Lovett or Leave It - Bye Mitch

Episode Date: January 9, 2021

Democrats prepare to take control of the White House, the House, and the Senate after an incredibly hard fought set of victories in Georgia. Trump, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and congressional Republicans incite violence that leads to several deaths and the ransacking of the Capitol. High highs. Low lows. Jason Concepcion joins to break down a long week and tolerate some sports jokes. Zeynep Tufekci is back to talk about social media's role in this coup attempt and the vaccine roll out. Plus we kick off 2021 with the rant wheel. We're almost on the other side. Hang in there. 

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, back in the closet, elect! Thank you Detroit and Philly Thank you to our volunteers and a special shout out to Gritty We donated We called, we texted Even though we didn't flip Texas

Stacey said we would flip Georgia and she was correct So now we're back beloved Stacy said we would flip Georgia and she was correct. So now we're back with Lovett, back in the closet, but it's back in the closet elect. Back with Lovett, Lovett and Pundit, but it's back in the closet elect. That incredible theme song was sent in by Rebecca Levine. If you want to make a Back in the Closet elect theme song, please send it to leaveitatcrooked.com.

We have one more before we get to figure out. We'll talk about it next week, but we got to do a 2020. We're not Back in the Closet elect anymore. We're going to figure out something new. So this is the last week to get in a Back in the Closet elect theme song, and we will tell you more about what we will be doing with the show moving forward. This weekend, right now, Gaining Ground, our show about Georgia, has their final episode. It's important to look to the winds to keep ourselves motivated, and the victories in Georgia earlier this week were incredibly hard-fought. So if you haven't already, listen to Gaining Ground, the new Georgia. It's hosted by Rembert Brown and

Jewel Wicker. It has covered the journey leading up to this historic runoff, and it's a really fantastic listen. So check out Gaining Ground, The New Georgia on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. But first, he was the host of the podcast Binge Mode and digital show NBA Desktop before joining us at Crooked Media. Please welcome Jason Concepcion. Jason.

Thank you for having me. So good to have you. It's wonderful to be here. Yeah, look at that beautiful setup. Thank you so much. Listen, everything is LCD lights from Amazon. They're $14.99. I highly recommend them for anyone

who has to be on a lot of Zoom calls and is tired of watching themselves just slowly decay over time. Something else to look at. With each passing month, I turn up the Zoom filter. It's getting, I'm just like, at a certain point, it's like going to be like, um, Scotty telling, telling there's just no more power. We can't shift any more of CPU to filtering out the way being at home for a year has fucked up your face. We can't smooth it anymore, Captain. I just slowly move my chair back half a foot every week. Gotta get further away.

Yeah. Gotta get further away. Gotta get further away. All right, Jason's here to judge the monologue. Let's get into it. What a week. During these difficult times, we like to start the show with the worst joke that was submitted by our writers. And this week, we have one that we think is maybe the worst we've ever offered.

Are you ready, Jason? Well, it's a historic week, and I'm glad to be here for a historic joke. I guess we finally know what the Trump train sounds like. Coo-coo. I couldn't even commit to it. I got it. I actually respect it. It's hard to do. It's hard to say out loud. It's so stupid. Look, it's a very serious week. Four years ago. Yeah. After Trump won, you know, I was worried about institutions. We were worried about the liberal coalition fracturing. And as we head

into the Biden administration with Democrats in charge of the House and the Senate, the vote certified, I think we can all be proud of the work that went into staying united, defending our democracy and ultimately winning. We are four years of Trump. Lindsey Graham famously said, if we go with Donald Trump, we'll be destroyed and we'll deserve it. Well, here we are. They've lost the House. They've lost the Senate. They've lost the White House. They've lost their reputations. They've lost their credibility. They've lost their claim to democracy itself. So I feel like we should take a moment to pat ourselves on the back. Does Lindsay remember he said that? Is he aware of that in this timeline? Does he know that this happened in this version of the multiverse or

is that like another version, like a looper thing? I think he's in a memento situation. I think there's a tattoo across his chest that says John McCain was my friend. Right. But when he buttons up his shirt, he forgets. It's gone. That's gone. Right.

We're entering Act 3 where he's going to find the tattoo on his bicep and then realize, oh, I think I understand who the criminal is. And I confronted him four years ago. It's like it's a hairbrush. There's a long dyed golden hair in it. I remember talking about this four years ago that the thing that kept me up at night was the period I was most afraid of, which was the time between Trump losing and Trump leaving at the period of time after which it was clear he would no longer be president. But while he still had the powers of the presidency, that was what was my greatest fear. And I and I think it is sad that it has come to this. It is sad that it has been as bad as so many people predicted. That said, here are some dumb names for what the attack on the Capitol could be called.

Of course. Holly's Folly. Ooh. The Cruz Cous. That would, that's a no for me, dog, but again, I respect the work. The Whiskey and Red Bull Rebellion. Oh, historic. Historic. I like that. The Facebook Putsch. Okay, historic as well. Ben Sass is nodding with approval. Putsch. Okay. Historic as well.

Ben Sasse is nodding with approval. Does he nod? Does he know how to nod? Has he been nodding? He's like a take the chair, turn it around, put his arms, sit his arms across the back of the chair and say, hey guys,

do you, you know, back in 1858, a lanky man from Illinois took a train and then he's going to tell you that person was Abraham Lincoln eventually. In a lot of ways, Shakespeare was kind of like rap. The heroic battle where one guy tased himself and had a heart attack. That's obviously, you know, we don't want to be glib. A man did die of what some are calling a heart attack. What I do believe Facebook posts are referring to as Antifa of the arteries.

That's wow. See, you know, it was infiltrated. Well, the amazing thing about Antifa of the arteries or any other kind is they are everywhere. And yet, as people have pointed out on Twitter, not a single member has been publicly identified. So shouts to them for the operational security. It's really an amazing organization that's doing great work. Yeah, I think that Ra's al Ghul has done a really great job of organizing Antifa. has done a really great job of organizing Antifa.

Also, did you see that? So there was this bit of misinformation floating around that one of the protesters, protesters, one of the insurrectionists had a tattoo of a hammer and sickle and then they zoomed in and it was the fucking symbol from Dishonored. Did you see this?

They got, he has the, what's it called? I played that. Good game. Great game. Great game. But how fucking ridiculous a person are you that you get the Dishonored tattoo on your hands? Dishonored? Are you kidding?

Are you fucking kidding? The lore of Dishonored didn't, like, make it. It's not that strong. It's not. What? Defending the princess. Come on. At least get a Master Chief. Right. You know what I mean? At least get a Witcher.

God, the Dishonored symbol. I could not stop laughing. That is so embarrassing. That is so embarrassing. Even a Wario, honestly. Yeah, a little Wario. Why not? A little Skyrim. Yeah, beautiful.

A little arrow through the knee. Everybody loves that. A couple more names. D-Bag Day. I'm trying to make that. It's D-Bag Day. Right, I don't think it. Yeah, it's tough. I get it, but it's another tough one to make that, it's D-Bag Day. Right, I don't think it. Yeah, it's tough.

I get it, but it's another tough one to make the connection, but I get it. Baconators Rebellion. That's pretty good. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Final two, Sweatiesburg. And finally, Dunkirk. They're just, why not? Yeah, sure. I think the issue with D-Bag Day, Dunkirk. They're just, why not?

Yeah, sure. I think the issue with D-Bag Day and Dunkirk is those were both, you know, positive battles, positive violent conflicts that helped turn the tide against fascism. But I appreciate the wordplay and I appreciate the work in that sense. Thank you. Thank you. So what happened on Wednesday after President Trump urged his followers to march on the Capitol to undermine the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory and a dozen senators led by Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz in concert with most of the Republicans in the House caucus, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, indulging conspiracy theories

to undermine the election result inside the Capitol, a mob of Trump supporters breached the building, ransacked offices, probably peed in a few weird places, and temporarily delayed Senate proceedings. People were calling it a coup, but it was more of a siege because breaking into the government's workplace doesn't make you the government the same way breaking into Tom Cruz's house doesn't make you Jack Reacher. Does that not? It doesn't.

Does that not? Is that not? Is the Jack Reacher title not transitive in that way? No, it's not like Air Force One. You don't become Jack Reacher when you go into places Tom Cruise has been. Jason, side note, I did not see Jack Reacher 2 reach harder. Reach around. Jack, that was the prequel.

But one of my favorite things in Jack Reacher is this is a movie that Tom Cruise is a producer of, clearly creatively in charge of. And they film a scene in which Tom Cruise, as Jack Reacher, walks into a bar and every head in the bar turns like the sexiest, coolest person walked into the room. And this is a private investigator who travels by bus and is paid through Western Union. Right. Carries cash only, has no ID. And that was just, I love that note.

I just like him coming back to the screens, talking to his buddy, the director, and saying, I think we need all of these bar scene actors to turn and look at me like they want to fuck me i think there's no way that this movie will work unless we make that change uh he then takes them all outside and fights them one by one which uh if you're willing to suspend the disbelief in the first place i think you're it's not that a high leap to get to the fighting uh i believe this was also filmed in pittsburgh this is one of the great, along with The Dark Knight Rises, one of the great Pittsburgh movies. I didn't know that

about Dark Knight Rises. Learning something. Learning something. After Trump used their platform to call for insurrection against Congress, Twitter laid down the law by locking his account for 12 hours. This may seem harsh, but Trump can get through it once. He couldn't get into his Gmail for three days because he couldn't tell which of the photos was a bus. Folks, they literally blocked Ira for longer. Ira has a little fun with Beto O'Rourke, says he's going to share Beto's dick pics. He's fucking toast. says he's going to share Beto's dick pics. He's fucking toast.

I got to think, look, I think we have to get Beto to tweet that Ira needs to be let out of the box. I think Beto is the key to unlocking this puzzle. Beto, do the right thing. Come down off of the diner table and do the right thing. Enough cancel culture, Beto. Enough.

Enough. Enough obeying the woke mob. We cancel culture, Beto. Enough. Enough. Enough. Enough. Enough obeying the woke mob. We need to bring Ira back. We need his voice in these trying times. Of course, the most important and the most long-lasting,

the biggest event of this week is the victories of Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff in Georgia, the successful organizing of Stacey Abrams, Latasha Brown, and so many others

that mean Democrats will take control of the Senate and it means we fucking got Mitch. We got him. We got him. Does he disappear now? Does he like shrivel up?

Gets smaller. And then fly away? Like do the tips of his little shoes like curl up against the side of the house that fell on him or no? I think he gets smaller. I think he gets physically half the size of his current size, but he does not disappear completely.

For him, but the answer to that is you just move closer to the camera for him. Right. And then we won't be able to tell the difference because it's a proportional shrinking. He doesn't get shorter. He just physically reduces proportionally, you know? Well, I understand this is disappointing for him to now be ostensibly House minority leader. At least he has his health and that's good. He's okay, right? We never get an answer

on that? I don't know. I mean, look, I don't think you're ever okay when your blood tries to escape through your hands. Right, right. When you put on Marvolo Gaunt's ring and the curse hits you like that, that's serious. It's very serious. It's very serious. At 33 years old,

John Ossoff will be the youngest member of the Senate. Ugh. I hope the Senate serves avocado toast. Ba-dum-bum-psh. It's a millennial thing, folks. Did you see people excavating, like, 2012 John Ossoff tweets? And one of them was like,

hey, Pitchfork, I'm expecting a review on the new Imagine Dragons. I love that tweet so much. I fucking love it. I love that tweet so much. I fucking love it. I love that he called himself a noob for life. What I love, what I appreciate about demanding that Pitchfork review Imagine Dragons. Yeah. It's such a perfect encapsulation of him at that moment because it's fandom.

It's begging for institutional approval. It's like, don't you understand you have an obligation to use your platform for good yes people don't know about this imagine dragons album it changed my life that's right i'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been oh soft the way that things have been oh soft would that have made the monologue? I'm freaking out. If I pitch that? I'm just freaking out because I didn't know that you were the lead singer. I'm embarrassed that you're the lead singer of Imagine Dragons.

Well, you have to imagine it. That's the thing. We try to keep it, you know, we want to lift it into the cerebral plane where everything just kind of happens inside your head and you don't understand or know or aware of like the actual reality of the band. But it's all like, we want it all to happen upstairs. I mean, here's the thing.

Well, that's in the name, right? That's why we're not, that's why we're imagining dragons. Correct. You know. Ossoff becomes the youngest serving member of the Senate since Joe Biden. One day, you're the youngest senator. Then all of a sudden, it's the year 2064 and your eye explodes while trying to tell a bunch of whippersnappers in a primary debate why it's wrong to tear down a statue of Barack Obama. Because at the time, we all ate factory-raised meat and we knew it was a problem.

But it's hard to explain now. You know? It is really hard to explain. You never know what things will end up being the things that were bad later on 20, 30, 40 years later. You ever think about that? You ever think about what is the thing that I'm doing at this very moment that I am completely unaware of that 20 years from now, I'm going to go that I, that was wrong. That was a thing that I should

have understood was bad at the time. Did you read that Klosterman book about being wrong? Yes. He, that he talks about it's, he talks about that because like the factory raised meat is a good example, but it's, that's something we kind of understand the problems right now, but the harder ones to wrap your mind around are the ones we truly are not thinking about at all. have no attention to, not part of the way we're thinking about the world that will, in hindsight, look obvious. Look obvious. I'm excited to find out what they are. I can't wait. Now that Democrats control Congress and the White House, we can finally get to work on some of our top priorities like stopping the pandemic, complimenting Joe Manchin, passing the Voting

Rights Act, massaging Joe Manchin's feet, abolishing the filibuster, abolishing every single pothole on every road in West Virginia, giving DC and Puerto Rico statehood, and most importantly, giving $2,000 a month to the residents of West Virginia and only the residents of West Virginia. In two years, Charleston, West Virginia, it will be like fucking Dubai. Oh, you don't think you need a bullet train between Martinsburg and Wheeling? Are you stupid? Make it a Hyperloop. It's going to be spectacular. I always like Joe. I think he's really handsome guy. I'd like to know how he wants his coffee and I'd like to send him just a package of his favorite coffee, his favorite foods, whatever it is he needs, if it'll help us.

his favorite foods, whatever it is he needs, if it'll help us. Joe, I've always appreciated what you've brought to the table. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but I've always appreciated it. Joe, here's what you can do. All right. Just write the number of EpiPens you want us to buy on a napkin, slide it across the table. We just want a public option. Hey, West Virginia, all right, put out your left arm. That's the Moderna vaccine. Put out your right arm. That's the Pfizer vaccine. Now let's head to the brand new terminal of your beautiful airport to fly to the great state of Puerto Rico. I love it. Let's not forget the great state of the District of Columbia also. Absolutely. Can we mix up the vaccines? Can we do that? I know they're looking at that in England, but can they do that? Is that safe?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Can't be too careful. Give them both. Give them three doses in West Virginia. Also this week, Joe Biden named Merrick Garland as an attorney general. That's right, Mitch McConnell. The bitch is back. Incredible to have Merrick finally with us in some capacity. It's poetic justice of some kind. I wish I understood that Mitch felt bad about it, but I don't think he does. I don't think he's hurt by it, which is unfortunate. I agree. I actually don't think it has anything to do with the Republicans. I'm interested to find out like the full reasoning

behind it. But I have to think a big part of it is just Joe Biden was like, this guy got fucked. He's a smart, good guy. Let's give him a big job. You know, like it really bothered him what happened in the Senate. It was a travesty. This is a person who was nominated to be on the Supreme Court, thought his life was going in this direction. And he just, it's like, it's a good decision. And it also has the added benefit of giving this person a chance to serve in a new way. Yeah, it must have been disappointing when you pick somebody who you figure

the other side will definitely like because he's like a centrist figure. And then they're like, actually, no, we just don't like you. Yeah, it turns out there was no one you could pick. We're foreshadowing just how little we respect your legitimacy in any way possible. And you'll be shocked at how far this will go. Oh, is it early 2016?

Just you wait. Just you wait. Just you wait. Who could have imagined? Just you wait. Bean dad. I'm saying the words bean dad. Wow.

And that's it. I'm done. Wow. Bean dad. I'm saying the words bean dad. Wow. And that's it. I'm done. Wow. Bean dad. That feels legitimately 40 years ago at this point. You know, it took place in this shimmering moment before 2020. You know, in Deep Blue Sea. Who could forget?

When Samuel L. Jackson gives his rousing speech? Smart sharks. Super smart sharks. Sharks that are figuring things out. Doing math. Hunting. They know how ovens work. They're very sophisticated.

They have maps. They understand the layout of the base. They can punch the codes into the doors. They know who to eat first, which is really kind of the main thing that makes a smart shark smart. We're not doing enough smart sharks movies. They understand buoyancy, like the way it works, you know, which is amazing for underwater creatures. Like they're like, I know what it takes. I need to lower this facility via water sinking into these different rooms so that we might escape

through the soft fencing they just have a kind of instinctive understanding of newtonian physics incredible creatures sorry go on the point no no the point is the point is i feel like bean dad happened in this one week We thought the 2020 shark was dead. Bean Dad's like, what if we do some controversies like we used to do? Like the old days. And then 2020 jumped up and like, nope, you're coming down with me. We're only halfway through, and we only had Samuel L. Jackson for seven shooting days. So he's chum now.

Yeah, it's like the end of the first Friday the 13th where you think it's all over and the hero is gently draping her arm into the water of Crystal Lake and then all of a sudden the rotten arm of Jason reaches out and grabs her. That arm being 20-20. There was so much Bean content over those few days.

We have Bean Dad who bragged about, I guess, not feeding his daughter? Is that kind of like the best? Is that the elevator pitch of what that was? Bean Dad was doing a puzzle and he bragged about not feeding his daughter? I think that's why people were upset. Was doing a puzzle and he bragged about not feeding his daughter? I think he, yes, I think that he was hyping up a teaching moment and making it sound more grand and extreme than it actually was. Then he started getting attacked for it. Then he admitted that he probably exaggerated a lot of it.

But by then it was too late because the search field was open for business. It was too late because the search field was open for business. Right. And look, a lot of people have been laid low by a brief period of ironic, I'm so not racist, I can make these jokes, that Twitter phase. It has taken down some greats and he was fell by it. It just rarely works. You know, the ironic racism and anti-Semitism, it requires a context and an understanding of who the author is as an actual flesh and blood

person. And that's, guess what, over the internet, impossible. Yeah, it's a bit like the fist bump. You can do it a dozen times, ironically ironically but by the 13th time you're just a person who fist bumps you know? That's correct. You're just a person who fist bumps and of course Hilaria Baldwin you know it's it also happened in this brief magnificent

window in which 2014 was here Trump was gone we're back to these kind of controversies that are very silly and very light but it turns out obviously she's not from Spain We're back to these kind of controversies that are very silly and very light. But it turns out, obviously, she's not from Spain. She's from Massachusetts. She's not from Mallorca.

She's from Massachusetts. From Alfred, Boston. The clip of her saying, how do you say, cucumber, absolutely sends me over the edge. It's the best. It rules. What happened inside of your mind that you're at the level of character development. You've so committed to the bit that you're asking for

pronunciations on common vegetables. I had two thoughts when I saw it. One so she decided to commit to this character, right? That's that. And I look, she decided when she was going to marry Alec Baldwin, that she was going to have this opportunity to be some kind of a lifestyle influencer. And she decided to do it as a Spanish person.

She made up an accent to create a brand. Who hasn't? Who hasn't done it? Who hasn't? What I find actually the most chilling is not forgetting, forgetting, how to say cucumber on television in the service of this character. It's using it to name your children.

Like, that's fucking incredible. That's incredible. Like, I've been to Paris, but I'm not gonna name children Croque Madame. This is Croque Madame. This is... I love that.

Everybody went after Hilaria, and fair enough. Thank you for the respect for that. Alec Baldwin, man. This guy has gotten too many fucking passes. He throws a punch at a photographer every three to six weeks. Yeah. He is a huge prick at every turn. This idea that he should be playing Trump. He is the most Trump like figure in public life beside Trump. And on top of that, on top of that, he is the biggest fucking apologist for some of the worst sexual predators in Hollywood. He is a scumbag

and a dupe. I don't know if he knows if his wife is Spanish or not. I don't really care. It wouldn't be surprised me if he was in on it because he's a huge fucking asshole who doesn't care about anybody but himself. It also wouldn't surprise me if he was a total dupe because he's the arrogant type of person who believes he gets people. He knows how to see through them. He can see the truth. He can't be conned.

That's the exact kind of person who gets conned by Woody Allen and Elaria and whoever the fuck else has duped him over the years. Fucking cannot stand Alec Baldwin. Hold on. Are you telling me Alec Baldwin is bad? He's the guy who has made multiple misogynistic and homophobic jokes like on live mics multiple times over the course of recent years. That guy's. Are you telling me that guy is bad? That's what I'm trying to tell you.

And I'll tell you something else, Jason. I'll tell you something else. While not technically his fault, I will always blame him for the fact that the Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, and Patriot Games is not a beautiful, singular Harrison Ford trilogy. That is what it should have been. Hunt for Red October is fantastic. It would be so much better without that simpering,ug gravelly voice prick pretending he's jack ryan harrison ford should be in that movie also how about alec baldwin holding up a sign that says you're welcome for what hold on let me stop you there ale For what? What is the implied thank you?

Right. You brought down Trump? Did you do that? What are we? Where's the thank you? Did you do that sometime that we all missed? For what? You think you were the, you think you sealed the deal in the suburbs outside Atlanta?

Right. We missed that. You think you got. You were organizing down there? You think you got the wine moms in suburban Detroit? Alec? Unbelievable. I guess for,

for, I guess disrupting yoga with Adrienne, maybe that's what he's, through Hilaria's business, maybe that's what he's asking for thanks for. Yeah. Who is supposed to be thanking you? Unbelievable.

Also, ugh, I can't. All right. Jason, look, I want to end with this because you know sports, I can't. All right. Jason, look, I want to end with this because you know sports, all right?

We both know sports. Of course. We're two people that know a lot about sports. That's what everyone says. So I'm going to do some sports jokes. You can tell us how we did. Tell me if I've gotten these.

You see what you think. I can't wait. I'm thinking about my sports material. The Eagles were accused of tanking their game against the Washington Football Club last week when their coach benched their starting QB for a third stringer, and Eagles' loss would have kept their rivals, the New York Giants,

from clinching a division title and playoff spot. Finally, something to link the gays in football, high-concept pettiness. Oh, yeah, that's good. I like that. I don't think it's funny. It seems like it's true. It's true. It's factually accurate. Which, listen, I appreciate more and more in these trying times. Factual accuracy. Alabama Crimson Tide wide receiver Devonta Smith

was awarded the Heisman Trophy on Tuesday night, becoming the first wide receiver to win the award for nearly three decades. And I think it's about time we recognize the hard work put in by those who receive. I also appreciate it. It's factually accurate. And again, that's sports. It's important that we have truth in comedy. It's really important.

And in all spaces in these trying times. That's where comedy comes from. That's where it comes from. It comes from truth. It comes from truth. That's right. The NBA bubble in Orlando stands as maybe the most broadly successful management of the coronavirus pandemic anywhere in the world. Now, hear me out, Jason.

What if we made America an NBA bubble? And if not, can I be drafted by the Phoenix Suns? Could you be drafted by the Phoenix Suns? You know what? They're going to have a low draft pick this year because they're good. So maybe. I think you could. How's your jumper? Oh, it's very bad. When I was a kid, I was on the basketball team, but I had a problem, which is I had the arm strength to make the ball go forward, and I had the arm strength to make

the ball go up high enough to go in the basket. But I didn't have the arm strength to create the, the parabola, the angle, the arc to go both high enough and forward enough to go in the basket. And it's pretty tough when you're on a basketball team and everybody, your team, the other team, they know that no matter what you do with that ball, it is physically impossible for you to make the ball go in the basket that you do not have that capacity that's like this is a joke that you're gonna get as a huge sports fan sounds like ben simmons and he's an he's an all-star classic of course hey uh they should make the whole plane out of the nba bubble oh wow

huh what's the deal with what's the deal with the nba bubble they make the whole plane out of it you know yeah they got to make that way all the people who don't want to wear masks and stuff and don't want to get tested won't come inside of it and then we can travel in peace uh without uh every cross-country flight turning into a political statement about how much you consume propaganda that's funny that's my identity uh and finally tom brady left the patriots assigned with the tampa bay buccaneers many people were confused this move, but I have a feeling it has to do with Florida's lax kissing your son on the mouth laws. Ba-dum-bum-psh.

Listen, I love it. We've never talked about it, because we've never talked about this before. It's still super weird. Here's my take. Yeah, that's fine. You guys are close. You're close with your children. I love it.

Show affection. I think that's very positive. I think it's weird to put it in the dock. I think it's weird to put it in the dock. That's my thing. Why are we putting it in the dock? Why are we putting it in the dock? Why is it in the dock?

That's a cut for me. Why is it in the dock? That's a cut for me, folks. When I get that first cut, I'm looking at it. I'm going, you know what? When I'm laying shirtless on the table and my son comes from the opposite angle and kisses me on the lips for a

long time, and the camera's got us in a really steady two-shot, can we just take that out? It's weird. Look, I don't want to be a diva, and if you feel like it's central to the plot of the film, I don't want to – obviously, I want team player here. But my thought is it's hugely embarrassing and deeply weird. Maybe we should cut it. Just a thought. Just a thought. Just Tom Brady. Going to throw that one to you. Just going to throw that – just QB that idea over to you in the editing booth maybe you can receive that see what you think about it just a pitch just an idea um uh trump for president see you all

later uh trump 2020 hey oh yeah remember that uh do we forget uh that tom brady had the had the maga hat it is locker i think we all just kind of like don't talk about that enough here's some things i don't forget i don't forget the mouth kiss things I don't forget. I don't forget the mouth kiss. Nope. I don't forget the hat. Nope. I don't forget that they cheated a lot. They did cheat a lot. They cheated a lot. I don't forget that.

They're very good, too, which is unfortunate because I wish they could be bad in all those things. But then they were also actually really good. And then their owner was caught up in a, in a prostitution sting, which he has been totally sort of absolved of any wrongdoing. He got off twice, Jason. Got off twice. Oh gosh. And with that, Jason Concepcion, thank you so much for being here.

What a blast. What a delight. It's been an honor for me to be on the show, which I, and I mean this sincerely, I think is like the best original theme song in podcasting. Yes. Shout out to the band Sure Sure, who crushed it in 2017. Then they're off touring. They hit it big. They hit it big. Too big for us now, but we got them right as they were shooting up like a rocket ship. They knocked the cover off of it. Just incredible and very catchy. When we come back, I talk to Zaina Tufekci about Facebook's role in the coup attempt and the failure to distribute the vaccine. Two great topics that go great together, I guess.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. She is a sociologist, professor at the University of North Carolina, and a writer for The Atlantic and The New York Times. Please welcome back, returning champion. Thank you for inviting me again for yet another exciting week of too much news. Zainab Tufekci, thanks for being here. So originally, I had wanted to talk to you about the vaccine, and I still do. But obviously, we are recording this on Thursday. We are just on the other side of a failed insurrection and successful ransacking of

the U.S. Capitol, one that was organized on Facebook. It was the Facebook putsch. As we are recording this, since these events have unfolded, Twitter and Facebook and Instagram have taken more steps than they have in the past to curtail Donald Trump specifically. Facebook has gone so far as to say they won't allow him on the platform for the remainder of his term. Twitter had banned him for 12 hours, leading many to note that a 12-hour ban for a coup seems like a light sentence, especially when Ira Madison, friend of the pod, cricket host, was banned from Twitter permanently for pretending to be better of work and saying he was going to share better of work's nudes, which I think compared to an insurrection isn't so bad.

Zeynep, what have you thought of Mark Zuckerberg's response? And then we can talk about Twitter's response. In some sense, it's mostly irrelevant at this point, because I think the committees that will oversee their regulation, but even if we don't think about that fact, which is probably not completely coincidental, but even if we put that aside, it's just hard to judge what should they have done today when the real question is how we got here with the changes in the information ecology. Now, what they will often say is that, look, it's not just us, it's the cable news, it's the podcast, it's the bulletin boards, it's not just us, which is true. But they are the 800 pound gorillas in the room, right? This stuff does not occur. These kinds of thoughts

did not become mainstream. This kind of presidency did not happen on some marginal channels out there. And the role of cable news, while also is real, has very much been accelerated by Facebook and Twitter, because they are also competing with Facebook and Twitter, right? You can see the evolution of Fox News. So, I mean, I don't have like big, profound thoughts on them changing their rules very drastically in ways they said they would never do for the past four years. Again, on the day they learned that the president was on his way out, right? So because for the past four years, lots of people have been saying, you should ban him. And they were saying, no, we wouldn't because he's a leader,

political leader, completely against everything we stand for. And boom, just like that, they can do it. Now, the thing that bothers me more is that it's either self-induced, as I noted, just because they realize people are mad at him and the people mad at them are about to take control of the Senate and the presidency. And that's not a good scenario either, right? Right. That's the thing is like if Mark Zuckerberg woke up and was angry at the attempt to, you know, mob the Capitol, overthrow the government, like this is too much power for one person to wield either way. Right.

I mean, that is sort of that's been this fundamental challenge, which is, you know, you see from Facebook, they've come a long way since this since this this was, I think their ethos, or at least their professed ethos. You, you, you get a sense that if Mark Zuckerberg, if you took politics and PR and all the rest out of it, his gut instinct is to say, I think this should be like the public square. It should be almost like a utility, not treated it like a utility by the government. I still want to make money. I still want to be a profitable company. But he wants it to be like a public square where you can say anything. You can go in the town square and you can spout anti-Semitism. You can be a Nazi in the downtowns of your cities and Facebook should be like that. But he's kind of

come to understand that that's not tenable because they're a private company. But I am still really uncomfortable with what we're talking about being pressuring private entities or being forced to kind of pressure the capricious billionaires from making these kinds of decisions. What do you see as the way forward here? What does a better kind of relationship between Facebook and misinformation look like? So one of the problems here is the business model, right? Because it's not just the limits of speech. It's that the business model of the company is to keep you on the site. Whatever else you try to fix, it's that because what's engaging is very often what is more extremist, more interesting, right? So as long as you have that, the problem of moderation is unsolvable by scale. Because even if they decide, all right, we're going to get the Nazis off the platform, well, who's a Nazi?

And then you have the question of who decides who's a Nazi and where is that line? And you probably can do it with some high profile accounts to some effect. The problem remains that it is pushing the extremism through the engagement algorithms. It's just tribalism, right? It's not just extremism, tribalism, because that's just what engages us. And I think this is a fundamental problem. Now, I don't want to sound like media is completely out of it, because traditional media too tries to be engaging. And that problems too the sensationalism the alarmism all of that is true and in fact if anything sometimes bashing Facebook is engaging and we bash Facebook and I feel that like I recognize that there's now an audience for that and it's kind of ironic there

but the reality is regardless of the content as long as you have this kind of drive to deliver audiences very efficiently to this kind of messaging, which is what the platform does. So when Trump was running, a key thing they could do was go to the platform and say, here's a message, find us the audience. And Facebook's machine learning systems would help them find the audience with the staff, right? And then the audience would amplify it further. So this is a trickier problem. I'm not completely against the public square as a comparison, but I think that's like a 20th century way of thinking about it. Like their problem isn't that they're a public square. Their problem is they're like an audience servicing machine to the message so that they can deliver their ads. And that has

all sorts of problems. I mean, every country for the public square, what you need to have is the country has to have laws, right? Europe has certain laws, other places have to have certain laws, because that's the only way to deal with it. Like Mark Zuckerberg woke up and got mad at Trump is not a way to deal with it. Because when he doesn't always get mad at the thing that we want him to get mad at, two, that means everybody's now just trying to lobby for him to get mad at this or that, that doesn't really work. Three, he tends to get mad at stuff the day the Senate changes control, which isn't really the way we want to do it. And that's just not sustainable anyway. Like it's not the right thing. So I think, you know, we have to kind of go back and say, all right, we have a

public sphere that is dramatically different. And how can we make it healthier? And I always go back to the business model, as long as they have these big audience delivery algorithms, the engagement algorithms, the questions about moderation we come back to will just get swamped by the scale. They'll say, all right, fine, we'll ban the Nazis and then there won't be enough people. And then there'll be an argument over who's a Nazi. There'll be some prominent Nazis, but there'll be the new kind of Nazi that's not explicitly in the definition. And that'll be your actual problem, not the people after Ford's right. You know, it'll be too late. So that's just what happens is that our public sphere has changed and we're not yet dealing with it.

Now, the Democrats are taking control of the Senate. They have the presidency in the House for a while, at least. So their temptation might be to try to set up something that looks friendly to them. Because that was what happened under the Obama administration. They genuinely thought Silicon Valley is great. It's full of liberals. They love us. We love them back. There's revolving doors. And there was the sense that this is a good tool for us. And so there was a hands-off approach. So I think that would be dangerous if that came back and said, how do we make friends of these people so that this tool works for us? Because I don't think it's possible.

I don't think it's possible to make this business model work with a healthy democracy. And that is a very thorny thing to say, because we're talking about like a billion trillion dollar company. But I think there are ways to force them into some of their worst aspects of their business model. And I think that's what we need to focus on. We're about to head into a new Congress, there is an opportunity to look at how to address the power and consolidation that we've seen in tech. If you were advising these newly empowered committee chairs that have the opportunity to pass something, what would be your argument for their focus in terms of reining in the excesses of Facebook, of Twitter, of Google? Well, the problem is there is not going to be some like quickie answer I could

give because if I had one, I would, but I would really not completely get focused on the who gets allowed. I would be more focused on the audience issues like micro-targeting. Why is it allowed and to what degree? What should be the disclosure requirements? What should be the transparency, engagement? Like why do we allow certain kinds of engagement algorithms? Because we don't really have to allow everything we allow. Like with micro-targeting, you could put larger buckets or make it, especially for political speech, you could say, you know, if this is a speech, it can't just be targeted at this small an audience, you could limit the use of things like the machine learning

systems that help you find more audiences for messages, you could put more oversight into all of that. You could do certain things to try to incentivize them into better business models, the healthier business models, because it's kind of like, you got something like smoking, right? It's not exactly the same, but you got something that has negative externalities. And no matter what you try to do, as long as the nicotine delivery device aspect is there, the cigarette company is going to try to figure out how to deliver nicotine, it'll be light nicotine, it'll be this, it'll be that. And the only way out of it is to sort of go at the nicotine. Now, this is not completely exact as an analogy. But I think that's what we have to really think

about, like these companies have a really harmful side to them. This is true for YouTube, too. And they're both making some progress, especially YouTube seems to be making some progress with their engagement algorithms. But part of the frustration is that there's no transparency. So with the researchers, like we're begging for scraps. And when we get some scraps, Facebook's communication, people come and say, you don't have data, you just have anecdotes. Well, yes, because you don't give us the data, right? We don't really exactly understand how the engagement algorithms are working and what we could do about it. So you could, for example, mandate disclosures. Right now, we kind of let them operate in a way that is really cheap for them. They don't have to

disclose things, they don't have to do a lot of oversight. They don't have like we let them do all the profitable things of their business without making them do some of the things that would help us understand it better. So we could force them into that. We could like make it a little more expensive for them to operate this way. So try to push them to operate in different ways. So there's all these things that I think that have to be considered in totality, though, because what I sometimes fear is like, there's an antitrust aspect that people want to pay attention to, which is true. It is a big deal, because if they're the 800 pound gorillas, but if you just go after antitrust without understanding the business model effects, what you could end up with is like 10 vicious Facebooks. You could break them up and you're just like,

if you don't change the incentives under which they operate, not sure that's getting us. I'm not saying there's no case for antitrust. I'm just kind of saying like, whatever we're going to do, it has to be holistic. It has to understand the 21st century aspects of this, not try to regulate it if it were television or radio. It has to really be careful about the temptation that any government will have to use it in a partisan way. Yeah, it does seem to start with, though, to your point, does seem to start with transparency,

because, you know, even you talked about YouTube, even the best reporting on, say, the way in which YouTube can radicalize people, right? They click on something about the dollar, they get a report on the treasury, they click on the treasury report, and all of a sudden, they're in a conspiracy theory about who controls them. And like, you know, you kind of go down these rabbit holes. But it seems like if we started at the very least, with the ability to understand the way these algorithms work, the way these radicalization processes work.

And when you tell them some of this is happening, they say our data doesn't show this. And I'm like, well, I mean, maybe, I don't know. It's really hard to understand what's going on without having access to it. And we had a brouhaha with Google recently where they fired one of their AI and ethics reporters. Well, one of the things that came out was that Google is clearly looking at papers its researchers are publishing with a political eye. They're not just looking to see if it has intellectual property disclosures

or something like that, which is, you know, it's normal for a company to try to see like, if we got this fancy pants algorithm we're going to use proprietary, you don't really want it in a paper, but they're now clearly looking at it with a political eye. We've known for a long time that we heard from researchers in Facebook that they know where the lines are. I've been told this by them directly. So we don't really have insight into it. So I say certain things, and I think this is what's

happening. And then the company says, we don't think so. And I'm like, that can't just be you reassuring me, not even saying you're wrong. I'm just kind of like, this is not how it works. So one of the things we could start with is a genuine requirement to disclosure, and a lot of research and transparency, just try to get at the complexity of the problem, because there are competing things and you don't really want to overly censor. You also don't want Mark Zuckerberg to be the king of the public square or Jack Dorsey. So these are, I know it's like not a good soundbite, but this is the reality. You're looking at something very complex and it's not going to have like a one line magic wand answer. I wanted to ask you before, and thank you for your

time. I just want to ask you about the vaccine rollout before we go. Today, we learned that there is a fight going on between Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo in New York. Cuomo has put down incredibly strict rules in terms of who can get the vaccine and the penalties for giving the vaccine to people who don't meet that threshold around frontline workers. de Blasio basically says, I've given it to all the hospital workers. Some of them aren't taking it. Regardless, I have a ton sitting on the shelf. Let me give it to older people in the city. What do you make of that fight?

Oh, it's terrible. You know, sometimes conservatives say that the liberal media just likes focusing on Florida governor and ignores New York governor. And I have to say they have a point there. I just, it's a disastrous policy. It was a terrible policy. Like vaccine distribution, one should not be micromanaged like that. Two, even if there's some mix up in that some elderly get vaccinated before every last hospital worker is vaccinated, that's not a terrible thing. That's a good thing. Elderly also need vaccines. The problem is the supply. And even if there's some occasional corruption, like find those people and there's like medical bars and, you know, licensing and stuff like that. There's all sorts of existing procedures for medical corruption that you can deal with. You don't need to create like if you vaccinate the person who's not in the blah, blah, blah, million dollar fine.

find that is crazy because to have vaccines sitting on shelves at a time where we're facing a new variant, it appears to be more transmissible. We have seasonality that has really caused an increase. We had just Christmas before that Thanksgiving that created some. So to have like vaccines sitting on shelves, as de Blasio is saying, and not be allowed to be given to other people is wrong, is going to cause excess deaths. And even with prioritization, it should be flexible, it should be hospital workers or elderly and say frontline essential workers. This is the current focus in the CDC guidelines. That's a large group. And if we run out of one people in one group,

in one locale and their vaccines in that freezer, yeah, give them, get those shots in the arms. And this is not complicated. And I just, I cannot believe if the reporting is true. Like it is so obviously a terrible idea that I'm just kind of like, I literally found myself thinking is the de Blasio making this up because nobody could be enacting such a terrible restriction in the middle of a pandemic. So if it's really true, it's a catastrophic micromanagement. Yeah. For reasons I cannot wrap my head around. Like it doesn't really matter if the priority lines are not observed and respected to some strict thing. It's a vaccine. It works whoever's arm you get it in, get it in. Yeah. I want that vaccine, Zeynep.

Let's get it out there. Well, I mean, we all do. And what they should do is just roll it out. I'm just so shocked that right now, I just saw the numbers. There's 20 million distributed and 4 million in arms. So there's 16 million somewhere. in arms. Like, so there's 16 million somewhere. And literally, we should have public health clinics working 24 seven, to get that 20 million into people's arms in a week, like this is the kind of thing that we can do. And if you want to mobilize, you want like the National Guard

setting up tents, have the National Guard set up tents up tents i mean this is another problem with like micromanaging the prioritization it creates bureaucracy which slows it down and i also want the elderly to get vaccinated before say younger people less at risk but if everybody's getting vaccinated slowly we don't even get that done like it's not like they're prioritizing the elderly and very speedily vaccinating them. They're prioritizing the elderly by some bureaucratic logic and not even vaccinating them fast. So this is like the worst of both worlds, micromanagement, bureaucracy, plus, you know, where are the trains on time? If you're going to be such a micromanager, like there should be some record of getting things done. And that's not there either. Hopefully we get the vaccine rolling out. We get a, we get a, we get a president who can pay attention. We'd get through these early periods and all of a sudden there are going into

people's arms. And then, uh, you know, we can have a conversation. That's not about some of the biggest crises we've ever faced. How nice would that be? I know it's not about some big existential risk, you know? Unbelievable. Yeah, there are other problems. They're still there. It'll be something minor. We'll be discussing some celebrity divorce,

or I don't know. Can't wait. Well, hopefully this speeds up in the next couple of weeks. Zeynep Dufekci, thank you so much. Good to see you. And, you know, 2021. I much. Good to see you. 2021. I know. We had

started with a bang. Yeah, started with a bang. Thank you so much to Zeynep for joining us. When we come back, The Railwheel. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Look, this is a week with some high highs and some low lows.

It is 2021. And so we thought we would kick it off with a return to the rant wheel. This week on the rant wheel, we have Ben Affleck's Duncan pickup. We have Alec Baldwin. We have Kim and Kanye. We have Josh Hawley's raised fist. We have John Ossoff, Starbucks breakfast options, the film Tenet, and the fact that no one invited me to Puerto Vallarta. Let's spin the wheel.

All right, fine. It landed on no one invited me to Puerto Vallarta. And the thing is, nobody invited me to Puerto Vallarta. And these disgusting, narcissistic, solipsistic circuit parties where a bunch of gay people, including some medical professionals who should know better, including medical professionals who got the vaccine and then went to parties, big super spreader events in Mexico, should be ashamed of themselves. But here's the thing. I didn't know this was happening. I want one of two things, all right, in the future, all right? I either want to be invited to the super spreader parties, or I want it to be flagged for me as a gay person to call them out on Twitter. Either think of me as someone who'll have fun at a party, or think of

me as a narc. I found out about this through the grapevine. I didn't even know what was going on and that made me sad. Let's spin it again. It landed on Tenet. I was looking forward to Tenet for so long. A Christopher Nolan movie is very exciting to me. Here's my problem with Tenet. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. On top of that, the thing that really bothered me the most about Tenet is, all right, it's a movie where some objects are inverted and go backwards through time. I thought there'd be like more cool shit that happened, you know? Some more backwards fighting, some bullets going back into guns. Some cool shit happening. All of a sudden, there's a big fight scene at the end.

You can't see what's going on. I want to go backwards to a time when they were thinking about what Christopher Nolan should do next, and he was finishing his script for the film Tenet, and somebody could tell him, hey, you're really good, but you need notes like everybody else. You're not above notes, Christopher. Chris, buddy, you're a genius. You're a great director. You're one of the great action directors of all time. You need notes, all right? Listen to people when they offer some constructive feedback. That's all. Oh no, it's spinning again. It has landed on John Ossoff. All right. And I just want to say three things. All right. One, I find it genuinely offensive that there is a 33-year-old senator. I am not comfortable with there being younger senators than me. Two, I am genuinely annoyed by the handsomeness. I find that

frustrating. And three, I'll just say, I'll end the show by saying this has been a really bad week, a week where we saw the worst of what Donald Trump and his minions can do. The culmination, not just of four years of erosion of basic decency, but decades in which right wing media, right wing radio hosts, right wing politicians have fanned the flames of this kind of hate again and again and again. And whether it was Ilaria Baldwin or the coup, what was on my mind over the past couple of days is this quote that I've shared on Twitter before, which I think a lot of people have been taking from my tweets, to be honest, and putting it in

articles. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Consider the source. But it's the Kurt Vonnegut quote, which is, you are what you pretend to be, so we must be very careful about what we pretend to be. Watching all of these politicians appease and encourage and incite this violence, all of that was performance. But what we saw wasn't a performance. It was incredibly dangerous. It was incredibly destructive. And my hope after this week is the combination of the violence that we saw, which was no performance, it was real, and the fact that Donald Trump cost them the Senate means that together what we have is like an undeniable truth that something has to change. And so I think what will last from what happened over the past week, what will have far more consequence than a few assholes creating violence in the nation's capital, is the fact that we began four years ago

with Republicans in charge of the presidency, of the House, and of and chaos and anxiety and fear, we enter 2021 with Donald Trump finally conceding, with a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House, and hopefully a Democratic majority that understands that we can't ignore the danger these people pose. We can't paper over it. We can't pretend it's not there, but we have to confront it. We have to strengthen our democracy. We have to go into this new year with open eyes because if the one thing that could happen from a mob physically threatening Republican,

Democrat members of Congress is that they won't be able to forget that it happened. We won't be able to treat it as just a performance anymore. And that to me is a reason ultimately to be hopeful after a week that felt like 2020 at the beginning of a new year that hopefully will not. And because we certainly need it this week,

here it is, the high note. Hi, my name is Shelly. I'm calling from San Antonio, Texas. And what has me inspired this week is I'm a doctor working with COVID patients and have been for months and months. And today I got my vaccination. And I know so many of my doctor and nurse friends are doing it, too.

And hopefully we're leading with a good example and showing other people that it's safe and effective and that they should do it as well. I love it. My name is JD. I'm calling in from San Francisco with my highlight, which technically is for the last week of December, but could actually be for the last week of the year. My highlight is that I got my application materials completed and in to the Biden-Harrisission team. And this is a direct result of being a part of Adopt-A-State Wisconsin, listening to the pod regularly, and also getting a surprise unpaid sabbatical from my job in higher education. And I really am thinking that my next chapter may look like public service. And it all is a direct result of the work that you and

everybody else at Crooked Media has been doing. So I know there are thousands of jobs open and hundreds of thousands of applicants, but I have to admit just getting the materials together and submitted was a highlight for me. I did it on Christmas Eve, and it felt good to hit submit and go into the holidays with my family. Thanks for all you and your colleagues do, and I look forward to hearing you on the pod. Hi, Lubbock and everyone behind the scenes. This is Jamie from Pennsylvania.

My high point for the week is that my corral, the Arcadia Corral in Scranton, has completed and released our second virtual performance of the year. The pandemic, of course, has been really hard for so many people, and the arts community is no different. Being in a choir has been really scary this year. Having to not sing has been devastating, whether it's our livelihood or just something we do for the love, but in the fall, we've been rehearsing Muted over Zoom and sending the director voice memos and working with a local audio engineer.

We've been able to stay connected and produce two really cool videos. It looks and feels like we're all together, and it's just really fulfilling and cathartic. So I'm thankful for creative thinking, skilled engineering, and just the dogged perseverance of artists. So that's my high point for the week. Thanks for everything you do. And we'll see you on the other side of the Nor'easter. Thanks. Thanks, 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 323-521-9455. Thank you to Jason Concepcion and Zeynep Tufekci. Thank you to the organizers and volunteers who called and texted and knocked on doors to help elect

Reverend Warnock and John Ossoff to flip the Senate. There are 11 days until Joe Biden becomes president. Have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg, our head writer, and the person whose gender reveal party started the fire, Travis Helwig, Jocelyn Kaufman, Pallavi Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers.

Our assistant producer is Sydney Rapp. Bill Lance is our editor, and Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McLean and Jamie Skeel for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast, and to our digital producers, Nar Melkonian and Milo Kim for filming and editing video each week so you can.