Lovett or Leave It - Going HAMptons on Partisanship

Episode Date: July 8, 2017

Packed show! Former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on his run for Governor. Jeff Ross, Wil Wheaton, and Sabrina Jalees discuss ethics resignations and voter fraud; Tommy Vietor joins for the "Vietor Detour" to break down a big foreign policy week; and the rant wheel turns into a debate over civility in politics.

Hey guys, thanks for coming out. I see some merch. I always like to point it out. I see some friends of the pod. Thank you guys for being here tonight. We have a great show for you. Now, as you know, look, we have a fantastic panel. But before we get to our panel, love it or leave it, it's a funny show.

All right? But it's also a place where we battle it out on ideas. All right? We talk about the future of the Democratic Party. We have a big governor's race coming up in the state of the state of California and so I'm very excited about our guest tonight. Now we're going to talk to a lot of the candidates but I'm so excited that we have the former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, here to talk to us about why he's running for governor. So let me bring up the mayor. Mayor,

thank you for being here. Please sit down. Mr. Mayor, thank you for coming. Antonio, oh, that feels cool. That feels right. Thank you for being here.

Like my mother used to say, Tonyito. Okay, that feels like one step too far for me. That feels a little too intimate for me. Maybe we'll get there. You didn't finish your tequila. I did not. I did.

Well, good, good, good, good. That's good. We'll be very loose. So you're running for governor. We're in the middle of a big conversation amongst Democrats about the future of the party. We're in the wilderness. We just went through this grueling loss. And I don't want to look backwards, but I do think it's important that we understand the lessons of 2016. You're somebody that has been a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton, as I was. What did you learn from 2016? And a longtime supporter of Barack Obama as well. I think what we learned is we lost our way. Our party has always been a party that fights for working people, for the poor, that addresses an economy when it's not working for most of us. And I think we spent too much time talking about Trump, thinking about Trump, and not enough time talking about what we were going to do. You know, I grew up in the civil rights movement.

I started out at 15 years old with a farm worker boycott. And I remember in college telling my mom that she didn't understand working people. And she told me, you know, son, at some point people want to know what you're for, not just what you're against. You're good at marching. You're good at picketing. But people want to see you build something. And I think our party has to build something again. We've got to fight for working people.

We've got to fight for the notion that too many young people can't afford college. They get a degree and they're not making it. They're working at Starbucks. We've got a shared economy that doesn't share. Too many people, you know, who used to work 80 hours as a taxi driver, now working as Uber, $30,000 instead of $100,000. No health care, no pension. Where are we going? So I think our party has to start going somewhere forward, upward, for more people. Now, obviously, California is in many ways a bulwark against what the Trump administration is doing. I mean, one of the ways that we can move forward is by making sure that this administration doesn't succeed, whether it's

from immigration reform to blocking criminal justice reform to what we're seeing now on the health care bill. You've been pretty outspoken against Trump, but at the same time, if you were to be governor, you have this balance of being a bulwark, being critical, trying to move the state forward, while at the same time being reliant on the federal government for revenue, for funding.

How do you strike that balance? What do you think the governor's job is there? Governor's job is to mark a different path. You know, look, we're not going to tweet our way out of what we see from Washington. I don't know that that's true. I've been doing a lot of tweeting, and it helps. We're not going to scream our way out.

I think the best way to fight Trump is to make our economy work for more people here in California. You know, we have the sixth largest economy in the world. We have more poverty than virtually every state in the country. We are a state, frankly, that has a lot of great things going for it and a lot of things that we have to ask ourselves how we can do it better. So I think the next governor's got to stand up for sure on health care. Health care is a right, not a privilege. Everybody ought to have it. We've got to stand up to a 20 billion dollar cut. We've got to say that our environment, protecting our natural resources, our air, our water, is the greatest gift we could give to the next generation addressing climate change.

We're going to stand up for the notion that California is going to lead not just the nation, but the world. On immigration, look, we're the sixth largest economy in the world and we're the most diverse state in the nation, the epicenter of immigrants and the foreign born and the undocumented. But if that's all we do is just stand up and not do more to double down, to train more kids, educate more, you know, 80% graduation rate, 13% of 60% of the kids in this state who are of color, Latino and African American, 13% are going to a four-year college.

That is not a quotient, a formula for success. So best thing we could do is double down on what we do here. Don't pay so much attention to the noise, because that's all it is. 75% of the stuff that comes out of his mouth is either a lie or a misrepresentation of fact. Why would we spend so much time responding to it? That's true. I want to drill down on two of those issues, healthcare and education. Healthcare first. So there's this debate going on in California around single payer. There's this

proposal. It's been rejected by, it's been embraced by some people, rejected by others. One issue is that we have this funding problem in California where it has to go to the ballot. Where do you come down on this fight over single-payer? Well, I've been for single-payer since I was, well, since I went to the legislature in 1994. I did a bill to expand, after the Clinton administration lost universal health care, I did a bill for universal health care for kids. Expand Medi-Cal to 200% above poverty for poor kids. That's a form of single payer.

I didn't have a funding plan. So guess what? I didn't get a vote. Not one vote. Second year, I did it again. I didn't have a funding plan. I didn't get a vote. The third year, I passed a plan that gave 750,000 kids health care.

I got booed by some. But those kids that have health care and their parents, they were happy because now they had health care. Booed by Mitch McConnell or he wasn't in the picture? He wasn't in the picture. So the point is I'm for single payer. I don't know why I'm here. I'm for single payer. I'm for single payer. I don't know why I'm here.

I'm for single payer. Virtually every Western industrialized country in the world has single payer, which is government-sponsored health care. That's where we're going to go one day. Today's not the day. Not when you need waivers from the Trump administration. Not when the only real way to make it happen in this state is to have the nation go there. So I'm for it, but not right now.

We've got to focus on a $20 billion cut. We have a $180 billion budget. A $20 billion cut is, you do the math, more than 10%. It's a big deal. We've got to protect the two and a half million people. I'll bet you a good group of you here who will lose health care if Trump is successful. That's where you start, and then build on that. So I'm for it. Let's start with protecting the two and a half million who will lose it if McConnell in the Senate is successful. And then on education, you famously had a, you tangled with the school board. You had a long-term conflict with them about the direction of L.A. schools.

What did you take away from that fight? What did you learn from it that you would bring to the state? How many of you went to schools here in L.A.? So did I. I went to a high school, graduated in 1971, that had a 25% graduation rate. By the time I became mayor in 2005, they'd improved. They now had a 35% graduation rate. I said, that's unacceptable. 44% of the kids in this city were graduating when I became mayor. I took on everybody and challenged them. When I left, it was 72% graduation rate from 44 to 72.

Today it's 77. I took on a subset of schools in Watson, East L.A., where I grew up. So the school, when I became mayor, that had a 36% graduation rate, 35% graduation rate, by the time I became mayor today, now has an 84% graduation rate. These kids can learn. And I think we have to stand up and fight for them and understand that too many kids who are poor and of color are not making it in the way that we need them to make it if this state's going to be successful. And so I've stood up for them and yeah, I've tangled with a lot of people for them. But I've tangled for them because I really believe that we've got to set higher standards, we've got to invest more in our schools, we've got to bring arts

back to our schools, arts and music. We've got to stand up for the notion that particularly poor kids who oftentimes are latchkey need after school programs and sometimes an extended day. We've got to focus on success again and understand these kids can learn. And so, yeah.

I got it on with us. We rocked and rolled and rumbled a little bit. Okay. And I won. You won. You won. We're winning. We're winning. Okay. So one thing I wanted to talk about before we get to the game,

and we're going to play a fun game, is, look, we're going to have a primary, and part of the primary is just putting people through the paces. One of the controversies that you've had since you left the mayorship is what you've done since you were post-mayor. And one of the things that I saw that I had questions about was the fact that you worked with a company called Herbalife. Now, Herbalife is an L.A.-based company, but at the same time, they've been accused by a lot of people of being a multilevel marketing scheme, and they had some sleazy practices. And so I just wanted to get your reaction to that because, you know, people are going to have questions about it, and that's going to matter in the election. They will.

You're right. They were an L.A.-based company. They are an L.A.-based company. I brought them right. They were an LA-based company. They are an LA-based company. I brought them downtown. They're a health and nutrition company. They've been around for 30 years. My mother sold Tupperware. My mother sold Avon.

This is what a multiple-level marketing company just like them. You're right. Some people have criticized. Virtually everything you do post whatever you did when you were in office, you get criticized for. Some people made a lot of money while they were mayor and lieutenant governor, a lot of money while they were in public office. I walked away, no house, no job, no car. Front page of the New York Times.

So I put everything I had in Beanmare, and then I worked with folks who are promoting health and nutrition and small business. Because the reason why people sell Avon and Tupperware and Herbalife is because they've got to make a few bucks. They've got to make ends meet. And I've stood for that. I mean, there's been some criticism of these companies, specifically Herbalife, for taking

advantage of people that they end up buying a bunch of stuff and they have to offload it. $58 worth of stuff. Okay. $58 worth of stuff. It's not a whole lot of stuff. Okay. It's $58.

All right. We got to the bottom of it. I feel okay about it. Good. Good? I feel good. I feel great. Okay. It's $58. All right, we got to the bottom of it. I feel okay about it. Good. All right, good? I feel good. I feel great. You good?

I'm great. All right, guys, before we let the mayor go, I wanted to play a game. The game is called Lax Facts. Lax Facts. Lax Facts. L-A-X Facts. Is there some...

Not X-Lax, huh? Lax Facts. Listen, we spent a while trying to come up with some kind of a pun that was about true versus fault and la la land la la land la la la it was a mess

which is why we ended up at lax facts which sucks but even though the name is not the best and it won't be back it's going to be a fun game. Would anyone like to play a game called Lax Pax? Mr. Mayor, Antonio, what was the real nickname? The even more intimate nickname?

Tonito. Tonito. Nope, nope. Beneath your seat, beneath my seat, are cards. You got them? All right. So here's how the game works. Hi, what's your name?

Roshanna. Roshanna. Yes. Hi, Roshanna. Hi. So here's the game, all right? The mayor and I have facts in front of us. Some of them are true.

Some of them I wrote this afternoon. Okay. Okay? Your job is to decide which facts are real and which are made up. Okay? And if you get them right, you will get a parachute gift card. That's what I'm here for.

That's what you're here for. So, Roshanna, first of all, that's insulting. Second of all, that's very stupid because it was unlikely that you would have gotten chosen. So these tickets were a bad investment for you. Okay? Copy. I'm sorry.

Huge fan of Roshanna. All right. Mr. Mayor Tonito. Nope. Still can't do it. Would you mind kicking us off by reading a fact or made-up fact about Los Angeles to Roshanna? When LA was founded, the city's full name was

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles Sobre el Río Poricíncula. That translates to The Town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels on the Poricíncula. That translates to the town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels on the Poricincula River. Fact or fiction? Oh, I go now? Okay. I thought you were going to do a bunch of them.

Okay. Just trust me. I know the game. You think that's fiction? Yes. It's true. It's true. You're 0 for 1. All right, I'm up with number 2. It's true. It's true. You're 0 for 1. All right,

I'm up with number 2. Roshanna, the biggest disappointment we've ever had. Are you ready for fact number 2? I'm ready. The movie Volcano

ends with lava nearly engulfing the Beverly Center. In early test screenings, Los Angelinos booed. One theatergoer said of Tommy Lee Jones' character, a real hero would let

the lava take it. As a native Los Angelian that wants the Beverly Center to burn, I want that to be true. So you're saying that's true? Fiction. Yeah, it's fake.

That's fake. Tonito, now it feels good. Now I feel like saying it. What was your nickname? Everyone just calls me Lovett. Everyone's called me Lovett since I was a little kid. Lovett Jr.? No, just Lovett.

There's been occasional... Levito? You know what, there was a time... So I'll tell you... No. Mijo? Nope. Sort of a more Jewish thing. So I will say this. There was a time where I was called J-Lo for John Lover.

And then, because I was such a liberal, some of my Republicans friends would call me J-Losi. J-Losi. For Pelosi. But that's the best I can offer nickname-wise. Not very good. L.A. is home to the largest boulder ever transported,

a 340-ton chunk of granite that took 11 days to move just 85 miles to the home at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Fact.

That's true. You're right. You say it into the mic, though. Fact. Correct. You're now two for three. I was there. I've stood under that boulder.

It's cool as hell. I was there when they brought it in. I was the mayor, baby. Nice. Did you play any role in the final? I actually carried it. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing. Like Sisyphus. Oh, geez. Sisyphus. Greek mythology. Very good. You know it. Tons of stars are buried in the Hollywood's forever cemetery. Anybody

been there? Yeah. I've been there. It's a cemetery. Anybody been there? Yeah. I've been there. It's a cemetery. What are you cheering for? It's a place of mourning. They have good movies. They do have good movies.

One of them is Looney Tunes voice actor, Mal Blanc, whose gravestone reads, that's all, folks. Fact. You got it. I think you're understanding how this works I think Roshanna caught on

really good you're really really good so you are now three for four it's hard to imagine you'd lose but there is one more are you ready

yes many lesser known film extras are also buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery their graves are unmarked per union rules Many lesser known film extras are also buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Their graves are unmarked per union rules. But they were buried with a box lunch. You know, I was worried that that was niche, but it's not.

Fiction. That's fiction. Roshanna, you have won Lax Facts. Love it. I came for you, not for the parachute. Thank you. Thank you for playing. I want everybody to give it up for the former mayor of Los Angeles.

A great sport. Tonito. The Aragoza. The Levitt and Tonito show. When we come back, VTOR Detour. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It,

and there's more on the way. And we're back. We have a fantastic panel for you guys tonight, but before we do, I wanted to, before we bring out the panel, I wanted to spend just a few minutes breaking down a crazy week in foreign policy news. When we do that, we now call it a Vitor detour.

Please welcome to the stage, co-founder of Crooked Media, co-host of Pod Save America, host of Pod Save the World, Tommy Vitor Detour. Please welcome to the stage co-founder of Crooked Media, co-host of Pod Save America, host of Pod Save the World, Tommy Vitor. Hi, Tommy. Thanks for coming. That was some Big J journalism. Tommy, thank you for being here. I know that we didn't hug,

but we don't hug in real life. Why would we hug on stage? I had dinner with you across the street. You did? Thank you. I don't know why I said. Why would we hug on stage? I had dinner with you across the street. You did? Thank you. I don't know why I said thank you. I paid. It's not like I didn't. I paid.

You put down 20 for an entree and a drink. You know what? I didn't use the cash out. I just threw $20 on the table. But I could have, and I would have, and I should have. Tommy, let's get into it. Donald Trump had a nearly

two-hour meeting today with Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia. It was supposed to be a 30-minute meeting. They emerged from that meeting with some sort of an agreement related to Syria. What have we learned today about what went on in that meeting? What happened?

What didn't happen? So it was a two-hour and 50-minute meeting. Apparently they sent in Melania Trump at one point to try to break it up. She's like, why is this my fucking job? You want... I love it when he's in a long meeting. Two hours of Donald Trump in a long meeting is my fucking vacation.

She breaks up marriages, meetings, yeah. So apparently Rex Tillerson came out and said they had great chemistry. They wanted to move forward. Like this was some relationship that had been on a break for six months. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, basically said that Donald Trump

accepted Putin's version of events when it comes to interference in our elections, that they didn't actually have anything to do with it, despite the consensus opinion of the U.S. intelligence community that, in fact, Russia did hack our election. But the big announcement was a partial ceasefire in Syria, which, you know, is as significant as long as it lasts, it's significant. But John Kerry announced several of these. There have been many efforts to have a ceasefire in Syria that have not worked to date. is as long as it lasts, it's significant. But John Kerry announced several of these.

There have been many efforts to have a ceasefire in Syria that have not worked to date. So that was sort of the big deliverable that came out of this thing. So basically there was some progress on Syria, but very clearly Donald Trump seeded the election issue completely. Yeah, they just moved on. They decided that we're looking forward.

We have big things to work on. Let's talk about Syria. Let's talk about ISIS. let's talk about ISIS, let's talk about whatever else for two hours and 15 minutes until Melania runs in and says, guys, go home.

But presumably, that's not Donald Trump running the meeting, that's Rex Tillerson running the meeting. Donald Trump can't talk about two hours, can't spend two hours

on any topic. Yeah, I mean, the one sort of anecdote that came out of it was Putin being like, are these journalists, are they the ones that annoy you? And it seemed like they found some common ground here, bitching about the media, bitching about

their critics. Which is very cool, because Putin does kill journalists. Yes, he does. So that's a fun joke, like, ha ha ha, they bother me and I tweet about them, you murder them. So let's joke about it. Yeah, it's fun. It's good. The fuck? So there's also been a lot.

So this is the G20, right? Right. Just testing you. In Hamburg. In Hamburg, where the president did not seek hotel rooms in advance. So he's like looking at hotels.com frantically. Airbnb. I need a place that can bring me chocolate cake

in the middle of the night. What else has come out of this foreign trip? There's been a lot of talk about the relationship between Merkel and Trump, Macron and Trump. What have we learned? There's been a lot of dumb body language analysis that I'm going to rant about later.

But beyond that, Donald Trump spoke in Poland, and I feel like there's been these two interpretations of the speech. One was, this was actually a more traditional kind of presidential speech, where he talked about the importance of the West, and the other is a darker interpretation, which is that he's ceding ground to Putin, accepting

Putin's version of events. What do you think when you see what Trump has been saying? I mean, I think the big takeaway for me from the entire meeting is, you know, at the end of like a G20, there are these communiques that are filled out, which are essentially like joint statements between all the people that are there in an attempt to coordinate the world on name your big issues. And it feels like for the first time in a very long time, we are completely isolated. We're in a different place on climate change. We're in a different place on trade.

We're in a different place on immigration. And the rest of the world is kind of moving on without us. You've got the EU signing unilateral trade deals with Japan. You've got leaders sort of openly scoffing at U.S. leadership, complaining that we left the Paris Agreement. So it just feels like we're being left behind on things that a lot of people really care about. So that's depressing. In brighter news, North Korea launched an ICBM. This is what I didn't want to do with

the panel, alright? Tommy can walk us through it, then we can get rid of him. So, so, North Korea sends an ICBM up into the air. It has the ability to reach the United States, at least Alaska.

Dealing with North Korea has been difficult and sort of a shit sandwich for every president for 30 years. Is Trump basically kind of following the standard U.S. playbook and we're just once again realizing that it's inadequate? I mean, what are we learning about the way Trump is responding to North Korea? What do you take away from it? He's finding, I mean, this is not his fault. North Korea is not his fault. Barack Obama had eight years to deal with the problem. We did not.

Bill Clinton had time to deal with the problem. George W. Bush. So it's a problem that's existed for a long time, and it's been a nuclear program that's been steadily moving forward. I think the North Korean leadership has looked at Libya and places and other countries that have given up their nuclear programs and then have been toppled. And they've realized that maybe the way to stay in power is actually to hold on to your program and keep developing it. So they've been developing, they've been enriching nuclear material, making nuclear weapons, trying to shrink down warheads,

and then develop a missile that could actually fire and reach the United States. They got an ICBM, which is essentially a two-stage rocket that could reach Alaska. They got an ICBM, which is essentially a two-stage rocket that could reach Alaska. In some ways, that's incredibly destabilizing because you don't want to deal with a rogue state that could actually attack us in the homeland. But we have 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea. So if they wanted to attack U.S. personnel, they could do so. If they wanted to attack the city of Seoul, they could do so. So this is a huge problem. I think what we've learned about Trump is that his sort of career, his hallmark of his

career is bluster and bullshit and trying to sort of sell a phantom of success. He's been tweeting that China was going to come along with him and help deal with this problem, and it didn't happen. And he gave them like three months to to fix this and it didn't work so it's like you know this is this could have been a foregone conclusion before he ever took office i think barack obama one of the last things he said to him in their in their oval office meeting was how worried he was about this exact threat but they haven't exactly attacked it with a seriousness of purpose or united the international community to help us.

I'll leave you with this. There was somebody who noted this on Twitter. I don't know who it was because it's Twitter. Who cares? But pointed out that both Rob Kardashian and Donald Trump had tweeted the same thing, which is basically, China, I thought I could trust you. Guys, give it up for Tommy Vitor. Bye, buddy.

Now, let me welcome our panel to the stage at long last. They've been very patient, and I appreciate it. Please welcome comedian, actor, writer, and host of My Sexy Podcast, Sabrina Jalise. Sabrina. Oh, my God. You're so successful, and I didn't even know it. Sabrina Oh my god You're so successful And I didn't even know it

I didn't know before this podcast how popular it is Look at this guy She knew what to say He's an actor, author, creator Of the award winning geek and sundry show Tabletop which he also hosts I'm a huge fan Will Wheaton.

Man's a legend. Will. Thank you for being here. And finally, his new special, Jeff Ross Roasts Cops, comes out in September. He's one of my favorite comedians.

It's on Comedy Central, that special. Jeff Ross. Terrible. Handshake game was horrific. Alright, now it's done. We sit? Yeah, we sit. Ugh. Hey, great job on the set, by the way. You really nailed it.

Shout out to the mayor. Thank you for all the things you did for Los Angeles. That was cool. Sorry, John. No, it's good. You jumped right in. You roasted me and complimented someone that's not on stage. Thanks a lot.

It's like your sweet spot. I was mad because you introduced my year-old special that's coming out in September. I have a new one that comes out in September. It's about immigration. So I think that you should not be mad at me. You should be mad at your people. You're right.

But you were telling me about the special. Basically, you described the Putin-Trump meeting with Melania coming in about their chemistry. And then Melania came and interrupted. It was like the sad, frightening thing is you basically described an episode of The Bachelor.

Their date went on way longer than anybody thought. And the chemistry was great. And we sent another girl in to interrupt. And it didn't even work. The difference is Trump doesn't give Putin a rose. He just gave him Estonia. So that sucks for them. No, but I actually am excited about your special.

I wanted to ask you about it because you just spent some time on the Mexican border doing stand-up and roasting immigrants. Yes. And, you know, a group that I feel like is finally getting their just desserts. Basically, the mayor of Brownsville, Texas,

it's a little border town where it's the Rio Grande Valley. It's separated by a border fence. Matamoros, Mexico is on one side and it's sister city Brownsville. And the mayor of Brownsville let me set up a little stage and basically roast migrants

as they came over. I feel like Brownsville's a really insensitive on-the-nose name for a border town filled with migrants. I wish I did that joke. That would have been good. But basically, I have a lot of sympathy for, you know... You never touched on Brownsville?

I did a lot of Brownsville jokes. It's not just a special. It was an experience anybody uh you know who cares about the immigration experience will get a lot out of this show uh the the local constables we think about border patrol but the local constables basically patrol some parks around the rio grande valley and they let me ride along and see and talk to people as they were coming over for real i spoke to a woman who was nine months pregnant. Basically, her water broke, comes over on a raft.

It really makes you just feel so grateful. And I was born in this country, and I don't have to go through a lot of the daredevil shit that people go through to get here. I want to ask one more question about this, because do the police officers and the people that you were riding along with do they have a more nuanced view of this than then in what you hear in Washington these are the people that are on the ground and I think often they're sort of lumped in with the kind of oh they're they're pro

border or they're they're Trump type people but what what was your experience or talking to them about what they think about on the border it's it's a good a good thought because everybody there is of Mexican heritage, even the cops, even the border patrol are named Garcia and Hernandez. So they have to often have mixed feelings. They often have relatives on both sides of the border. And this little town, Brownsville, there's a bridge people walk every day from the Mexican side. They might work in the hospital on the American side, just the way when I was growing up, I lived in New Jersey, and we would go to New York for work and so on. So people there, I think, are more informed, even though

Texas is a red state. This is a blue state town. It's right on the border. So they don't want a wall, but there are people who think that they need a wall, but still don't want it for the moral, the way it makes them feel in their heart. So it's breaking up a community, basically the valley. Yeah, one of the things that's most interesting is that Republicans along the border are people that also, like Republican members of Congress along the border have opposed the wall as well. So I'm really excited about that special that's coming out in September. Thank you. Okay, let's get into it. What a week. I want to talk about everyone's excited about how shitty the week was. That's the gist of it. That's the gist of it. Now, look, we could talk about tweets, but I just don't want to. So, one big thing that happened this week is Walter

Schaub. Schub? Who cares? Seems like a good guy. He resigned as director of the Office of Government Ethics. Here's what he said. He said, there isn't much more I could accomplish at the Office of Government Ethics. My work is done. No, I'm kidding.

Finally finished. It sure is ethical around here. I ran out of space. The shelves are full. Full of ethics. I tried to feng shui the ethics

and I just, I can't. There's just no complaints, really. He said, OGE's recent experiences have made it clear that the ethics program needs to be strengthened. In January, before he resigned, he gave a speech saying that the only ethical financial arrangement for Trump would be total liquidation of his vast business and personal holdings. liquidation of his vast business and personal holdings and Reince Priebus that week on George Stephanopoulos said the government ethics ought to be careful because that person is becoming extremely political there was oh oh oh fuck Reince Priebus I don't know much about Reince Priebus, but he sounds fucking terrible. And like a Star Wars villain?

Do you remember Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in The Big Lebowski? Yes. Kind of like that, but real life. Take out all the charm. Yeah. Take out the charm and the fakeness and add, like, life and death. So, look, this guy resigned, I think, in frustration to kind of tell his story.

And hopefully we'll be hearing more from him. He does plan to work in Washington on these issues. And so hopefully this is not the last we've heard of Mr. Schaub. You think he's going to blow the whistle on stuff or what's going to happen? I think we don't know. I mean, I think he, it seems like he's a reasonable person who has a story to tell and I think he, whether he blows the whistle or just gets involved in these issues more directly

in D.C., I'm not sure we know the answer yet. But to the larger question, you know, this is somebody who basically said, this is unprecedented. I point it out. And Reince Priebus calls it political. A joke that's been made before is pretty, still worth mentioning. They made poor Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm.

He loved that place. You're going to see certain people start to discredit this guy starting tomorrow. Yeah, so they're going to start saying he's political, that he's partisan, that he's anti-Trump and all the rest. But they say that about everyone. Like every time, it doesn't matter. Like someone who was brought into Washington, D.C. by Ronald Reagan and was like carried in on like a Ronald Reagan chariot and sat down and was like, and Ronald Reagan was like,

and I bless you, and kissed his forehead. If that person steps out of line the way the Republican Party is right now, that person has now become anathema and is an enemy and has to be destroyed. And they say it about everybody. And there has to be some point in our national experience where that loses its effectiveness. Like someone just says, I think something's wrong here, and the entire Republican establishment attacks that person. There has to be a point where that just becomes – like Josh Marshall called it bitch slap politics.

And it's where – and so the right wing says to a Democratic politician, you have to apologize about a thing. And the Democratic goes, oh, no, I apologize about the thing. And then they go, why are you apologizing about a thing? And they go, I don I apologize about the thing and then they go why are you apologizing about a thing and they go I don't know I'm sorry that I apologize well you should apologize more and now you should apologize less and now apologize more and I think after years of that Democrats have been conditioned

to just sort of go like oh we shouldn't take a stand for this guy meanwhile Republicans will go to the fucking wall for whoever that asshole was in Kentucky who wouldn't sign marriage certificates. I can't wait till politics are a little bit female too. Yeah, yeah. Not very, I don't know if you've been paying attention,

but we've been- What a boring way to do things. Like, I dick smack you because I can't fuck you. Honey, do secret grinder, do a secret grinder, and then see where it goes. So one thing that's happened, right, is you see that there's sort of two responses.

When it's a policy question, they'll go after somebody like the Republican head of the CBO, but really the issue is not so much going after this ethics guy, but desperately trying to make the story go away. I mean, one thing that we've seen is people like Paul Ryan and others on the Hill basically saying, we are not willing to expend any political capital

on these ethics issues because we want to pass our agenda. So the problem this person has is he's an ethics watchdog. His job is to point these problems out. Traditionally, there was some kind of cause and effect. There'd be a question about ethics. There'd be some kind of cause and effect. There'd be a question about ethics, there'd be some kind of accountability

on the Hill, there'd be some kind of shame or scruples on the part of the administration, and there'd be a correction. But basically, to your point, that the idea that you ever need to apologize when really what Trump has learned, what Trump people have learned, what Paul Ryan has learned

is all you have to do is ignore it and eventually the political coverage will have to move on and we'll move on to the next shiny object. I was talking to Tommy upstairs about what a giant fan of the pot I am. I saw that Favreau's here and I kind of wanted you to introduce me

to him. But anyway, I was talking... Wait, Will, I'm sorry. We're going to come right back to you. John,, I was talking... Wait, Will, I'm sorry. We're going to come right back to you. John, please raise your hand. Where are you? John, Will Wheaton. Hi. Huge fan.

Sabrina Jalise. But we were... Okay. Emily Favreau, John's wife, will you raise your hand? Emily Favreau, baby girl. This is the moment I realize I'm gay.

It's the moment I realized you were gay. I'm so happy that we could be here for this. But we were just talking about this moment that happens every day where you're like, I can't believe this guy is the president. And I said, I just need things to matter. I need the things that are

unprecedented that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have done to matter because it really shakes my faith in just the foundation of the country. I feel like I don't know the country that I live in. Yeah, that's a really good point. That is, I think that's an awesome way to say it. You want things to matter. That's, I think, one of the hardest parts of these first few months because you see this incredibly egregious,

despicable behavior and it feels like there's no consequences. Shouldn't this matter? Shouldn't the fact that he basically bragged about sexual assault, shouldn't that have meant it wasn't going to be close? Shouldn't the fact that he is completely untethered to reality, that he lies, all the various sins that we've litigated many, many times upon

this stage, shouldn't these things matter? And I think that there's no choice but just to say yes we say it matters and that's how we have to fight that's the fight for these elections and we have we have to find a way as as as democrats we have to find a way to get our leaders to communicate the same thing we have to find a way to take that to voters and we have to find a way to take that from the national level all the way down to the local level and get our like our politicians on our side to grab people's imaginations and grab

people's attentions and say like yes these things matter and we will fight to ensure that these things matter because at the moment i'm not get i'm just not getting that yeah yeah to me when people ask me if there's any silver lining, I try to think that this is a near-death experience for the democracy. When my Uncle Joe had a stroke, a year later, he was the healthiest guy I ever met. All he thinks about is dieting and exercise. So, you know, we're doing things that we might not know,

we haven't been doing in a long time which is giving a shit the problem is the problem that I see when I go on the road and you say what matters is different things matter to different people and a lot of the things that matter to maybe your fans your constituency don't matter to a lot of other people and that's what's scary. You know, somebody said early on, I heard somebody screaming on TV, why would a working man vote for this guy? What has he ever done for the working man? And all I could think was everybody, I thought he's entertained them for 30 years.

I grew up in New York. I'd known the guy a long time. He was a lot of fun. Did you ever meet him? Yeah, I've worked for him, and I've traveled with him, and did gigs for his casinos, and he was a great sport. He was a lot of fun. He was charming.

What I'm hearing from you is you could get close to him. But, Jeff, you know, as somebody from New York, I think people, being from New York, it was such a strange thing to watch Donald Trump rise this way because he was a fixture of New York. Like, my family, like, his books were on the shelf. You know, there was The Art of the Deal. There were the books about him. There was Trump. Like, he was this larger-than-life New York figure.

And even though he came from money, he like a new york working class guy and he was charming and by the way he's funny you know he's a racist and he's a miserable prick and he's in decline and listen guys i don't know if you've listened to the show before not a fan but but you also sorry you easily could have just been describing andrew dice clay who sold out madison square garden it works donald trump is probably my third favorite comedian right now could have just been describing Andrew Dice Clay, who sold out Madison Square Garden. It works. Donald Trump is probably my third favorite comedian right now. Bethany Frankel, number one.

That's interesting, though, because somebody told me they come home at night and they turn on the Trump highlights. I know, but we do it too. It's what we were talking about. It's why in the beginning when you were talking to your partner, you guys talked about the ceasefire is a blip in the news cycle

when in fact that is so fucking important. Even if it doesn't stick, it's important that those guys did that. We're not reporting that. It's not fun to talk about. It's death. It's really awful. I get that. That's my, you know, if we don't laugh, we cry. We're in a comedy club right now, so it's a little easier.

But the fact is, we kind of dismiss a lot of what he is trying to do for better or worse. This is what we're stuck with. And if it's only the bad stuff, people will just dig in further and further. I think it's one of the hardest things to really talk about. It's the hardest thing to address because, look, there are real differences between the party and the reason that Democrats are resentful and angry about what republicans are

doing in washington is is different than the reason republicans are angry at democrats and what they're being told by fox news you know i i do not believe the parties are polarized in equal ways but at the same time this tribal dynamic is affecting both sides and it is part of the reason we ended up with donald trump the fact that there were so many people who were so angry and so unwilling to accept voting for a Democrat that they could pull the lever for Donald Trump or not pull the lever at all, I tell them something I think

is exposed to the point that you made earlier, what made us vulnerable to someone like Donald Trump to begin with. So I think it's a good point. And I also think part of it is that he made politics so easy to understand for a whole new group of people that normally didn't care. When I was young, if you talked about politics, you were at a party.

You were a snob. Now everybody's got a team, a chant, a t-shirt. They know the mottos. Lock her up. Build a wall. Feel the burn. Everybody knows how to do it. You're buying the hats.

It's different. It's like NASCAR. It's like football. Everybody knows how to do it. You're buying the hats. It's different. It's like NASCAR. It's like football. Everybody has a team. Yeah, but politics should not be NASCAR. It shouldn't be. It's become that way because the politicians in the Senate for the last two

decades, or at least that I'm old enough to understand, have not done much. All they do is talk about, I reached across the aisle and this and that. The only thing that ever brings them together is the troops and that barely does it anymore. Yeah. Applause.

That would always be the thing. USO. You could bond together on the troops and to a large part that's still happening. I feel like both sides are like obviously politics is corrupt obviously like there's like an amount of corruption

and I think that like we were talking about Portland Will and I backstage and how Portland used to be like this haven of like cool white people that were like fun and like Portlandia and that it's becoming like racist like there are imperfections on both sides white people that were, like, fun in, like, Portlandia, and that it's becoming, like, racist.

Like, there are imperfections on both sides. You pretend to be so liberal, but then it, like, comes around full circle, and you actually just want to be around your tribe, and we're tribal and all that. Off of our Portland discussion... Yes. We were talking about being a vegetarian or not. Okay. Right.

Animals are gonna die, right? Like, as we, like, pretend to be so careful about, like, protecting all of our people, animals die. You know? Like, there is that actuality

where if you're on the left and you're like, I'm democratic, but, like, I'm eating, like, so much lobster at Nobu, you know, there's that reality.

Like... This is fascinating. Thank you. We're at Nobu. You know, there's that reality. This is fascinating. Thank you. We're at Nobu. The question was about government ethics. Honey, you know I don't know about Shaob. Again, I'll remind you that what this will edit together is a speech that culminates in you running to the stage and receiving a round of applause.

Say this. We need the kind of people who will take this country forward, not backward. And we need people that represent all of us, not just the privileged few. If you do that... You guys be like, ugh, I've heard it. No, no, no. Guys, you promise. She's gonna say that. And you're gonna applaud.

Forwards, not backwards, and when? And all of us, not just the privileged few. That's good Bernie stuff. People love that. Okay. Do it. We need to take this country forwards, not backwards. We need to do things for not just the privileged few. You can have no boo lobster.

Just come to my fundraiser at the Virgil this Friday. Okay, that's it. It's benefiting Black Lives Matter. It's kind of nasty. Sabrina, I think you flew a little close to the sun at the end there. You were soaring beautifully and then just a little too high. I know, it's hard. I don't want to be a politician.

When we come back. Okay, stop. little too hot. I know, it's hard. I don't want to be a politician. When we come back... Okay, stop. Kate, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Now for a segment called Okay, Stop. Here's how it works. We watch a clip. As we watch it, we yell out OK Stop to talk about it.

It's pretty simple. This week, we're going to be watching a clip of Trump's voter fraud commission. In November, Trump tweeted that in addition to winning the Electoral College, he said he won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. Soon after, Trump started the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Last week, its vice chair, Kansas Secretary of State Chris

Kobach, asked all 50 states to provide publicly available data from their voter rolls, including names, addresses, dates of birth, party, and the last four digits of their social. 44 states refused to comply. One of the states

that didn't comply with the whole order was Kansas. It was rejected by Kansas Secretary of State, Chris Kobach, who legally couldn't comply with some of his own requests. Look, we can get into the numbers, but there's just no evidence of significant in-person voter fraud.

This is much more about suppressing the vote, about throwing legitimate voters off the roll, and making it harder for Democrats to win and setting up Donald Trump for re-election, despite the fact that he is the least popular president to ever take office. So let's watch this clip, because I think it's interesting what happens when Kobach is questioned on the fax bus. What are you trying to get at?

You're asking for people's names, initials, middle initials, date of birth, whatever. That's normal, right? Most states are going to give name, date of birth. Right. Then you want political party. You want voter history and information regarding felony convictions and information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status and overseas citizen information. What are you going to do with all that information? Okay, well, let me give you an example. The Pew Charitable...

Okay, stop. He's going to tell a lie. Look how tired he looks from being evil. He's exhausted. He does have a Darth Vader without the mask and Jedi look about him. Let me tell you what's up. One of their trusts has estimated

that 1.8 million deceased individuals are on the voter rolls in the country, and they think that their estimate is low. Well well we could actually find out what the real number is if we take the voter rolls of the states and we match them against the social security administration's death list of people who have died let's find out what the real number is and then you if you have the voter history you can say okay how many of these he's on crystal meth to have voted truly he's not not right so let's just imagine that just imagine here's the thing so the thing that's interesting about this is the switching of the ball okay

people die they end up on voter rolls so they're going to go through and purge and end up with a ton of false positives here's the number incident rates this is from the Brennan Center incident rates of impersonation fraud that's somebody showing up using somebody else's registration or an old registration or a dead person registration to vote is between.0003% and.0025%.

It is more likely for an American to be struck by lightning than to impersonate another voter of the polls. There are occasional incidents of voter fraud, but they are found to be caused by errors or bad matching. So, like, mistakes are made. But there just simply is no evidence for somebody. Think about how crazy that is. Can I ask a question? Please. So there's no motive for this, for the administration would be what?

They want to suppress the vote. Is there a possibility that this is connected, this is possible future evidence to the Russian hacking of our election? Are they getting ahead of something? You know, we always think, oh, they're being silly. They're, you know, they're not thinking the long term, the Republicans. Well, Chris Kobach is the creator. This seems like a lot of work for something that happened a year ago. So here's what he did in Kansas.

It seems like a lot of work for something that happened a year ago. So here's what he did in Kansas. In Kansas, Chris Kobach tried to purge voter rolls who could not produce documents proving they were U.S. citizens. And even Tea Party affiliated groups found that purge lists were full of errors with nearly 60% of the people on the list improperly suspended. So what this is about is, look, you have people registered to vote. You go through the list. You call people because you claim they're either misregistered, new addresses, wrong dead, all the rest. You end up with a bunch of

false positives, a bunch of people get letters in the mail saying that their voter registration has been suspended who's more likely to move? Who's more likely to not get that letter? Who's more likely to be at work? Who's more likely to not have the time to go deal with their voter registration? It's poorer people, people that might be disinclined to vote

or might be just less like the kind of person who votes in every election, which are people who tend to be whiter, people who tend to be better off, people who tend to be older, people who tend to vote Republican. So they know that if you go through the voter rolls and you throw off a bunch of people, you're going to get some of your own people in there, but you're going to throw off legitimate voters who are going to find out either when they show up to vote or are going to find out

in the weeks before the election that they've lost their ability to register, and then you have these voter ID laws. There's a huge percentage of people that don't have a driver's license. They don't drive. They don't have a state-issued ID. They got to go get one because a lot of these places have installed voter ID laws. I mean, this is something that's been going on. This isn't just a Trump-invented phenomenon. Jeb Bush, when he was the governor of Florida, purged a ton of people under the guise that we're going to remove felons from the voter rolls. But names, clerical errors, mistakes, thousands and thousands and thousands of people who were citizens of this country with the right to vote only show up at the polls and find out that they're actually not registered anymore. So it is a plan. It is sinister, but it is fundamentally about depressing the right to vote and making it harder for people that will vote Democrat to show up at the polls. The reason that we can presume bad faith coming from Kobach is that he is behind a company called Crosscheck.

And Crosscheck has been used to kick people off of voter rolls. And one of the primary ways that they do it is they just name match. So John Smith registered in different places, different John Smith's all get kicked off the voter rolls because they say that this is someone who's registered to vote in more than one place. This disproportionately affects people who are in communities of color because it's really common especially in South Asian families for fathers and sons to have the same name for people to live in different states and have the same name and Kovac has used this they used it successfully in Florida they used it

successfully in North Carolina these successfully in Pennsylvania to push people off the voter rolls who went to vote places where they had been voting for years and then were told no you can't vote because you're on this list you're not allowed to be here and then they can't they cannot contest it they can't fight it kobach is completely behind that and this has been happening since at least 2000 that they have been trying to and it has been exclusively a republican politically driven republican effort to make it difficult for Democratic voters to cast votes. There is no other interpretation of what he is doing.

He is not acting in good faith. All right, let's keep rolling. That's very interesting. And why not find out? Because you got this wrong. You actually went after a particular voter who you said was dead and voted in an election. And it turned out that the guy was very much alive. And I think the newspaper found him. That was right. Right. No, that case actually proves the point. That was back six or seven years ago when I was running for the election. There was a there's a guy's name in the Kansas voter rolls and the Kansas voter rolls had a mistake listing his date of

birth as 1901. But he was still voting in, I think, 2006 or something like that. So the problem was in the voter rolls. So there are lots of errors in every state's voter rolls. Let's find out how significant those errors are. Let's find out how many of these people. He just said there are thousands of errors in the voter rolls, which there are. And by going through voter rolls and just purging them because there are errors,

all he is doing is taking away someone's right to vote. Look, I do not think Chris Kobach is on the level. I think that's the bottom line. ...are on the rolls. Let's find out how many cases where someone's, a deceased individual's actually voted. And let's find out how many aliens are on the rolls. Let's find out how many cases where someone's, a deceased individual's actually voted. And let's find out how many aliens are on the voter rolls. California has been accused by many people in the country of being very lax in allowing non-citizens to register.

Well, we can find out. Maybe it'll turn out that there are very few. Maybe it'll turn out that there are very few. Okay, stop. California. How much fucking bullshit was that? California. How much fucking bullshit was that? What if we just agreed as a compromise that he can have his bullshit list,

but we have compulsory voting by mail in the United States in every district? Or just, I want universal registration, and I want guaranteeing the Constitution a right to vote. Compulsory. Let's not do compulsory. Let's calm down.

We're not going to... It's America. We're not going to make people vote. They should vote, but it should be like a choice. Let's watch the rest of the clip. Why is it all voting on your computer like everything else in the world?

The Buddhist monks should look over all of the votes. All right, let's finish the clip. Why not look at the data? It's publicly available data, and put the cards on the table and show the American public how significant the issue is. And that's the end of the clip.

Jeff, to your point, I don't want to vote on our computers because that's one more place for Putin to fuck up. Postmates. Something. I voted for the, if you're in the Writers Guild,

you can vote for the Writers Guild Awards on your computer. But this, three candidates, whatever it is, they can't figure it out. You gotta go there

and line up. We need to have someone that we trust. We need trust. Well, that's the problem. It just seems to me that we're out of it. Trust, like someone

that we fucking trust. Like, none of this shit ends in anything if we don't have someone we trust. And I'm not saying it's the Buddhist people, but I am saying that we do need

some sort of, like, brain trust that we trust. Like, do you know those people you went to school with that, like, would not steal one thing? You want to put them in charge? The guy that goes back to the bank and says, you gave me an extra 20. Yes. We need James Comey.

Yes. And I'll close with this. Once again, every day we're reminded about the need for men we've loved 100% of the time. Like James Comey.

People who are batting a thousand. Selfless servants who love this country. Which reminds me, you heard the news today about Dog the Bounty Hunter? What's happening with Dog?

New director of the FBI. Here's the thing. Half of us don't know if that's a joke. When we come back, the rant wheel. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It

and there's more on the way. And we're back. Very excited about today's rant wheel. We have a lot of great topics. We have Hampton's bipartisanship. We have NASA Pence. We have Podesta Tweet. We have Taylor Swift.

Andrew Garfield. Handshake Analysis. The Zynga Party. And Audience Choice. I'm excited about all of these. Let's spin the wheel. All right, I want to talk about this. This is landed on handshake analysis.

I have seen for, look, this started because of Trump. We can start by blaming Trump because he has this crazy handshake. He saw a magazine at the doctor's office in, like, 1985 that said, like, the handshake is how you demonstrate what kind of a man you are. We're all in a wolf pack, some like Naomi Wolf, whatever that woman that followed around Al Gore for a while was talking about the alpha male stuff.

Trump absorbed all of it through hypnosis. And all he remembers is, you grab them by the hand, you jerk them in, that's how you show that you own them. It is so stupid. It is so stupid that that's where we're at, that Macron is playing this game,

that everyone's like, oh, he macron is playing this game that everyone's like oh he didn't do his alpha handshake with putin who cares if you the handshake thing is stupid and all this analysis this criminology around the videos i saw a video all right there's a video and it's putin talking to angela merkel did you guys see this today yeah and there's all these clips about how angela merkel rolled her eyes at Putin. Wow, she's such... There she is, our queen, Angela Merkel, the woman that voted against gay marriage, by the way. You don't know what she was rolling her eyes at.

Sometimes you're in conversation with somebody and you roll your eyes to agree. You know what I mean? You have someone to be like, I'm having such a bad day. And you go like, oh, I know, me too. I didn't roll my eyes at you. I rolled my eyes at the fucking situation. So, like, maybe Putin was like, I have to go have a meeting with Trump,

and she was like, ugh, that guy. Yes. Yes, Will. That's exactly right. Context on an eye roll matters, as there's nothing that is secret to you people. So you think they must have cut it together in a way that they put

that at a time that was not real. I think people are doing a Zabruder film on Angela Merkel's facial expressions and I think that it's it lacks rigor. Spin it again. Imagine Angela Merkel at Dinah Shore. I don't know

what that means. Some people do. Let's spin it again. I have so many thoughts about this. This has landed on Hampton's bipartisanship. Jeff, I don't know if you saw this. I don't know if you guys saw this. So there was a party in the Hamptons.

It was reported, I believe, by Politico or The Hill, whatever. It's really more of a Tiger Beat on the Potomac story. And basically there was like a spotted, and it was like this big, beautiful garden party. And who's there? Kellyanne Conway's there and all these Democrats are there. In the real Hamptons? And Schumer's there. Schumer who's a friend of the pot.

Yay! And basically all these rich Democrats and all these rich Republicans dance. Kushner and Ivanka are there. Everybody's hanging out like they're friends. And you know as somebody noted, this is a different time.

It is so crazy that Democrats who are fighting these people every day in Washington would go to the Hamptons and act like everything is normal, like this is a normal Republican administration. It's wrong. And it gives credence to the people who say, politics is just a game. These people don't hate each

other. They're just friends. And I just don't understand how anybody, any Democrat who cares about this country can show up at a party where Kellyanne Conway is kicking off her heels on the dance floor and act like that's acceptable. It's fucking bullshit. That's all.

Like. I disagree. Oh no, I want to hear that. You disagree? I disagree. As a son of a caterer. It's like what I was saying before. Look at someone else in the eye and acknowledge them as a human being.

They don't have to do, they don't have to be best friends, but I like everybody who likes me on some level. Just a little bit, I want to hear what they have to say. And having some connections. That's how the world always works. You know, the most open-minded

person on one team goes to talk to the most open-minded person on the other team and suddenly those teams make some progress. It's like this, John. It's like having a landlord. Donald Trump is the landlord. And now, I know, but it's true.

And you know what? I don't trust him. He doesn't like me. He said some fucked up stuff. But am I going to live with a broken air conditioner and a running faucet? Or am I going to try to talk to this guy? Oh, and P.S., right now he's also trying to make sure that half of your neighbors die. So he is trying to do that You better get to know him

Well no no but look I take your point and I want to agree but here's my problem I want to live in a country where Democrats and Republicans battle it out during the day and they can get it It's an old cliche that Tip O'Neill and Ron Reagan used to get a drink at the end of the day

and they were adversaries by day but by night they can get a drink together, and I get that. And I want that to be the world we can live in. But there's a problem here, which is that there's a certain point at which you can't treat the way Kelly Ann Conway behaves in a very important job, which is counselor to the president, a job where she has an incredible amount of responsibility and power, which she uses to lie and manipulate and divide this country. You can't go to a party with her and talk to her at a cocktail reception like what she does during the day doesn't matter, that it doesn't count, that it isn't important, that what she does isn't wrong.

So I'm sympathetic to what you're saying. I want that to be true, but I think at a certain point, don't you have to draw the line? What if I learn something about Kellyanne Conway that might help me? Oh, you know what? I didn't realize she has five kids. That's something I can talk about or appeal to or find a vulnerability. Yeah, but she's being like a weird snake oil cell thing. This is with any single person that you meet.

She's weird. She's a weird lady. What I'm saying is everything is an inch at a time sometimes. And getting to know somebody or see somebody in their natural life is okay. I like that. I do like that. You're not playing tennis together every day in the Hamptons. It's a random occasion.

You know, some of the best moments I've ever had in my life were, you know, suddenly bumping into somebody you never thought you would meet or talk to. And sometimes I've gone out of my way to talk to white supremacists in a jail once because I wanted to know what the fuck was up. Yeah, but you're not getting cocktail weenies with them by the bar. But I went out of my way to talk to the people at the Westboro Baptist Church one Christmas morning because I wanted to just find some inch of humanity to help me understand that situation. I want to do that too. So a cocktail party in the Hamptons, to me, it's a random one-off.

They didn't start a band together. They're not in a book club. So we know. To steal a phrase, because as you know, I'm a friend of the pod. I'm going to push back on that just a little bit. Thank you. We say that? From, Yeah, we're going to get into it. Strictly from a political point, strictly from an optics point, there is a massive, massive

difference between Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate going in a public setting and being photographed and coming across as a member of the aristocracy whether it is true or not the the the the perception that is so important to politics says it gives all these people who we are desperate to get into our party to come and like work with Democrats all they have to do is point to that, and Greenwald was all over it. Yes, there is an aristocracy in America. Yes, they don't give a shit about you. Yes, they are completely different. They're the rich.

Everybody else is the poor. To your point of sitting down with the opposition and finding common ground, agree 100%. Do it in a private place. It makes it so much harder for us to make the argument to the voters that we desperately need to come

home to us to get on our side. Jeff, I'm going to give you the last word. And then I've got to wrap up. I respect what you're saying about the politics of it. It's very complicated, the optics of a rich senator hanging with rich people. But he's also a senator for the people. and to me you're

putting politics, he's, the optics are not more important than the human contact in my point, in my personal opinion. The people aspect is more important than the political aspect. It's semantics I know and a lot of it is the pictures coming out and that kind of thing

but I don't think Chuck Schumer should pretend he's not rich. He's rich. He got invited to something. You never know what you're going to learn from the enemy, from the other side. And I would love to keep talking about this because I think it's an interesting conversation, but I have to leave it there.

I want to thank this awesome panel. Jeff, Will, Sabrina, thank you guys for coming out. I want to thank Tonito Villaraigosa, a great sport and a great guest. Thank you guys for coming out. I want to thank Tonito Villaraigosa, a great sport and a great guest. I want to thank Tommy Vitor. Subscribe to Pod Save the World. Thanks for coming out, guys.

Good night. Good night. Thank you.