bean? No. No, I don't think so. Maybe at the next job when he's given more budget and more opportunity, you know. But right now, I don't think it's great. And some are great executives but for the most part i don't know i think the

guys who are like the best at the sport generally don't translate to the other side of it yeah and then larry walker is the first canadian uh baseball player to ever make the oh really so that's a huge huge thing because uh you know it's it's not predominantly a baseball uh country it's a it's a hockey country first and foremost but uh what an amazing guy amazing um good hitter hitter won several uh batting titles when tony gwynn wasn't winning them there was larry walker yeah and and a five tool guy you know who not built like a five tool guy really but amazing outfielder defender thrower yeah base runner yeah everything that's a good hall of fam class uh my legend of the week is from the uh it's from the show succession it's from the pilots from the opening scene and it's how yellow they made brian cox's piss what a choice he's he's he's this old you know uh broken emperor

and the opening scene is just him not really cognizant peeing in like a closet and you see him peeing but they don't have any light in there when they show the urine it's like the darkest hue of yellow i've ever seen and so you're just like oh this guy's unhealthy and it's just urine, it's like the darkest hue of yellow I've ever seen. And so you're just like, oh, this guy's unhealthy. And it's just, it's too yellow. It's not realistically yellow, but what a choice. Like whoever was on set was like, make the piss, radioactive yellow. And they were like, good call. Right.

And it's. Is there a chance it was method? Yeah. And maybe Brian Cox was just like pounding soda for five days, no water, and just put himself into that state. I hope that's the case, that it was unsimulated piss. But yeah, just a brilliant choice from great artists to make that urine so yellow. Nice. Chad, what's your quote of the week?

My quote of the week comes from Schopenhauer, a philosopher. from Schopenhauer, a philosopher. So the quote is, directly after copulation, the devil's laughter is heard. Which I thought was the best philosophical take on post-nut clarity that I've heard. I laugh every time. Yeah.

I laugh every time. The Schopenhauer. The demon gets out. Yeah. Is he judging us, though, in that comment? Like, is he judging us though in that comment like is he judging that we've had sex most likely out of woodlock i think i think he's talking about the this sort of insanity proceeding you know like the male sort of insanity of like pursuing they just of pursuing you know a sexual, regardless of the consequences or whatever. Sure, yeah.

Sure. Been there. And then afterwards you're like, oh. Yeah, I'm sweet. And he gets sad sometimes, yeah. Aaron, what's your quote of the week? My quote of the week is from Derek Jeter. I don't know if he even said this, but I just found it on Google.

I love it when people doubt me. It makes me work harder to prove them wrong. I feel the same way on the softball diamond. People take one look at me and go, he's going to do one thing. And I love to steal that extra base on them when they're not looking. Nice. And run through a stop sign at third and score just because. That just fired me up.

Don't underestimate a fat man who's angry. You know, that's what I'm saying. I'm going to send you the best Fred Durst gif after this because of that nice nice my quote of the week is from true detective season two um i have to put a disclaimer on this this is extremely um aggressive and off-putting and crazy imagery um much like that season yeah it's but i think this is real pure vulgar poetry. I think it's one of the, I think, you know, HBO does like really good cursing,

like succession, Deadwood, Sopranos. They're so creative with their like gross flourishes of how people talk shit. But I think of any of them, this is the best one. And I think it might be one of the, I think it's the best quote from any movie of all time. And it's Colin Farrell's character,

Ray Valcaro. And he's, uh, he's beating up this kid's dad. Cause the kid was bullying his kid and he's talking shit to the kid. He goes, if you ever bully or hurt anybody again, I'll come back and butt fuck your father with your mom's headless corpse on

this goddamn lawn. He's also a sheriff's deputy. How did he write that? How did he come up with that what shows us uh nick puzzolazzo it's a true detective season two oh nice nice i'll come back and butt fuck your father with your mom's headless corpse i mean it's a stroke of genius you got to give credit where credit is due yeah um sorry if that was too much for people. Chad, what's your phrase of the week for getting after it? My phrase of the week for getting after it is... Let's plug in the charger. Aaron? Is this coming with this episode we recorded today?

Yes. Okay. Let's go vote. Yeah, go vote. Ray Valcaro also says, I used to want to be an astronaut, but astronauts don't even go to the moon anymore, and he gets sad.

True. Interesting guy. Well played by Colin Farrell. All right, guys. I'm sorry. I got to kind of rush. I'm going to get stretched. I'm going to get stretched. Stretched. I got to stretch. rush. I got to, I'm going to get stretched. I'm going to get stretched.

Stretched. I got to stretch. Chad. Great stuff. Great stuff, guys. Thanks Aaron. Thanks Alex.

Later. Later. Later. Thank you. We'll be right back. Chad, what is your beef of the week? Aaron, who's your beef of the week? Shrider, what is your beef of the week? Joe, what's your quote of the week? Chad, what is your beef of the week? Aaron, who's your beef of the week? Shrider, what is your beef of the week?

Joe, what's your quote of the week? Shrider, what's your beef of the week? Thank you. What is your name for the week? Aaron. Who's your name? Strider. What is your name? Joe. What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?

What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?

What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?

What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?

What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?

What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?

What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name?

What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What's your name? What Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys,