Lovett or Leave It - Coup Clutz Clan

Episode Date: November 21, 2020

Rudy melts under cross examination. Thanksgiving comes as cases rise and a vaccine looms. Kiran Deol joins to break down the week's news. Scientist Eric Lander joins to discuss the vaccine, public trust in science, climate change, and deep fakes. And Ronan Farrow is back to talk about his latest reporting and to play a game where once again Travis tries to drive a wedge in Jon's relationship with help from accomplice Guy Branum.

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, back in the closet, elect! Of course we should all celebrate. But the virus is spreading much more than before. And there's an opportunity to get to other senators. To love it back in the closet. Elect. That song is by Scott Interante, and it was fantastic. If you want to make a back in the closet elect theme song, whatever that means to you, please send it to us at

leaveitatcricket.com. That's leaveitatcricket.com. They've been amazing. We've got to find a way to share all of the Back in the Closet, Homestretch, Back in the Closet elect theme songs. We have to share them, people have been asking for them. We've got to share them. Before we get to the show, some housekeeping.

The deadline to register to vote in Georgia's runoff Senate races is on December 7th, which is why Vote Save America is raising money for Register to Vote. For every $2 raised, they'll be able to reach one new voter with the materials they need to register by first-class expedited mail. You can head over to votesaveamerica.com slash registerGA. That's votesaveamerica.com slash registerGA to donate. And if you want to find more ways to get involved in Georgia, you can sign up to Adopt Georgia. We'll be sending you remote volunteer opportunities and ways to support groups on the ground ahead of the January 5th runoff that will determine control of the Senate. Votesaveamerica.com. And finally, the holidays are here.

You know what that means. Crooked holiday merch. It's the season. We have some really great stuff from your favorite Crooked Ponds, including a certain garden show that somehow managed to squirrel its way into the merch store. So check out some of that garden show merchandise. I don't even know how it got approved. I certainly didn't approve it. And by popular demand, I certainly didn't approve it. And by popular demand, a deeply weird apron from Chaos in the Kitchen on Instagram, where I make things while Priyanka is horrified. Lots of great stuff there. Head to crooked.com slash store to check it out. Later in the show, we will be joined by Eric Lander, Guy Branum, and Ronan Farrow. But first, she's a comedian, actor, filmmaker, and co-host of Hysteria.

Please welcome back Kieran Deal. Hi. Hi, John. How are you? I'm okay. You know, Trump lost. Now he's trying to unloose. Rudy Giuliani's face is melting. The coup attempt is ongoing. I'd rather our country be stronger than our villains be dumber. I think that's, to me, is fundamentally the issue here. We are relying on the idiocy of our enemies as opposed to the power of our allies. And I think that's a troubling trend because there are smarter villains waiting in the wings. There will be a sequel.

That is where I'm at emotionally right now. I'm not letting the bastards get me down, but it's obviously deeply troubling, not because of what it means for this election, which thankfully we won decisively, but for what it means for the fact that there won't, like, if you only believe in democracy when you win, you don't really believe in democracy.

You believe in power, and you like what democracy does for your power. It is like an outfit for power, right? If you don't actually want to give up power when you lose, if you don't respect that as part of the game, then you don't really care about democracy. You want power in a democracy suit. You want power that's democracy shaped, but you don't want democracy. That's the real rub to me. John, the question was, how are you? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I see now. I see now. I'm okay. How are you? Look, honestly, that was on me because quite frankly, the question should have

been banned. The question should have been banned the question should be banned from the year it should be struck from the list of questions that you're even allowed to ask diatribes about power and super villains and sequels i hope christopher nolan is directing that sequel that's i think it's all par for the pockmarked course that we are on together the question was how are Well, I think you know what your mistake was. And I do believe it is on you. I think you're right about that. It was me. You know what you've left out? I think legally during this period, you have to say, how are you? All things considered, you know, you're not allowed to just say, how are you? You can go

to jail for that right now. That's a felony, but I think they'll let you off with a warning for the first time. Okay. Thank God. Anyway, I'm okay. I'm out of the country, so they can't, they can't get me. They can't get me right now. That's, that's, you're still allowed. Yeah. You're allowed to ask it here, but, but maybe you'd like to repeat just in case anyone lost the last part about the power and the suit. Cause I definitely lost it at the powers, the power suit part. Let's get into it. What a week. So we'll start out getting us back on track. We like to start off with a joke everyone's going to hate. Here it is. The worst joke submitted to Love It or Leave It by our writers this week. Are you ready? Oh, I'm excited. I'm

excited to hear this. In a story published in Vanity Fair, a childhood friend of Ivanka Trump said one of her earliest memories of Ivanka was when she blamed a fart on a classmate. That's real. That is from the piece. Supposedly, Ivanka also dismissed reports of an accident during a field trip as fake poos.

It felt poetry slam worthy. That was, you know. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. The setups as punchlines is going to be a thing that we're not going to get to the same extent with the next administration. Like not, we're not going to get the depth of that. I think that's right. I think with the Bidens. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. You know, there's a, um, Norm Macdonald talks about the platonic ideal of a joke being where the setup and the punchline are the same. Anyway, we've approached that many times. Rudy Giuliani's face melted today.

Yes, yes. That is both a setup and a punchline. And the dildo store made me think of that, too. The dildo store was very, you know. But you did just quote Norm Macdonald as if he was Foucault. That was chef's kiss. I have to say. That was doing exactly what he saidult. That was chef's kiss. I have to say that was doing exactly what

he said. The setup was the punchline. Norm MacDonald says not a reference you hear every day in November of 2020. I'm just saying. I have to say you have not once now, but twice so cleanly eviscerated me like just like just like true fatal blows. And I just love it. It makes me really happy. They're just, just devastating hits. And just by stating the facts, the question was, how are you? You just quoted Norm Macdonald, absolutely brutalizing me. I will say the, the Norman, the reason I remember it as Norm Macdonald is because his version of the joke. And then I realized I didn't want to share the joke. The joke was, well, the joke is mean. So the joke was Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts are getting a divorce because he's Lyle Lovett and she's Julia Roberts. Like that's the joke. And

they're close, you know, anyway. Yeah. But it's elegant. I get it. There's an elegant construction. And John, we're just having fun here. Just two friends. We're having so much fun. We're having fun. Just two friends having fun, having so much fun. Not eviscerating. Not eviscerating. I will, honestly, it was earned. It's so funny. With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, COVID-19 is back on everyone's mind, but good news, Moderna announced their vaccine is 94.5% effective. It can be stored in common household refrigerators. I'll have to move some Diet Coke around, but I don't think that's a problem. Moderna did add, if you have roommates, you should label it.

Right. What is it coming in? What container is it coming in, Moderna? I don't know. Would you go Moderna or Pfizer? Are you going Moderna or Pfizer? I'm interested in either. I don't know which one is ultimately going to be easier to get. Obviously, the Pfizer one has to be stored at super cold temperatures. And a part of me is, if you have to keep something refrigerated all the way to your arm, that seems easier to do. So I worry about getting a version of the Pfizer vaccine that's a bit like shrimp that's been in the fridge too long. You know what I mean? I don want, I don't want it to have that fishy smell. You know, I want it to be fresh. Yeah. You

don't want a janky batch. You don't want a janky batch of the illness. No, I don't want one that was on somebody's radiator, you know? And you're not afraid, right? I just want to make sure you're not afraid of taking the vaccine. Okay. Me neither. I'm not afraid of taking the vaccine either. In the words of a friend of mine, I would just stick it in my neck. I need to get out of my house. Stick it in my neck. I need to get out of my house. Stick it in my neck. I want out. No, I'm in on the vaccine. And I actually talked to Eric Lander, who's a scientist, about this. And the point that he made, which is a good one, is that even if there is some tiny risk, everything we do for safety has some small amount of risk. Seatbelts occasionally hurt

people, right? The things we do that make all of us safer, that make us safer in our lives, nothing is without a tiny element of risk. And at any point, of course, we should all take the vaccine. Yeah, 100%. Put it in my neck, as you say. I put it in your neck. And the other thing is, a friend of mine was saying, a friend of mine in New York was really nervous about taking it.

And she goes, oh, well, what if 10 years, there's like crazy side effects because they develop this thing so quickly. And a scientist friend of mine pointed out to me, he was like, well, what do you years there's like crazy side effects because they develop this thing so quickly? And a scientist friend of mine pointed out to me, he was like, well, what do you think is going to be worse? The side effects of the vaccine or the side effects of COVID in 10 years? I just like- Pick your poison.

There's plenty to be afraid of without speculating. There's enough we can see that we should be afraid of. I'm not adding new hypothetical fears. I'm just not, I don't have space. That was good. That was good. I felt that was a, you revisited me. That was good. That was good. I felt that was a, you revisited me.

That was a good, that was a revisitation. So now we're 2-1. You got one more to go, buddy. That was a good one. That's sweet of you, but this is a route. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley,

who's 87 years old, has tested positive for COVID-19. Grassley plans to self-isolate for a couple weeks and then either plans to spend Christmas with his family or Herman Cain. Oh.

Too much, I think. Maybe too much. Oh, that's a lot. It's tough. It's a lot. It's a lot. I know. That's a lot.

I was on the board. I was on the fence about it. I was on the fence about it. We wish him a speedy recovery. You have final cut of this show. It doesn't have to go in, you know. I mean. But see, now the thing is the conversation about whether or not to include it and our revulsion at having heard it is entertaining.

Right, right. What would Norm MacDonald say about a moment like this is the real question. I hope you're out there, Norm, listening. We consult our guru. Mr. McDonald. It's Dr. McDonald. Dr. McDonald. Dolly Parton was a major investor in the research that led to the Moderna vaccine. People underestimate Dolly Parton, but even on the vaccine, she kept the publishing rights, which I think is pretty cool. Huge fan, huge fan of Dolly, huge fan of

the publishing rights. Taylor has taken a lot of pages out of her work. Big fan of her chest, her amusement park, her business practices. Surprisingly big fan of Dolly. I know that was a joke and I wasn't supposed to have real opinions. Sorry. No, I want the real opinion. Look, I love Dolly Parton. I love Dolly Parton. Meanwhile, speaking of Taylor, bad news for Pfizer. Their research was funded by Taylor Swift, who is now just redoing the research on her own to keep the profits from going to Scooter Braun.

Turns out it's a crazy business. It's wild. It's a crazy business. Yeah. Just put the Taylor re-recordings in my neck with the vaccine. It's good. Every time you tell me that Taylor Swift has published another box of text with regard to her masters, I am excited to read it.

There is nothing I look forward to more on Instagram than a big, chunky block of Taylor Swift text relating to the fucking master recordings. It is every time. It is A plus. It is so good. I love the writing. I love the tone. I love the energy. I love every aspect of it.

I am so excited. Honestly, Taylor Swift's Instagram of text of her rebukes to Scooter Braun having purchased her masters. That is my favorite Taylor Swift album. You put those things together. Those to me are my favorite performance, I think. And there are great performances, but I love

those blocks of text. They're delicious. Every time. Would you say that they are worth $300 million? Would you pay $300 million for them? That's the real question. First of all, sure. I'm in. Okay, you and Ronan, you and Ronan,

pool the cash. I'm going to set up a deal. I'm going to set up the deal. Let's get those. Take this Instagram. Let's get those masters. In his book, Barack Obama referred to a girl he had a crush on in college as an ethereal bisexual. Craziest part is, it turned out to be the actual ghost of Virginia Woolf.

That's it. I don't know why. I don't know why I like that. I do like that, though. Look, you got me. Anytime you got a Virginia Woolf reference in something, it's... Virginia, you just mentioned celebrities I like. Barack Obama and Virginia Woolf.

The alternatives. Here are some of the alternatives that I could have gone for ghost bisexuals. All right? Tell me what you would have. Here are some other options for ghost. This is for, wait, this is for ethereal, ethereal? No, ghost bisexual. For the ethereal bisexual.

Barack Obama referred to having a crush on an ethereal bisexual. I gendered this person as a girl, but I didn't need to for the purposes of the joke. So I could have said, craziest part is it turned out to be the actual ghost of Walt Whitman. Okay. Okay. Virginia was better. Turns out to be the actual ghost of Oscar Wilde. See, there's no, I thought we were going to, are we going to go in different directions? Like, are you going to do Casper? I would do, I know. No, I'm really were going to, are we going to go in different directions? Like, are you going to do Casper? Are you going to do actual ghosts? No, I'm really quite limited to the first Google result for famous bisexuals in history. Okay. Okay. And I combed the list of famous bisexuals in history. And the ones that jumped out at me in comedy terms were Virginia Woolf,

Walt Whitman, and Oscar Wilde. That said, you know, I felt Virginia Woolf was the funniest for some reason. I think we should probably move on. What would Norm do? That's the question. Oh, man. Never going to live that down. He would move on. He would probably move on. Go gambling or something. Soon-to-be congressman and handsome racist, Madison Cawthorn gave an interview

about his effort to convert Jews to Christianity. And I was like, so this isn't a date? Because Madison, he is risen. Okay, even just to this, so this isn't a date I mean I laughed that one I really laughed

I did laugh that was funny it was funny you're personalizing you're coming back to the self no I'm a fan I would keep that look here's the thing alright it's vulgar if you think about it and it's about a handsome racist I do like the idea

that you know so often we still associate beauty with good. And there is something about when you have someone beautiful who's bad. It's kind of a good societal example to remind us that, you know. I think it's a really good point. On Tuesday, Twitter unveiled their new feature fleets, which are kind of like Facebook stories, which are also like Instagram stories, which are basically like Snapchat stories, which got popular five years ago because they let you look like a dog. Anyway, the American president is attempting a coup. So now it's time for a segment we call coup news. This week, after

tweeting something that implied Biden won, Trump followed up with, I won the election, in all caps. But if you have to keep reminding people you're the king, you won't be king for long. And that is either a reference to Shakespeare, Game of Thrones, or The Lion King, and I honestly don't remember which. After both of those, the sound effect should be a guillotine, a guillotine just going down. Yeah, for sure. It'll sell both of them. I hope you're taking notes on that, Travis.

Travis, take some fucking notes. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Lindsey Graham pressured him to toss out legitimate Biden votes in the state's recount. This is shockingly unethical. This was a private conversation, Brad. Have some respect. It's just hard for me to laugh when I hear it. Every time I hear his name, I feel my butthole clench now. Yeah. You know, it's just it automatically clenches. It's just hard for me to laugh when I hear it. Every time I hear his name, I feel my butthole clench now. Yeah. You know, it's just, it automatically clenches. I'm just like, is this guy's going to be, he's in there, he's going to stay in with Mitch.

It sucks. It just sucks. And in Michigan, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers deadlocked on Tuesday when its Republican members refused to certify the results unless they admitted Detroit, which is both majority black and the largest city in the state. After hours of angry responses from residents, the Republicans relented and the vote to certify passed. On reversing their initial votes, the Republican members of the board explained, we wanted to disenfranchise black people in defiance of both the Constitution and basic

human decency, but we didn't count on anyone getting mad at us. Then, hours after the results were certified, Trump called them and they reversed course again, now saying they no longer wanted to certify the results they had already certified. There is no legal way to do this and the certification will stand. Also, it is worth noting that the person now in charge of this legal fight is Rudy Giuliani, which seems like a great plan, just as long as he can make sure the judge isn't secretly Borat. Do you think as fast as you talk? I don't think I've had a thought in a really long time. It's all just the talking now. Okay, because when you even, I didn't understand any of that except for Borat,

but I will say I was fascinated watching your mouth move. I was like, gosh, he can talk so fast. He's like an auctioneer. He's like an auctioneer. Here's the thing. I know that people out there listen to these podcasts at 1.2 speed, 1.4 speed, 1.6 speed. Some go faster. And I dare you. I dare you, listeners.

All right? We are pumping out fast-paced. Hey, how about this? Join me as I live my life at 1.2 speed. You're not listening to John fast. You're not fast-forwarding through any of this. Join me as I live my life at 1.2 speed. You're not listening to John fast. You're not fast boarding through any of this. No, it's fast already. I got to slow it down a little for me. Got to go at a more Daria pace, you know. Biden signaled this week that he does not want to spend his presidency investigating Trump. That is a job best left to the Department of Justice,

or if we're lucky, a true crime podcast from the people who brought you The Shrink Next Door. I do love a good podcast. So yeah, it should probably be left on them. Justice. I am very frustrated every time the language about whether or not we hold people accountable for their crimes is put in terms of we should just move forward. Like, the reason you prosecute crimes is so that when we do move forward, it is in a society where people respect the rule of law. That the failure to hold Nixon accountable, the failure to hold Ronald Reagan accountable,

the failure to hold George W. Bush accountable, now the potential failure to hold Donald Trump accountable, this has, it leaves a mark. It leaves a pattern of incentives and acceptable behavior. And each time that I do think you can draw a line from our failure to hold previous presidents accountable to the fact that there is such a morass around what the law even is as it prescribes behavior by the president, him or herself. There is a, whenever we have legal arguments now about what the president can or cannot do, it is always couched in this kind of mealy-mouthed language about what some say, some experts say, even when there are really clear-cut cases. So if we want to live in a society in which the president is accountable

to the rule of law, in which corruption is not tolerated, in which our institutions can withstand the kind of pressure campaigns that Donald Trump has waged against them, a system that disincentivized the kind of behavior we've seen over the past four years. If I want to move forward into a world like that, the only way we can do it is if we go back and make sure we understood what happened

and hold the people accountable. And if the fear, which is what one of the pieces said, if the fear is that these kinds of investigations will be divisive, well, why don't we ask the question, what do you do if the truth is divisive? Do you ignore the truth, or do you tell the truth until it stops being divisive? If you don't tell the truth because a bunch of people no longer view the truth as something nonpartisan, if you don't tell the truth because there's a whole media and propaganda apparatus that denies reality, you're surrendering to the divisiveness. You're contributing to the divisiveness. If you don't fight it by telling the truth about what Donald Trump did, you're conceding. And I really hope we don't do that. And I, you know, when I

interviewed Adam Schiff, we talked about this, this incredible pressure that would exist to move forward. He seemed pretty committed to the fact that for the sake of moving forward, we need to make sure we understand what happened. And so I hope that that happens. But it is alarming to me. That's all. There's three things I can say to this. Number one, I'll knock on wood. Number two, it's basically refer to my first point.

And number three is, again, like, isn't this also what lawyers do? Isn't the whole thing with lawyers? I've never heard a lawyer be like move forward. Lawyers are generally like, take your heels in, stew, take your position. Like, don't they like make $300 an hour to do that? Isn't that kind of the vibe with the whole justice system? The only people that are in charge of telling us what the future is are weather people and psychics. Everyone else is debating about the past.

It's the only stuff we can debate. The present is very, very small. You can't, you know, blink and you'll miss it. Yes. And then it's the past, you know? Right. Philosophically. We're already in the past when we're even saying that last thing, if you're thinking

about it. Yeah. The other thing, I do want to say this about fake news. Like, it's remembering, and I think about this all the time because even the way that this election shook out and how many people still voted for Trump, it's like when you think about the fake news thing, it's always existed. It's always existed. It's not a new phenomenon. It's just that the dissemination of it is new. The sources are new.

The new media aspect of it is new. But there's always been that element that has existed and truth has always had a very subjective narrative behind it. And facts, I mean, even if you're making a documentary, whatever it is, it's always going to be to some extent, a cherry picked version of what that is. But we've taken that to the extreme now. So the question is, can our country find a footing where we all believe the same, you know, five points of how many people voted in an election, how many people were standing outside cheering in a rally, like hard numbers? Can we get back to a place where we believe that collectively as a nation?

I think that's right. And I think that starts by being honest about the actual crisis. And I think when we talk about being polarized, that is deeply misleading. When we talk about living in two different realities, that's deeply misleading. When we talk about being divided, that is deeply misleading. I mean, even right now, the vast majority of the country believes Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States and that he won the election, but a majority of Republicans don't. In previous generations, when independents started abandoning George W. Bush because of his failures in Iraq and Katrina, independents abandoned W., but so did Republicans. He actually started losing support among Republicans.

That hasn't happened with Donald Trump. Richard Nixon, you know, he had popular support among Republicans, but by the time he resigns, that support has faded and the Republican Party is punished by voters in the elections that follow. That didn't happen this time. We may have removed Donald Trump, but Republicans picked up seats and held the Senate. in this country that does get its news from a diverse range of sites, including progressives who, yes, get their news from left-leaning publications, but also CNN and NBC and all the rest. And then you have this minority that is fully enveloped in the right-wing Fox News, Facebook ecosystem, and that that group of people have slowly been shifting away from us, like through plate tectonics, like slowly being pulled by propaganda in these systems. And so we have to figure out when we say, how do we make sure we share a collective set of facts? What I think is, how do we stop that low information to disinformation

pipeline? What do we do about this group of people that have basically inoculated themselves against reality? And how do we keep people from getting into that bubble in the first place? Do you have solutions for that? Because I will say that like when I go on those Facebook rabbit holes, which I want to do, and I'll go on all different kinds, conspiracy sites, whatever, you name it, I'll go. And they are seductive. Even if I don't believe something, I can look at it and be like, this is a seductive pitch. And I can see how a reasoning person could still fall down that rabbit hole or that belief

system. This is actually something I talked to Eric Lander about as well. What are some of the potential solutions to misinformation? You think about misinformation and disinformation. You think about the creators. You think about the platforms that spread it. And you think about the users. I think a lot of times we talk a lot about the creators. We talk about the platform. But we actually do need to have a conversation about why so many people are interested in this stuff. Why so many people want information that makes them, that confirms their biases so completely that doesn't challenge them. They either believe it's true and are wrong or don't care whether it's true or not,

or know it's false and share it anyway. Like what has happened that has allowed so many people to find that intoxicating and not want information that challenges their point of view at all? Never, never want to see it, never want to experience it. What do we do when people have put themselves in that kind of a bubble? It's a hard problem. It's going to be with us for indefinitely. We have, you know, we're going to get rid of Donald Trump, but a big chunk of the Republican Party just rejected democracy today. So, you know, we won this election, but we're in trouble. I don't have good answers. Here, let me end with a joke. Yeah. And finally, I was like, prophetic, prophetic. And finally, a new study found that 38% of Americans say they are likely to attend a large gathering this holiday season,

but two, if you count the ICU. Wow. Could have ended on the Dolly Parton thing, probably. On a high note. We can shift those in the cut. Yeah. Ending on the Dolly Parton thing, probably, on a high note. We can shift those in the cut. Yeah. Ending on the death of the country with this massive raging pandemic is... Let me add this so that we can stick this in earlier if we want to end this. John, I need a hug. Here we go. John, I need a hug. And that's Coodoo's. I need a hug. John, I need a hug. And that's kudos. Kieran deal. What an absolute delight.

It's been to see you. So good to see you. Thank you so much for doing this. Uh, wherever you are, I hope, where are you? You know, where aren't I is the answer. No, I'm in England. That's cool. That's cool. Um, well, I hope you have a very nice Thanksgiving, even though you're in a place that doesn't really market. But this doesn't exist over there. It's not their thing. It's not their thing. And enjoy Ronan Farrow's childhood home. I like how many times you said exactly that phrase.

It will stay with me because it paints such a – like is this where you will be celebrating Thanksgiving? Actually, this would be good for the audience. Paint that picture for the audience because that I think will be ending on a high note. Maybe some this would be good for the audience. Paint that picture for the audience because that, I think, will be ending on a high note. Maybe some of the fix-ins on the table. Thank you, Kieran. It's going to be a lovely time with Ronan and Ronan's mother and Ronan's brother, Fletcher, and his sister-in-law, Jillian, and their two kids. And it's going to be a lovely Thanksgiving. There'll be turkey and mashed potatoes,

some kind of stringed bean. I assume I may make a dessert, but only if I can create content as I do it. It will be dessert both to eat, but also for the Grams, so if I can create a situation in which I can... I also have an apron, a new apron, a comedy apron I would like to debut,

so I may make a dessert. So that's what we're going to do. It's going to be very lovely. I'm sad that I won't be able to see my parents who are in Florida and who were at some point considering driving up to see my sister and my brother-in-law and my nephew. But because cases are so high, I don't think that they should travel. Not because they couldn't do that part of it safely. But when you're driving, it's like, what if a car breaks down? What if something goes wrong? So they're not going to make it. So I'm sad think that they should travel. Not because they couldn't do that part of it safely, but when you're driving, it's like,

what if a car breaks down? What if something goes wrong? So they're not going to make it, so I'm sad about that. So happy Thanksgiving to my parents and my sister and Isaac and Bennett, but I'll be here in Connecticut making the best of it. Yeah, happy Thanksgiving to the Lovetts. What are your parents' names?

Fran and Robert. Fran! Fran and Robert. I love Fran and Robert. I'm immediately in love with them. Happy Thanksgiving, Fran and Robert. What are you doing over there? What are you going to do for Thanksgiving? It's a lockdown here, so I'm going to do probably a lot of staring at a wall. Then I'll probably turn 90 degrees and stare at a blackout curtain that I have that's brown. So that's a brownout curtain. I'll turn again. And then I'm going to look at the weird painting on the wall. This is kind of, you get the mix.

You get the mix of activity. It's going to be a lot of turning and staring over here. Okay. Gear and deal, everybody. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving, you guys. When we come back, it is time for a Thanksgiving edition of the Achuli Spread Game with Guy Branum hosting and me and Ronan once again answering Travis's questions. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist currently working on an expose, He is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist currently working on an expose, a deep investigation into my refusal to share the brand new PlayStation 5. Please welcome back returning champion Ronan Farrow. It's important stuff. Good to be here. Hi, Jonathan. Hi.

Hi. So Ronan has graciously agreed to play a Thanksgiving edition of the Achuli Spread game. That is where Travis writes questions to try to drive a wedge inside of our relationship. Devastating consequences every time. Thanks, Travis. And before we get to that, which we have already recorded and was honestly a nightmare, I did want to take a moment to talk with Ronan about a piece he published in The New Yorker. He just published an investigation into some malfeasance at the Department of Justice involving the CIA, and it involves a whistleblower and threats by Gina Haspel,

the current head of the CIA. It is a fascinating story. Ronan, what exactly is the misconduct that this DOJ whistleblower brought to you? To start out, I just think it's important, even with everything going on in the world, to remember many of the most important reforms we've seen of our government over our history have been because government whistleblowers came forward and were brave and said, hey, I see something bad happening on the inside. And going back to the founding fathers, it's been an enshrined principle of this country that we protect those people. There are protected ways for them to come forward.

of this country, that we protect those people. There are protected ways for them to come forward. And this is an example of a veteran Department of Justice prosecutor, former Marine, who served his country for years and years, and who did everything by the book, came forward with something really shocking in protected government channels to inspector generals within the government. And what faced in retaliation for that, a really sweeping campaign trying to shut him up and eventually costing him his career in public service. This was important because of those larger reasons that we need whistleblowers and we've got to protect them. And also important because of what he uncovered, which to your question, this is a DOJ lawyer who stumbled into what he calls a vast

criminal conspiracy, a secret CIA surveillance program that was classified at the highest level of secrecy that the agency has, that was being used to affect arrests in drug cases, in domestic prosecutions, and then in a scheme between the CIA and the FBI that those agencies were lying about to prosecutors and to judges. And that also violates really basic principles, right? We in U.S. courts are supposed to be transparent. We are supposed to give defense attorneys accurate access to information to let them discover the reasons why their clients were arrested. And in this case, there were some pretty crazy lies going on up to and including the FBI telling prosecutors that this information from the CIA program actually came from a bunch of investigations that were totally made up at the FBI, named after the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. So basically, there's a highly classified CIA program for gathering information about drug running into the country. The CIA doesn't want that information to be revealed, not just in open court, because they don't even want it to be revealed in a closed setting to judges. They say

to prosecutors, basically, you either can participate in this cover-up of where this information comes from, or you can't use the information? Basically, the way that this is supposed to work, Jonathan, is by closed doors, the Classified Information Procedures Act allows for these situations, right? There's super national security-sensitive CIA programs at work. We, the CIA, don't think that this should be discussed in open court. Judge, can you guarantee that this won't be discoverable, that the defense won't be able to get at this, that this won't have to be aired in open court? And, you know, I talked to tons of veteran prosecutors, and what they said was if a court says, sorry, we can't protect this information, then you just have to drop the charges. That's how it's supposed to work. And in this case, you know, what intelligence officials told me was this was a super secret surveillance program, not just directed at drug runners that had national security ramifications that was so secret, in fact, that they didn't even want to

play by the rules and consult judges about this. And so there was a system of lying about this, that this lawyer uncovered. And so, I mean, this is not going after kingpins. This is about prosecuting the lowest level, lowest rung of the ladder. These are people who are desperate, taking on these jobs of bringing the drugs into the United States. And the CIA is providing information to the Justice Department to use in these prosecutions. And a lot of these prosecutions, it seems like are, well, what's happening now? Are these prosecutions going to be undone? What happens to these cases now that it's public, that the affidavits submitted by the Department of Justice are not true? Yeah, I mean, so this has ramifications on a couple of levels. One is,

as you say, for the cases themselves. I've got a bunch of defense attorneys saying, you know, this was a violation of our client's rights to a fair trial. We were lied to. And looking at what their options, if any, might be, it's complicated because in these individual drug cases, these are all low-level drug runners who were caught with pails of cocaine and they pled guilty. But what's at stake here is a bigger violation of rights, Jonathan. Once you start letting undisclosed, and not just undisclosed, but covered up by lies, information into American courts as the foundation of prosecuting and imprisoning people, that's something that frightened a lot of legal experts that I talked to. The extent and brazenness of the lies, I think, is a reflection of just how hard it is to challenge the government on this

sort of thing. I mean, you've got emails from FBI agents who are sworn to tell the truth in these contexts, telling prosecutors who were saying, hey, this seems fishy. This seems like not a guy that was nabbed on a routine Coast Guard patrol. This seems like you guys must have had precise GPS information that you followed. And instead of saying, yeah, this came from a sensitive program, you know, that we can only talk about in classified channels, they sent these elaborate cover stories saying, you know, this came from Operation Wicked Wench or Operation Calypso, you know, and here are the details of this fake operation, none of which existed. They concocted a fake Mexican crime group that they were supposedly going after, all to defraud and

deceive the courts in the argument of this DOJ whistleblower. If you read the story, it's like a really straight list person who's trying to expose genuine wrongdoing through the proper channels. What did intelligence officials do when they were confronted by this completely by the book example of somebody using whistleblower protections to try to raise the alarm. So this DOJ whistleblower, Mark McConnell, you know, did everything by the book, as you say. He went to an inspector general hotline. He complained in this protected way. He was interviewed by inspector general investigators. And as this is going on, the CIA gets very, very angry about this. And we document this through hundreds of

pages of documents and meetings that happened. And there's a pretty extreme, first of all, cover-up effort, repeated efforts to delete evidence of this wrongdoing off of government systems and off of McConnell's computer. And so he winds up, you know, there are these very extreme, like, spy thriller-like scenes where he's trying to physically print and hide copies of this material because he's convinced it's going to get deleted. And indeed, deletions do happen. And, you know, he starts making these disclosures through these protected channels within the government and very quickly starts getting what numerous officials said was a campaign waged against him by the CIA. And that manifested in all sorts of ways. He tried to stop

repeated efforts to delete evidence. He meanwhile was getting excoriated by intelligence officials. There's a working level operative on the civilian military task force where a lot of the story plays out, who, you know, I don't name in the story for security reasons. He's an undercover CIA operative. But we're just, you know, in open workspaces. He's shouting of one of the officials who issued complaints about this. You know, that cocksucker, if he wants to fuck me in the ass without lube, you know. It's a crazy series of quotes. I know this is a family establishment.

We have to bleep that on this fine podcast of yours. But, you know, it's an exciting saga that he goes through from an outside reader's perspective, but harrowing, obviously, from his perspective. Stop joking. What are you, what are you, do some movie rights? Just chill out. And, you know, ultimately it culminates in this going all the way to the top of the intelligence community, and he and others allege Gina Haspel comes to this task force where he's working

and explicitly says, you know, there should be repercussions against this guy. And indeed, there were repercussions. You know, he was frozen out of that assignment, marched unceremoniously out of his office, you know, told to clear out his desk, and then frozen out of subsequent assignments that he was lined up for. So he is, you know, nominally on DOJ payroll, but unable to secure an assignment anywhere. And this is a guy who has been an upstanding public servant for decades. And, you know, that is a mild example, Jonathan, of what happens to officials who issue complaints. You know, we've seen across the Trump administration how people around the earlier whistleblower complaint on Ukraine were unceremoniously removed, demoted, fired. How Trump has really lashed out in his tweets and public remarks at both people who make public disclosures of this kind and those who complain within the government.

This is an important thing that needs to be turned around if we want transparent and accountable governance. So everybody should check out the story. It's in some magazine. New Yorkers, hit subscribe. Save journalism. So thank you, Ronan, for being here in this room. Always a pleasure to come one room over for Love It or Leave It recording sessions. Sure. And when we come back, we will play the Truly Sprite game.

Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Thanksgiving, a holiday that combines two of America's favorite pastimes, eating to the point of failure and telling deeply misleading stories about the past. But we thought it would be nice

to bring back yet another tradition here at Love It or Leave It to mark the occasion. So please welcome Ronan Farrow for another edition of the Achuli Spread Game. I have no idea what we're doing here. And as Kumail pointed out the first time we played, sneezing is not usually a symptom of COVID-19. We have not even tried to beat that name and that's how it goes. But because Ronan and I will be playing, we wanted to make sure that I was impartial, so we brought in a ringer as the host of the game.

You know him. You love him. Please welcome Guy Branum. Ba-na-na-na. That's what you have to do before playing the newlywed game, is you have to go, ba-na-na-na. Yeah, we need some kind of 70s fanfare, for sure. We can put it in a post. I'm still as unfamiliar with the newlywed game as I was

when you first maybe played the newlywed game. You really get this. It really seems like you should be getting the gist right now. I have a lot on my mind. I don't know. We get it. You're very young. You didn't waste your youth watching television. That's what I'm saying. No one needs to hear it. Ronan Farrow, you don't tell me that you've lived through the past 20 to 30

years and you never saw the lady hold up the card that says, in the butt. Not one time. The lady who holds up the card that says, in the butt, is just the one piece of newlywed game information that has... It went into the meme zeitgeist.

Okay. Yes. Look, I have been busy with important things like playing video games. That's fair. What did you think I was going to say? I thought he might say journalism. Thank God.

Thank God it was going to end up self-deprecating. I will say this. Ronan does not... There's cultural gaps. I'll just say that. I don't know things. There are some gaps. Did you watch Price is Right when you were sick from home from school?

No. Okay. See, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about. I watched Turner Classic Movies. He's like, no, when I was home'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about. I watched Turner Classic movies. He's like, no, when I was home from school and I was sick, I watched Ingmar Bergman films like a normal child. All right, Guy, kick us off. I have no comeback because it's true. Go ahead, Guy.

Here's how it works. I will ask one of you a question about the other. That person will have to write down their answer, and you have to guess what they wrote down. Let's begin. Question for Ronan. If John Lovett could pick one side, one side dish for his Thanksgiving dinner,

what would it be? What counts as a side? See, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I'm talking about. We would define turkey and or ham as being your main, depending on where you live in this great country. And then everything else would be a side other than beverages or desserts. I'm trying to divine from the sounds of his scribbling how long the side is.

All right. Okay. All right. Rodan Farrell, what's your answer? I'm going to be boring and say mashed potatoes. He got it. Oh, classic, classic choice. Yeah.

But let's be clear. John has written down mashed potatoes with skin. Well, I was giving him... There's a chance for a bonus. I submit to the court that there is no other appropriate way to eat mashed potatoes. And if you disagree, you're wrong. Go fuck yourselves and go back to the early 2000s.

Okay? Craftsmanship is about producing a smooth, fluffy palm puree. Not about, look at me, I left brown in there. The skin is where the nutrients are. I read it on the internet. Oh, Ronan, are you not getting enough nutrients on Thanksgiving? Are you running short of niacin? All right, final question for Love Aid.

Okay. Put yourself in this situation. Okay. Thanksgiving dinner has ended. It is dessert time. What is Ronan grabbing first? It's actually quite technical because it depends on the sweet. I'm going to just let him write, but I have some things I need to say just to couch my answer.

But I think I know what the answer should be. I know what the answer should be. What are the classic desserts in the Lovett household? There was always a chocolate pudding pie. There was noodle kugel. That could be a side or a dessert. Or a solid foundation for a home. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. You can use kugel to fill in any missing bricks. Are you ready, Ronan? I'm ready. I'm going to say, as long as it's not the kind that's too, too sweet, it should be pecan pie. I did pumpkin pie.

It could have been pumpkin pie. I have also scribbled out creme brulee after realizing that nobody has creme brulee on Thanksgiving. That's sort of what we're dealing with here. But I did say pumpkin pie. So you're kind of adjacent to the answer. I could have said pumpkin pie. It's more savory than pecan pie.

We're not doing great. I think that's reasonable. My big hope in getting to do this game with you guys was the opportunity to police your exceedingly northern pronunciation of pecan. And I just want to say, you're wrong, and you need to accept that you're wrong.

Oh, because I said pecan? Yes. I think pecan is correct. Well, yeah, but he, you know, he talks like a funeral lord. I learned to speak, where I learned to speak, we say things like Super Mario Brothers. We say pecan pie.

We say vase, you know? We don't say vase. That Long Island lives in you. All right. Travis, where's the question about my most recent New Yorker piece? Oh, God. Everybody, please check out Ronan's piece in the New Yorker. It came out just before the election, and it is about an incredible story of a whistleblower in the CIA

about some illegal prosecutions of low-level drug runners using CIA information that was kept secret from the court. It's a huge scandal, and everybody should check it out. Hey, Guy. Yes. And that's the game? And that's the game, everybody. I forget who won or had the most points. Guy, I think you won.

Paying attention to that. I'm going to say Ronan won. I think I did win. We think he won. I think I won. We think he won. When we come back, something. I'll be gone.

Ronan will be gone. Maybe forever. Maybe for good. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. It will be gone. Maybe forever. Maybe for good. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. He is a geneticist, director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard,

and host of the podcast Brave New Planet. Please welcome Eric Lander. Eric, so good to have you here. Thank you so much. Hey, great to be here, John. And I just want to say I love the podcast and I hope everybody checks it out. It is a fascinating look into a bunch of really big scientific questions from misinformation to climate change, but does it in a way that's unexpected and fascinating. So I really encourage everybody to check it out. That's just my plug. I'll keep plugging it. That's going to be part of

it. No, no, it's a great plug. But I mean, in a way, it's about more than science and technology. It's about like really cool new technologies that have amazing upsides. But, you know, if we don't make wise choices could really leave us a lot worse off. So like its tagline is utopia or dystopia. It's up to us. It took me a long time to figure out why I was making this anyway, but it was because I was missing having thoughtful people, passionate people, being able to argue about hard problems without yelling at each other. Novelty, they agree on the facts, they agree on the goals, and they don't agree on the solutions, and they're willing to engage. And I guess I hadn't seen as much of that in my life over the last four years.

That's true. Just saying. And so for me, this was a bit of an antidote to take some of the most important kinds of things that we could be struggling with as a society, in this case, coming out of science and technology. But I think it's kind of a metaphor for a lot of other things, and see if we can actually grapple with solutions. So it's a small ray of hope in my world that we can do it. And it was fun talking to people about all these things and seeing them willing to even change

their minds. How's that? Never seen it before. I've heard about it. I've heard people change their minds, but I've never seen it in actual... It's been done... I think it's the kind of thing where it's been done in lab tests, but it's never actually been found in the wild. Yeah, yeah. Well, so, Eric, I wanted to start by asking you about the pandemic, because, you know, as you said, the podcast talks about dystopia and utopia. And it does seem as though like we've seen both in equal measure in the past basically week or so. We have this terrible third wave, which is an entirely preventable disaster. But on the other hand, we've seen Pfizer announce a vaccine that's 90% effective. Then Moderna announces they got a vaccine that's 94.5% effective. And then Pfizer says, like the

competitive older brother, actually ours is 95% effective. Can you talk a little bit about this achievement? And I know that from your position, you've had a lot of these conversations. You've been in contact with people doing this work. What does it say that they were able to get these two vaccines, uh, ready this quickly? I mean, from a scientific point of view, it's amazing, but let's just not gloss over this, you know, how our heads are exploding between the two different pieces of, of what's going on. I mean, I would describe the

scientific achievements as kind of this light at the end of the tunnel, but it's a really long tunnel. It's really a dangerous tunnel. We're kind of asking, how did we get in this tunnel in the first place and why are we here? And so it's like holding all of those things simultaneously in our heads because we didn't have to be here. You and I are talking on November 19th. So yesterday, the U.S. passed a quarter of a million deaths. We had almost 2,000 deaths just in the day. of people who are in new cases every day is creeping up to about 200,000. This is much worse than we've seen before. And the vaccines are amazing achievements, but it's going to be many, many months before they're all really rolled out in full. So we have to hold these two things in our head simultaneously that we're in the midst of a terrible storm that's going to cause a lot more death and suffering. And yet, in like record time, much less than a year, many different companies produced and are running clinical trials on vaccines. And you think about it, the land speed record for making a vaccine, it's been like four

years. Often it takes a lot longer than that. And if you stop for a minute and you think about like what happened scientifically that makes that possible, it's pretty cool. The two vaccines, the one from Pfizer-BioNTech and the one from Moderna, both use the same approach. Instead of the old-fashioned way of make a disabled virus, kill the virus and use that to immunize people or make a they read the instructions, the what are called RNA instructions, and they make the protein to immunize you with. Now, why is this a big deal? Because it's so fast. The Chinese identified a virus, sequenced it in two days, put it on the internet. Two days later, companies here were able to design the vaccine they would like to make. Two weeks later, they could make small quantities of it.

A couple months later, they could start immunizing people. And frankly, the slow step is waiting for enough people to get the disease in the placebo group and the vaccine group to see if you had had a big effect. It's hard to imagine that the design step can get any faster. I think the design could get under a week. You know, the other parts still have to be sped up, but it's getting done. And then, you know, I talk about the old things as old fashioned. Those are happening too. There are a bunch of companies that have made the inactivated viruses, a bunch of companies that make viruses that carry in DNA instructions, a bunch of companies that made proteins,

like everything on the menu, somebody is doing and often multiple somebodies, and it's getting done and read out in 10 months. Why aren't we doing this for many more things? I think that's what people are thinking right now. We're watching a scientific community which which i've got to say there's a lot of dysfunction that we may that we've seen with regard to the pandemic but scientifically like people have come together and figured out how to do things fast without compromising safety i'm impressed and i just want to make sure we don't lose that because this sure isn't the last time we need it. This is not the last pandemic. We see new outbreaks coming out at a very, I mean, the rate of new outbreaks of new viruses and things like

that, it's sort of doubling every five years. And God forbid there was a bioweapon. So this is not a one-off. I mean, the last big pandemic like this was a century ago. The next one is not going to be that far off. So, you know, you brought up this change in leadership that we're in the middle of seeing take place, even though the outgoing party is not relinquishing the baton. Not everybody's with the program yet. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, and I will only mention Trump this once and I apologize for doing it even once. But after these announcements about the vaccine came out, Trump started a conspiracy about how this was meant to hurt his reelection by not announcing it. And my honest reaction was, I'm glad that

that's the conspiracy he chose because it's pro-vaccine, right? It's the vaccine's too good. They tried to hurt me by not releasing this too good of a vaccine. What are you hoping to see? I mean, what are you hoping to see in terms of public education, right? Like, you know, these vaccines are now being manufactured. Hopefully, hopefully they continue to be proven safe and effective and they begin being distributed. Obviously, people are going to want it, but success is about mass adoption. What are you hoping to see in the next few months to make sure we have as big a pool of people willing to take it as possible? Well, look, I think the most important thing is transparency because we've had so much distrust, so much conspiracy theory. I'm sorry the president thought that the vaccine approval announcements were timed in some political way, but, you know, it's pretty clear the companies

weren't given the data until a couple of days before they announced it. That's the way these trials work. They're kept secret by the data safety monitoring board, not revealed to the company. So nobody could have released it. But at this point now, John, I think if we're going to win trust, it's got to be by transparency. Like, you know, my fantasy is there's a Reddit AMA and everybody in the country can write in with questions and say, tell me about this vaccine. And yeah, some of the things they're going to say are, well, let's see, we tried it in 40,000 people. Half of them got the vaccine and half of them got a placebo, salt water. And we waited a bunch of months. And like 160 people who got the placebo, they got infected and have symptoms.

And like eight people who got the vaccine, that's roughly what the numbers are, got infected and got symptoms. So it's like 20 times less. And so when people say, why is it 95%? Well, because 20 times less people got infected when people say, why is it 95%? Well, because 20 times less people got infected so far than the people who took the placebo. But then you got a lot of questions like, okay, but how does it do for older people? How does it do for women as opposed to men? How does it do for people of different races, ethnicities,

health complications? How long is this protection going to last? Am I going to have to do it again? Are there short-term side effects? Yeah, there are, but it's sort of aches and pains and flu-like symptoms it appears to mostly be. It might knock you out for two days and stay home, but that seems like a small price. Are there long-term? Well, we don't know yet because there hasn't been long-term. price. Are there long-term? Well, we don't know yet because there hasn't been long-term. I think the more we can just say, this stuff is totally comprehensible to the general public, and the general public ought to ask questions. And when we don't know answers, we ought to say, we don't know the answer yet, and here's why, because there's no data. And you make up your mind. Would you like to take a vaccine that seems to have reduced the number of cases

by 20-fold in the people who took it and seems not to so far have side effects other than aches and pains for the two days after your vaccination? Do you want to risk it otherwise? In the long run, it is going to matter that enough people take it because that's what actually cuts the spread in the end, is that a lot of people are immune. And so the virus, when it tries to get transmitted to another person, that person's immune and it kind of exponentially dies out. That's how epidemics end. too, because even for people who are not in the age groups where you're at much higher risk of dying, you're still in the age groups where you could be one of these long haulers who have long run symptoms. You could still spread it to your grandparents or your parents or something, but we got to somehow rebuild trust. And there's no better place right now to rebuild trust than around the vaccine. There's a lot of credit to go around and let everybody get credit for it. Yeah, absolutely. So if we can't manage to do that,

you know, we're really in trouble trying to take on other conspiracies and things like that, because this is one where we know a lot of stuff. We don't know everything. And we can just admit that. Yeah. Like Trump wants to take credit through Operation Warp Speed, and that's going to get a bunch of Trump people to do it. Just take the credit. Take the credit. Cool. And you're not worried at all about, you know, six to eight months from now, anybody who had the RNA vaccine is going to suddenly become zombified in some way. I mean, you know that every movie with a rapidly made vaccine has about a year later produced a pretty significant zombie population. And you think the odds of that are slim? Look, I mean, the honest answer is until you're six to eight months out,

you know, you can't say things definitively. It's the thing about science is scientists should be careful not to say what's going to happen 10 years from now, because, you know, you can't be absolutely certain. What you can say is when people do things like that, there's no evidence of zombification that has been identified. Okay, good to know. No zombies coming out of stuff like this, but any vaccine could have a side effect in some small number of people. There are very few truly perfect solutions in the world, but then again, There are very few truly perfect solutions in the world. But then again, seatbelts aren't perfect either. They help you an awful lot. And occasionally, you know, you get in a car crash and they don't help you. certainly low probability of zombies, and people are grownups. They will make a decision. And I think

when they think about infecting elderly parents or grandparents, when they think about risk of being one of the people who has really serious disease, or frankly, when they just think about the fact that most COVID gets passed by people who don't even know they're sick because they're not symptomatic. That's why the virus is so insidious, smarter than most viruses. It doesn't make most of the people sick who pass it on. I think most people make the right choice, and I hope enough of them make the right choice that we don't lose a lot of lives, and that we also reach the point where the virus can't spread very easily. But it's going to be trust. The biggest thing that

has distinguished countries that have succeeded from countries that haven't succeeded is social cohesion. Countries with high measures of social cohesion have done much better from New Zealand to China. I think it's a great time for us to get together, you know, some social cohesion. I don't know what far right host you'd like to get on your podcast where you can both get together and discuss this. Absolutely not. Absolutely fucking not. I knew not. It's a hard pass. But you talk, but look, one of the, one thing you also talk about in the show is one of the obstacles to social cohesion and it's misinformation.

You know, the podcast goes into deep fakes. Yes. But you also note in the show, right, that we weren't overrun by deep fakes in this election. Actually, some of the most damaging disinformation was run-of-the-mill, deceptively edited video. You talk about Pelosi being slowed down. The one that I think sort of strikes me

as sort of where we're at is you have Joe Biden in Minnesota saying, hello, Minnesota. They take out the word Minnesota. They put in the word Florida. And all of a sudden he doesn't know where he is. Right. This thing went really far. Donald Trump shared that video. Right. That didn't require new technology. Right. So it seems to me that when we talk about deep fakes, we're afraid of the creators, but we're really afraid of platforms. And we're actually afraid of consumers, people sharing things they either know are false, don't know they're false, or don't care that they're false, right? Right, right. Every couple of months, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack go to Capitol Hill, and they take their lashes, and nothing really changes. What are some of the solutions that you

talk about? I recognize Reid Hoffman's voice in the podcast talking about the potential for fines per view, right? That if they publish something that is, you know, that spreads like heinous, violent content or misinformation, that there's some kind of fine. Can you talk a little bit about some of the ways out of this sort of misinformation spread? Look, it's worth sorting out the different ways out that people think about. What's good is people are trying to struggle with how could we fix it. There are techno fixes, and then there's like regulatory fixes and economic fixes. And let's hang up for a second on the techno question, because what you're talking about with Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden splicing in Florida instead of Minnesota to Joe Biden's remark, those are

what people sometimes call cheap fakes. And it turns out that cheap fakes rather than deep fakes work really well because listeners are not that discriminating and platforms have no controls at all that would stop even the most obvious cheap fakes. But you could stop things like that if you wanted to. So for example, let's just make this up. The Joe Biden quote, you know, hello, Minnesota. Well, that's on the web somewhere. So when somebody uploads, hello, spliced Florida, if there was a five second delay that they have on television, if it's searched really quickly over the web and it said, before I'm posting this, I'm noting that the exact same hello, Minnesota thing has been spliced here

into that. You could see that because it's such a cheap fake. Now, the platforms aren't doing it, but if they had a liability, they probably could do it. And if things got, I don't know if the world would come crashing down if it took five minutes for your tweet to get posted, because it was checked to make sure that it hadn't actually spliced in a cheap fake. It would look at the Nancy Pelosi thing and say, wait a second, that's already there at real speed. So I think the question about the deep fakes is that at some point, I hope we're going to push platforms to do this basic, simple checking that the thing that's going up there was not some cheap fake. But I agree, we're not doing that yet. The deep fakes bother me because that becomes a cat and mouse game given technology where it's going to be hard to know. in technology where it's going to be hard to know. Public comment in the podcast, we talked about the FCC got comment on net neutrality. The current administration wanted to repeal this policy of

internet neutrality, and they got 22 million comments, and 98% of them were just bots, but creative bots that were moving words around and all that. And shockingly, the bots were the ones who had a different opinion than the real people and carried the day. Shocking, isn't it? I think the first order is we ought to fix the most obvious ones. Then we have to think about what are other measures. And so Reid Hoffman talks about like the shooting in the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. And he says, if your platform has videos of violence like that, shootings in that, and you're posting it, there'll be a fine per view. Now, I thought that was really creative. So if it's viewed by 20 people, all right,

the platform might not care about a $5,000 fine per view. If it's viewed by 5 million people, well, that's $25 billion. Maybe they care. Basically, the platforms then say, well, you can't do that. You'll destroy the business. And then all of a sudden, like magic, they figure it out. Creative. All of a sudden, these things that were impossible, they can figure out if there's money on the line. Well, exactly. It's not impossible to do things. And it's not even impossible to do things fast enough. And then you got to create an incentive, like there's some financial penalty. There are other things I think about, and I don't know if

it's a good idea or not. We have all of these unverified identities that are on the web, spreading misinformation, bots and phony accounts and things like that. And we have this law that protects platforms from legal liability for posts. You know, one thought is maybe at least in the United States, you get protected for legal liability if the account is a verified account. But if it's an unverified account and nobody has recourse to go against the person who posted this, maybe it's a deep fake porn video of somebody, well, then the platform gets the liability. Now, suddenly, you know, they might care a lot about figuring that stuff out. Now, I know, and you know, that anonymity serves a useful

purpose in society. And how do we balance, you know, where some degree of anonymity is needed, and, you know, protecting whistleblowers, other things? So I don't know. But I think what we're trying to do with the conversation in the podcast, I think we ought to be doing on all these problems, is encouraging people to just think up solutions because some of them will stick. And we certainly can't keep going where this much disinformation, again, we're not having a discussion about the aftermath of the election, but where this much disinformation can be circulating. And of course, in that context, I will acknowledge that it isn't all unverified fake accounts. We also have information spread quite effectively by accounts with verified names. But maybe we put that in

another bucket to solve it in other ways. So, I mean, it's a real issue. Yeah, it's names. But maybe we put that in another bucket to solve in other ways. So, I mean, it's a real issue. Yeah, it's tough. What I appreciate about the conversation is that I do think we, especially in politics, you know, you see a lot of Democratic infighting about, oh, why did some of these moderates go down in moderate districts? Is it because left-wing people talked about defund the police? Is it because moderates didn't do enough campaigning? There's a lot of recrimination and we should have the debate about what's the best way for Democrats to win.

But it seems to me, a lot of times what happens right now is people only debate the questions they like. Yeah. And they only debate the people that they think will join them in the conversation. What do you do when there's this big problem of misinformation and disinformation

and those people don't care about having a debate? If they wanted to have a real and sincere debate, they wouldn't be spreading misinformation. So I do appreciate that in the show. You actually get into some of the solutions to this big kind of dark cloud that hangs over politics and all of these debates because that is the upstream. I mean, I'm mixing clouds and streams, but you get it. We're upstream and in the cloud. They both have water. They both have water. They both have water. All right. Well, you know, I've humiliated myself in front of one of the most cited scientists. It's a huge, embarrassing moment. But moving on, you know, one thing you talk about in the show, too, I just want to touch

on this briefly, misinformation and the role it plays in climate. But you focused on geoengineering. Yeah. And you talked about a few specific ways in which we could fight climate change through geoengineering. Can you just say what some of the options are? And then I want to pick one to do. Okay. Rather than take on climate change in its straight sense, and I hope we can come back to it because I think the real answer lies in taking on climate change in its straight sense. And I hope we can come back to it because I think the real answer lies in taking on climate change directly. But I thought an interesting way into it

was a debate that's going on amongst at least some people in science about, well, if the earth is getting warmer and the earth is getting warmer, and it's because we've got carbon dioxide holding it in heat, why don't we just reflect some heat back out into space by putting up little sulfur dioxide particles? So you just go around in planes

and you spray sulfur dioxide particles or other kinds of particles. And they're like tiny little mirrors and they'll, they could bounce back 1% of the sun's rays and, and cool off the earth. bounce back 1% of the sun's rays and cool off the earth. And it sounds so seductive and tempting. It's great. I'm in. And of course you are. How could you not? Because you know what? It costs about $2 billion a year, which is a steal for the whole earth, right? For that kind of money, you can get a plane that doesn't fly from the Pentagon. Let's do it. I'm in. Exactly. Exactly. I'm in.

Okay. But then the problem is, and so there's a wonderful, really smart physicist at Harvard who's proposing this. And he has a very good friend, the professor at Oxford, who says, you are barking mad. I think it's howlingly, barkingly mad is what he says. The problems, of course, are once you put the particles up, you can't control where they go. So maybe they accumulate in some places and not in other places. There's good evidence to think that might be. And it might change temperatures in different parts of the world. It'll change rainfall in different parts of the world.

Who knows? Might cause hurricanes. Who's got the insurance policy for that liability? That's interesting. And then he raises questions like, and you know, if we start relying on those sulfur particles up there, because it's sort of holding off the climate change temporarily, we kind of get addicted. And he calls it like the sword of Damocles, that it's hanging over you. Because if you ever stop for two or four or five years, because God forbid there's a war or a pandemic, let's say,

then suddenly you get hit with all the accumulated climate change. So it would only make sense to use if you were really confident you were on a path to zero emissions. But maybe we're not confident about that. And then- I don't, yeah, we're not confident about that. But maybe we're not confident about that. And then I don't think we're not confident about that. Yeah. But then finally, is it the case that if we had a solution like that, people who are opposed to taking action on climate change would use it to kind of say there's no need to proceed right now? And so I ask the proponent of this, are you concerned that your proposed solution here is actually going to get used by climate change deniers or people who don't want to see climate change action? And he says, I am absolutely certain it's going to get used that way, but I think we need it because, et cetera.

And his friend thinks he's crazy. And I also introduce Marsha McNutt, the president of the National Academy, and Varshini Prakash, the director of the Sunrise Movement. And I don't know where to come down on these things. I think Varshini says something very wise in this discussion, which is, if the problem is carbon dioxide emissions, how about we just solve the carbon dioxide emissions? Wouldn't that be the issue? And of course, you know, this other discussion is still a live discussion, but I think it's important to grapple with stuff like this. And can we actually find a better way to grapple with the real problem of reducing carbon dioxide emissions? Because, you know, as we go into a new administration, I worry a lot that we might not get any consensus to make progress. And, you know, I listened to the debates, such as they were, you know, discussing climate change. I think we have to find some new ways to describe this, because the idea that addressing climate change is going to wreck the economy, or going to be impossible, I think everybody really deep down knows there's like one solution. We figure out how to make renewable energy that's cheaper than fossil fuels. And that's a science and technology question. I mean, everything else is a temporizing measure. If we can actually make renewables cheaper than fossil fuels, then the market will

do the rest because it becomes the economic solution. And so really, in the end, the only way out is innovation. And we've done this before. So I always point to why do we have a semiconductor industry and computers? That stuff used to be ridiculously expensive. And the US Department of Defense pumped tons of money into buying semiconductors when they were unbelievably expensive to create a market for it. They created incentives. And then that gave rise to the US being like the economic leader. I don't know why we're not thinking about it this way, because I would think if one is a pretty extreme free marketeer or not, you would say, we do want to be in that position. And government has done this before. And why don't we just get our incentives straight?

We got them backwards now. Get them straightened out. We've seen it's working. Solar energy has gotten a lot cheaper. Let's finish the job. And so I don't hear any of that. I listen for that. And nobody's really saying it's the way out. And I don't want to be Pollyanna here either, but

I do think there are solutions and we got to somehow find language that is going to be understandable by people on all sides. But this is just the optimist in me. Get me on a different day and I'm as pessimistic as you are, John. But right now I'm just feeling like, why not try to push it? One option that's hinted at in the podcast, which I think is worth considering is if we can get some of these island nations that are threatened by climate change, you know, Kiribati, Vanuatu, we can get those islands together and have them basically say, we're putting the sulfur dioxide up there, whether you like it or not. And we're going to do it every year until you giant economies solve this problem. You let us know. We're going to take care of this because we have to survive. We need somebody to

just to say, because right now, right, according to last, there's nothing to stop any country right now on earth from deciding they're going to solve climate change for the rest of us. Yeah. Although as Marsha McNutt, the president of the National Academy points out, they could do that for a couple billion bucks and it's very affordable. Somebody could shoot those planes down. And even worse, she notes, you can put up gases that accelerate climate change. So Russia wants to keep the Arctic melting so that you have, I'm not saying they do, you know, I'm not want to cast any aspersions on Russia, but if they wanted to have the Arctic open for navigation, there's some gases that would counteract this stuff.

So sadly, John, it might require international cooperation. All right. Well, you know, you tried to, to take us to a utopian place. I brought us back to a dystopian place. Then you brought us back. I think that's probably where we should leave it. So you got the point. Eric Lander. That's exactly right. Eric Lander, thank you so much. This was a great conversation. The podcast is Brave New Planet. Everybody should check it out. Thank you so much. When we come back, let's end on a high note. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. back let's end on a high note don't go anywhere this is love it or leave it and there's more on the way and we're back because we all need it this week here it is the high note i love it this is

hannah from maryland and something that gave me hope this week is that when i was having a really bad day earlier this week a bunch of other organizers who I only knew from Twitter were so quick to jump in and offer a shoulder to cry on, some good advice, and pictures of their cats. It was just a really nice and needed reminder that there are some really amazing people who are doing this work with me and that there is still good and kindness in the world and that it goes a long way. Thanks for all that you do. Bye. Hey, Lovett. This is Carla from Villarica, Georgia. good and kindness in the world and that it goes a long way. Thanks for all that you do. Bye. Hey, Lovett. This is Carla from Villarica, Georgia.

I live in a tiny little town in West Georgia. I'm a little blue dot in a big red county. I'm so very happy that Joe Biden is going to be our next president. It has given me a warm, fuzzy feeling that I carry with me every night. When I go to work in our local hospital where we are overwhelmed with COVID patients. So it's a bright and shining hope. Things are soon going to be better. And I'm so looking forward to walking in the sun with my friends again. Thanks for everything you guys do. Have a great day. Bye. Hey, John, this is Rick from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The high note is after your crooked media inspired me to be the judge of elections this year here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The high note is, after your crooked media inspired me to be the judge of elections

this year here in Pittsburgh, that 13-hour day turned into a 19-hour day and it allowed me to crash after it kicked my ass. And then I woke up to some better news on Wednesday. So keep up the good work. Thanks.

Hi, I love it. My name is Hannah and I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. My highlight of the week, well, it's actually more of a highlight overall. At the beginning of COVID, I lost my job. And during that time, I kind of figured out what I actually wanted to do, which was become a teacher. So I ended up getting a job as a teacher's aide, and I'm now teaching history to a bunch of seventh graders, and it has become my greatest joy in life, and it is awesome, and I get to share my joy with a bunch of seventh graders, and they tell me that I'm like their favorite teacher, and I get to listen to them share how excited they are every day to see me in the morning. So it ended up being a blessing in disguise.

Thank you for everything that you do, because listening to Love Your Leave It on the weekends is my little pocket of joy. So thank you for everything that you do. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Bye. If you want to leave a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 323-521-9455. Thank you to Kieran Deal, Eric Lander, Ronan Farrow, Guy Branum, and everyone who called in. There are 45 days until the Georgia Senate runoff.

Go to votesaveamerica.com to help. Have a great weekend. Have a great Thanksgiving. Don't gather in groups, please. And see you in December. Thank you.