Lovett or Leave It - Escalating Tensions

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

Donald Trump sics the Justice Department on his enemies, the UN sics its escalators on Donald Trump, and, somewhere in Florida, Lovett’s mom tries to remember if she took Tylenol. California Congressman Eric Swalwell stops by to discuss the potential shutdown, Prop 50, and liberal cringe’s greatest hits. Bassem Youssef and Paul Scheer join us to break down our bad reality and even worse movies. Then we give the wheel a 360 to look back on our own 180s, before spinning out into the night.Get tickets to LOLI NYC & more upcoming shows at Crooked.com/events.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here.For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash love it. Love it or leave it. It's love it or leave it. What's up, Los Angeles? Welcome to Love It or Leave It, live at Dynasty Typewriter. We got a great show for you tonight. Congressman Eric Swalwell is here. Talk about winning the argument with Cash Mattel and losing the war on Crave. Bassem Yusuf is here. Paul Shear is here.

And we get into some bad movies and even worse reality. Then we wrap up with 180-degree twist of the wheel. Hmm. Whatever that means. But first, let's get into it. What a week. We live in cruel, capricious, and dangerous times with new threats around every corner.

To wit, there was this national security incident at the United Nations earlier this week. Yes, when Donald Trump and Monday's Melania Trump stepped onto the escalator, it stopped.

The escalator stopped. And you're laughing? Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, no relation. And if we're we find that these were U.N. staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability for those people. And I will personally see to it, Jesse.

Good. This is a first. I've never seen someone ask to speak to the world's manager. On Wednesday, Trump went on social media and called for U.N. staff to be arrested in a post about the escalator that was somehow this long. Look at this fucking thing. He accused the United Nations of three sinister events, adding the escalator, a teleprompter malfunction, and a wonky sound system to the mix.

It's amazing that Malani and I didn't fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps face first, said the leader of our armed forces. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or it would have been a disaster. was absolutely sabotage. It's sad to see Trump go woke like this. When you think about it,

escalators are just DEI stairs. Also, it's beyond disturbing that Trump needs a teleprompter to do his usual rambling nonsense. It's like catching your dog reading bark, bark, bark from his phone. The UN released a statement saying it was a member of Trump's team

who ran ahead of him and accidentally triggered the escalator stop mechanism at the top, and White House staff, not UN officials, operate the president's teleprompter, which I can tell you is true. The president's teleprompter is operated by the White House military office,

and they do a very good job. And I felt bad whenever I had to make last-minute changes while sweating through my wrinkled suit because these were very serious, disciplined, well-appointed people, and I did not belong in that kind of a professional setting, which is why I do this now. According to Maria Bartaromo,

that stopped escalator almost became an international crisis, but for the quick thinking of our first lady. The president wants answers after the escalator stopped as soon as he and the first lady stepped on it. Look how great Melania was. She is unfazed. She walks on it. It stops.

She turns around to the president. And she just leads the president up and walks. So she was unfazed by it. But this could have been a massive, massive issue. And, you know, the president being frozen there in one place makes him vulnerable. I see the problem here. You're confusing the president with sharks. I feel like I'm in outer space.

Unfazed by a stopped escalator. President stands still all the time. Am I, have I lost my fucking mind? But don't worry, Republicans are nothing if not solutions-minded. Here's Jesse Waters' answer for the United Nations gaff. I mean, this is an insurrection. And what we need to do is either leave the U.N. or we need to bomb it. It was noted moments later that the U.N. is located in New York City.

Boy, that escalated quickly, which is not something Trump could say at the U.N. Thank you. Now, if Trump has new enemies at the UN, they're at the bottom of a very long list. After all, if Epstein can get on his band side, it can happen to anybody. On Saturday night, Trump posted a missive on truth social address to attorney general

and woman who parked too close to your car, Pam Bondi, in which he demanded that she prosecute his enemies, which is obviously gross. Let Pam enjoy her weekend. This is how loyalist attorneys general get burned out. Authoritarian hustle culture still hustle culture.

Pam, said Trump. I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially, same old story as last time, all talk, no action, nothing is being done. What about Comey? Adam Schifty Schiff, Letitia. They're all guilty as hell,

but nothing is going to be done. We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times. Oh, there are nothing. Justice must be served. now. Everything about the Trump era is worse than the Nixon era, up to and including the fact that we won't even get any good paranoid thrillers out of this. Trump is his own deep throat.

Which makes sense. The Post came a day after U.S. Attorney Eric Seabert resigned under pressure from Trump. Trump was pissed that Seabert hadn't brought any criminal charges against Attorney General from New York, Letitia James, and former FBI director and guy who will never admit that he is personally responsible for electing Trump because it would require him to face that his decision to announce a renewed investigation into Hillary's emails only to announce a week later and days before the election that he would not change their original finding was not only a brazen violation of DOJ policy, all the more indefensible given that there was an ongoing investigation of Trump that he did not make public, but amongst the most

catastrophic mistakes by a law enforcement official in American history based not in some apolitical and righteous ethic, but a naive and ultimately self-defeating fear of a perception of bias, a mistake so grand and so rooted in personal flaw that it obliterates any other aspect of his legacy including his ultimate defiance of Trump and will define him as a villain for all time James Comey.

Sure. Seabert's office had been investigating Tish James over mortgage fraud allegations but hadn't found any actual evidence to support an indictment. Said Trump, I don't understand. The AI can't make a video of Letitia James doing mortgage fraud. She doesn't even have to be naked or anything. Seabird was also overseeing the investigation into James Comey for allegedly

lying to Congress. After Trump forced Siebert out, Siebert was replaced by Lindsay Halligan, a White House advisor and former Trump lawyer with no prosecutorial experience. Prosecutorial experience where we're going, we don't need prosecutorial experience. So Trump gets seabird out and Halligan in so she can indict James and Comey. But she's got two big problems. Well, three of you believe in a just and everlasting God. First, there's a ticking clock and not the one inside the alligator that follows Trump around Mar-a-Lago.

The five-year statute of limitations on Comey's alleged crime falls on Tuesday. Second, federal prosecutors in Virginia presented Halligan with what's called a declination memo, explaining why, after a two-month investigation, there is insufficient evidence to justify indicting Comey for lying to Congress.

It's a tough first day for Lindsay, isn't it? you don't know where the bathrooms are, you've never prosecuted a criminal case before, and you were given one job by the world's least loyal boss, but your brand new team, mouth still full of will miss you, Eric Seaburch Sheetcake, tells you it can't be done. And yet, she persisted on Thursday evening

at just about the worst time for this show, James Comey was indicted after all. At which point, Lindsay Halligan slowly took off her mask and, oh my God, it's Hillary Clinton. all right everybody buckle up so fdr's attorney general robert jackson gave a famous speech in nineteen forty this is real he said we know that no local police force can strictly enforce the traffic laws or would arrest half the driving population on any given morning with the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a

technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not the question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who had committed it. It is a question of picking the man and putting investigations to work to pin some offense on him. It is this realm in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass or select some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, And the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group being attached to the wrong political views or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself. That's why law and order starts with a murder and ultimately leads to a suspect.

It's a much less satisfying watch if you start with Briscoe combing through his ex-wife's trash looking for evidence of tax fraud. I found that full text of the speech by Jackson on the Department of Justice's website, by the way. so you probably should download it for safekeeping. This is a little aside. FDR later appointed Robert Jackson to the Supreme Court. He dissented in Korematsu before taking a leave of absence to prosecute the Nazis at Nuremberg.

He had a massive... It's true. He had a massive heart attack in March of 1954 and a second heart attack that killed him in October of 1954. But in between, he literally left his hospital bed so that he could sit in his chair when Earl Warren issued the court's 9-0 ruling

in Brown v. Board of... education. So RBG was in good company when she hung on for too long. Oh, where'd you think it was going to land? Somewhere that, some of those, that didn't require your complicated feelings to emerge? Trump bad? Every joke has to be Trump bad or you go home. Fuck you. They can't all be Trump bad. Just most of them. And it's not just that Trump's lackeys are looking for any reason to charge his. enemies. They have zero interest applying the law when it benefits their allies. The pardon list is long from friends to insurrectionists. DOJ also dropped its case against Eric Adams. It would

a federal prosecutor who resigned over it called a quid pro quo. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and housing official Bill Pulte's parents reportedly made the same error on their mortgage documents that the administration is using as pretext to target everyone from Lisa Cook to Adam Schiff. No one at DOJ seems particularly bothered by that. Maybe it's just because they didn't grow up around it, but I've never really understood the draw of vacation homes anyway. It just seems like another place to keep errands and dishes. I have a vacation home in every city on earth. It's called a hotel, and you can use the towels like napkins for bed dinner.

It's not a crime yet. Speaking of rich guy problems, we also learned this week, via MSNBC, that borders are and a guy who doesn't like his daughter's boyfriend because he drives a red car, Tom Homan was under investigation for accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents who posed as business executives seeking government contracts. According to New York Times, the money was delivered to Homan in a bag from Kava.

What would you like as your base? Greens. A lot of greens. You catch my drift. On Monday, the White House denied that Homan had accepted a bag of cash, but Hohman himself to date. not. They said that, um, you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term. And I imagine you want to respond to that.

I'm sorry. Look, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal. And it's hit piece after a hit piece after hit piece. Interesting. You know, it's actually very easy to say, I did not take $50,000 in cash. But he doesn't say that. And none of the the sources familiar with the case who spoke to MSNBC or other reporters, even sources explaining why the charges weren't pursued, say that he didn't accept the money. So, where's our fucking money? That's tax dollars. Where's my money? The good news is that according to reports, there is hidden camera footage of the exchange, and Democrats in Congress are already demanding that evidence. The bad news is that the Trump administration has a habit of making incriminating

videos disappear. So I say, release the Homan files. $50,000 didn't kill themselves. One other note, the sting against Homan took place in September of 2024, but the DOJ and FBI waited to see if, in the event Trump won the election, Holman delivered on the bribe, even though accepting a bribe is a crime, even if you never deliver on it. Which means the Biden, DOJ, sat on this through the election and the transition, and Homan's appointment to a senior White House role,

only for the investigation to be closed by Trump's loyal appointees. Another win for Merrick Garland. Maybe he'll share a cell with Comey, where they'll go back and forth for five to seven years explaining to each other how they're such good people. And just know that if I end up in that cell with them, I did kill myself. All of this corruption, it's enough to give you a splitting headache,

which is too bad because in a rambling and deeply false speech on Monday, standing side by side with a guy who you know has fucking insane poops. RFK Jr. Trump claimed Trump claimed that there are people who don't have autism because they don't take Tylenol or vaccines.

And by the way, I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don't take vaccines and don't take any pills that have no autism. That have no autism. Does that tell you something? That's currently.

Is that a correct statement, by the way? The Amish, for example. The Amish, yeah, virtually. I heard no, I heard none. See, Bobby wants to be very careful with what he says and he should, but I'm not so careful with what I say. This plus the escalator fucking broke me this week. Like, we can't be afraid of this fucking guy.

Trump went on to explain that this. This is also why the Amish don't have trains. In addition to the autism-proof Amish, which isn't true, of course, Trump also claimed Cuba has virtually no autism due to Cuba's lack of access to acetaminophen. I mean, there's a rumor, and I don't know if it's so or not,

that Cuba, they don't have Tylenol because they don't have the money for Tylenol, and they have virtually no autism, okay? Tell me about that one. Does Tylenol cause it, or do cigars cure it? We'll note that there is, it turns out, autism in Cuba, which explains the pretty significant black market for Legos. Havana, more like, have an autism.

In case you're getting confused by all of Trump's technical jargon, Trump broke it down in a way that everybody could understand. Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But with Tylenol, don't take it. You hate to see him plagiarizing FDR like this. Speaking of, it can only good happen, Disney's decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air led to a massive backlash

as people all over the country spontaneously launched a consumer boycott canceling their Disney Plus at Hulu subscriptions. If Steve Martin, and Martin Short carry Selena Gomez through five seasons of only murders

in the building but no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? Oh, we're just, that's what we do now as liberals, we just don't tell the truth about what we see with our own fucking eyes. Are you kidding me? When there were but two footprints

on the beach, that was when Martin Short carried Selena Gomez. By Monday, Disney announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live would return to the air. I almost forgot what it's like to have something go our way. I haven't felt this jazz since Planters announced that Mr. Peanut was trance, which I'm now realizing was a dream I had.

Next Star and Sinclair announced that they would continue to preempt Kimmel, meaning his show won't air on ABC affiliates that reach about 20% of the country. Given that this wasn't part of any plan to get Kimmel back on the air everywhere, it suggests that Disney's reversal on Kimmel was at least in part of reaction to our collective pushback. We all moved, and as a result, they moved, and pretty quickly. And we have some even more exciting news. In order to make amends with Disney's audience of enraged libs, we have some new programming coming this fall to Hulu and Disney Plus,

with TV shows like Abolish the NYPD Blue, The Amazing Race, which is not white. Who wants to eat a millionaire? America's woke-as-home videos, and Grey's Anatomy, oops-all abortions. And new films, like Beauty and the Beast, gets Me Tooed, Snow White and the One Miner's Union. Inside Out Three, meet climate guilt.

Who frame Roger Rabbit? It's the Zionist. And Sex Toy Story. On Tuesday night, Kim will return to the air with words for Donald Trump. You almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried it as best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired, Bigley. He might have to release the Epstein files

to distract us from this now. It's like when J.D. Vance called my Podsave co-host John Favreau a dipshit on social media this week. Not exactly the same. It didn't dramatically boost our numbers or anything. But the New York Times covered it, so that's pretty fun. Jimmy called out Trump for threatening to target Seth Myers and Jimmy Fallon next and thumbed his nose at Trump's humorlessness.

The President of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke. Say what you will about Joe Biden, but at least he couldn't stay up that late. Why don't you imagine a future where you're, like, cooler?

I'm in a bullying mood. I'm sorry. That was too much. That was too much. Trump proved him right by posting, I can't believe ABC fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel's job back. The White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled. I think we need to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 million. This one sounds even more lucrative. But even as Trump continued to issue such obvious threats, out comes J.D. Vance, Trump's intellectual Zamboni to tell us not to believe our lying eyes. Well, people will say as well, you know, didn't the FCC commissioner put a tweet out that said something bad? Well, compare that, the FCC commissioner making a joke on social media,

what is the government action that the Trump administration has engaged in to kick Jimmy Kimmel or anybody else off the air? Zero. What government pressure have we brought to bear to tell people that they're not allowed to speak their mind? Zero. We believe in free speech in the Trump administration. We are fighting every single day to protect it. Right after we take out Trump's greatest enemy, Osama bin Escalator. In a separate interview, Vance added this. Now, the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, put out a couple of tweets, but the government took no action. We did literally nothing to try to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air. We believe in free speech.

We also believe in the right of a television station or a network to cancel somebody because of low ratings. First of all, it wasn't a couple of tweets or jokes on social media. It was an interview where Carr said, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. And then named Kimmel specifically. Also, Jesus Christ, that's how threats work. You say the threat so you don't have to take the action. He didn't say we can do this the easy way or forget about it. That's the whole purpose of or else.

Just because you don't provide the or else doesn't mean you didn't threaten somebody into doing something. The action was the threat. The threat is the action. I feel like I'm in outer fucking space. But clearly, as Kimmel pointed out, and as Vance is reflecting here,

this didn't just blow back on Disney. It blew back on Trump, too. There's a lesson in this for all of us. Trump is faken until he makes it. Through his bluster, he pretends to have more power than he actually does in the hopes that others will fall for the act and give him power he couldn't take.

And we have seen it work. He's intimidated law firms and colleges and media companies. He got 16 million out of Disney. Not to mention virtually every Republican who was caved to his demands. It's what he's doing right now over a potential government shutdown. And by the way, the last time Democrats fell for it, allowing the fear that Trump might use a shutdown

to lawlessly eviscerate the government even further to become leverage against them in the negotiations. But as data journalist, G. Eliot Morris, pointed out this week, a lot of powerful people just don't realize how unpopular Trump is, writing about Disney siding with Trump only to get blindsided by a massive consumer boycott. In an unhitched screed on social media,

Trump wrote that he won in a historic landslide. These text boxes are getting fucking crazy. Look at this. Look at this. You know what you're in for. This is not the text of a president. This is a text of a cast member of Vanderpump rules

from three in the fucking morning. This is like early Kristen Doty. That current president? Caroline knows what I'm talking about. Trump is demanding that Democrats go along with whatever he wants while his administration is threatening to use a shutdown as pretext for mass firings all meant to intimidate his opposition. Whereas Chris Murphy put it, he's shutting down the government

because he thinks he's a king, which as king behavior goes, pretty fucking lame. Have a big feast. Eat a pig with an apple in his mouth. Marry your second cousin from Prussia. Live a little. All of which had me thinking about a conversation I had with Senator Elizabeth Warren on Monday's Ponce of America episode about the decision by Democrats to focus on the health care fight in Congress, which may be politically unifying, but is ultimately a policy disagreement as Trump runs Roshad over the Constitution. So I think of this as nothing succeeds like success.

You've got to get some wins. You've got to show that you can stand together, you can stand up when the going gets tough, that you can still all push hard because that's how we're going to have to take this fight on. I was really living out this week, seeing Kimmel back on that stage and seeing him deliver what I thought was a truly excellent monologue, the second best late-night monologue of the week. But seeing him unbowed when so many others have caved, it was a reminder that capitulation by corporations and institutions

is predicated on two things. one, that Trump is very scary, which he is, if you're backstage at Miss Teen USA. Remember what we were going to try to imagine together earlier? And two, that Democrats and all those who care about democracy and oppose attacks on basic freedoms are nothing to worry about. But that's just not true. Or really, we have to prove it's not true. Yes, that is up to elected Democrats, and I was glad to see Warren challenging Sinclair and Nexstar and informing the companies that suspending a late-night show in part to seek regulatory favors not only arose the First Amendment, but also creates the appearance of a possible quid pro quo arrangement

that could implicate federal anti-corruption laws. Because it's kind of fun to imagine a day when those laws are enforced again, like imagining yourself being the stark quarterback. But it's not just up to them, it's up to all of us. We all have to fake it until we make it. It's the best policy in sex. and it's the best policy here. It's like a wise man once said,

it can only good happen. We gotta get some wins on the board. That's why I said that Maguai after midnight and unleashed its unholy progeny on the utility ducks at the United Nations. All right. And inexplicably, that is the end of the monologue. All right.

Yeah, thank you. All right, we've got a great show for you tonight. Up next, California's own representative Eric Swalwell is here. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Where do you go to solve life's problems? The group chat?

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Please welcome to the stage, California's own Congressman Eric Swalwell. Hi, thank you for being here. Come in. Hi, Congressman. How are you doing? First time here. Thank you. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. So you got into it with Cash Patel this week. Yeah, good fight with Swalwell, is what he wrote. Well, so I've seen people... Did you write it before or after? I wonder, though, I feel like he may be getting the bad rap here. Impossibly. Which is, did he write it or did somebody write it on a piece of paper and hand it to him?

Because it feels more like somebody handed him a note, right? Right. Right. So, but my thought was, like, is he pumping himself up before I go? Or was this like Marvis Frazier after getting knocked out by Mike Tyson 30 seconds into the fight being like good fight with Tyson? Oh, I see what you're saying. well that's right so it's it's not good either way right so he wrote the note himself that's revealing but if there's somebody that feels like they need to write the note to buck him up that says good fight with swell well hold the line brush off the attacks rise above the rest you know that

that that's a sad thing to have to write on a piece of paper um though there have been moments in this show where that have been a smart thing for bill to put on a card never never get a Never get a pump up like that, Misho. Just a card that says, wrap it up. Sorry to make this about me. During those hearings, you asked Patel no less than nine times, if he told Pam Bondi that Trump's name appears in the Epstein Biles, and he declined to directly answer the question all nine times.

What do you think is going? That's not like a, it's not like he succeeded in like dealing with the question. So what do you think is going on here? They're afraid of telling us what Trump knows about this. He's not authorized to say anything about this. And he went into this hearing with one job, and that was to keep his job. And keeping his job means keeping all of us from knowing who's in the Epstein files. And so even saying that he told the attorney general that Trump was in the files

would mean that Trump's in the files, and that probably got to Trump, and that's why Trump is having them bury the files. I mean, he gets it, right? and also the good fight was swabwe-ball thing. He needed to go into the hearing, have a fight with me, because if you recall, like, two days before the hearing, there was a Fox News story with no fewer than 10 sources. Like, I've never seen a story that said,

we have 10 sources that said his job was on the line, quote, Pam can't stand him. So he knew, I mean, Pam can't stand him. So he knew his ass was on the line and he needed to pick that fight and not make things worse on Epstein. So there's something interesting that's happening, and I'm curious what you think about this,

which is obviously we see how dangerous it is to have a completely politicized FBI director and attorney general. They're not even pretending that there's any kind of independence between the White House and the Department of Justice. But it also is a double-edged sword

because nobody views him as a reliable narrator, and nobody views Pam Bondi as a reliable narrator. They're seen as spokespeople for Trump. up, which means there doesn't seem to be a lot of ways out of this scandal, whereas a previous administration might be able to say we threw it over to the independent agencies. That's right. Their job is to bury this a mile beneath the earth. And by the way, if anything comes out now about the Epstein Files, I don't think anyone buys it at this point. I mean, it has probably been so scrubbed and erased that they have no credibility. I don't think he inspired

confidence at all in the American people that he's able to do. his primary job, which is fucking protecting us from terrorism, mass shootings, public corruption. And so we're still trying to understand what did we know about the Kirk shooter prior to the shooting? Like, what was his online activity? And should that have been seen by the FBI? And now this Dallas shooting, which you referenced, it was clear that this troubled individual was also very online. And what should the FBI had known about that individual? So I think we actually have to start asking questions. Like, why do you guys keep missing these, you know, political assassins?

And what does that mean for the rest of us? Yeah, there's a vicious circle, which is you have someone like Cash Patel so clearly in everything he does, desperate to keep his job and prove that he belongs in the job. And so in the aftermath of a shooting, he's posting and posting and posting to prove like he's part of it. I'm part of it. I know what's going on. I'm helping.

I'm helping. Meanwhile, he's like, he's kind of part of a culture of like jumping to conclusions about these serious crimes. and then we have absolutely no idea if we can trust what he says in the days after because he is so worried about his job. And by the way, not to go too far in the weeds, but that nonsense that he posted over the weekend,

I don't know if you all saw this, he posted this like 1,500 character tweet about how they're looking into and going down the rabbit hole of all the conspiracies around the Charlie Kirk shooter. And he's just responding to right-wing social media theories about, even Candice Owen said, maybe the shooting came from like a tunnel

underneath. I mean, it's bad shit crazy, but the fact that he's... Jews are burrowing people, so... But the fact that he's... But the fact that he's responding to it, what this does is a prosecutor. He just opened and exposed himself as a witness because the defense attorney is going to say, oh, that, in a trial, they're going to call him as a witness.

And they're going to say, so what else was out there? Like, they want to create reasonable doubt. And putting that crazy-ass tweet out there actually just made the prosecution's case. much harder. So he's bad. All right. So then at the same time here in California,

you know, we're heading towards the midterms. Here in California, we're trying to kind of fight to redraw the maps to compete with Republican gerrymandering. What are your thoughts about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger coming out against Prop 50? It's not helpful. And I just want to first say,

I benefited from what Governor Schwarzenegger did. I was a 30-year-old city councilman prosecutor back in 2012 when the first independent redistricting lines were drawn my parents didn't know a congressman until i got elected right like so we were not connected politically at all and the independent redistricting commission gave someone like me a chance and so a 40-year incumbent who had always had redistricting to protect him got drawn into my hometown 54% of the district was new because it was drawn by like math and geography like what a what a concept and so i won and i'm grateful to that because it brought in a new generation of members of Congress in California.

But I'm also not going to wake up the morning after the midterms and watch democracy in ashes and say, well, at least we protected the California Independent Redistricting Commission. Because Democrats too often fight these battles with one hand tied behind our back, and it's usually the upper hand. And we need both hands in this fight, and that's what Prop 50 is about on November 4. So speaking of Democrats fighting with, you know, at least one hand, we're staring, we're staring at a shutdown on October 1st. I've seen endless debates about how and whether Democrats should be using their leverage right now, save it for the not for the CR, which is the shorter term continue resolution, but for the longer term negotiation. I'm honestly, I don't think there's easy answers here. I want to start by saying that. And I have allowed myself to be persuaded by the idea that.

we should be not giving any bipartisan imprimatur to what the Republicans are doing because of what they're doing to our democracy, that we should draw the line on health care, or that we should fund the government because Trump is so unpopular, we should not own a shut down. What do you think? Keep it open for what? And by the way, they've already shut it down. They have fired cancer researchers. They've gotten rid of air traffic controllers. They've gotten rid of FEMA response agents. They've already shut it. They've gotten rid of USAID. They've already shut it down. So keep it open for what? So they can deport more. of our friends and neighbors, keep it open so they can kill cancer research rather than killing

cancer, keep it open so they can go after their political enemies. Like, why would I want to co-sign on that? And that's why I voted against it. And that's why every senator should vote against it. So, I hear that. We cannot, there is no path right now to a vote in which we can the government while addressing those issues, right? It's just simply not possible. What Democrats in the Senate have rallied behind is pressing on undoing some of the cuts to health care. The biggest public health cut in history,

and they want to fight on that measure. And if they get what they want, presumably, they would vote to reopen the government. And I have to think if that came to the House, you would vote for that. No? I want to end, you know, masked agents getting rid of my friends and neighbors.

I want to put the cancer research funding back in place. I want to end the political prosecutions. So there's a lot more that I want to see before I'm going to vote for it. And also, anyone who says, oh, politically shutdowns are not good, remember when the Democrats won the House in 2014 after they shut down the government in 2013? No, we didn't win the House in 2014 after they shut down the government in 2013. So I don't buy this whole argument that it puts us in political peril by standing up for what we believe in. saying, fuck that, I'm not funding this government.

Yeah, look, I guess I just, what I want to understand is, is that, is that a call to basically have no, Democrats no longer support any kind of a budget measure until there is a change in Congress until Republicans fully abandoned Trump, right? Like, I'm trying to get to the end of... We should get more than just subsidies, right? And we should ask for more than just subsidies, is how I see it. And that's the mindset of most of my colleagues right now. And they also want to see us fight.

And it's a show, don't tell mentality. I think that's why Gavin Newsom is being rewarded. He's not sending eight-page, strongly worded letters to the administration. He's going to court and he's winning. He put the redistricting battle on the ballot. And so doing something demonstrative, I think, beats just having these, you know, theoretical arguments about what we should be doing. Do you think that the way Schumer and Jeffries were agitating

for a meeting was the right way to go into this fight? Or are they drawing a hard enough line right now? Are they the right people to be in this moment? I'm going to speak for. Jeffreys has held the House caucus together. I don't have confidence in Schumer. And I didn't have confidence in the first vote. I don't have much confidence right now. But I will say Jeffreys held almost all of us together. We only lost one vote in the most recent shutdown vote. But also, it was pretty, They perfectly did set Trump up, right? I mean, they got him to agree to a meeting, and then he disabused us of the taco meme

when he backed out of the meeting. So I don't think we need to say anymore because he doesn't want to have a meeting enough said. I just want it to win, you know? Yeah. I have a bias toward winning, too. I have a bias towards winning. So one thing I wanted to talk to you about is so can we show the clip of Schumer

talking about the TV thing. Can we start with that one? Please don't. I'm showing it. We know Donald Trump watches a lot of television. Mr. President, if you're watching television, shut it off and come sit down and negotiate with us. I found this to be not even, you know, that high on the list,

but like a pretty cringy moment. And there is some sort of a problem, I think, sometimes with Democrats and cringe. Do you notice this amongst your colleagues? Yes. We don't all have to be messengers. We don't all have to be messengers? Yes.

Okay. And can you tell the ones that shouldn't be? We had a... At the state of the... So at the state of the union, we brought in... And actually, you got... The Pod Save team was there. At State of the Union, for the first time ever,

we learned our lesson after 2024. Right before it started, we brought in all of these influencers to have access to members right before the state of the union started. And so rather than going to traditional media, we had tons of folks who had 10,000 followers to 10 million followers, which was great.

And that was the approach we should have taken in the past credit to our caucus for doing it. What concerned me, though, was I started, it was an invite, a cattle call to all of my colleagues. And I started to see some of these colleagues come in. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, we don't all have to be messengers guys. Like some of you do really good things, but I don't think I need you doing something cringe that's only going to be a 10-yard sack or like a, you know, Pick six.

I'm using sports analogies for, sorry. Don't. I know, I know. I know what those are. Pick six, 10-yard sack. Is that close? Is that hard? Is that difficult?

I don't, I'm like truly genuine. Like, sometimes I play a little dumb, you know, to fag it up a little bit. But I really actually genuinely don't know what those, what your, is it a hard play, but they're not good enough? Is it an easy play? They're messing up. It doesn't matter. We don't all have to be messengers. I got it, I got it.

Which brings us to a segment we're calling the cringe and I. Okay. All right, we have five cringe moments, and you have to rank them from one, the cringiest to five, the least cringe. Got it. But it's blind ranking. Once you've given a number, you can't go back. Okay. All right.

First up, we have Nancy Pelosi. reading a poem Bono wrote about Russia's invasion of Ukraine at a St. Patrick's Day event in 2022. I got this message this morning from Bono. Ireland's sorrow and pain is now the Ukraine and St. Patrick's name is now Zoensky. I think five, I think five's a safe bet on. Wow, five. So you think that there's four cringier moments coming. Okay, five. Pelosi. Okay, let's keep going. Next up, we have the Democrats kneeling in

Kente cloth during the George Floyd protest in June of 2020. It was given by the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. I want to note that. It was about a justice and policing act. But nevertheless, the moment is the moment. I have four. Kente.

Okay. You're doing great. You're doing so good. Next up, Congressman Hank Johnson strumming his guitar and singing a rendition of Jason Isbell's DreamSicle with the lyrics changed to be about Epstein. Epstein died by suicide. Believe that and you must be flying.

You've been telling us you we need to follow, but where are they? Two? Two? Okay, two. Honestly, I thought he was pretty good. I thought he did a good job. Next up, we have Hillary Clinton giving America its marching orders in June of 2016.

I don't know who created Pokemon Go. But I'm trying to figure out how we get them to have Pokemon Go to the polls. That's three, and I imagine I'm going to be the next clip. Damn it. Shut up. I hate this show. It's never supposed to be fun for me.

Pokemon. I could, you know, it doesn't have to be. You know, it could be a Heisenberg uncertainty principle moment where you've changed what you were about to observe. I can be cringe, too. Everyone eats shit. Next up. We have a member of Congress posting a TikTok

of him wordlessly eating a taco in May a jab at Trump's ever-changing tariffs in the short-lived Dem slogan, Taco Trump always chickens out. Hey, Congressman. Trying to help you? What the fuck is up with Trump always chickening out on tariffs?

I don't, yeah, wow, that's a lot of, that's a lot, that's a very, uh, 70s look. Can I just, I want to understand, just wonderful, inside of the story of the video where you're a character who's been asked a question, how does eating the taco answer the question? It's a lot to think about. I do like, hmm. I do sometimes think what cringe, though, is, is people caring in a hyper earnest way sometimes.

Also, don't we want Trump to chicken out? Isn't the fact that Trump chickens out kind of a thing that people use to say, oh, he doesn't ever do what he ever says? Sometimes I think it's like a bad slogan. Like, we need people to think, like, no, he doesn't chicken out. He really does politicize the Justice Department. He really is going to shut down all these agencies. You know, like, he's not just a bullshit artist.

He actually does what he says. But it's also a sci-op. Right. You have to get in his head as well. And so there's no easy way to take this guy on. We've never had, you know, a villain like this in the White House who has challenged us in every imaginable way. And so I'm not bullshitting you and to believing that we have the right answer. But I think we have better answers today than we did in 24. And I also believe that we need to apply what I call an always on model. So in 2024, people would say that the biggest mistake Kamala Harris made was when she went on the view and was asked, what would you do differently? And she said nothing, essentially. I don't think that was the biggest mistake. I think the biggest mistake was that she wouldn't be on TV or interviewed for like three

or four days since that happened. And so she was defined. And right-wing media defined her over and over as it's just more Biden. Donald Trump, for example, makes five mistakes an hour, but he's always. on and so the lesson that i've taken away from that is to be in more places more spaces and that always on projects as always honest and so authentic authenticity i think beats just having like a straight policy message we're not voting for policies we're voting for people even if it's cringe sometimes don't trump is cringe all the time i mean he's cringed nine out of ten times that the truck

the mcdonald's appearances the dancing on stage for 30 minutes but he's always on And I think we can learn from that Instead of trying to project what we think Right But I think Democrats, we try and win the Harvard Law School moot court competition Rather than just trying to win The Gut Check at the Bar Stop or the Barroom

And we'd be better off if we did the latter. I think it's a really important point As someone who was rejected from Harvard Law School Just to wrap up our game Five, it was Pelosi's reading the poem Four, it was the Kentee Clause Three It was Pokemon Go to the Polls, which I

continue to believe one of the most memorable democratic slogans in half a century, which I didn't write. Two, Hank Johnson performing his Epstein song. And number one, it is Eric Swalwell, silently eating a taco as the answer to a question. Eric Swall, Congressman, thank you so much. Of course, man. He'll be back at the end. That was great. Really appreciate it. Thank you. One more time for Eric Swalwell. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Love under leave it is brought to you by Bombas. Follow us here. Kids are back at school. Vacations are over, and it's officially the start of cozy season, which means time to slide into Bombas. You know, Bombas. The most comfortable socks and slippers out there are made from premium materials that actually makes sense for this time of year. Bombs are made from the softest materials. Think Marino will that keeps you warm and it's chilly but cool when it's hot. Supima cotton, that's softer, stronger, and more breathable than regular cotton. And even rag wool, the thick, durable, classic cozy sock, you'll want off all. And it's not just socks. Bombas designed slippers. They make it hard to leave the house from Sherpa-lined Sunday slippers to packing-friendly gripper slippers

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Please welcome to the sage. It's the incredible bosom-usuf and the incomparable Paul Shear. Hey! Come on out. Over here. Come on here. You can go wherever you want to go.

Just sit down, you're queer. Oh, man, a lot. Good to see you both. Thank you for being here. Very excited. It's been a very rough couple of weeks. Only a couple of weeks? It's been a rough couple of years.

And there's a lot to get through. Trump is committing watergates on a seemingly daily basis at this point. And that's where you two come in. We're going to talk about both serious, vitally important news topics and chatting about movies in a twist on a lover to leave a classic

called reality versus reality TV. Tonight we bring you real life versus real life. One of them has the two E's. Wow, all right. Real life versus... I like that pose, though. I like it. I look very casual.

look very diabolical. I think you just look intense. I think you look intense, Bossum. Okay. Who will I ask for at each topic? There's only one way to find out. Bossam, you've been a... Hold on.

What is this game? You're going to tell us real life or real life. And we have to pick? No. I'm going to ask each of you questions. Okay. And one of them is going to be questions

about real life. Got it. He seems like you're not into this game. Like, the way that you presented it was like, I'm going to do the thing in real life and real life and real life. And I was like, I'm going to do the thing and real life. And I was like, I was like,

I don't even, where we hear, like, I, like, do you not like this game? Because I don't want to put you through a game. Also, English is my second language, so I don't understand what's happening here. It seems like you're like, now, this is a good one. But this does not seem like you're like, this is a good one. Yeah. So I'm going to try not to be defensive right now. And I'm going to receive what you're saying.

I want to, I want to cater to you. So I hear what you're saying. it's we're going to play a game okay okay and it is called real life versus real life I'm gonna ask you one of you questions about real life I look very diabolical yeah about real life

got it one of you will get questions about what's real life and the other about real life this is a fun game John oh there's a real and real yeah awesome

I still don't know oh yeah you've been been a heart surgeon, an advocate for the Palestinian people, and an exile for your own political satire of powerful rulers. You've been known as the John Stewart of the Middle East. Turns out you were the Jimmy Kimmel of the Middle East.

Yeah. At least Jimmy came back. Yeah. But so, can you just... I feel like it is amazing how with each passing year your experience becomes more relevant in America, which is a bummer. I'm feeling like home.

Yeah, that's... sucks. So wait, what... Oh, not all me, it is. So you were taken off the air for political satire. Yeah. So what happened? Well, I actually

took out like a couple of times and one of them I was interrogated by the general prosecutor and I sat in front of him and it was like chaotic. I was let in by a lot of policemen going into the, you know, the investigation room and then before

we got into the room, the policeman and kind of like took me to a different room. And I was, I don't know what's going on. And then the officer, like, Mr. Yusuf, before we go in, I need to ask you a question. Can we have a selfie? My, my, my children love you. So, like, they got, like, all of his friends.

And I got, like, selfies with, like, six officers. And then I went down, and then I sent with the investigator. And my first question, I was trying to explain my jokes for them. Which always works, right? It's like, if people ask you, tell me a joke, a surefire set up to kill. And then when you have to explain a joke, also, surefire. Yeah, it was like, what did you mean by this joke? And then the thing is, when they ask you something like this,

and if you're in a show, you can explain what's the meaning. But in this situation, I'm trying to play dumb because it's like, I don't know. I don't want to say something that will kind of incriminate me. But you also don't want to throw your writers under the bus because then they'll be brought in and there'll be no selfies with the writers. no one cares about that. Yeah, and then it's like, when I cried to explain the joke, he would sell me like, that's not very funny.

And then everybody's a critic. Yeah. But so, can you like, look, there are people that are saying, oh, you know, the people like J.D. Vance, but even some that are like sort of conservatives and others that are, some comedians, are like, oh, this is all blown out of proportion. This isn't a First Amendment violation.

This isn't so serious. What does it look like to you, what's happening in the U.S. right now in free speech? I mean, in a capitalist democracy, democracy, there is, like, capitalist king. So the thing is like, yeah, you're free to say what you want, but like I own the platform and I can kick you out because, you know, I won that.

So the thing is now you, because ABC reinstated them and then Nexter and the other other, yeah, St. Clair. It's like, okay, we're not going to put them on our affiliate. So now the problem is money rules everything. It's like we have a freedom of expression, but like I'm not going to give you the space to experience this freedom of expression. But I guess you could also say the same thing

for the reinstatement, which was, I think, and he had lost like seven, like seven percent over like the course of a weekend. Like people pulled their subscription. So I think they were motivated from a business perspective to get him back on the air too, right? But what will happen the next time it happens? Like, you know, because there's always, they think, oh, it's the ratings, the money. Like they did, they used that too with, with Colbert. So I don't know.

Like, I think we should maybe not like think of it as like a binary thing, which is people against the authority. It's the people who are funding the authority. It's the people, the billionaires, who are buying those platforms and putting their own agenda. And then the people in the authority are just puppets because they're paid off by these people. This is the thing I don't get. Everyone wants to say about how bad the ratings are in late night. But it seems like everyone's listening, too. It's like, that's the other thing.

It's like, well, no one's watching. But when some, like, turn of phrase gets said, immediately people are watching and we have to take it off the air. It seems like it's all a show or it's not. It's either people are watching it bigly or they're not watching it at all. Like, I don't know what that middle ground is. How can it both be a business failure in ratings disaster, but also something heavily monitored by the White House that demands an immediate national response

if it crosses a line of our choosing? Paul, why did you give Netflix's War of the World's Remakes starring Ice Cube 5 stars on Letterboxed? Because it is, it is great. It is great. This is a movie where Ice Cube has said the director wasn't there and I had to figure it out myself.

This is a movie that is shot through a computer screen. He is an NSA expert working on a Sunday when aliens attack, spoiler alert, and the entire movie is saved by an Amazon delivery driver. Now people say, well, that's great advertising for Amazon. Here's the thing that's amazing about it. This movie was written for Paramount, and they sold it to Amazon later. So this Amazon, the writer of it was like Amazon.

I want to put more Amazon in here. So I think that that's really interesting. Like they had so much Amazon specifics. There are drones controlled. Like IceT, sorry, Ice Cube has to buy a USB stick to put it in his computer. And he has to get it via drone. It's great. Watch it.

Fantastic. I love a movie where a plot point is getting a USB stick. Yeah, that's how you know, things are cooking. You couldn't crack. No way to sit in a room and think of a way to avoid that. We got to send the drone. We got to send the drone. It's great.

And he's also a weird dude who spies on his daughter a lot. Are you serious? Yes, the majority of the movie is him spying on his daughter. You really like that movie. You know what? When there's something that is so off, right? Like, I can appreciate the beauty of, like, one battle after the other

the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie and this because they are both they are both doing the best version of what they can both be which is that is the best worst movie I have seen in a long time and that is a great movie that is the best best movie in a long time

so it's like I have to applaud them both if you're going to go down. You have a lot of time on your hands oh come on I got I you know I this is I thought I was giving you I like the abrupt spot. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it.

Well, I want to ask about War of the Worlds, but I don't want to spoil it. Awesome. Yes, sir. You had Nelke Boys interview go viral over the summer because you chided them for interviewing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his favorite fast food, which was Burger King, which is... Bless me. Of course.

During that episode, you told the Nelk Boys, you guys are not little kids. You're fucking 30 years old. It was very satisfying, I think, for people because there is this kind of, it's funny, it's similar, it's sort of the reverse image of what we were just talking about, which is, you know, you have comedians doing these interviews with politicians, and these are serious times, and the interviews have serious stakes and people are influenced by them, but if you challenge what's happening of why they're maybe don't ask hard questions, well, they're just, they're just entertainers, they're just comedians, they're just people having a conversation.

what was what was that conversation like what was the response like what was that feeling what was that moment like well well the thing is uh there was a common friend who told me like the net boys you know they messed up with them getting beneath and i would give him like so balling the questions so can you be like the counterpoint so because they were like losing people right and left so i just like went there and kind of like put them in you know in detention and uh i was kind of like because they were using the thing we didn't know we didn't know like you cannot just like go through life pretending that you don't know because uh what you have been used uh it's it's it started right before the podcast because uh the nelg boys with other

influencers were paid huge amount of money to go to these free trips to Israel and they had like a trip like a couple of years like a just like six months before like you know like before october 7th and i told them you were recruited in 23 and you were activated 2025 they recruited you there and then so they would use you when they come here because you are the same milk boys that actually Donald Trump used in his campaign. So now I think the politicians are like realizing oh, like it's not like mainstream anymore.

We need to go to these like Gen Zs and the young millions and like talk or go to this like popular podcast. And of course those people, oh, I'm having the prime minister of this country, having the president of the United States. That's a great reach for me. So they don't care about doing the work and I just want to do the exposure. But they're being used.

They're being used. I mean, everybody wants their bill. Clinton playing the saxophone on Arsenio moment, right? It's like, well, let's not talk about politics. But at the same time, this is a thing that, I don't know if people have said this to you, but it's like, stay in your lane. Like, you're supposed to entertain, so just entertain. And that's a really interesting thing because I think that that's what those people are

trying to do. But it's not responsible. But here's the thing, what he's saying with the podcaster, like the podcaster, many of the podcasts, like, you know, they pretend that they're tough, asking the tough questions. And, you know, like, like being the people. actually they stepped out of their lane already and when their politicians comes in, they're just like, all so sweet and nice.

Can I ask you, can I say, no one has ever asked Netanyahu about his favorite fast food. I mean, that was a hard question. I mean, you would not get that, you know. I'd never get that from somebody else. The guy is from fucking Philly, and he's saying Burger King, are you...

Terrible answer from BB, among other terrible answers from him. Yeah, that's the only a bad thing he did. That's, and that was, and that was the worst thing I've ever heard from Benjamin Nanyahu. Now, Paul, you're headlining the Riyadh comedy festival. Yes. Let me, hear me out. Wait.

I'll ask both of you about this. So we've got, uh, a bunch of big comedians are doing the Riyadh comedy festival. Yes. And I, I find it interesting because it, like, it's divided between, um, uh, like, like, a, God, they must be paying an absorbent amount of money to get these comedians to go to Riyadh. But it really does seem to be divided between people that could use the money and people who have more money

than God already. Awesome, what was your reaction to the Riyadh? Well, we actually had a conversation about that exact topic and then the whole idea was like, oh, they're whitewashing the regime. I said, okay, so let's say now you're going to give people paying for going for a certain country with quote-unquote question of politics. Isn't American politics questionable too? The fact that we also, the whole idea about like we are better than everybody,

if you don't talk about like, you know, destruction or talk about war, America has been doing that for years. So should we, like, so the fact is like trying to pretend that we are better than the rest of the world just because our media tells us so, I think we are actually like guilty of what are many of the things that we accuse other countries. Like are you supporting, if you play in California, are you supporting ICE because you're like, well, you know, because I mean, is that at least something you could equate on some level? So I think that you can interrogate whether we are at times naive or rosy about America's terrible conduct domestically abroad

without going so far as to not be able to draw this distinction. One important distinction is that if you go and perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, that government will decide how many people outside of that room see it. That does not happen in the United States. Not yet. They murder journalists. They imprison them there are, you know, that is a regime that cracks down actively in a violent way on dissent.

Now, you can criticize America in all the ways that I think it is justified, but yes, I continue to believe there's a very big difference between going down to the Laugh Factory on sunset and going to her. Riyadh to perform at this festival for a lot of money, which is to lend credibility to a kind of monstrous dictatorial regime. And we are not fully an authoritarian state just yet. Yeah, but it's not just like about the authority. Like I remember like Biden with the fist bump and everything. You know, like we weren't we supposed to be like the police of the world? Like we are like responsible, the morality of the world. And then we still do business with

all of these regimes. We are actually like, we can say whatever you want about any regime in the world, but we have been, like, supporting them, we have been taking their money, whether than in the Middle East or anywhere else. I'm just like saying that you can point fingers to any regime in the world, but I don't think the United States is that much different. I would say, sure, you can, of course. I'm the immigrant here, just. English second language.

No, what I was going to say is only. I think that, like, you have to be able to be honestly critical without having your mind so open your brain falls out. Yes, the United States has done terrible things, but you can still draw moral distinctions between performing in Saudi Arabia and performing in the United States and even as our government does terrible things in our name,

that doesn't mean individuals don't have a moral responsibility for where they perform for money. And that can mean different things to people and that can be up for debate, I think it is hard to justify extraordinarily wealthy comedians taking huge sums of money to go to Riont, to perform for a regime

that is looking for global credibility despite its many horrible and monstrous crimes that does not negate any criticism in the United States, but it does not change that moral choice. You know, a couple of years ago? Do you disagree with that? Yeah, yeah, but like in a couple of years...

But no, would you agree or disagree with that? I agree with many points, but the thing is, I have to say, as a someone who came from the Middle East, right, in these last two years living here and seeing what our government let happen in front of all of our eyes I'm pretty much like this franchise

of all of like whatever moral thing that you can say about this government I'm sorry like I even told you yesterday like you know as if like the people in the Arab and the Muslim diaspora they feel that we're helping our people with Western Union and we're fucking them with turbo tax

like you know we're helping them with money and then like our taxes go there to fuck them over and that is happening through our government, and you can say whatever you want about the Egyptian regime, about the Saudi regime, whatever, but they did not, like, assist in billions of dollars in genociding a whole nation right in front of our eyes right now. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm only doing five minutes.

Like, not headlining. middling It was because of the snacks snacks are good They got good snacks there Whatever I wanted Fresh popcorn And the dates

They're amazing Oh very good dates Oh my god the dates Are wonderful We'll be right back Hey don't go anywhere There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up

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Go to Sundaysforogs.com slash love it or use code love it. That's Sundays for dogs.com slash love it. Code love it. and we're back where did we go I don't know we had so much good conversation in between before we get to our final segment first of all everybody should check you know

Paul talked about the great great movies and the great bad movies and you can listen to how does this get made which is the greatest show about the worst movies and unspooled the greatest show about the great movies Plus, there's Dark Web. Oh, yeah.

And you were talking about Dark Web today about Two Live Jews, which I remember from my childhood. Yeah, so Two Live Jews was a comedy rap album that I thought was amazing because my parents wouldn't let me hear Two Live Crew. Now, Two Live Crew, they rapped about some hardcore stuff, but Two Live Jews would sing songs like,

oi, it's so humid, oh, it's so humid, oh, it's so humid, it's like a sauna in here. And someone brought up today, they said, oh, they should say that they were schvitzing. It's not really a sauna. It's a schvitz. But that's to be said. It's a steam.

It's a steam. Yeah. So two live Jews brought back a really buried memory for a lot of people. Because, yeah, I found an old clip of two live Jews, which at the time I thought were two old men. They were just guys in like nutty professor makeup. So I'm learning that in real time. Yeah. So, yeah.

But yeah, you can check out. They have, like, a few albums. Coture as I Want to Be as I believe the first album. There's this controversy right now about this book, about MDMA and recovered memories of abuse, and it's all very serious. I'm just imagining you doing MDMA recovery therapy. Singing that song.

And bringing up all these lost memories of two broke Jews. Two live Jews. Two broke girls. Two broke girls, two live Jews. Two broke Jews now, that's science fiction. Awesome Wow Hey I was anti-Semitic of the month

One month by the way Yeah Oh really? Stop antisemitism Not org has chosen me And I was actually in the finals And then You made it to the final

They have finals And then like fucking Dan Balzarian won I just like No, I lost it today He bought it He bought it Just like all those girls He bought it

It's like the Webby's You know Ah I don't even know what I'm getting in trouble for for this episode. This will be a lot. I don't even know. Cut. Cut. Do some minutes.

Tight, tight, tighten it up. Hey, Bill, we've got to tighten this episode up. Also, you can see Bassem Live at LA at the Comedy Store here at Dynasty typewriter in Durham, Tempe, San Antonio, Irvine, and it says Islamabad. Is that right? No, I'm kidding. No. But I'm doing the typewriter next Friday to test it like here next Friday.

yeah yeah it's it's a test show so it's like code for it still sucks so help me like build the show please thank you yes yeah help him all right please welcome back congressman eric swalwell oh oh oh oh yeah oh wow wow wow you're all right there are all kinds of ways in which corporate media is compromising and capitulating. We here at Crooked Media, we are independent. We have no FCC licenses that I'm aware of. I wouldn't even know how to get one, and you can support us at Crooked Media as we try to build an independent, progressive alternative to right-wing media and to corporate media, mainstream media, and you can support Crooked by becoming a subscriber. If you go to crooked.com slash friends, you can now subscribe on YouTube,

substack the others so many spot everywhere anywhere you where Apple of course the biggest corporates of all

well we're still part of society I know we're not in a fucking hole just subscribe already a lot of you haven't this week Donald Trump completely reversed course on Ukraine declaring the Ukraine as America's full support

and reclaiming all the land Russia has so far. In honoring Trump's surprise about face, we wanted each of you to share something we've pulled a 180 on. Something in your life where you just were wrong and did a full flip-on. Could be anything you want. Let's spin the wheel. Got it. Oh, great. It is landed on Congressman Eric Swobo. Well, it's done a 180 on the picture, for sure. I mean, I look like my high school prom photo, right? Is that not your headshot? Look at that baby. you think you're young in that picture i think you look the same that's not i've done what i would say i've

done a 180 on checking luggage oh yeah so when i met my wife on our first date so i'm i'm 33 she's in her late 20s we both travel a lot for work and i thought like this is an important question to ask someone who could be your spouse and i asked her i said how do you feel about checking luggage and to me it was like a dq like i never want to wait at a carousel for luggage right i just want to like get on the plane land and you're off and in my job like you just kind of like build that in as a habit and so you don't want to be slowed down at all i have three kids now eight six and three all i want to fucking do is check as much luggage as possible because going through an airport with

little kids is impossible i i don't know if any of you have done it i'm going to tell you now i have a nine and 11 year old and now we've determined we called ourselves this year we're saying we are the no check baggage family that's a good pact to me yeah and and now that the kids can carry their own thing it's life is better again but yes in your moment right now forget about it i want to check the kids right yeah get them in but they don't let you put on i got like these cheap dog costumes on amazon you put them in a little crate and they go right under it's cheaper it's easy and they don't mind the cold they don't mind them always my kids are always hot That's my middle.

You get them in a little dog costume. Yeah. You go right under. If the kids are small enough, they can go into the seat. Oh, yeah, you could get them in there. I agree. I sometimes, like, the feeling of once you've checked the bag

and you're kind of loose at the airport, oh, it's nice. You're loose. And I also, here's the other thing, too. I don't get this complaint. I don't want to wait for these bags. I'm like, how long is it? It's like five, ten minutes?

Like, what are we doing? Like, people make it out like, I never check. Not in this economy. Not with this administration. John Duffy's in charge of your backs now, right? I don't know. I'm dealing with. I mean, I get, I mean, look, I know that things are bad, but I feel like my bags are getting

there roughly. It gives me a chance to take a pee. Go, you know, maybe you got a coffee and then I'll wait for the bags. I get them and I go and I'm happy. And that was great. When you travel kids, you're also like the very back of the plane. Oh, yeah. So you don't give a fuck when, like by the time you get off the plane.

Yeah. Yeah, you're already laid. So I, I've completely changed my tune on that. Yeah, you're not moving anywhere quickly. Once the kids are going, because they're stopping five more times than you ignore. Yeah, you can't just, like, bust off. Our hack is to sit at the very, like, the farthest back is possible. So that you're disturbing, like, the least amount of people, right?

Yes. I, I, I, like, as I mean, the East, I have different priorities than you guys in an airport. And this is like, this is like, this is like first world country shit. problems. Back, look at you. I'm wondering if I'm going to go through. I mean, just that's... Let's spin it again.

It has landed on Paul Scheer. All right, here is my... I'm going to keep it light. And, well, that was light. So the thing that I have made a 180 on is the movie Talladega Nights. When I first saw it, I was like, I don't think this is very funny.

I think Anchorman is way better. And when I've watched it, I'm like, I actually think that this is like an amazing, like kind of look of America and how we get very, you know, jealous and uncomfortable. It's like it, there's so many layers in there. Favorite scene. Oh, gosh, my favorite scene. I mean, the two kids are the best.

Walker and Texas Ranger, they're pretty amazing. Any kind kids are telling they're going to kick an old man's ass, I'm ready for it. But the baby Jesus, right? Baby Jesus. Yeah, the prayer scene. The dinner table scene is amazing. And I just think I, I think in rewatching it, I appreciate it. And you can tell it's like Adam McKay who has this like point of view about, yeah, this is all like it's, I think in cap, like putting it in a NASCAR world and showing like America for great things and weird things and all of our weird things that we were scared of.

I thought it's actually way smarter than I ever gave it credit for. So I'm, that's my 180 on Talladega. I think I just stuck my nose up at it. I don't like NASCAR. This is dumb. Whatever. But it's a much more layered. movie. I'll have to go back

and re-watch Talladega nights. Yeah. Well, there's definitely like an ethnophobia there because, you know, Sachs Baron Cohen plays a French guy who wants to hold hands. He's gay and that's very upsetting to Will Ferrell's character. It's interesting. There's some good stuff in there. Let's

spin it again. Well, we know where it's going to land. Oh, no, yes, we don't. We have two options. It's landed on Boston. What's something you've done a 180 on? I used to have like my dream car used to be a Tesla not anymore

no but but but even before the thing even before that I think it's like hyped up overrated and like you lose an arm and a leg if with any scratch with it

like it's like I think the whole we shouldn't be investing that much money in cars yeah like yeah half of you have Tesla's fuck you I have a bumper

sticker on mine I I which says this is for the politics so so I had a Tesla

I bought it in I believe February of 2020 at which point it sat in my driveway for whatever, an incredible length of time. I really liked it. Then the news happened.

And then it started to really rattle. You know, it would really shimmy and it would rattle and would make a lot of noise. It always sounds like there's a screw loose that's rolling back and forth. And I ultimately got rid of it. Man. Maybe it was already bad, but you were blinded.

That could be. That could have been biased. Yeah, yeah. Could have been bias, I suppose. I will say this about the Tesla too. It's like, it is a, take away, everything about like Elon whatever it's but it's a relatively new car like there's very few like new cars that like hey we figured it out like no like these companies have been around for decades they

figured out like oh yeah that's how the steering wheel doesn't make a creaky noise every time you know I feel like it like any new car is going to have this and it's surprising when you drive the teseric oh these are sounds I've never heard a car like but um I got rid of it and I like didn't know what to get and I got a Mercedes which I've never had before and I've never had Arab that's a very Arab thing to do Mercedes let me tell you something let me tell you something I'll tell you something so you know what let's spin it again it's landed on me it's rigged it's rigged so I always thought that like when I was a kid as a Jewish kid like Mercedes were like not allowed like they were Nazi sleds like you did not get a

German car. Like, these were, you did it, you did it. And by the way, like, I still think it's kind of crazy to have a Volkswagen because, like, who named that company? Change the fucking name. It's right there on the thing. That's crazy to me. Always bugged me a little bit.

But I was like, you know what? I'm going to get rid of this Tesla and just fucking eat shit on the price because that's what happened. Getting rid of it. I'm going to get this thing. I fucking hate this car. so much. And it is the most, and it really, like, makes me... The Mercedes. The Mercedes. I miss the Tesla, to be honest. Deal with it.

I feel the same way. I really like driving my Tesla. Again, politics. Well, this is how you're going to get paid in Rio. I know. I hate this. Now, we'll say, now you've made me second-guess my other car, which I want to get is that Volkswagen bus. I can't get that now either. Now... You know what? You're never going to be young again. Don't get that bus.

All right. Why do you hate the Mercedes? It feels very German in that it seems like it was this It's always trying to kick you out of the thought I just I always feel like I always feel like when I'm in it Like you can just hear a little voice being like

Ahum It's very like It's very clearly Very smart engineers Were deeply involved in every aspect of it But the one thing they didn't think about was the fact that a human being At some point might need to drive it

It feels like it's completely over-engineered by like a by like a deeply methodical and inhumane people. And maybe that's projecting. Because they seem like they've really kind of lightened up over the last 68 or 80 years. But when I drive this car, I feel like, I don't know.

I think it's still in them. When you turn it up, and when you get in it, it automatically Nick Flintes' podcast is on, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's always playing a Deutschland Uber Alice. Whenever I turn the car on, it's super weird. It's super weird.

I do love the Lenny Reefenstall commercials for it. Yeah, no. You know, because here's the thing. Because here's the thing. The Trump administration puts out these sort of like snuff films on whitehouse. gov and it's like, hey, man, like Lenny Reefinstall knew the rule of thirds. You know what I mean? New about light and dark, you know, the angles, beautiful shots, right?

If you're going to make a beautiful piece of right-wing propaganda, shoot it well. Speaking about the ads, did you see this like the White House ad for the, we are now called the Department of War? Like we're working into the business of war. And they're like, this is, did you see that? No, I didn't even know that these films existed.

No, and it's like on the White House, like, official. Yeah. How like, and they're giving like, hexeth, you know, hecketh, you know, that guy. And he's saying, like, you know, we're like, We're not the Department of Defense. We're in the business of war. And then at the end, Department of Defense

and then, br, br, war. Wow. This is like dystopian thing. I mean, that's like something you would see in a movie. Yeah, it's like, but I like that there's no mess anymore. Yeah, we're war. We're going to fuck you up. It's just like there are confident people

with tiny penises. And there are insecure people with big penises. I'm sure they exist. which one's hexat there's insecure people with nuclear weapons right well i just there's such a projection all the time like i just therapy and this let's end by saying i hope a lot of these republicans do a 180 on therapy these people could all benefit from just sitting down and talking to somebody once in a while about why they're so sad and mad or maybe admitting that they're not mad and that they are sad and with that we will end it thank you so much to congressman erics

Swalwell, Paul Shear, Balsam, Yusuf. We'll see you in two weeks at Dynasty Typewriter. We're off next week for Yom Kippur. There are 402 days until the midterms. Have a great night, everybody, and have a great weekend. If you're already scrolling endlessly, which we know you are, don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok, and all the other ones for original content, community events, and more.

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