Lovett or Leave It - Balls Swell that Ends Well

Episode Date: September 18, 2021

Aasif Mandvi meets this week’s cast of characters, from General Mark Milley to Nicki Minaj’s cousin to the guy that controls Joe Biden’s off switch. Ezra Klein takes a look at the future of the Golden State following the failed California recall. Texas Tourism Board spokesman Ash Wrangler Autry (Michael Hartney) implores you to ignore all of that bad stuff happening in their state legislature. And Keep It’s Louis Virtel has forgotten more about the Emmys than we'll ever know.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/lovettorleaveit. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, out of the closets, into the streets. And the rallying cry brings me to my feet. So face that fear and step in. Singing on beat with the haters in key. And even if I die, gotta sit sweet. Yeah, out of the closet and into the street. the streets Why don't you come and put a seat on your drum?

Cause honey, you're safe with me We got a friggin' army Just watch your seat

Treat yourself to victory Cause honey, you're safe with me We got a freaking army So, gotta say it's pretty sweet Out of the closet and into the street That amazing song was by Ondra Masker. It was awesome. And that's it.

That was our last Out of the Closet Into the Streets theme song because Love It or Leave It is going live starting next week. We will be doing a run of live shows in Los Angeles leading to our big show at The Beacon in New York. So if you have a live or else theme song, please send it in. And if you want to get tickets, we have some amazing shows planned. Go to crooked.com slash events. Some of the LA shows I think are close to selling out.

The New York show still has some tickets left. So get those tickets now, please. Crooked.com slash events. I am so excited to be doing this show live again. Listen, we did a great job making this a Zoom show, right? We fucking crushed it. But it'll be nice to be in front of a crowd. So go to crooked.com slash events to get tickets. And if you have a

live or else theme, you can send it to us at leaveit at crooked.com. And to clarify, the show is live. I am live. Your music is a beautiful digital file. Also, this week on Crooked's brand new podcast, X-Ray Vision, host Jason Concepcion dives into the highly anticipated premiere of Why the Last Man and MCU star Simu Liu joins to talk about his experience making

Marvel's latest box office success, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Follow X-Ray Vision on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You will love it. Everybody check out X-Ray Vision. On this week's show, Ezra Klein is back. We talk about the California recall and the state of California politics in this progressive state with no problems at all. It's a perfectly run place with no problems. Ash Autry of the Texas Tourism Board is here to convince me to visit the Lone Star State. And Louis Vertel was back because the Emmys are here. And it's time to do some trivia with our resident savant.

But first, he is an actor, writer, and comedian. And you know him from The Daily Show. And you can catch him on Evil on Paramount+. It's Paramount, but much better. Yeah, it's more than Paramount. Please welcome. Awesome, Monvi. Awesome.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. People love you. It's like the cheeseburger deluxe. Yes, exactly. It is. It has lettuce, lettuce tomato and maybe even you can depending on the restaurant there could be bacon yeah yeah depending on the

nomenclature of the chain you're at can't count on it but it could be part of it i love that you already use the word nomenclature uh like we're 30 seconds in we're less than 30 seconds in here's a thing you're slamming me with a nomencl chair. Here's the thing. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. And so I am perpetually trying to prove. Look, I have more than I did then, not as many as I want. The point is, I don't say these things because it comes to me naturally. I say it to impress you and the listener listener to cover up for insecurities, deep, deep insecurities.

And to intimidate us. Yeah. To intimidate. Yeah. Because now I'm intimidated. Like we're going to be using 12 letter words in this conversation. Yeah. It's just like a regular thing.

Like that's what you do. You thought this was just a conversation. It's not. Right. It's extremely onerous. All right. Is this on NPR? Is that what this is? They won't put this on NPR.

Here's the thing. The bigwigs at NPR, they got Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. First of all, the word bigwigs and NPR don't go together. Here's the thing. We are David to the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Goliath. That's the big...

All I've got is a little rock and I've got a little... What is it called? Slingshot. You're the big, you know, all I've got is a I got a little rock and I got a little last. What is it called? Slingshot. You're the one that ends up alive. Yeah. I'm good. I'm just a sexy nude nude slingshot. I'm a sexy nude slingshot holder staring up at a monster hosted by Peter Sagal. That's a nomenclature. I think. I don't know. Maybe. Let's get into it. All right. What a week. In their forthcoming book, Peril, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa claim that the chair of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley,

feared Trump might go rogue after losing the election and told U.S. military officials that they should get his permission to launch nukes and secretly contacted a top general in China. There's some dispute about the way it's characterized by Woodward and Costa. in China. There's some dispute about the way it's characterized by Woodward and Costa. Then Milley recited his wife's dying words, which the Chinese general had told him in the future after the heptapods had left. Now, I am reading both Arrival and this book. I'm reading two different books at the same time. I may have gotten them confused. I think I fucked it up. It sounds totally plausible, though. what's crazy is it like not like i didn't even bat an eye i was just like uh-huh okay yeah the hexapods wow and you know

what's crazy is this is what's great you said that and i was like shit i didn't listen to cnn yesterday something clearly i missed something like i didn't even it was so not surprising that that could have happened that all that my mind went to like, I'm the idiot that didn't watch the news yesterday. Yeah, I think the best jokes are incomprehensible and require special knowledge to understand. That's how you know you're really dealing with an A-plus bit of material. So after this news broke, Trump went on Newsmax to call Milley's decision treason, later calling him a traitor and a dumbass. Yeah, dumbass. He has, I will say one thing.

He has stayed presidential. He has remained presidential. He's not changing. So what happened? So he called him a dumbass. And then, and then, and then nothing changed. And then, and then, but here's what I think. I think, Azif, I think that he's just

being Millie. It's an incredibly long journey to get to a Miley Cyrus thing. Of course, Trump is the same. Every single thing Trump has ever done has worked like he's he's a mediocre intelligence, limited ability. He is wealthy and he was the president. Why would he change? All the incentives have worked for him. Exactly. It's true. It's like, yeah, he's failing upwards.

Failing upwards. Yes, that is the story. Failing upwards. That's that is the thing, isn't it? Meanwhile, Republicans have apparently been spreading a rumor that someone has the ability to push a button and cut the feed when Joe Biden goes off script to the point where Senator James Reich as Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Somebody in the White House has authority to press the button and cut off the president's speaking ability and sound. Who is that person? My question is, wait, is this is this something

that Nicki Minaj said is unrelated to Nicki Minaj? This is an unrelated conspiracy. This is U.S. senators actually believing that there is a person whose job it is to cut off Joe Biden's mic when he goes off script. But my question is, if there is such a person, why haven't they been fired for literally never showing up to work? Like if we are quieting Joe Biden when he is saying things he shouldn't be saying, what are these things? The man says wild shit every single day. It's crazy to me that literally at this point you can say just about anything and somebody at some level of power will latch on to it and be like, that's good. That's let's go with that. Let's run with that one. Yeah. There's nothing that you couldn't say that was too ridiculous anymore.

It is like there's this big kind of crowdsourced conspiracy theory thing that's happening on social media and right wing radio and all the rest. And these like kind of theories bubble up and then a few of them get grabbed onto by mainstream politicians. Sometimes they grab onto one and they kind of let it go. Like you'll, you'll see one pop up for a second and then it'll disappear. Or they'll switch, right?

They'll switch from like hydroxychloroquine. They'll switch to ivermectin. Yeah. And I just want to say to all the listeners out there, uh, who decided to take to Twitter to correct me for saying ivermectin. Thank you so, so much.

I almost made it to the end of my entire fucking life, uh, without fixing that. I was so close and you stopped it, so thank you, listener. You were saying Ivermectin? I was saying Ivermectin. For how long? A full episode. Listen, I

read the news. You're a dumbass. I read the news, alright? I read the news. I see it in words, alright? That's how I get my I see it in words, all right? Yeah, I know. I don't... That's how I get my ivermectin news, all right? Via the written word.

A lost art. Awesome. When you start a word with a vowel, it should be the full vowel, not just like that... The soft one. Not the soft one. Not the soft one. The hard one. It's got the full hard vowel.

The full hard... Yeah. Full hard vowel. That's why we say April. Dumb as shit. Right? April. That's why we say April.

Einselin. You know what? But those are the only words that start with vowels. Right. Exactly. Those are the only two. We thought of those. We got rid of them.

Okay. But that's it. Otherwise, all right. Even if this senator was right to ask Tony Blinken about the person secretly turning off Joe Biden's mic, Tony Blinken is not going to be able to say much before the person in charge of turning off his mic. Right. It's shadow government all the way down. But clearly, whoever is turning off the mics is asleep at the wheel. Yeah. So this person is not turning off anyone's mics. Yeah. So this person is not turning off anyone's mics. Yeah. Who asked who?

A senator from Idaho decided in a hearing about Afghanistan to ask the secretary of state who is in charge of turning off Joe Biden's microphone, something that is not real or based in evidence because Joe Biden is a popular and unifying figure. They have really struggled to come up with an attack against Joe Biden that is effective. So the only thing they can do is attack Kamala Harris, attack the deep state, attack people around Joe Biden, and then say Joe Biden is too enfeebled and discombobulated and senile. It's an odd strategy because Biden has done things that are worthy of genuine criticism. Yes. Like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was a complete fuck up. Can I say that? I don't know. Yeah. So there are places where they could genuinely criticize Biden and really go after him. So the fact that they're choosing to actually pick on nebulous theories

about men sitting in a corner turning off his mic, I don't know why they would choose to go for a fabrication or something so crazy when they don't know why they would choose to go for a fabrication or something so crazy when they actually have real stuff they could go after. They're speaking to their base. I think there's a conspiratorial mindset that's always valuable. But also, yeah, I mean, on top of all that, it's silly in another way, too, because all it does is it lowers the expectations for Joe Biden. I mean, they did this throughout the campaign. And like Joe Biden, who has actually, I think, spoken eloquently and publicly and honestly about struggling with a stutter his whole life. Like there are moments when his speech is halting. People know that they understand that. But they

consider like Joe Biden is senile. He can't be president. Then he goes to the microphone and he does this Joe Biden thing. And it's a little loose. And some sentences don't have periods at the end of them. But like they've set the bar at full blown dementia. Meanwhile, the last two Republican presidents could not finish a sentence. George W. Bush gave a speech on the 9-11 anniversary. It really reminded me about like, wow, have I not missed that kind of halting delivery where it feels as though he's sort of experiencing many of these words for the very first time in his life. I remember when he was because when when did he he became president in

2000. So I was like just going to college. And I remember being like, how is this possible? Yeah. How are people not hearing what I'm hearing? This is the least articulate figure I've ever seen in my life. I will say, though, there was one of the funniest things I've ever seen a politician do. George W. Bush, I think as president, was at some giant kind of rally or event where he was taking questions, something that also feels quaint. Someone got up there and gave a rambling and incoherent and very long non-question question about immigration reform and the importance of not having people take jobs from Americans and what's going on at the border and how she's sick of what's happening in this country.

But at the same time, immigrants are people and they deserve respect. It was this very emotional and maudlin and long speech. And then she finished and he just went, immigration, and then just gave his immigration answer. But he kind of made like a snake with his hands, a kind of biting snake. And he went immigration, immigration, immigration, visualizing his checklist. Yes. And what I loved about it too is this woman gave a heartfelt like three to four minute speech and he disregarded it completely and just summed it up as immigration. And he had this shit eating grin on his face because he knew what he was doing and he knew his staff was seeing him do it.

And I will say, I appreciated it. I did. I appreciated what was happening. You saw the man behind the curtain, right? You saw the guy who's probably saying to him, like, no matter what they ask you, just go to your talking points. Yeah. Don't get sucked into any kind of conversation with people because you'll lose.

Don't try to answer actual questions because you will fail. Just say the thing that you've been taught to say. That we worked on. And this was what the problem with Trump was that he would they would tell him that and then he would just go ahead and just completely go off script and then just say whatever he wanted. Maybe there were people that they considered to pull Trump's mic. And maybe this is why for them it's it's a conceivable thing that it could happen because it should have. They thought they thought of it every time. They project every fucking time. Right. I do think it's funny, too people are like God what happened to America? Why are things going so badly? And it's like I don't know

maybe having two of the worst human beings to ever hold the job in the span of 20 years caused some fucking problems. The two worst presidents in 100 years were like a Barack Obama fucking sandwich. Like maybe that was the problem. Yeah. Maybe that's the issue. We had

Barack Obama on Trump and Bush bread. Yeah. It sucked. It was, you know, America should have gone keto on that sandwich. Yeah.

Everyone in this room, everyone in this room has masks on but are shaking their head no. Speaking of conspiratorial reactionary politics, the Capitol Police confirmed they will be erecting fences around the U.S. Capitol ahead of Saturday, September 18th rally. Oh, yeah. For Trump supporters arrested in the January 6th riot. The fences are expected to stay in place until after the December 3rd rally for Trump supporters arrested in the September 18th riot.

You see, see what I did. But now do you see that? I listened to an interview with the guy who's organizing this rally on the 18th. Now, they're claiming that this is to defend the people who were arrested during this January 6th. Because it's super unfair. It's not right that people storm our government and try to overthrow our democracy and then get arrested for that. Like, is that the thinking behind this rally? I'm asking you. I'm asking you specifically. And I'm explaining that, I don't know if you know this about America, but we have a two-tiered system of justice. One that treats people fairly.

Oh, right. And one for white people. So there's basically this kind of fair, big system of justice where everyone's super lenient. And there's one for white Republicans with pickup trucks who own small businesses and drive to D.C. to take what I consider to be basically just kind of unapproved tours of the Capitol. I think the riot and this thing about insurrection has gone a bit too far. These were unsanctioned tours. Yes. These were unsanctioned super spreader tours. That's what we're talking about here. And so, yeah, I mean, I think they're pretty upset about the fact that-

And they were just like, why is there not a tour today? Well, because the Congress is in session and they're holding a thing. And so they were like, no, we paid for the tour. We paid for the tour with our taxes. And I think what probably also happened in part is everyone saw a screaming shirtless man with a painted face and a furry hat on saying, follow me. And he had, and even though he wasn't, it was a weird outfit confidence. I mean, confidence can get you into any space. And who hasn't done that? Who hasn't followed that guy in their lives

in a metaphoric sense many times? That's what's really going on. I mean, these are people being unfairly persecuted for what basically amounts to an inappropriately timed walking tour. That's wrong. Yeah, that's wrong. I can see what you mean. I can already see the kind of woke Twitter scold saying, wait, several people were killed. And it stopped the democratic process. And they did try to hang the vice president of the United States. Right. And all I'll say is I'm sick of this kind of like vicious partisanship.

Listen, I don't want you to go into the archives of Variety, but you'll find in 2014 a little pilot by a guy named john lovett about a situation in which there was an election that went bad and there were two presidents and i sold that thing and everybody said i was crazy and then i got stoned i didn't write it for a year and they didn't let me make it but that's hollywood you know that's hollywood and then i said oh no we better start a podcast. I'm running out of money. And here I am. On Tuesday, Democrats, I may want to cut all that on Tuesday, Democrats in the Senate rolled out a compromise voting rights bill, the compromise being with Senator Joe Manchin, which means once again, it is time for Joe Manchin to set sail in search of 10 reasonable Republicans to vote for it. It's like watching a dog whose owners moved across town show up at the old house and scratch at the door. They're gone, Joe. Josh Hawley lives here now. Yeah. Yeah. Your family doesn't live here anymore. You know, it's been a long time. It's true. Tip O'Neill is fucking dead, Joe. All right? Bob Dole. Gingrich is gone.

Yeah, Gingrich. He'd be from the good old days. Yeah. Lindsey Graham went full Trump, man. Your pals have changed. The people have changed. Yeah. After allowing Texas' abortion ban to stand, Justice Amy Coney Barrett defended the Supreme Court this week claiming they aren't a bunch of partisan

hacks. She also added, and I never got Norm MacDonald. I don't really know why she said that. Meanwhile, Justice Stephen Breyer told Fox News Sunday, I don't plan to die in the court. And then he added, and I never really got Norm MacDonald. Again, for no reason,

complete non sequitur. Stephen Breyer is on such a weird book tour. Awesome. Imagine if you wrote a book, and then in every interview, someone said, will you stop doing comedy for the good of the country? Like everywhere, everywhere Stephen Breyer goes, someone's like, wow, thanks a lot for the book. Can you please leave your job

immediately? That must be depressing. And he's always like, nah, I don't think so. I'm going to keep doing it. I know that people want me to stop, but I don't want to stop. I like my job. Here's the problem. If I stop doing my job, the thing that is the sum total of my life is over, and I'm not ready to accept that, so I'm going to gamble with everything. If I give up this

job, I have to confront the fact that I now know the sum total of my contributions to the American experiment. And if I do that, I have to come to grips with the fact that I might die soon.

And I don't want to. Not interested. I'm going to keep doing it. And I know that quite recently, my colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg tried the same thing and she died just too early. And that fucked up a lot of shit.

In fact, if she lived a little bit longer or retired a couple years earlier, women would still have basic rights in Texas. But I don't think about problems as being real. I think of them being fun thought experiments. Because my job's about thought experiments. And so I just sit in my little computer and I think, what if we did this?

And what if we did that? And logic and philosophy and different rules. You think he sits in his computer and thinks that? I think there's a computer in the room. I think there's a computer somewhere. There's a computer keeping him alive. Stephen Breyer, it's time to retire. All right. I say it every week. I don't think he listens. Can I tell you something? I have repeatedly tweeted something along the line. Whenever there's an article about Mitch McConnell saying, I will turn this Supreme Court into a rabbit right wing group of monsters and nothing can stop me. I always tweet, hey, will somebody show this to Justice Stephen Breyer where he lives in outer space? That's just a go to for me.

And then the other day he gave an interview where he said, I just want everybody to know that there's a lot of considerations, but I don't plan to die on the court and I don't live in outer space or anything. And I have this little fantasy that I'm bullying Stephen Breyer and I don't think it's true. You're trolling him. I don't know. You're trolling him, you think? I have this fantasy that my terrible tweets are getting on Stephen Breyer's nerves. And while I deep down know that isn't

true, sometimes it's just enough to keep me going. You know, it may be that like your tweets are actually the inspiration that just keeps him alive and just keeps him like, I'm not going to die on this court. It may be that. Do you think it was a mistake when my friend dared me to run up behind Ruth Bader Ginsburg and say, boo. Meanwhile, on Monday, a day before the results of the California recall election were slated to exist, Larry Elder's campaign promoted a website that said they detected fraud in the results before the results. This website reminds me of the film Tenet, which is that it only makes sense if you got paid to make it. Azif, I have a joke in the style of Tenet. All right. Are you ready?

Yeah. All right. This is experimental. This is this is over my head because in the style of Tenet. All right. Are you ready? All right. This is experimental. This is over my head because I don't know Tenet. Here's all you need to know about Tenet. All right. It goes backwards. Okay. That's it. Sometimes you go backwards.

Sometimes you go forwards. Like Benjamin Button. Sure. The point is some characters move backwards through time. Some characters move forward through time. But it doesn't make sense. Why would it? That's the gist. And I would just say it's on HBO Max and, you know, check it out. Yeah. Here we go. This is we've raised the difficulty because you haven't seen Tenet. Here we go.

Kenneth Branagh's Russian accent in the film Tenet. Marco Rubio, who said once Trump couldn't be trusted with nuclear weapons, called on General Mark Milley to resign because he didn't trust Trump with nuclear weapons. Marco Rubio, this guy is less consistent than... Am I supposed to make a Tenet reference right now? No. It already came earlier. Oh. I get it.

I get it. I just want you to know something else. Cut all this. Cut all this out. We must leave it in. And let me tell you why. There was a conversation, Hallie, Brian, Kendra.

Nobody was for this joke. No. There was no champion for it. They said he might not have seen Tenet. That's exactly what they said. And then it will not work. That's exactly what they said. Because then it will not work. That's exactly what they said. Because you will just embarrass him and embarrass yourself.

And I said, I said, nah, come on. Everybody's thought Tenet. Who didn't see Tenet? They were like, please retire. For the good of the country. Please stop this show. Please stop the show. Don't do it. I'm not going, please stop this show. Please stop the show. Don't do it.

This is going great. I'm not going to die on this podcast. I just did. I just did. I just did. No, that's too bad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't seen it.

Yeah. Don't you apologize. All right. But now that you've explained it, it's really funny. You know what I also could have set up earlier? Probably would have helped, too. Kenneth Branagh is in the film. Oh, is that right?

Terrible Russian accent. It's always like this. Oh, it's worse than mine. Honestly, my standard for whether I should be doing my Russian accent on the show is the one Kenneth Branagh does every time he does a Russian accent. It's more caricature than my Yuri Gagarin. Trinidad's health minister had to come forward to denounce the rumor spread by Nicki Minaj, explaining,

As far as we know, at this point in time, there has been no such reported either side effect or adverse event. Here's my problem with this, all right? Do I believe that Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend got swollen balls from the vaccine? I don't. But I also don't believe that the Trinidad health minister knows about every case

of international swelling balls. All right. I don't think he has that kind of data. I don't think that that is collected or organized. I want to pitch to Netflix the limited series that is about

the Trinidadian health minister trying to figure out if there have been any testicular swelling cases anywhere in the world. And making those calls. It's not calls. It's Cinderella. You walk around and you look for the balls.

It's like, I saw the biggest balls I've ever seen the night I was supposed to pick my prince. But I could just see the Trinidadian health minister calling his counterparts in Denmark and Germany. So then Tucker Carlson made an on-air appeal to Nicki Minaj's cousin for him to step forward. Unveil the balls. But then the next day,

Tucker had to go to the airwaves to set the record straight, saying, Nicki Minaj's cousin's testicles are not swollen. As far as we know, he's fine. It's Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's testicles who are swollen from taking the vax. Now this is integrity. But don't you think this is like

this is like the thing where you say to your friend like, listen, I have a friend and he's got these giant balls. Giant balls. And you want to be like, it's you, right? No, no, it's my friend. It's my friend. Buddy, it's you.

I get it. I get it. You have the giant balls. It's like, you know, it's that kind of where he made up a friend. I think someone out there got chlamydia two weeks before his wedding, made up a lie. And then all of a sudden, Tucker Carlson is talking about on Fox News, the absolute hands down worst case scenario for a lie. The absolute worst scenario for a lie is you tell a little lie and then you think, what's the worst that could happen?

His cousin, Nicki Minaj, finds out. What are the odds of that? What are the odds that if I make up this little story to keep my wedding on the books, even though I had sex with someone who had chlamydia, which in turn gave me chlamydia, what are the odds that my friend tells his cousin who tells his cousin, Nicki Minaj, and creates an international firestorm surrounding misinformation around the vaccine? What are the odds? They're remote. They're remote.

The point is, I'm glad Tucker Carlson corrected it. I'm just glad that Tucker Carlson has taken this story so seriously and really dug deep and really like taken a hold of those giant balls and run with it.

As Tucker Carlson might say, good night and good luck with your fucked up balls. Following the country's collective dry heave last week, CBS's The Activist will be reworked from a reality competition into a documentary special. Which is sort of annoying because I invented six wig reveals to stop climate change and now I'll never get to use them. You know what I mean? Here's something that I wanted to have an opportunity to say out loud. Hey, Greta Thunberg, Malala, I didn't come here to make friends, bitch.

I came here to win. That would have been great. Would have been great. See Greta and Malala just go fisticuffs. I just like Malala straight to camera being like, honestly, Greta is a little bit cocky after the last challenge, and I'm afraid she's not taking this week's event, which is a comedy roast, seriously enough. Because when we did our practice with Bruce Valanche, he was not laughing.

And she's walking around focused entirely on her look. But girl, don't worry about your look. You have to tell these jokes to Rue tomorrow. So Malala came up to me and she was like, what should I do in my speech? I'm not sure if I should try to be comedic

or try to go for serious. And I told her that she should try to be comedic because honestly, I don't think she can pull it off. And frankly, she's tough competition. Sorry, Malala.

We may be friends here, but like I came here to fucking win. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has started a company that is loosely based on the drag queen Fifi from, I believe, season four of Drag Race. You're welcome, everybody.

Apple co-founder Steve. And what sucks about that is later I'll be watching the episode at home with Malala because we'll be friends after the show and then all of a sudden she'll see me in this moment being such a fucking asshole.

And she'll be like, I trusted you. Oh, yeah. I trusted you. I thought we were friends. We're hanging out post-filming, and now I'm seeing this. And it's going to be really awkward in the reunion that they all have after a year. Malala's crying like,

I thought we were girls. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has started a company called Privateer to clean up space debris. If cleaning up trash in outer space is your goal, start with that Independence Day sequel. Nicely done. Also, this week, Billie Eilish wore Oscar de la Renta to the Met Gala on the condition that they swear off using fur in perpetuity.

She said, if you wear fur, you're the bad guy. Nice. Nice. I think it's cool that she did that uh she seems like she really got them to uh uh capitulate it's also such a quaint issue to me fur it's like from a pre-climate change era of activism like it's like back when we used to have animals yeah oh you're gonna save one mink there's like no are they any left right sorry oh you stop one mink from being a coat bad news they. They all drowned anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what's happening with the mink minks. It doesn't matter. And finally, German scientists have successfully trained cattle to use a special cow toilet in an attempt to reduce the industry's environmentally toxic urine waste. This is part of a new policy called the green moo deal wait cows are using toilet nice

i am i'm not gonna i i almost let it go sorry you know what you deserve props for that no but you were my brain my brain is like wait a minute cows are using toilets because i can get my 18 month old to use a fucking toilet so. So I hope my wife doesn't find out that cows are actually using toilets. She's going to fucking freak. Yeah, I think they figured out how to get these cows to use a toilet. Wow. But now to get these bulls to lift the seat. Am I right?

Hey, hello. Hello. You got good writers. I hear them laughing. That's what their job is, actually. Yeah, to laugh, to laugh. Azif Manvi, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. When we come back, Ezra Klein. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. He is an opinion columnist for The New York Times, the host of the Ezra Klein Show and a resident of California. Please welcome Ezra Klein. Ezra, it's good to see you. Good to see you too. A resident of California. I like that being in my bio now.

Most important aspect for today. I also do want to say before we start, I have been loving the podcast. I think it has been so great. And one of the things that you've been talking about a lot, I think, is the kind of intersection of polarization, principles of of nightmare funhouse mirror plebiscite to replace a Democratic governor in a Democratic state with a right-wing radio host. What a victory. There have been many hot takes, but as someone who has, I think, been thinking about what makes California a tough place to govern and what direct democracy does

to California. What was your reaction to this tremendous victory? Just want to note that Nightmare Funhouse Plebiscite was actually the name of my college band. It didn't really take off. Good, good. Look, I appreciate this lane, this softball that played for me. Back in early July, I published a column at The Times. And so the top of the column was what got the news attention, right? It was sort of these early polls showing that you could have Newsom lose a recall, not because Californians wanted him out, but because there was a disproportionate number of likely voters who wanted him out.

Republicans were more enthusiastic and at that point paying attention. That changed as we got up to it. But it was the back half of the column that was really important to me because the recall to me shows why a lot of California's governance outcomes don't end up the way you want them. And a lot of this goes back to this early progressive period, you know, Haram Johnson, early 20th century. And what you have happening then is railroad interests have completely bought the entire governance structure of California. They own the legislature. They own the governor.

And so Johnson and others build a bunch of direct democracy ideas into the California political structure. You have the recall. You have initiatives, right, where you can put propositions on the ballot and vote them in. You could also do the same thing, referenda, on laws. I mean, the citizenry can take out laws. Now, the problem with this sort of theorizing about direct democracy is it implies a citizenry

that wants that much constant involvement back and forth in the going-ons of politics, which if you are somebody who believes in democracy, and I am very much somebody who believes in democracy, it is uncomfortable to say it doesn't work. It is uncomfortable to say that this stuff doesn't work. But what actually ends up happening again and again is good ideas to promote democracy decay. And I really want to emphasize the word decay into avenues that organized interests and non-representative actors used to impede democracy or overturn a more representative form of government. And this goes all the way down

to the local level. A lot of California's housing problems, its problems building something like high-speed rail, come because partially there is a strain of progressivism that is so afraid of a captured government that it fractures power, tries to say the way we're going to keep organized interests from having power is create all these avenues for direct democracy. And then the organized interests, which can be anything from just local homeowners all the way up to, say, Uber and Lyft rewriting how their own employees will be looked at into the state constitution, they organize and use these avenues that other people are ignoring.

And the recall is almost an example of that. Yeah, I feel like there's two pieces of that. One is the kind of the ways in which direct democracy rewards people with money and people paying attention. And the other is veto points, just sort of veto points in the system that would exist under our current structure, regardless of whether or not something comes up for a referendum. But I do think what they both have in common, and you've talked about this as well, is it like, it relies on this, as you said, like this myth that like, everyone's going to pay attention. And if everyone's going to pay attention, it's going to work. Now, that was always, I think, a problem. I don't think you can point to any point in our history where this direct democracy was like, running really well. But I don't think it's a coincidence that we've had

many efforts to recall a governor in this state, but the only two that have been successful, at least to go into the electorate, one of which obviously resulted in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have taken place in recent years as our kind of information systems have become more fractious and fractured. What role does our current kind of information ecosystem and the kind of noise in it make this direct democracy problem worse? So one thing people who study California democracy will tell you is that one reason these things have become more effective and more constant is that an industry has arisen around them. That for a long time, they were just there. They're in the Constitution.

People used them. Sometimes interests used them. But it's only in the past four or five decades that a real industry in California, practically in the last 30 years, has arisen that knows how to do this. So you pay money and they get you the signatures you need to get on the ballot. You pay money and they get you on TV, right? And so those two things are really important. When you're trying to get, I think it's 12% of the people who voted in the last election to get the recall. That's really difficult before you have mass media. But after you have mass media and TV and people you can pay to get the signatures, then it's

not just a question of enthusiasm. Then it's not a question of popular uprising. Then it's a question of taking advantage of pre-existing partisan or paid networks in order to push us forward. You're advertising on Facebook. You're advertising on Facebook. You're advertising on YouTube. You're using all these ways to reach people, such that a 12% threshold, that meant one thing to reach in 1942, and it means something very different in 2021.

And so I'd say it's the convergence of those things, partially party polarization, but more, I think in this case, more significantly, it is a true consultant and California political class. You can just pay off to do this with mass media that makes it a lot easier to reach the thresholds you need to get the stuff on the ballot. All of this sort of these challenges in governing are taking place in a state that now has a super majority of Democrats in the legislature, has a Democratic governor. I feel like Republicans and maybe Tories have like roughly the same amount of power in this state at this point. And like, it feels almost like a fantasy for engaged progressives, like a world without Republicans. And yet, there was a piece in The Atlantic this week, I believe, by two housing advocates, Daryl Owen

and Mohamed Al-Meldin, that basically said why Afghan refugees aren't actually welcome in California. And I thought it did a really great job of capturing both our practical challenges and the kind of mind games progressives have to play in California, basically saying it's all well and good if you put a refugees welcome sign on your lawn in California, but they're not welcome because there's no housing, because it costs way too much, that there are very few places in California that the government suggests is a good place for refugees to come because there's very few places where anyone can afford housing. What do you see as a way of unlocking this disconnect? Because I think it's something that's at the core of so much of the kind of sclerosis in this state, this progressive mindedness in the abstract. kind of sclerosis in this state, this progressive mindedness in the abstract, and yet anti-housing policies, nimbyism, the failure to build, we can only get a high speed train from Bakersfield to

Merced, a route I can't wait to travel. Do you see anything that is sort of unlocking that kind of, I think, basic hypocrisy in California? A little bit. Oh, how long do we have, man? Okay, so I wrote a piece a couple months back called California's Making Liberals Squirm. One good thing about living here is that it forces you to focus on problems of progressive governance, where if you just watch the national scene, you'll focus really on just problems of Republican governance, because they're so much worse at the national level. But one of the things I argued in that piece is that a problem in blue states, and specifically in California, is what I called symbolic liberalism and operational conservatism. And what you're getting at here with the refugees is perfect. You walk around San Francisco,

where I live, and every house has that sign, you know, in this house, we believe science is real, and everybody is welcome, and feminism is for everybody, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And everybody is not welcome if they can't afford homes. And in San Francisco, where the median home price is about $1.4 million now, they can't. And that's why San Francisco, whatever its politics, is actually not a welcoming place. It's actually not on, I believe it was a State Department, though I could be wrong on that list of the top 100 most welcoming cities for refugees. They can't live here. Now, that has a lot to do with these dynamics I talked about earlier. It's not that symbolic liberalism, operational conservatism is always and everywhere an ideological phenomenon. Often it's because you fucked up

governance so bad that you can have whatever liberal views you want, you can't get anything done. I mean, there's a lot of symbolic liberalism and operational conservatism nationally because of the filibuster. Democrats might want to pass a voting rights bill, but unless they get rid of the filibuster, they cannot. So the one thing I will say is that compared to eight months ago when I wrote that piece, there is some real, some real movement. And this is somewhere where the mass media fails. I wrote a piece right before the recall, and I talked to Gavin Newsom for it.

But before I talked to Newsom, I began really just running through the Democrats' record in California. And actually, in the past year, and it's really been in the past year because of the surplus. And I think Newsom had a pretty slow start and was mishandling the legislature. And a lot was going wrong, you know, even eight months ago. But man, there's a lot of governance. So as of this week, Newsom has signed, I believe it's SB 8, 9, and 10 are the ones. But in particular, SB 9 does something I never thought I would see, which is it ends single family zoning in California. Ends it. Like, there is no more single family zoning in California.

You can cut everything into duplex and cut any lot into two. And so you can basically get four homes on any lot. That's a big deal. The other ones have smaller but still significant effects. They just put $12 billion. California is a giant fucking surplus right now, just giant. They put, I think it's $12 billion into housing for the homeless over the next two years. They just passed a thing to make transitionary kindergarten, which is simply a new grade

for four-year-olds, universal by 2025. There's actually a lot happening all of a sudden. But my worry about all this is implementation. Newsom and the Democrats have passed a tremendous amount of policy just in the past year that if it all comes to pass, it'll make California really the kind of thing Democrats nationally are hoping to achieve. It will make California much closer to what it always promises to be, which is a beacon for progressive governance. There's really important health care policy in this package. There is really important housing policy. There's really important climate policy,

huge investments in electric car charging stations and batteries and climate resilience. But you gotta be able to build it. And High Speed Rail is a great example of, you can pass it, but you can't build it because of the way we do lawsuits in the state, because of the way we've broken up decisions over local zoning and what can go where.

There is a divided soul in liberalism. It's a good book actually just came out called Public Citizens, which is all about this arising in the 70s. But it's like there used to be this New Deal coalition, which had real problems. It was this coalition of labor, business, and the government. But the issue is like government's going to do stuff. And then there arises this sort of public citizen movement, Ralph Nader, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring.

And it's saying a big part of the problem is government is doing too much. It's cutting up neighborhoods. It's doing things that are toxic in the waters. And it begins to create ways to check government. And it's not that they were wrong on everything. But at this point, the pendulum has swung back too far. And government is overly checked. So even when it wants to do good things, when it wants to build a high-speed train, when it wants to do more urban housing, et cetera, it's too easy to stop it from acting.

And much of that is because of a dynamic in progressivism that we don't talk about that much, but that fears government itself and has created structural ways to stop it from acting. So if that's going to change that refugee thing you're talking about, and they are trying to change it, they really have passed a lot, but you got to somehow begin to overwhelm all these pieces of it. And you've got to change the way power is actually handled in blue states. I think it's actually symbolic and good that these housing reforms are some of the, I believe the first thing Governor Newsom has signed since repelling the recall. But I do think that you start to see it are some of the, I believe the first thing Governor Newsom has signed since repelling the recall.

But I do think that you start to see it in kind of the local news coverage of what it means to get rid of single family zoning. There's already that kind of fear mongering that changing the character of the neighborhood. And it is going to be interesting to see how that actually looks in practice, what the kind of limits at the local level, or even just sort of the practical realities of getting, because I believe in this law, right, you have to have owned it for three years before you're allowed to subdivide it into duplex. Like there are these kinds of, I don't know, rear guard action against some of these changes in these laws already. Totally. I don't think by any means SB9 is going to change everything. I laughed a bit while you're talking. I live in a duplex. Come on, people. It's going to change the quality of your neighborhoods. Fuck off. Duplexes. What? Some people live in the other part of that. It's fine. But the point you're

making, one thing I do think has made me a little bit more optimistic about housing policy in California just this year is that, look, you served in government. What you sometimes need to get a change, it happens slowly, but it is a long period of convincing everybody in the game the change is coming and they have to get on board some way or another. And you don't get the big bang change you want all at once. But over time, if you are able to convince everyone of it, then they begin getting on board. And something I'm seeing in California specifically, look, what I'll say about California is because so many people live here, because the media actually is interested in here, because Crooked is out here, and there is attention to the problems here. And Jerry Brown did not do much on housing. I think it's a real failure of his, I want to say. But Newsom, who's moved more slowly in many ways than I like, SB9 should have passed a year ago,

not this year. It should have passed a year ago and it failed right at the end because of shenanigans from the Speaker of the Assembly. But he sued Huntington Beach and then put, I think it was, if I'm not misremembering the number, 46 or 47 other counties under threat of being sued because he said they weren't aligning with state housing law. He has dedicated the entire 2020 state of the state to housing and interrelated issues. And I'm beginning to see that move. After years and years where there was pressure but no movement, I think everybody kind of gets now that if you want state money, if you don't want to be seen as a villain in progressive politics, that you're going to have to figure out some way to at least seem like you want to build, like you want to create some alternative to the housing

encampments. And that matters. It's just aligning the forces takes time. This was my big fear about the recall. You know, there are people who argued, whatever, like Republicans win the recall. It's a wake up call to Democrats. They can't get anything done because, you know, they'll be checked by the legislature. I didn't agree with that for a bunch of reasons. But one big reason I didn't agree with it is things are finally starting to move here on some of the really hard issues. And it's taken time to align the interest groups, the politics, the players, the commentary, the pressure. And to interrupt that force when it is finally governing would have been such a shame. I don't know if it will succeed. I've been paying attention to housing politics in California for a minute now. This is the first time there's any chance of it succeeding. And the SB9 group that just passed, that is the first big group that passed.

And so there will have to be more, but people get that. The machinery is finally going. And I mean, that's exciting. That's exciting stuff. We'll see if it works, but I think people understand that you can't just be recalcitrant on it anymore. I think that's a hopeful note. Ezra Klein, thank you so much. So good to see you. Always a pleasure. You know, hopefully I'll see you on the, you know, look, you'll go to Merced, I'll go to Bakersfield, and we'll meet in the middle. We'll meet in the middle. We'll be going so fast.

So fast. We'll just wave each other as we pass. Exactly. Thank you so much to Ezra for being here. When we come back, we have an interview with a representative of the Texas Tourism Board. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Texas. Between climate change-fueled weather emergencies, draconian policies that reject the freedom and bodily autonomy of human beings, and the refusal to take steps to stem the tide of the pandemic, the Lone Star State's brand may be getting bigger, but it's not better. But that can't stop the enthusiastic head of the Texas Tourism Board, Ash Wrangler.

Autry, Ash, I'm so sorry to see that Tropical Storm Nicholas has left hundreds of thousands of people without power in your state. What are elected officials doing to help? Thanks for having me, John. Well our dear senator ted cruz released a heartfelt statement expressing his sympathies and it was on a piece of stationery that said i'm does at the top which is the cuban word for hope i don't i think that so first of all i don't cuban is not a language i think he just might be at a resort my friend friend. Agree to disagree. Well, perfect. I mean, that's one less person crowding up San Antonio's beautiful river walk. Say, John, have you ever been in a sidecar? You can tour the city walking one. Wow. Really? Yeah. That sounds pretty good. I haven't. Well, it does sound fun. It does seem,

though, that Governor Abbott and state legislators are passing a lot of laws that are terrible for actual Texans, like this new gun law, which even law enforcement opposes. Do Texans really want gun owners to be able to open carry without a license or any training? It's like they say, John, everything's bigger in Texas, including our fear of being accidentally shot by a stranger. But that's just part of the experience. Just like your experience visiting beautiful Waco, Texas to see Chip and Joanna Gaines' Magnolia Market. Nice people. Cool church they

go to. Very accepting. Say, John, do you like shiplap? Yeah, I'm a human being. I love it. But Ash, here's what I don't love. All right. Your state's new restrictive voting law. How can Texans be part of a free and healthy democracy if Abbott is intentionally making voting more difficult? Now, John, who can worry about whether or not they're allowed to vote for the future of their state when they are soaring through the beautiful blue sky at Plano's annual Balloon Festival races? Tell me, John, you ever been in a hot air balloon? Like 12 times, but I feel like you're not listening to me. Ash, I know it's your job to be a booster, but what about the new restrictive Texas abortion ban,

which the Department of Justice is already suing over? But if you think about it, John, you use that noggin of yours, that's great for tourism, too. Tourism to states like Louisiana or New Mexico, where women can still obtain reproductive health care. Plus, I bet they have their own hot air balloon festivals and city walks. How cool is that?

I feel like you're ignoring my questions to promote local festivals. Speaking of local festivals you're not speaking of local festivals are you interested in a trip to the planet of mars absolutely what a transition no i frankly because it takes off from houston right no i see what you did there i see it look you don't have to go to space i don't have to go to space. I don't have to go to space. I'm not going to go to space. You and I are going to die right here. You bet.

And our bones will return to the earth of the only dang planet we'll ever know. But Elon Musk might, and he lives right down the street from me. Sure, SpaceX bought all the land around my house to start practicing landing booster rockets. But it is a small price to pay for economic growth. Is it? Because that's another thing that's bigger in Texas. Tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest humans in the literal history of society. It's a little, I'll be honest, you seem like a very positive person by nature. It's a little bleak. It's a little bleak to me. Imagine you promoting

Texas tourism from inside your house while booster rockets are crash landing on the land all around your home. It is better than the 4th of July. Beautiful. Ash, I am sorry, but this is, like,

you have this wonder, effervescent, if I can say that. I hope you don't take this personally. I'm like a ginger ale. You're depressing the fuck out of me. You're saying all these positive things, but it sounds like the average Texan is living in a kind of hellscape right now to have the Republican establishment strip away their rights, make their state more dangerous while providing incredible benefits and tax breaks to the richest human beings on Earth.

No, I've done it now. Oh, Lord, you're right, John. John, I keep trying to distract myself with trips to Houston's wonderful Museum of Natural History or walks through Fort Worth's gorgeous Botanic garden, but I can't. I mean, the San Antonio Riverwalk only exists because the city is a floodplain and they had to change the course of the river

to avoid more civilian deaths. Oh no, is that true? Yes! Have you heard a dang thing I've said? I'm very knowledgeable about Texas, John. You are. Each city. You are. I'm very knowledgeable about Texas, John. You are. Each city.

You are. Wait until you hear about Corpus Christi. Okay, I'm sorry. You're right. You are. I don't mean to. You're very, very knowledgeable. I see that.

I see it. I'm a Texaspedia. Yeah, you got a lot of facts. You are. You're a Texaspedia. Now, John, let me ask you this. Have you ever had real barbecue? Yeah, I've had barbecue.

We have barbecue in California. We got barbecue all across this country. You know that, right? No. Shut up. Let me think. We've got stuff that isn't bad, right? The Alamo.

Ash Wrangler Autry, everybody From the Texas Tourism Board If anyone sees Ted Cruz Down in Tulum, could you please tell them to call me back Because I got about 30 to 50 Wild feral hogs trapping me in my home And you stay out of my recycling bins Grimes, I named six of them Grimes

Ash, thank you so much When we come back, something else And also, just a shout out to Michael Hartney Who did an incredible job, that was so funny Thank you so much, if you so much. When we come back, something else. And also, just a shout-out to Michael Hartney, who did an incredible job. That was so funny. Thank you so much. If you see him, if you see Michael Hartney, you tell him. I'll let him know. You'll let him know.

You'll let him know. When we come back, Keep It's Own Louis Vertel is here to face a quiz about the Emmys. Okay. And we're back. On Sunday, the Emmys will celebrate another year of amazing, fresh, innovative TV. I'm assuming. I am currently watching RuPaul's Drag Race from the beginning, so I have no idea. I don't know what's going on.

Is that so? Really? From the beginning? Yes. And I actually, this is going to be the first time I'm mentioning on this podcast, in part because I am worried about spoilers. And actually, I'm worried about even saying I'm worried about spoilers because of the Freudian death drive that is so infused in our culture. I find that when you tell people don't

spoil something, even forget Twitter, in real life, there is this kind of need to destroy this urge to ruin that people can't fully overcome. And so they'll say, it's not a spoiler, but you'll really hate the ending. And you're like, well, that is a spoiler. Wow. That is a spoiler. This is among your most nihilistic takes. I feel like I'm reading Grendel again. But I'm on season six right now. Oh, wonderful season.

One of the best. Look, here's the thing. I just finished season five. And all I'll say is at the peak of that season, I would have killed for Jinx Monsoon to protect her from those other queens. Oh my god, the viciousness of that season. The viciousness. That particular year, I was working for

Logo, and I would interview the eliminated queen every week. What? I didn't know this. And I just wanted to scold people. I just wanted to be like, how could you create such an environment? And yet I love so many people on that. And so many of them have since gone on to be legends and stuff. Water off a duck's back.

Here's another bit of trivia. Did you know RuPaul said in 2015 in a BuzzFeed interview that he saw a man drown? That's real. Okay. Anyway, joining me now is an absolute paragon of television knowledge, Jimmy Kimmel writer and Keep it zone, Louis Vertel. Louis, thanks for being here. I don't know how I'm supposed to function

after that tidbit you just dropped, like the world's most evil Snapple cap. Put it on my tombstone. So Louis is going to face down a gauntlet of new and vintage Emmys trivia. Now, he has already done a little burnt biscuits and basically said he considers himself an Oscar savant. And just how do you feel about Emmys trivia? I feel pretty good about it, specifically vintage Emmys trivia. But there's no other way to

put it. There's so much TV right now that I don't, one, care about or two, like haven't really gone around. I mean, I'm looking at best series nominee Cobra Kai. Sorry, girl, didn't get a chance. Here's the question. What is the Kaminsky method? And is it, does it have anything to do with edging? You're not allowed to ask. And also, I mean, also that show has now been around long enough that we've made all the same jokes about Michael Douglas and being all them with the Kaminsky method can mean and have something to do with Catherine Zeta Jones. So it's literally like all those jokes have been made, actually. And I refuse to watch, so I can't help. Here's the thing. I will tell you something. I'll confess something to you now, which is that Netflix has this habit of just putting something on the home screen enough,

until you click on it, basically. They put something on the home screen until you click play. They showed me Michael Douglas. They showed me Alan Arkin. They showed me them together, and I thought, all right, I'll quick play on this. And it's kind of glossy. It isn't shot like a sitcom. And then about halfway through the first episode, I was like, these jokes feel like, am I watching something on CBS? What's going on here?

And then I look it up and it's like, ah, they got me again. Chuck Lorre, yes. Chuck Lorre got me again. Anyway. Though Mom was a pretty good show, if you ever watched Mom. So you put the Yale of sitcom actors on it, Allison Janney, and that's what you get. Moving on. This year, Lewis, thank you for being here.

Yeah, I guess. We'll tighten this up. Okay. Hey, we'll tighten this up, probably. So I'm going to ask you questions about Emmys. Let's see how you do. This year, Ted Lasso received 20 nominations, the most ever for a new comedy, beating out what show that received 19 nominations?

In its freshman year. In its freshman year. Oof. Hint, it premiered in 2009. Ooh. Oh, is that, hold on, it's between two. I like this part. It's either Glee or Modern Family, and I'm going to go with,

based on number of nominations, it could have gotten Glee. He got it. Here's the part. You can literally see the electricity moving through various neural networks and unlocking certain new pathways to get to the answer.

No, truly. You say the word 2009, and I remember the excitement of, wow, Jane Lynch is wearing a tracksuit. I remember the electricity in the air, Jane Lynch is wearing a track suit. I remember the electricity in the air. I feel as though this promotional opportunity was created by some kind of a Norse trickster god because they premiered, if I remember, Glee, the show Glee about a bunch of singing kids at what I think was an all-gay high school. I know that's not right. It was after

the Super Bowl. If I remember, I's not right, was after the Super Bowl. If I remember, I believe Glee premiered after the Super Bowl. It was one episode. And I saw it and I was like, is this a show? Is this a one-time thing? Are they making more of these?

Are they going to sing every week? And the answer was yes. Right. And I was in. Oh, I see. At the time. No, it was a very high concept about a group of 14-year-olds

who were excited about Journey, which was mind-blowing at the time. Only one network or streaming platform was nominated for Outstanding Period Costumes this year. What was it? And name as many of the five nominated shows as you can. Okay, so where is all the period stuff happening right now? I am going to go with, oh, Netflix. And it's got to be The Crown. So we're going back in time.

Jesus Christ, the costume design, huh? I'm thinking, give me a second. I'm toiling. It's happening. A door is open. What is old? Is Cate Blanchett in anything? No.

Electricity moving down a little tube. Now electricity is moving into a new room. And it's like, what's in here? What kind of costumes am I looking around in here? I have no idea, sorry. I hope you get a couple more because it was such good filler. Bridgerton, Halston, The Queen's Gambit. Oh, Ratchet?

Yes. Who is the only First Lady to receive an Emmy and which First Lady was nominated for an Emmy but did not win? I believe one an Emmy is Jackie Kennedy giving a tour of her garden or something. No, the White House.

The famous White House tour. And which first lady was nominated for an Emmy? I assume it was not Melania Trump for her hosting Mad TV. I'm going to go with oh, it's got to be Michelle Obama. It was for Billy on the Street. She was nominated for that? Wow.

For Jackie Kennedy, it was a Special Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Trustees Emmy. But I assume it was because she gave that tour. Here's an impression of that tour. I don't know how good it is anymore. I've done a long time, but it's... Well, what we have here is a little chair. And

it's a lovely chair. Jack loves to sit in it and read and the children sit around the chair. Over here's a piano. We have a piano over here. It's a lovely piano. It's lost and I've lost it completely. It's also 10% Michael Jackson, which I enjoy.

Fuck. Who is the only performer to date who has been nominated for playing the same role in three different television shows? I believe that is Kelsey Grammer. Yeah. What are the shows? They are Frasier. Yeah. Cheers.

Yeah. This is the one. Yeah, right. No, it's much more recent, too. I'll give you a hint. Take Frasier. Yeah. Make them a little more accessible,

and we're not doing psychiatry. We're fixing planes. Oh, wings. That's right. Yes. Wonderful. Crystal Bernard. Oh, we love to spend time in this room.

This is where we sit and we read books and the children like to play. Truly, when you say the word children, it's so Michael Jackson. Truly. I have to say one more thing about Michael Jackson, which is I'm obsessed currently with his interview he once gave about Tommy Mottola and how he was mad at Tommy Mottola. And he starts a sentence and clearly did not have a plan

about how to finish it. And he goes, and he's very, very, very, very devilish. And the way he says devilish should be brought back as a wonderful word. Go ahead. Many have noted that you can kind of see Michael Jackson's change through the album art. Yes.

But I don't think enough attention has been brought to the ways in which you can see the unraveling in the names of the album. Off the wall thriller, bad, dangerous. Then history, past, present, and future, book one. And it's like, we are no longer touching the ground. Gravity is no longer applying. Babies are off of railings.

Things are out of control. And then you follow that up with invincible. Like he says, it's me, Jesus Christ. Let's go back to the show. I thought we were nailing that. Okay, go ahead. I'm going to read you a name, and you're going to tell us which two projects

this person has been nominated for this year. Okay. Sterling K. Brown. Oh, well, he's on that one show, This Is Us. This one's really hard. Oh, God. This one's insanely hard. This one God. This one's insanely hard. This one is unfair.

There's no way. Did he then host The Amazing Race? What else did Sterling K. Brown do? The Emmys or something. I don't know. He did narrate CNN's Lincoln, Divided We Stand. Oh, which I couldn't keep my eyes off of. As you know, when I want to learn about Lincoln,

I need to watch a television series. Gene Smart. Gene Smart for Hacks and Mare of Easttown. Kenan Thompson. Kenan, the television series, and Saturday Night Live. Aidy Bryant. Shrill and Saturday Night Live. Maya Rudolph.

Oh, who already won a couple of Emmys, if I'm not mistaken. So she won for Saturday Night Live. Oh, Big Mouth? Yes. Yes. She's nominated again this year for SNL, and she is nominated for Big Mouth. One person is nominated this year for writing, directing, picture editing, and music and lyrics.

Who? Nicki Minaj. I'm kidding. Let me think. Is it Lin-Manuel for that damn Hamilton shit? It is not. Damn it. But I don't know if this makes sense.

Close. Who's the other Lin-Manuel? Tall. Oh, Allison Janney. I'm kidding. I feel like Lin-Manuel? Tall. Oh, Alice and Janney. I'm kidding. I feel like you'll get it. Tall. A tall writer of music and direction.

Oh, I know it. Yeah. Bo Burnham. Yes. Wait, what is the movie he just... Is it Pretty Young Thing? Is that the movie? Was that a...

Promising Young Woman. Promising Young Woman. Pretty Young Thing is a... Is a Michael Jackson song. You have been brainwashed. This is a lovely room where we have a lot of our smaller family dinners. We like to sit around the table

and children laugh. This is also feeding Ronan's thing of hating the movie Jackie. So you're just like, this is the Ronan hating Jackie complex. I believe I did this a lot around the time of that premiere. Don Cheadle was nominated for his turn

in Disney Plus's Falcon and the Winter Soldier. How many seconds, cumulatively, did Don Cheadle appear on screen during that show? Oh, that is an amazing question, because as we all know, Claire Foy just won for The Crown for a performance that was milliseconds or something like that. I'm going to say, how many seconds total? I'm going to say 91. Wow. It is 95 seconds. Oh, I thought I had it.

That is so impressive. And you all, of course, remember the famous Ellen Burstyn nomination where she's in a scene for literally 14 seconds in a TV movie called Mrs. Harris from the 2000s.

And then it was later retracted because people just, I guess, signed her up because it's uncomfortable not to honor Ellen Burstyn. Didn't Judi Dench win for Shakespeare in Love? For Shakespeare in Love. And she was on screen, I believe, for eight minutes.

Correct. But she's not the shortest win. The shortest is Beatrice Strait for Network, who was on for about five minutes. I forgot that she won for that. Oh, it's so good. And she calls herself the dark horse during the speech, too. That's cool. In 1949, the very first Emmy presented was for Most

Outstanding Television Personality. Who won that Emmy? Ooh, lots of good options. 1949. Because that does seem to predate I Love Lucy. So it feels like it's going to be someone like, oh, I feel like I'm going to be wrong, Milton Berle. No, no, no.

You're knocking on the door of the type of stuff that was going on. No, no, no. You're knocking on the door of the type of stuff that was going on. Oh, Sid Caesar? Getting somehow warmer. Not Dick Van Dyke. Cold. That's way before. Yeah. Someone who's wacky. Yes.

Yes. Jerry Lewis? No, but warmer somehow. Getting warmer. I'll give you another hint. In a sense, it was for a person and a character. God fucking hell, Holbrook is Mark Twain. That's not it. It was ventriloquist Shirley Dinsdale and her pipe sidekick, Judy Splinters. I really was like, who am I not thinking of?

Okay, well, you're a madman. What year did the first African-American performer win an Emmy and who was it? Win an Emmy. I was going to say this is different than women because the first woman to win, I an Emmy and who was it? Win an Emmy. I was going to say this is different than women because the first woman to win, I believe, is Gail Mannix. The first African-American to win. I know Bill Cosby won the first for drama for I Spy, but I bet he wasn't the first winner altogether. Can I get the category? Do you know what the category is? It was for outstanding individual performance in a variety or music program.

Hmm. Geez. Harry Belafonte? Correct. Yes. Nice. You got it. In 1961, an animated show won Best Comedy Series for the first time.

What was it? In 1961, an animated show won Best Comedy. I guess the Flintstones. Correct. Who received the first posthumous emmy for acting posthumous emmy for the first one i am gonna go with oh is it the woman on bewitched who played gladys kravitz not gladys you're so close it's bewitched we're talking about right you got it i i'm not demanding more than this it was marion lorne for her work as aunt clara on bewitched

oh aunt clara on bewitched yes Oh, Aunt Clara on Bewitched. Yes. But then somebody who played the nosy neighbor also died and there's another posthumous nomination there. Didn't Dick Sargent

replace Dick York or Dick York replace Dick Sargent? Dick Sargent replaced Dick York, yes. And Dick Sargent was super gay. Yes.

He and Elizabeth Montgomery were the marshals of the L.A. Pride Parade in the 90s once. Cool. That's cool. And finally, Bob Fosse never egot it. But in a two-month span in 1973, he got close, winning two Tony Awards, an Oscar, and three Emmys,

and remains the only person to have ever won all three in the same year. What projects did he win for? Oh, well, I mean, so that's the year of Cabaret. Correct. That's what he directed, won Best Director for at the Oscars. At the Tonys around that time, I mean, he that's the year of Cabaret. Correct. That's what he directed, won Best Director for at the Oscars. At the Tonys around that time, I mean, he won so many of them. I'm going to guess he won at that time for, is it Cabaret again? No.

Go ahead. Tell me. Pippin. Oh, Pippin. That's the one I forgot. Yes. Three Emmys. It was for choreography and directing on what?

Ooh. Some variety show? Must be. Some variety. A Carol Burnett thing? I, must be. Hmm. Some variety, a Carol Burnett thing? I have no idea. Liza with a Z.

Oh, of course, Liza with a Z's around that time. God, I'm really blowing it today. Sorry, guys. No, you're doing so,

yeah, you make us sick. And finally, finally, how many of the 16 legitimate EGOT winners can you name? We say legitimate

because we're not counting honorary awards. These are competitive awards. Name as many as you can. All right. I'll do my best. Well, you've got your Whoopi Goldberg. You've got your Rita Moreno.

You've got your Mel Brooks. You've got your Robert Lopez, the Frozen Maestro, et cetera. You've got Richard Rogers. Yeah. I feel like I'm forgetting so many oh audrey hepburn yep wow andrew not andrew lloyd weber god there's some other composer some other yeah you got it andrew lloyd weber that's right and i don't know let's see here um tim rice i feel like composers is where i'm falling apart here did i hear tim rice yes oh i. Oh, I just muttered Tim Rice. Yes. Tim Rice.

Yes. Correct. I'm going to give you a hint on one. Okay. If you don't get it, I'll throw a phone at you and fire you. Russell Crowe? No. Oh, oh, wait.

You'll never work in this fucking town again. All right. Oh. I told you. I said I wanted VapoRub. Oh, Christopher Nolan? No. I swear to God.

There are anchovies on this salad, you piece of shit. Now, you go tell the hot twink who I am always nice to to get a better version of this. Oh. I'll give you another hint. In a retelling of what it was like to work there, the only person who ever acknowledged how hostile a place it was was Chris Rock, who, when he saw the looks on the faces of the people who worked in the office, said, You can all relax. I know he hits you.

Scott Rudin? Yes. I didn't realize he was an EGOT, I don't think. I didn't either. That's fucking crazy. Yeah. A beautiful impersonation, though. You're missing.

I'll give you the ones you're... You want to keep going? Or you feel like you're out? You have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. You have nine of 16. You're so close. You are missing, I believe, composers. Oh, wait. Helen, six, seven, eight, nine. You have nine of 16. You're so close. You are missing, I believe, composers. Oh, wait.

Helen Hayes is one, right? Yes. Famous two-time Academy Award winner. John Legend. Correct. Oh, I didn't say Alan Menken, did I? That's another model composer. You didn't.

That's one of the big ones you missed. Big composer. You're missing, I see at least two more music people. I totally have one. Marvin Hamlisch. Correct. Who wrote my favorite song of all time, Nobody Does It Better, sung by Carly Simon.

Pretty good. All right, you are down to one, two, three left. Let's see. I'm going to give you a hint on one of these. Okay. His birth name was Igor. Mike Nichols. Correct.

Lewis, you got 14 out of the 16 EGOTs. Do you want to know which two you missed? Oh, okay. Are you ready to give up? Yeah, I think so. Are you ready to give up? I know I'm forgetting somebody who matters, but go ahead. I'll give you one more hint.

Shakespearean actor. Could it be Mr. Gay himself, John Gielgud? Correct. And there's one more. All right, one more. I don't even know. I've literally never... I'll say this.

I'll confess to you. I don't know who this person is. Is it a composer? Yes, he is a composer. I feel like I can get it. Jonathan Tunick? Correct. Okay. I've seen this list a million times. I should have had that faster. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Shame on you, Lewis. That was pathetic. Lewis, that was incredible. We did not edit out any air when we edited this segment down. What you're hearing is exactly as we recorded it. We did not remove any questions that Louis didn't know, and we certainly did not cut several minutes of me doing a Jackie Kennedy impression. That did not happen. But Louis, that was incredible, sincerely. You are an amazing trivia savant.

It's nice to have one attribute that could be helpful at only this time and no others. And I want you to know, and I want you to hear this, that I forgive you for doing gay news with RuPaul. Okay. People kept saying that was the same thing. Girl, it was not the same thing. And I didn't even think of your shit when I did it. Apparently not. Well, some of us work in television and some don't.

Oh, wow. You ever think about that? Wow. Louis Vertel. Oh, my God. Well, I hope everyone likes the sound of Louis Vertel's voice. You'll never hear him again. What's the line that Faye Dunaway says as Joan Crawford?

I own 51% of this company. Louis Vertel, everybody. That was amazing. When we come back, The High Note. And we're back because we all need it this week. Here it is, The High Note. Hi, Lovett. This is Becca from Boston.

My high note for the week is that I am about to marry my fiancé. And in his dating profile, he describes himself as a straight John Lovett, which was maybe what drew me to him very acutely. But we fell in love and cohabitated during the pandemic, and he proposed to me during the pandemic. You all have provided a lot of light in our lives, kept us informed, and share our values. So thank you, maybe in part, for my fiancé. Bye, Lovett.

Hi, Lovett. Hi, Lovett. This is Ellen calling from the BC metro area. I just wanted to share my high note for the week, probably for the year, potentially for the rest of our lives. My best friend was able to adopt, finalize the adoption of a beautiful little three-year-old boy this week. He spent most of his life in several different foster homes, and now he knows that he has a mommy who is going to be his mommy forever,

and he is going to be her son forever. And it was just the most amazing, wonderful, and fabulous day. So I wanted to share. Thank you so much. Thank you for keeping us safe every week, and we love you, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye. Hi, Love It. This is Jack in Denver.

Look, we all have that brother, uncle, cousin that hasn't gotten vaccinated yet. Fortunately, my brother was one of those people. After trying for months to convince him to take the shot, I was reduced to bribery. So I agreed to fly him with my family to Jamaica for their vacation if he got the shot. And I'm happy to announce that today he got his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and we're going to Jamaica. I truly believe this is going to save his life one day, and I would do anything to save my brother's life, and that's why I did it, and I'm so happy that he

did. Thanks. Hello, John Lovett. This is Lene in Minnesota, and my high note is that for the first time since March 2020, I got to return to my part-time job as an usher at the Performing Arts Center. It was just so nice to catch up with my fellow ushers after a year and a half, and the patrons were excited as well. Employees and patrons were amassed, and it was my job the first night to check vaccine cards as I came into the building to see a team or orchestra performance. I delighted in saying welcome back and may have cried a little bit when the orchestra broke out the box. Thanks so much for everything, and thanks to everyone providing their high notes.

It's just such a real day brightener. Bye-bye. Hi, this is Maddie. I'm from Washington, D.C. I'm an elementary school teacher down here. I am a long-time listener and first-time caller. My high note this week is that my

best friend Grace bought us tickets for your live show in New York. She is the director of operations for an elementary school in New York City, and she works so hard to make sure that kids and families stay safe as they're easing back into school. I can't wait to get to hang out with her and see the live show. Thanks for all that you do. Thank you to everybody who called in with those high notes.

If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 213-262-4427. Thank you to Asif Manvi, Ezra Klein, Michael Hartney, aka Ash Wrangler Autry, and Louis Vertel. There are 415 days until the 2022 midterm elections. Have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, term elections. Have a great weekend. Seglund is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McLean and Marissa Meyer for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And to our digital producers, Nara Melkonian and Milo Kim, Mia Kelman and Matt DeGroot for filming and editing video each week so you can.