Lovett or Leave It - Bolton Bucket List

Episode Date: March 24, 2018

Trump hires John Bolton, congratulates Putin, attacks Mueller, loses his lawyer, and confronts very detailed accounts of marital affairs and efforts to cover them up. Plus, young people lead a march against gun violence, Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook on TV, and Cynthia Nixon it turns out is not the character she played on Sex and the City. Recorded live in DC, Symone Sanders, Wesley Lowery, and Mitra Jouhari join Jon to break down a week of news that somehow seems more packed with crazy than usual, if that's possible.

What is up in D.C. Oh, man. Thank you. It's great to be here at the Improv in D.C. I last stood on this stage in 2010. It's true. In 2010, it's true, where I battled Grover Norquist to be named Washington's Funniest Celebrity. Good for me. The loud response in D.C. is very heartening, but it does make me feel sad because I know the deep well of just dark clouds,

book three Hunger Games, life you're leading in our nation's capital. I mean, it is grim. It is grim walking down the streets in this city now. I lived when I, I don't know if you guys know this, but when I lived here, Barack Obama was president. I was thinking before this show began about a film called The Bucket List. It starred Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. I don't remember the details, but they were older gentlemen. I believe one of them had some kind of an illness, and they created a list, a bucket list, a list of things to do before they died. Now, I have not seen the film, but I

imagine in the end, the bucket list is the friends you make along the way. I raise this only to say that on April 9th, John Bolton will be named National Security Advisor. And, I would

suggest getting out a pen and paper and making a list. I'm joking about it because I don't know what else to do. It is unspinnably grim. John Bolton. Couldn't get confirmed by a Republican. We'll get to it. We'll get to it. We'll get to it.

Full white mustache, 40 years of it. You know how you know you're dealing with somebody who isn't receptive to other people's opinions? Housekeeping. We are in Washington, D.C. Fashion. Fashion capital of the world. How many non-Iron Brook Brothers shirts are we looking at in this room?

It's fine. You guys look great. Who am I to judge? T-shirt, $4, H&M. Literally $4. Do you know how many times somebody has to try something on before they mark it down to $4? And these pants are from Amazon. Guys, the Portrait Mode Contest has gotten an incredible response. Out of 1,000 portraits, we chose 20.

There are four finalists. I believe we can show you. These are the four that have gotten the most votes so far. The voting closes on Monday. They're fantastic. Obviously, podcasts are in audio

format, but trust based on the laughter that the four finalists are very good. We are going to pick a winner. We're going to put some of the finalists onto merch, onto shirts. Some of these are going to look great on shirts. And the proceeds are going to go to PS Arts, which supports arts in public schools in California.

Voting ends Monday. Also, I have to keep doing this. Pod Save America and Love It or Leave It are going to Florida. I don't know why I'm hectoring you people. Clearwater, April 5th. Miami, April 6th. Orlando, April 8th. That's for Pod Save America.

Love It or Leave It will be doing our one and only show on April 6th in Miami. I don't know what to do. What do I need to do to put Miami in the seats? I can't promise cocaine. Just buy tickets. We've got a great show. Tonight's panel includes John Dowd,

Ben Carson's wife, and the other members of Danity Kane. Oh, okay. That's ridiculous. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. None of those people are here. Okay. I'm very excited.

We have a fantastic panel for you tonight for real. She's a strategist who served as press secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign, a crooked media contributor, dear friend of the pod, icon,

Simone Sanders. Greetings, everyone. Greetings. He's a national correspondent for the Washington Post and a phenomenal reporter. Please welcome Wesley Lowery. Hi, Wesley. How are you? I'm pretty good. Good. I heard Simone Sanders was going to be here, and so I decided to show up, and they put me on the stage.

Good. You're just a fan. You're just a fan. Just a fan. She's a very funny comedian who's worked on The President Show and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. Please welcome Mitra Juhari. Thanks for having me.

All right. So as I mentioned, we do have some breaking news. This came in as we were recording this late on Thursday night. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster is resigning he will be replaced by

former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton Fred Kaplan just put up a piece in Slate the title of which is It's Time to Panic Now yeah laugh I guess. I would suggest people check it out

because it really does run through the ways in which John Bolton is a deeply frightening figure, especially in this administration. Simone, I will start with you. Do you agree? Do you think that John Bolton getting this job, is it a time to panic? Yes, it's frightening.

He's a warmonger so literally though i was on um jake tapper's show at 4 p.m and they were asking us about john bolton visiting the white house and would this be another firing and jake goes well progressives aren't necessarily fond of of john bolton and i was like that's kind that's a nice way to put it, Jay. But no, he is a warmonger who thinks that the war in Iraq was a good idea. He thinks that war with North Korea, it should be a first option, not the last option. He could reinstate the draft. These people are crazy. But black women tried to tell y'all.

We tried. We absolutely tried. I mean, yeah, I agree. But I don't think it's time for gloating. You gotta take small wins, okay? It's not like I was like, I disagree with these black women. I'm for this Bolton fellow and anyone who associates with him. What are you pointing that at me for?

I know. Yeah, I was on the same side. I remember where the black women were and I was on their side of the line the whole time. That went for you, John. We know you're standing next to us. You was with us. Solidarity. Intersectionality matters.

It does. It does. Wesley, so Marco Rubio, friend of the pod, he tweeted very positive words about John Bolton. And Alex Perrine, reporter, noted how much the Republican Party has changed because John Bolton was somebody who had to be a recess appointment under George W. Bush

because he was seen as too extreme and too difficult to get the job of UN ambassador, a job less powerful than NSA. So what do you make of that? What do you make of the acquiescence to people like John Bolton in this administration? Sure. Well, I think it speaks to the extent to which this current administration is so abnormal to what we're used to, where people who otherwise would be marginal figures, who couldn't get confirmed previously, the idea of someone like John Bolton being the national security advisor previously would have been actually laughable, not like, ha ha, we're all

going to die laughing, but in a real way, people wouldn't have taken that seriously. But frankly, Marco Rubio might be sitting in his house going, well, at least it's not Bill O'Reilly. At least it's not, you know, like that, for almost every one of these appointments, it'd be almost always the shortlist is like some Fox News host and then some other Fox News host and Bolton is only a contributor and so like perhaps there's

like that's why I'm on TV because I'm just trying to get a job in the next White House. God we got to get you on Fox and Friends. Mitra. Hello. What's on your bucket list now that John Bolton's in this job? All my family's in Iran, so... Awesome! Two of us hide. Call your family. Yeah, so I did knock off going to Iran off my bucket list a couple years ago, and I'm pretty relieved that I did that.

Just to check it out. Sort of just to check it out before John Bolton sets it all on fire. He hates us. He really does hate us, my people. But other than that, he seems like a really cool guy. I'm sort of excited to see what he brings to the table. I'm total optimist about this administration.

I mean, like, just, you know, as soon as they do something bad, I'm out. But... CC every conservative white woman in America. Yeah, I'm really scared. Oh, and also on my bucket list, um... I really want to go to, go to Britney Spears in Vegas. I think we can all learn something from Mitra's open heart. Okay.

Well, you know. You asked. Again, the John Bolton news is quite simple. It's very bad. I'm sorry. The picture I hope you think is bleak, because it is. It is bleak as fuck, because this is what happens when you allow crazy, unqualified people to get into the White House.

This is what happens when we attempt to normalize Donald Trump and the circus. No offense. But the circus that he has brought. Is it no offense to circuses? Yes. No offense to three ring circuses. Yes, no offense.

But this is exactly what happened. So it's bleak. It is bleak as hell. And I just, you know, Lord Jesus, I just hope that he tries to literally, the best thing that can happen to us is he tries to fire Mueller so that someone moves to include, to start articles of impeachment

so that they get him out of here and all his people. Because this is bleak. You just better pray that John Bolton will try to reinstate the draft. Tell Donald Trump that's what he should do and go to war with Iran. Y'all talking about, y'all clapping for Iran. Y'all must not do it that John Bolton will try to reinstate the draft. Tell Donald Trump that's what he should do and go to war with Iran. Y'all talking about y'all clapping for Iran. Y'all must not do it to John Bolton. I think it was the two Iranian people here clapping because there was representation on stage.

It's bleak. But I believe in democracy. And the resistance. Let's get into it. What a week. What else is there to say? So it says here on my card, do not talk about Putin and Mueller in all caps.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted complaining about Mueller directly, saying that, quote, he is the victim of a witch hunt and implied that the investigation should be shut down. Trump's patience with the investigation is wearing thin because on Thursday it was announced Trump's lawyer in the Russia investigation,

John Dowd, would be stepping down because Trump was no longer listening to his advice. And as Dan and John discussed this on the Ponce of America this week, which is, do you know how bad a client you have to be as president of the United States to be fired by your lawyer? Like, being the president's lawyer is a cool job for a lawyer, right? Like, usually they're just representing multinational corporations in decade-long trademark disputes. So you got to be a shitty client as president to get fired. According to Vanity Fair, Trump is ecstatic about the idea of finally doing it, quote,

his way. I don't know if you were aware of this, but until this point, Trump has been really hamstringed, really feeling constrained and unable to be himself. That's not all. Vacation photo enthusiast and dictator Vladimir Putin won a sham re-election. Then Trump called Putin and congratulated him on winning that election. He later called the Harlem Globetrotters to congratulate them on their victory over the generals. Just a few hours later, however, word leaked out via the Washington Post that Trump's advisors

had given him notes for the call that included in all caps the phrase, quote, do not congratulate. The response to me was pretty fascinating. John McCain said, quote, an American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. Or does he, Senator? Seems as though that's incorrect. However, Republicans like Marco Rubio and many others said that congratulating Putin might be bad,

but leaking is even worse. He tweeted, quote, I don't agree with congratulating hashtag Putin. But the bigger outrage is this leak that could only come from someone at POTUS's inner circle. If you don't like president, resign. But this ongoing pattern of duplicity holds potential for serious damage to the nation. Wesley, I want to start with you on this. What do you make of this Rubio argument around the danger of these kinds of leaks?

It is true that these are extraordinary leaks, right? To see the leaking of briefing materials usually very tightly held, especially in dealing with a foreign leader. Correct. Well, it's like that leak very early on in the administration where Trump accidentally changed our Taiwan policy because he didn't know the name of the country. And so like, oops, decades of foreign policy. Forget that. or I'm sorry where Trump accidentally changed our Taiwan policy because he didn't know the name of the country right like And so like oops decades of foreign policy like forget that like we're fine right and so it is remarkable. I mean I Obviously whoever is leaking to my colleagues at the fake news Amazon Washington Post should keep doing that Like leak early and often if you want my cell number I, I got you. You're like, we can...

Email on the byline. Exactly, right? But no, these leaks are insane, but the fact that they're leaking is not the insane part. The things in the leaks are the insane part. Yeah, you know, I feel like there's this argument. These are extraordinary leaks. Also, similarly, we saw leaks of the president's calls

with the president of Mexico and the prime minister of Australia. Don't correct me again, Australian listeners. These are deeply unusual leaks, but it feels to me almost like an autoimmune response, that the more dysfunctional and malignant the presidency, the more extreme the leaks we receive from inside the government. And again, Dan and John had a great conversation about this on PSA, which is that what we are seeing is not the usual Trump administration leaks, which are kind of scoundrels and the sort of detritus of the Republican establishment that got jobs in this administration, knifing each other to reporters to protect themselves, right? But that's our usual. That's our typical. That's what we've been dealing with.

This is something else, which is perhaps the career civil servants and the people that work for the National Security Council who stay from administration to administration, saying, guys, this isn't an accident. We tried to tell him. And actually, normally, we wouldn't have to put it in all caps at the top of the briefing memo because usually the president isn't a clinical narcissist with a slowly declining brain rotted from the inside by years of not reading and watching television usually we could just have it in the memo and trust that the president would see it but we were so sure that this dumb fuck wouldn't see it we printed it in all caps and he still didn't see it just to reiterate please keep leaking uh to wesley lowry i mean look as a communications professional someone

that has worked on uh many campaigns and as the communication shop you hate the leaks right because you're like oh my god why do y'all feel like you need to go talk to the freaking reporters speak to me like i've i've given many a plenty of speeches about the next person that feels like they can go rogue and speak to a reporter we're gonna have some issues but i just want to pause and say that felt very real i felt your leadership and i and and it was a kind of leadership that said i don't need to like you but i will respect you this was after we've had the nice conversation. But I feel as though people are leaking from this administration, one, because they feel like they're trying to save the republic,

and we appreciate you, but also because they feel as though that their words are not being heard on the inside of the administration. Folks have probably had conversations with John Kelly and other folks, with H.R. McMaster, with the president, and they feel as though they are not being heard. And so when people feel as though the walls have closed in and their teams are not listening to them,

they go to the press. So I see what is happening. And if there was a real communications director in the White House communications shop or an actual press secretary to do about the press, perhaps they can help fix this. But no one there exists.

Yeah, I mean, also, there's just, it may not be fixable insofar as the professionals trying to provide reasonable advice, like, hey, you should not congratulate someone who just attacked our own election, who is actively committing brazen assassination attempts on our allies' soil, et cetera. You should just be a little colder, you know?

Slightly, yeah. But that's not in his nature. He's like such a warm guy and like... I mean, you heard McDougal tonight. She was like, he's great. I don't understand these reports. He's a great guy. We will get to Karen McDougal, Simone.

I know. You want to talk about it? Please just hold your fire for one. Let's get to the end of the national security portion of What a Week. I promise we will touch upon Anderson Cooper's conversation with Karen McDougal. And can I just say, sort of as someone who loves gossip

and drama, any secrets that anyone might have that has nothing to do with the future of our nation, but it's just like sort of like someone did something gross or someone's actually really mean. You can send those to me. Right. That's really good to keep in mind. Really good to keep in mind. So again, just for those listening, anything that relates to the fate of the Republic, we're going to start with Wesley. However, if it's something like that Gina said to Todd, Mitra is your... Anything petty. So, Simone, one thing that was in this Washington Post story, which was funny, is they know that the president was handed note cards, and then the leakers, the administration officials familiar with the note cards, made it clear to the reporters of the Post that they do not know whether Donald Trump saw the note cards.

question to you. Which is more troubling to you? That Trump saw that people wanted him to not congratulate Putin and to condemn him for the attack in the UK and disregarded it? Or he didn't bother to read anything and just went in with his usual

kind of deference to Putin? Oh my god. I think it's more troubling to me that he saw it and then did not respond. And it makes me feel like he saw it because they said he was furious with the leaks and with the reports. And he wants to know who did it. So he was familiar with the do not congratulate language. The first time he saw it wasn't in the Washington Post, y'all.

That's context clues. We got to put them together. So I believe it was the former that he saw the cards and was like, you know, YOLO. Putin's my guy. We need good relations. We need to foster better relationships with Russia. That's more syllables than he could ever string together. Baby steps.

Mitra, if, and this is hypothetical, if the dictator of a country had in his possession evidence of your financial crimes or perhaps some kind of videocassette containing evidence of micturation, a pee tape, if you will, and then that dictator hypothetically conducted a sham election that he won,

which you knew was rigged, and you suddenly found yourself on the phone with him, what would you say? So yeah, sort of in this hypothetical situation, I'm assuming I'm sort of like a disgusting, like 700-pound, oily, red-faced man kind of crammed into like sort of a baggy suit that is still somehow tight in the strangest places

I'm just assuming based on context clues um I'm assuming there's kind of like a lot of stuff going on in my terrible fucked up life and not a lot going on in my terrible fucked up brain and I assume I'm sort of at like a five-year-old reading level generously. Sort of emotionally ill-equipped to hang with anything, handle anything. So I'd probably be like, congratulations. Cool. Simone, one last thing I wanted to bring up. Now, before the show, we were texting about a CNN interview between Anderson Cooper and Karen McDougal, who alleges to have had a 10-month affair with current White House occupant Donald John Trump. Pretty prurient. It's a tough word to say. Prurient Pretty prurient.

It's a tough word to say, prurient. Purient. It was gross. What do you think? I've never seen anything like it on cable television ever before. It was a special kind of thing that we just saw. It was perhaps the messiest thing I've seen on cable television ever in my life.

It was messy. Because it was Karen McDougal talking about her relationship with the current president. And Anderson was like, did you always use protection? I know y'all didn't see the interview, but go watch it on CNN.com.

Y'all saw it? It was crazy. So you texted me, and I immediately turned on my television. Kudos to Anderson Cooper for asking the questions y'all know y'all all wanted to know. He got down. He got down to what we really needed to know. Got everything out of her. That's some Andy Cohen shit.

I love that. It was so good. It was like a train wreck, Watching her just go on and on And I was like And I was texting you I was texting my good girlfriend On the commercials She was calling me like

Girl did you see it I was like this is a mess It's back on So I immediately turned it on I immediately turned it on I was like what the fuck It's turned it on. I was like, what the fuck? It's so intimate.

Wait, also, what was the answer? To the protection? No, they didn't use protection. She said no. So all I could think about while the interview was going on, I was like, damn, where is Melania? And who is in her group chat right now? damn, where is Melania and who is in her group chat right now?

And I want to just be clear with all of you people. Let's just be honest about what you all want. Because this is the part that I say the most important piece of the story is the fact that there was a concerted effort involving multiple legal teams and the National Enquirer to silence multiple women on behalf of Donald Trump. And the campaign finance implications of that, the legal implications of that, are far more important than these details.

And all of you will nod your heads and you would never click on that story. But if we run with the headline of Anderson Cooper straight to camera saying, this is how it went, y'all, let me just... I was texting some other unnamed people, news people during this, and they were like, this is amazing, I've got popcorn. He was like, no, you don't have to answer this one if you don't want to.

I understand if it's sensitive. I got off my couch, I was like, what are you going to ask her? For those at home, there is only a tiny part of Simone still on her chair. And he was like, did you always use protection? Long pause. She, no. I was like, ah! So while there are children living in rubble in Syria and the Republic might be on the brink of extinction,

I will confess that I wanted to know what Karen McDougal had to say. Sue me. Great place to leave it. When we come back, OK Stop. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back.

Now for a segment we call OK Stop. Here's how it works. We'll roll a clip and when we feel like it, we'll stop it to comment by saying okay stop over the weekend news broke uh that a company called cambridge analytica which is not not the evil conglomerate in a deus ex game uh but an actual business in the world stole the data of 50 million users of a site called facebook.com uh Facebook has come under fire for allowing this to happen and in general for their practices for how they protect our security and our privacy on the site.

On Wednesday, CNN sat down with Mark Zuckerberg, who definitely overprepares to go on television. Let's roll the clip. I want to start with just a basic question, Mark. What happened? What went wrong? So this was a major breach of trust. And I'm really sorry that this happened. Okay, stop.

Stop. So before we get to anything, I just... There's something really... There's something actually, I think, subtly important in the phrase breach of trust, because it tells you just how much Facebook overworks and how much Mark Zuckerberg overworks what he says, that so much of what Facebook does is so mediated by their desire to protect their image, protect themselves, rather than taking responsibility for their product. The phrase breach of trust is a choice, a choice born of a very clearly a conference call.

I can tell. I can tell that it happened on a conference call because the debate going into this interview was whether or not what happened was technically a breach. And Facebook at first said, no, it's not a breach. It was simply data that someone took and then later misused and then people rightly pointed out well if you let the bank robbers into the vault they still stole the fucking money uh anyway so they're like well is it a breach it's not a breach it's a breach of trust right it's too clever by half which is the way Facebook responds to every time they are in one of these situations.

I'd also like to note that prior to the whistleblower, which I also want to caution that we are celebrating the whistleblower because he still facilitated this hostile takeover of our data and weaponized what happened to enable the Trump campaign and others. But Facebook knew that this happened prior to the whistleblower coming out and saying something about Cambridge Analytica. So if you remember, Facebook went before Congress. They went before Congress,

and members of Congress had the chance to ask Facebook questions and demand answers. And in no time or point in time did this breach of trust, quote-unquote, by Cambridge Analytica come up. So it's also like, i'm sorry it's also that um facebook should have in that moment when they were before congress took the proper steps to take responsibility for the totality of what of what happened so they've now let it trickle and leak out and lord knows what else is coming so i think a better just talk about

it from a communications pr standpoint just get it all out there up front. People are already mad about what they thought you let Russia do and how you aided and abetted and didn't understand your own algorithms. So get it all out there up front. Because who else knows? Are there more whistleblowers about more things that we don't know about that come down the pipe? Well, sure. But on the other hand,

Mark clearly read his note cards. It said, say, you're sorry, breach of trust in all caps. It's just out of the screen. And he read them. Facts. I am sick of finding out what Facebook did wrong because I see it on Facebook's phone while Facebook is in the shower.

That is what keeps happening. That's a breach of trust. Facebook deserves better than that. No, I deserve... Keep rolling the clip. You know, we have a basic responsibility to protect people's data and if we can't do that then we don't deserve to have the opportunity to serve people. If you told me in 2004 when I was getting started with Facebook that a big part of my responsibility today would be to help protect the integrity of elections against interference by other governments, you know, I wouldn't have really believed that that was going to be something that I would have to work on 14 years later. I'm going to challenge you.

We're here now. I'm going to challenge you. And we're going to make sure that we do a good job at it. Have you done a good enough job yet? Well, I think we will see. OK, stop. Stop. Lori asked a great question. He should have just gave a direct answer.

Have you done a good enough job? The public opinion is no. So you just might want to side with the public on this and say, have you done a good enough job? No. But we're working on it. And again, I'm sorry. This is a total breach of trust. We know we haven't done a good enough job? No. But we're working on it. And again, I'm sorry. This is a total breach of trust. We know

we haven't done a good job. No cards. And I'm sorry, but we pledge to do better, but it's a work in progress. These are the things Zuckerberg should have said during this interview, and he didn't. Yeah, you know, I actually think that there is a lot of truth. I

take him at his word. He did not know when he started Facebook that it would be involved in the integrity of elections. And I'm actually sympathetic to that. Right. You know, you built this tool for connecting people and all of a sudden it's being abused by foreign governments to influence voters in the Midwest. The people that made the Tide Pods didn't know kids were going to start eating them. How could you know kids were going to start eating the Tide Pods? Right. how could you know kids were gonna start eating the tide pods right how could you know that's maybe a extreme it might be an extreme example i feel as though but i'm just like thinking that through and like i'm definitely very sympathetic to the

tide people so yeah no i actually think from, right. All I'm saying is it's not enough to say, oh, I didn't know that they were going to use this. Like, there are tons of things that are created, that happen, that end up being used for something else other than their original intention. So, like, that matters nothing to me. Like, I think these were poor talking points to answer that particular question.

And I love the people at Facebook. I don't. What you know now, do you believe Facebook impacted the results of the 2016 election? Oh, that's, that is hard. You know, I think that it is, it's really hard for me to, to have a full assessment of that. I can hear the commitment, but since I got you here Okay stop. Shout out to Lori for this interview and the commentary we all have. Lori's like, okay boo. I can hear and see the commitment but um... That is me talking to any guy I've ever hooked up with.

Yeah I can really hear the commitment. Awesome. So what are we? Are you using Facebook at this moment to meddle with the U.S. midterm elections? I'm sure someone's trying, right? And I'm sure that there's, you know, V2 of all, version two of whatever the Russian effort was in 2016. I'm sure they're working on that and there are going to be some new tactics that we need to make sure that we observe and get in front of. Are you specifically seeing bad actors try to meddle with the U.S. election now? I'm not 100 percent sure what that means. How has being a father changed your commitment to users, changed

your commitment to their future and what a kinder Facebook looks like? Well, having kids changes a lot. And I mean, that's what is kind of my guiding philosophy at this point is, you know, and I work on a lot of hard things during the day. I just sort of saw the life leave his body. And I just sort of wanted to capture that moment. Just address it. That's all. It was chilling. This was terrible.

Just ask, will my girls be proud of what I did today? So, no, well, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I want to fight you. Because I agree that I don't think he's a very good... You're a bunch of children. Ill-timed ding, you lose your heads. They didn't prepare for this interview. They did prepare. No, so... They didn't prepare for this interview. They did prepare.

No, so I... They didn't. They spent weeks... They spent time hiding him. So maybe y'all don't know, but Jeff Zucker has his own communications team outside of the

Facebook communications team. Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zucker... Pardon me. Mark Zuckerberg. But Mark Zuckerberg, yes, at Facebook, has his own communications team

outside of the Facebook communications team. So there was an internal squabble happening because Facebook employees and the Facebook communications team, while we were all like, where is Mark Zuckerberg? So was the Facebook comms team. And his communications team was insulating him. They were protecting him, if you will, trying to keep him from this media scrutiny.

So I do not think he was adequately prepared for this interview. I don't agree with that. I don't think what happened here is a communications battle. I agree that I don't think Mark Zuckerberg is a terribly good spokesperson for Facebook. I think that he struggles in that format. And that a lot of people would. A lot of people who would be great CEOs and good at running a company and make a great

product would not be good in that setting. It's a tough setting to succeed in, especially when your company is under threat. I don't think they have a communications problem, and I don't think they can solve it. And I don't even think this is just a Facebook problem. There is a larger conversation we are going to have to have about privacy on the internet. As consumers, we have accepted way too much intrusion, and we have given up way too much power over our data and our information. The fundamental problem that Facebook has is not that there was this breach in 2014 or 13, which they have said is closed. The problem is every time we hear how Facebook uses our data according to the proper rules of Facebook, we find it horrifying. We give up so much of our information.

We have no control over it. We've accepted so little it. We've accepted so little regulation. We've accepted so little protection. And I think it's in part because we feel like it's hopeless. We feel like, well, what are we going to do? What are we going to do to stop these companies from following us around the internet? What are we going to do to stop Verizon from selling our personal information? What are we going to do to stop Apple or Facebook or Google or all these companies that make money off our personal data, though they claim they anonymize it? And it's the government is going to have to step in and start regulating these

companies. And one of the consequences of Facebook's failure to communicate this is they are only accelerating the schedule to the day when we get in there and start protecting consumers by law. I thought there was one answer from him that was the most telling and told me two different things. It was when he said in response, I don't know, I'm sure someone's working on that. Now, on one hand, I thought that's the most brilliant excuse I've ever heard in my entire life. Tomorrow, when my editor goes, so is that article done? I'm going to go, I'm sure someone's working on that. But on the other hand, I think it really underscores the problem, again, not just with Facebook. Facebook is the behemoth or one of the behemoths of these tech companies, but it's one of several, right?

This could be an Apple conversation next week or a Google conversation or it's not even start a Twitter conversation, right? But it's this idea that these companies are completely reactive and not proactive, right? A good spokesperson in this capacity and a good leader of a company like this is going to look you in the eye and say, yes, we're figuring out if they're trying to hack 2018 if they're using our platform. And let me promise you, they're not going to do that. Instead, the answer we got was, I'm sure someone's going to figure that out. That so many of the difficulties we deal with on our online platforms, whether it be gender and sexuality and racial harassment on some of these platforms, whether it be Russian trolling and propaganda on others, are things that these companies know exist. And only when it boils over in public opinion do they begin doing anything to proactively

address those things. And by then, it's a little too late. Yeah, I think that's right. And you see it on YouTube when people search for information related to a mass shooting, and then the first 10 results are conspiracy theorists and false flag operations that say these were all actors. And there's a tension here, which is that they look at these platforms and they say, well, we provided something that is really run by people, right? That we handed something over, whether it's Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. And we said we created something where we believed information should be free. We trust our consumers, our users to create a safe environment. But that just has proven fundamentally untrue that there are enough bad actors to wreck every online platform and make it a cesspool of misogyny and racism and misinformation enough to swamp and ruin any hope of dialogue or discourse or community that they set out

to create to begin with. In a lot of ways, we have put a comment section in charge of the government. And that's okay. Stop. When we come back, too stupid to be true. charge of the government. And that's okay. Stop. When we come back, Too Stupid to be True. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way.

And we're back. Now for a segment we call Too Stupid to be True. We are here in Washington, D.C. because of the kids who are organizing the March for Our Lives this Saturday. Young people across the country have stood up and said, we don't want to be shot at anymore, and also we love SpongeBob memes. I don't get it. You know, this is a march that was created by young people. This is a response that has been driven by young people who have broken the cycle in how we talk about gun violence. This bothers some conservatives, however, who would rather...

It's easier to dismiss these kids or argue that this is some nefarious plot by the usual villains because it's a lot easier to scapegoat George Soros than it is children standing up after they were shot at in their school. So in that spirit, let's play Too Stupid to be True. Would somebody out there like to play the game? Hi, what's your name? My name is Swara Saleh. Swara.

Yes. Cool. Are you ready to play? As ready as I'll ever be. Good. Okay. So three of these statements we're about to read are true, truly said out loud.

One of them we made up. It'll be your job to suss out which one is too stupid. To be true, Simone is going to kick us off with option A. Option A. I got to figure out how I can be away this weekend because half a million protesters are expected to descend on Washington to push for more gun control and quote-unquote school safety. And we're told that each march is basically student-led.

But did students really organize all of this in the five weeks since the Florida shooting? Well, we should all be excited because George Clooney and his wife and his two children are coming because he wrote a check. He just sold that big tequila company. I think he made personally 500 million off that. Not a bad payday. Or is it B? Now, whether you like the kids or like what they're saying, and you may, but you should be opposed to this. Why? Because they're not old enough to have the perspective that adults do. That's why we don't let them vote or drink, or if these protesters have their way, buy guns. This is really simple. This is why teachers aren't allowed to have sex with students, because they're in power and the kids aren't.

Or is it C? There's something you should know about these kids. Their brains haven't fully developed. That doesn't happen until 22, 23 years old. They can't drink legally. They can't smoke legally. They can't even vote. Why are we going to let these children, whose brains aren't done cooking yet,

to decide what to do with our AR-15s? It's lunacy. My daughter wants a puppy, but doesn't mean we'll get one for Christmas. Or is it D? Why would we take a bunch of high school juniors and say that these are experts on gun policy now? They're not experts on gun policy simply because their school was targeted. These are people who have experienced significant pain and obviously we all stand with them and mourn with them in that

pain. They have it to a far greater degree than anybody who is far away, but that doesn't mean that what they are saying on politics is any more legitimacy or has any more expertise to back it. The idea that children are experts on policy because they have greater innocence, no, that means they don't know enough. There's a reason you don't let 17-year-olds define tax policy.

Okay. One of those is fake. Yeah, one of those is different than the other. I am going to go with A. So you think Simone's George Clooney and his check? I think that might be too stupid for someone to actually say. Your answer was A a that's it let's roll the clip fair fair i'm gonna figure out how i can be away this weekend because a half

million protesters are expected to descend on washington to push for more gun control and school safety and we're told that each march is basically student-led but did students really organize all of this in the five weeks since the Florida shooting? We should be all excited because George Clooney and his wife and his two children are coming because he wrote a check. He just sold that big tequila company for like, I mean, I think he made personally 500 million off that. Not a bad payday. Now, whether you like the kids or like what they're saying, and you may, but you should be opposed to this. Why? Because they're children. They're not, but you should be opposed to this. Why?

Because they're children. They're not old enough to have the perspective that adults do. That's why we don't let them vote or drink or, if today's protesters have their way, buy guns. This is really simple. This is why teachers aren't allowed to have sex with students, because they're in power and the kids aren't. Why would we take a bunch of high school juniors and say that these are experts on gun policy

now? They're not experts on gun policy simply because their school is targeted. These are people who have experienced significant pain, and obviously we all stand with them and mourn with them in that pain. They have it to a far greater degree, I'm sure, than anybody who's far away. But that does not mean that what they are saying on politics has any more legitimacy or that it has any more expertise to back it. The idea that children are experts on policy because they have greater innocence,

no, that means that they don't know enough. There's a reason that you don't let 17-year-olds define tax policy. It was C. Suara, it was C. Garbage! Yeah, yeah. Someone shouts garbage. I am, I am.

I believe if I had to interrupt you, C was going to be your second choice. Is that right? Be honest. Don't just tell him to say yes. How the hell would you know? Give it up for Suar. He's lost the game, but he'll get a parachute gift card anyway.

Wow, so chilling to hear an adult use any word like innocence or purity at any point. I hate that. That's interesting. I don't hate it only because I do think one of the problems we have is we've given up all the moral words.

We have. Democrats don't talk about virtue. Innocence coming from an older dude talking about young kids to me is always going to be disgusting. Okay. Agreed. Cool. What if I... Why am I going to fight disgusting. Okay. Agreed. Cool. What if I, why am I going to fight you

on that? When we come back, a lightning round. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back.

There's some breaking news. It's coming right now. It says that there's a witch hunt going on. And not just any witch hunt. A witch hunt in all caps with exclamation points. Seems very serious. Turns out this witch hunt against Donald Trump is one of the worst in American history.

It's so bad, we don't think you'll be able to tell the difference between Robert Mueller's witch hunt and the Salem witch trials. Trump is one of the worst in American history. It's so bad, we don't think you'll be able to tell the difference between Robert Mueller's witch hunt and the Salem witch trials. Hi, what's your name? Allah. Do you live in D.C.? Baltimore. You live in Baltimore. Don't cheer for Baltimore.

All the D.C. people are like, I saw y'all. All the D.C. people are like, uh-uh. True, we don't have Trump, all right? Whatever. We're better. This corner is scowling the fuck out of Ella. I'm just going to help you about how to win the crowd back.

Okay. I don't know how. I've never lost a crowd before. I'm going to say a fact. And if it comes from the Salem witch trials or other witch trials throughout history, say Salem. Okay? And if it's from the Mueller investigation, you'll have to say Mueller. Okay?

And it's going to come fast and furious. Quickly and furiously. And so we're going to play a game called Which Witch Hunt is Which? All right. Alla, you ready? Yes. Let's get that clicking sound

that has actually no function. You can't run out of time, but creates drama. Okay. Largely relied on the admission of special evidence, meaning dreams, visions, or general bad feelings. Correct. Largely relied on evidence and interviews collected by seasoned investigators Salem Mueller Salem Mueller

Salem in lots of different countries. Mueller. After refusing to comply with the investigation, a man named Giles Corey was crushed to death by stones over a period of three days. Salem. After refusing to comply with the subpoena, a man named Sam Nunberg went on a bunch of news shows before he eventually calmed down. You got it. One piece of evidence commonly used

was called witch's teats, which was a mole or blemish somewhere on the body that was insensitive to touch. Salem. One piece of evidence commonly used was called the President's Tweets, which was a public admission of obstruction of justice since millions of people without any self-awareness

or preservation. Mueller. Correct. Anjalee de Barthes was found guilty of sexual relations with the devil and burnt to death. President Trump. No. Salem, Salem, I'm sorry.

Wrong. Mike, too late. Michael Flynn Jr. pled guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperating with the investigators. No. Salem. Salem. I'm sorry. Wrong. Mike, too late. Michael Flynn Jr. pled guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperating with the investigators. Mueller. 19 different people and two dogs were put to death. Salem. Sorry, that was United.

That's it. You won the game. That's it. You won the game. Give it up for Ala from Baltimore. Happy Persian New Year. Woo! Happy Nowruz. Love that.

It's Iranian New Year. Love the Iranian New Year breaking out throughout the crowd. Right here in the front. This is great. Give it up for all, everybody. She'll get a parachute gift card. Take that back to Baltimore. When we come back, the rant wheel.

Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It and there's more on the way. And we're back! Now for a segment we call The Rant Wheel. Here's how it works. There's a wheel and we spin it and wherever it lands we talk about the topic. This week on The Wheel we have Cynthia Nixon who's running for governor. We have self-driving car accidents. We have Trump's new lawyer.

Science Ivanka. Facebook, but I think we covered it. The Austin bombings. D.C. voting rights. new lawyer, Science Ivanka, Facebook, but I think we covered it, the Austin bombings, D.C. voting rights, and, I wonder where they come down on that one, and audience suggestion. Someone shouted D.C. voting rights. Let's spin

the wheel. It has landed on Cynthia Nixon. There are many valid reasons to be critical of Cynthia Nixon. Many. What are her qualifications? Well, a good topic to investigate but the new york times wrote a story that said uh how can she be for uh combating inequality in new york when her character miranda was on a show called sex in the city which highlighted luxury in manh Now, this was frustrating for a couple reasons. One, it was a character. The actors play characters.

They act. They act, and they pretend to be people, and then when we see them, we don't panic. Like, for instance, I don't hold Meryl Streep responsible for the policies in Britain in the 80s, you know, for the strike breaking, et cetera, because she was playing the Iron Lady. She wasn't, in fact, Margaret Thatcher.

There were many reasons to be against Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was the governor of California, but the fact that he came back from the future to murder John Connor's mother is not one of them. And you know what? Cynthia Nixon's announcement had a lot of pictures of trains. And I am very excited for a debate in New York. On the subway.

On the subway and on public transit and on what the fuck has been going on with the MTA because it's a nightmare. It's so bad. And I know D.C. has been dealing with its own train problems. But shout out to Cynthia Nixon, though. Regardless of whatever valid criticisms people have of her, I think the beauty of this country is that anyone that meets very basic qualifications, clearly, can run for

office, and I think that's what makes it great. So that someone like Cynthia Nixon or John Lovett or Donald Trump can run. Don't you dare. Put me in that category. You were the highlight. I'm not gonna be... I'm not going to be... I'm not an actor.

Love it 2020. I'm going to run for all kinds of shit. But it is. So people keep saying, oh, we don't need these celebrity types running. We should not be in the business. Look, as someone that worked for somebody where people were in the business of saying,

who should be what? I think we should not be in the business as people that really truly believe in free and fair elections, of saying who can and cannot. I think we should not be in the business as people that really truly believe in free and fair elections of saying who can and cannot put their hat in the race. I agree with that. And I will tell you,

you know, I saw that Andrew Cuomo said, oh, it's silly season. Clearly trying to... He's silly. Fix the damn trains. Well, what I would say is a sure way to turn it into a very real race is going to be to dismiss Cynthia Nixon as a celebrity rather than arguing with her on the merits, because there's a real debate to be had in New York.

And it's going to happen whether he participates in it or not. And that's all I want to say about that. Let's spin it again OMG can I rant about this? yes it has landed on the Austin bomber which is something Simone wanted to talk about I want to rant about the Austin bomber because I find it very irritating

that folks are hesitating to call him a terrorist I want to remind everybody. Like, it bothers me, because you know what? The KKK who terrorized black people for decades, for decades, terrorized communities in this country. They were the original domestic

terrorists. And so, you've got a targeting of people of color in Austin. Prominent families, by the way, which has not been reported, but these are prominent families in Austin, Texas. And folks are saying, well, you know, we don't know if there's a connection. I don't know. That one was a tripwire.

He was a nice guy. He was a terrorist. And it bothers me that we are refusing to call him a terrorist from the White House press podium. The White House press secretary is like, well, you know, they haven't figured out if it's terrorism or not because I guarantee you if he was a brown man, folks would not have hesitated to say, well, this is terrorist-related. This is a terrorism.

This is terrorism. Let's spin it again. New Queer Eye! New Queer Eye! New Queer Eye! It is I Heard New Queer Eye First. We're going to get to D.C. statehood, you animals. Queer Eye. So I haven't watched that many episodes,

but so far, Antony has made grilled cheese and guacamole. What did he make most recently? Hot dogs! He made hot dogs? Antony is very nice-looking, and I think it may have played a role He made hot dogs. Antony is very nice looking. And I think it may have played a role in determining who was cooking on the new Queer Eye.

Because I think that somewhere there is a master chef who cannot be seen in the light because he's so ghoulish. And the food he makes is fantastic i think there should be like a picasso roll and here's my picasso roll which is picasso everyone's like oh anybody could do what picasso did it looked like a children's drawing but picasso painted beautiful portraits first and then he slowly developed his style and my test is Anthony, you want to teach people how to make PP&J? You want to take a spoonful

of peanut butter and dip it in the goldfish and call it a recipe? Fine. But here's what I want to see first. I want to watch a one hour program where you make a souffle, where you make a soft boiled egg. You give me that, Anthony.

And then you can make a fucking cinnamon roll and white bread, whatever the fuck you're doing, to these sad, straight guys on Queer Eye, and I'll be fine with it. And I will say I follow him on Instagram, and he Instagram stories the meals that he makes, and they look bad. Let's spin it again.

Yes. Okay. It has landed on DC voting rights, a fitting place to end tonight. And here's why it's a terrible idea. You see the fri... I'm not gonna do that. Are you crazy?

Of course you people should have the right to vote. Of course. I mean, I don't know most of you. So Ryan Cooper in the Huffington Post? I think it was in the week. It was in the week. It was in the week. Thank you, Wesley.

So Ryan Cooper this week in a piece in the week. He wrote a piece in the week about some of the things that Democrats should be unabashedly for if we retake power and what we should be campaigning on. And one of them is about immediately moving to give D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood. And it is very hard to argue against it. And, you know, taxation without representation. I think it's a bad idea. By the way, it's why I think

D.C. should vote. It's why I think Puerto Rico deserves a vote. Clearly what we have learned this year is that the protections Puerto Rico has are not enough. That they don't have enough power in D.C. And, you know,

it's a decision that we've left up to Puerto Rico and it's an incredibly divisive issue in Puerto Rico. It's been something that's been debated there for a long time and it's usually a position of presidential candidates to defer to the wishes of Puerto Rico. But I think it's pretty clear that Puerto Rico is not being served

by their current status. So I agree with that. But also it's why I think 16 and 17 year olds deserve the right to vote. That there are just more participation. More participation. Now do you have sports teams in D.C.? Now that I think is

probably a mistake. Anything to add on D.C. statehood? They absolutely should have it and you should hold every single candidate accountable and we should give folks on the record on D.C. statehood? They absolutely should have it, and you should hold every single candidate accountable, and we should give folks on the record on D.C. statehood and statehood for Puerto Rico because the fact of the matter is, one, Puerto Ricans are Americans. Newsflash.

There are some people that don't know this. You can go to Puerto Rico without a passport. I would love to see someone sit across from Trump and ask him, do you know that Puerto Ricans are able to come to the United States and many of them are not? He's going to be like, this is why we need to build the wall. This is why we need the wall. We need the wall, a very big wall.

But yeah, no, stay here should be a no-brainer. But for some reason, it keeps getting lost in the conversation, much like protections for dreamers should be a no-brainer. But for some reason, it keeps getting lost in the conversation, much like protections for DREAMers should be a no-brainer. Every day, Congress refuses to act on protections for DREAMers when 122 people lose their protective status in this country. They cannot work in their lives, hang in limbo. So, yeah, D.C. deserves statehood. But also, some D.C. people have said that they want voting rights,

but they don't necessarily want to be a state. want to continue to be the district of columbia so i think on the semantics we could talk about it but like absolutely there should be a vote in congress like dc deserves some senators like more more congress people and this is a no-brainer dc has more people than alaska than wyoming than. Like, there are more than 700,000 residents in the District of Columbia. I attended the State of the District by Mayor Bowser last week, if you will, a couple weeks ago. And it was absolutely amazing to hear about the progress that D.C. is making, the history that is being made. She's taking on Marco Rubio, Mayor Bowser is, because he's trying to change D.C.'s gun laws. Like, it's just crazy. So D.C. deserves a vote.

Give D.C. a vote. Give him a vote! And I'll close the show only by reminding everybody that on April 9th, John Bolton will be named National Security Advisor. Make hay while the sun shines. Do the things you wanted to do. Have you played paintball?

Give it a shot. You've been thinking about trying an escape room. Do it. Hey, you know, your ex from high school, she moved back into town. And you guys thought maybe we were too young, but now, you know, it's been a while, you've seen a lot of other people,

and you keep coming back to this idea in your mind jennifer jennifer what was that maybe we were young then but we're older now and i can't get her out of my mind and every day you wait to reach out to her because you think why would i do it today maybe she's moved on maybe she doesn't feel the way that i do you know maybe i'll seem silly. Maybe I want the fantasy. Maybe Jennifer, as I've built her in my mind, will never equal the Jennifer I'll sit across from. That actually what I'm imagining, what I'm fantasizing about is a perfect person and a perfect life that can exist.

And here's what I'll tell you. On April 9th, John Bolton will be named National Security Advisor. So you send Jennifer a message, and you say, let's get coffee and see what she says. Okay? And that's our show. I want to thank Simone Sanders, Wesley Lurie, Mitra Juhari. Thank you, DC, for coming out.

We'll see you at the March on Saturday. And have a great night Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada