Lovett or Leave It - Good Riddance (Crime of Your Life)

Episode Date: January 16, 2021

Wednesday is the day Trump finally becomes not president. Kara Swisher joins to talk about social media companies facing hate and incitement on their platforms and what a Democratic Congress can do (and Kara learns some breaking Ivanka/Jared news on the spot). Then Lovett quizzes Favreau and Tommy on four years of scandal and their awesome tweets. And we're back on omegle to tell listeners jokes at random and it went pretty well! 

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, stayed in the closet as the nominee. The media called him in the closet presumptively, but now he's in the closet elect. Still a straight shooter. Now he's in the closet elect. Say hey to Ronan. Now he's in the closet elect and also pundit. Now he's in the closet. He left.

It's love it or leave it. Love it or leave it. He left. Straight shooter. That incredible song was sent in by Matthew Kisurgis. If you want to make a theme song for Love It or Leave It, send it to leaveitatcrooked.com. This is actually our last Back in the Closet Elect episode. We will have a new name starting next week.

What is that name? We don't know yet, but send us a theme to mark the inaugural and maybe you'll hear it in the show. Also, a little housekeeping. We have some great guests on the Crooked Pods this week. Representatives Karen Bass and Pramila Jayapal are on hysteria to discuss impeachment and last week's insurrection. Friend of the pond, Samantha Power, who was just nominated by Joe Biden to join his administration, is on Pod Save the World to discuss repairing American credibility. Crooked.com editor-in-chief

Brian Boitler is launching the second season of his podcast, Rubicon, to walk us through the first hundred days of the Biden administration and their biggest decisions week by week. Subscribe and listen to the trailer right now. Episodes will drop every Friday starting January 22nd. And lastly, Monday is Martin Luther King Day. Join us for the Presidential Inaugural Committee's National Day of Service. You can find COVID-safe volunteer opportunities and ways to get involved at votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer.

Later in the show, I had a great conversation with Kara Swisher about Parler, Twitter, Facebook, and the future of social media. And to mark the end of this gruesome administration, Jon Favreau and Tommy Vitor joined to face a gauntlet of questions to see what they remember about the last four years and what they may or may not have tweeted about.

It was awesome. But first, look, this is our very last Back in the Closet episode. And even though we won't be going back to the improv, it has been a very long time since we were in front of a crowd. I miss the audience. And as we head into this new administration, I wanted to take a moment to talk to some people like the old days. So we decided to bring the monologue directly to the people on a website called Omegle. Omegle pairs you with a

random person who shares an interest. So I told lowly fans that I'd be scouring the web for them. who shares an interest. So I told lowly fans that I'd be scouring the web for them. So here we go. Hi, queen. Wait, stop. Hi. Hi. What's your name? Who are you? What's up? Emma. I'm Julia. And we're here with Lauren too. Hi, team. How you doing? We're doing well. Do you like our sorority background? I love your sorority background. I love the beautifully appointed I love your sorority background. I love the beautifully appointed feminine frat paddles. I think that that's a cool touch. Yeah, I do. It's a blend of toxic masculinity with a kind of wing-adjacent pink vibe.

I mean, that's it. You nailed it. Okay. You ready? All right. I'll start telling you jokes, and you can react, laugh, do whatever you want. Okay? Okay. I'm just so happy to see you all. What a delight this is. This has been my freaking night. Okay. All right. Here we go. Let's get into it. What a week.

On Wednesday, the house voted to impeach Trump. Trump is now the first president to be impeached twice and then reelected. Oh, I'm sorry. That's a draft for 2024. I'm really sorry. I wasn't. and then reelect it. Oh, I'm sorry. That's a draft for 2024. I'm really sorry. I wasn't. Wow. Yay. That's the level we want. We want just pity applause. All right. Representative Liz Cheney, a member of the House GOP leadership, joined with 10 other Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump. Obviously, a difficult decision to go against your party. But every Cheney understands regime change is worth some friendly fire.

Oh. It's harsh. It's dark. Yeah, that's what that's right. Not a laugh. More of a dark kind of really kind of hard joke. Yeah, it's tough. And I get that.

I totally get that. Hi. Hey. What's your name? Stephanie. Stephanie. Nice to meet you. How you doing? I'm good. I totally get that. Hi. Hey. What's your name? Stephanie. Stephanie. Nice to meet you. How you doing?

I'm good. All right. What part of the world are you in right now? I'm in New York, like Long Island. You're in Long Island? Yep. I'm from Long Island. Where on Long Island are you?

Jericho. We've definitely had this discussion before because I was on the pod before. Yeah. Okay. Well, great. I'm from Syosset, Woodbury, you know, right around the corner. All right, so fine. We've done this before. All right. Sorry. No worries. I'm sorry. This is like nerve-wracking for me. Why? It's nerve-wracking for me. I have to tell a joke.

Fair. Are you ready for a joke? Yes. Here we go. A new ABC News poll found that 56% of Americans think Trump should be removed from office. And even Mitch McConnell has signaled he might be open to convicting the president. And then all of a sudden, Mitch McConnell finds himself standing in a Whole Foods, picking up a keto-friendly brownie in the checkout line after Elaine asked him to pick up tahini and a CBD-dominant gummy on the way home from Pure Barre. Oh my God, Mitch said to himself, it's happened. It's's still happening i don't know what i'm saying did you see hannah gadsby's follow-up to net what am i talking about who

is michael babaro why can't i stop listening to him why is he groaning all the time when did I get a Tesla? That's it. That's it. It's not really an impression. I don't know what you could call it. It's good. It's good. All you have to do is just pretend to be a turtle. You got to pretend to be a turtle.

Got to bring your head in. Got to bring your head up. Kind of act as if you could. Got to bring your face deep into your body. Bring your face deep into your body. Bring your face deep into your... All right, I'm gonna do one more. All right, one more. You ready?

Go for it. Snopes debunked a viral tweet that claimed one of the rioters who stormed the Capitol died of a heart attack after accidentally tasing himself in the testicles while trying to steal a painting. In reality, he survived, and we're all wishing Rudy Giuliani a speedy recovery. Nice to meet you. Bye. Bye. New York State Bar Association is opening

investigation into whether Rudy Giuliani should be expelled after the organization received hundreds of complaints related to his attempt to overturn the election. He'll fight this in person. So in addition to opening the investigation, they should probably crack open a window. Because he's farting all the time yeah because he's disgusting because he's disgusting emma had um one of her dating profiles i thought uh her biggest fear is it's still true but really

is that your biggest fear yeah something about the whole like touching himself doesn't sit right with me no i, I get that. I hear that. I think that that's pretty fair. I'm not really a fan either. Oh, wow. Hey. Look at that merch.

I see a call Congress hat. I see it's not great, Dan, on the shirt. What's your name? My name is Jeremiah. Jeremiah, where are you right now? I'm in Spokane, Washington. Spokane, Washington. I want to come to Spokane, you know?

Yes. Oh, I think we just, I believe you guys came over here and I just missed you guys. It was either COVID or some snow thing. Spokane has a lot of disasters. Something happened. All right, Jeremiah, it's good to meet you. All right. I'm going to tell you a couple of jokes.

See what you think, you know? See how you think we did. President Trump is reportedly dissatisfied with Rudy and his attempts to defend the president. And Trump has instructed his aides not to pay Giuliani's legal fees. I can't imagine what this news is going to do to Giuliani. He was a melting, farting, ranting bog monster when he thought he was making $20,000 a day. What is he going to be like when he finds out it was pro bono? I think he needs the money. I think he needs the money. And I think he needs the pardon. I think he needs the money. And I think he wants the pardon. Actually, you know what? I think he

wants the money. He needs the pardon. That's probably the, that's probably the order. I've never had a joke made me be sympathetic to Rudy Giuliani before. Okay, good. That's good. That did that one. Did that happen for you? Is that what happened? That happened for me. I felt bad for Rudy Giuliani there for a second because I was like, wow, he just really embarrassed himself because he thought he was making 20K and he just was, he's just not. Yeah. What a shame.

What a shame. Who would have guessed Trump would have sold him out like that? Wow. You can't trust Donald Trump. Who can you trust? Anyway, it must be pretty stressful for Rudy. I bet he's dying to get home, pour himself a drink, and then let off some steam by adjusting his microphone. After metal detectors were installed at the entrance to the House floor,

many Republicans flipped out before walking around them and yelling, What is this? an American high school? That's just a little close to home, honestly. It hurts. I know. I know. I know. I know. It hurts. It hurts. Vice President Mike Pence told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday that he will not use the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office. Pence likely has presidential ambitions of his own, and he wouldn't want to alienate any of the voters who tried to murder him the other day. Unreal. They tried to kill him. With Biden, he's like, I don't want to make him. Obviously, I would love your support. Hi. Hi. How you doing? I'm so good. I saw Colin three times. Colin's in the house.

Colin's here. That's right. You're all getting that. Colin is here. Yeah. I bet. Oh, that's exciting. That's something for me to look forward to.

Sweet. Colin, what's your name and where are you? I am Cheyenne. Cheyenne. I'm in Illinois. Cheyenne in Illinois. Hi. Nice to meet you.

You too. This is awesome. I'm like, today's my day. Bruce Willis was reportedly told to leave a Los Angeles pharmacy for refusing to wear a mask, which is a nice change of pace because usually people ask Bruce Willis to leave polite society because of diehard four. Hey, if this Bruce Willis guy's not careful, he'll end up on oxygen, intubated, the whole nine yards. It's like he has a death wish, 2018.

Armageddon angry just thinking about it. Armageddon angry just thinking about it, Cheyenne. Armageddon. What's going to be the twist ending for this one? That's it. There's no twist. There's no twist. That's a pizza hut.

Hi. Oh, my God. How you doing? Yeah. Holy shit. I'm over here singing about the pizza hut hi oh my god how you doing yeah holy shit i'm over here singing about the pizza hut i'm at the taco bell i'm at the combination pizza hut and taco bell and john lovett's on the screen you're at a combination wait a second are we investigating a combo for tonight is that happening no wait can i get involved no it's this tiktok song oh and it's supposed to be like two things combined to create one thing sure okay hi who are you what's your name hi hi i'm grace i'm her

fiance and what's your name i'm izzy izzy izzy and grace so nice to meet you so nice to meet you ages ago yeah oh yeah we got that was fun that was fun remember That was fun. Remember that? Big crowds. The Malord Show. The Malord Show. I barely remember the Malord Show. Peter Sagal from Wait, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me was like, how are so many people here to see this fucking guy? He had this look at his face like, this comes out on Saturday too? Are you ready for a joke? I am ready for a joke. I'm going to get here. I'll do a joke. Here we go.

Parler, the app where pro-Trump extremists organized the siege on the Capitol, was functionally shut down after Amazon, Apple, and Google kicked it off their platforms. Parler now descends to app hell. Say hi to Flappy Bird for us, that motherfucker. That piece of shit. Fuck that. Fuck that Flappy Bird. motherfucker that piece of shit fuck that fuck that flappy bird deleting flappy bird hurt so much because i knew it was never gonna come back but i had so i was like i was too young to control my anger and so i kept like wow so my mom was like you gotta you gotta delete it and i was like

use your words you gotta use your words And I was like, okay. Use your words. You gotta use your words. Use your words. Don't use violence. I've been clicking through here for so long. Have you seen Colin? Have you seen Colin yet? Poor Colin. Colin, I'm coming. Colin, I'm trying to find you. All right. I'm right i'm gonna tell you oh you're trying to find colin not try i mean i want to see him look i don't want colin to get a

big head all right be great to see him all right but we don't need him he's here i don't need them great to see them all right let's see the shirt what is this what's a shell that is some sick merch what's your name i'm samantha samantha to meet you. Where in the world are you right now? I'm in Hampton Roads, Virginia. All right. All right. I'm going to tell you a joke. Are you ready? I'm so excited. The PGA has canceled plans to hold its 2022 championship at Trump's Bedminster, which White House sources say left Trump gutted.

Turns out golf is the only way to get his attention. Eric and Don Jr., have you tried like being a golf course? That's perfect. Samantha, so great to meet you. John, I'm a huge fan. I love you so much. That's so nice. I'm so glad we're doing this. This has made my entire year. So good to see everybody again. It's a new year. It's almost on the other side. It's pretty good. All right. Everything's not better.

And some shit that happened can't unhappen. But we're in 2021. All right. We made it. We made it. Bye, Samantha. Have a good night. The insurrectionist

in the Camp Auschwitz shirt, the QAnon shaman and the Olympic gold medalist were all arrested this week for participating in the violence that swept over the Capitol, which sucks. Cause that was like fully half of my group for Burning Man. Kind of starts like the one where it's like they walk into a bar.

Yeah. Like, yeah, that's right. That's like the rhythm. Yeah, that's exactly right. I like to analyze the comedy.

Yeah. Yay. Yay. That's the level. That's the level. Where are you right now? Are you in some kind of a, some sort of a college? Yes. We're at Drexel, Philadelphia. Drexel, Philadelphia. My adopted home state. My adopted home state for the election, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I voted in Philly. I'm from New Jersey, but I knew it was important to register here. So we waited online. We early voted for like, we waited online for like four hours and it felt really good.

And I was inspired by you. So thank you. Well, that's so nice of you to say thank you for saying that. So nice of you. Thank you for everything you did to make sure we won Pennsylvania. You know, we have been in this for so long and there've been so many wins that been sort of like, we haven't been able to really celebrate them. So I hope that on Wednesday, this is our last show of the Trump administration. How great is that? I hope on Wednesday we can really take a moment to celebrate, let that all

go and like look forward, you know, 2020 got on our 2021 a little bit in this first couple of weeks, but we're almost on the other side. So thank you so much. So nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Bye. Bye. The CDC will require a negative coronavirus test from all air passengers entering the US. This way, the strain of coronavirus they contract Newark International will be American made, baby. You really got to make sure that we are exporting as much COVID as possible. We can't be importing any at all.

I don't want to see another American COVID virus lose its job to its foreign competitors. No more. Build a wall for COVID. Keep it in. Yeah. And then we'll let it go out. All right. Too dark. Bill Belichick said he would not accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump, which is too bad because he could have joined the ranks of recent Donald Trump recipients like Devin Nunes, Rush Limbaugh, Scrooge McDuck, the stingray that killed Steve Irwin, Emilio Barzini for his commitment to the drug war, all the...

I'm glad. I felt that that one might be for you. All the guards at Shawshank Prison, Beck, Robin Williams' character from the film One Hour Photo, Shelley Miscavige, accepted on her behalf by her husband, and J.K. Rowling, but for her political writing only. Not Harry Potter. Absolutely not.

Honestly, I don't know why Paul wouldn't take it. Like, it's just a piece of metal. Nobody's going to remember Trump when you are at your Hall of Fame speech or whatever. Shame on you, Jeremiah. Come on, man. That's what Amy Coney Barrett said. No one's going to remember who gave this to me. I'm taking it.

No, he's sullying the Medal of Freedom. You don't accept the Medal of Freedom. Hey, Jeremiah, I don't know what you're doing, but if you could consider... What if I spit on him as I receive the medal? That's two wrongs don't make a right. Columbia is contending with a new invasive species, feral hippos descended from the one smuggled in by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Did you know that? I didn't know about that.

They got out. I knew he had them, but they got out. Now they're spreading. Hippos, invasive hippos. We complain about the kudzu root. They've got invasive hippos. Now here's the kudzu root. They've got invasive hippos. Now, here's the problem. All right. I'm very interested in this topic, but I have a lot on my plate right now. And I kind of want to return to the hippo story out of Columbia post-coup. Could you imagine invasive hippos? That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Almost as bad as invasive Trump supporters. Hey, that's pretty good, huh? That's pretty cool. Almost as bad as invasive Trump supporters. Hey, that's pretty good, huh?

That's pretty good. Nice. Proud of you. Proud of you, Jeremiah. Thank you. Jeremiah, you're the best. Thank you. So good to meet you.

You too, John. Oh, my goodness. On Monday, the price of Bitcoin plummeted by more than 25%. The drop in value began when a Redditor asked the cryptocurrency community, wait, what the fuck are we doing? It'd be like that. It'd do be like that. Izzy and Grace, so lovely to see you. Thank you so much. Bye. Bye. I know an Ivanka joke is going to be somewhere. Okay. Would you like me to skip to an Ivanka joke? Would that be good? You want me to do an Ivanka joke?

Can I do that? I can do that. You want an Ivanka joke? Here we go. Let's see. We have some down here somewhere. I get so sick of this. People are really, really digging this today.

What? This story? Yeah. Okay. Here we go. And finally, this was going to be my last joke, but I'm going to skip ahead for you. This week, the Washington Post had one of the greatest stories of all history. The Post reports that Jared and Ivanka would not allow the Secret Service to use one of the 6.5 bathrooms in their truly stunning home.

So the agents had to go to the Obama's house, which is around the corner to use the bathroom. But then, and this is really in the article, a supervisor messed up the Obama's bathroom so badly that the Obama detail banned the Trump detail from using the toilet. So everyone take a moment and remember the Secret Service agent who took a bullet for Barack Obama by preventing the shit was his. All right. That's the, that's what we got. That's what we got for this story. It's the story is so funny. You don't really need to, you just let it live on its own. Let it breathe. I mean, I was, I was laughing just with all the commotion on Twitter, but. Cheyenne, so great to meet you. This was the best. Thank you.

This is best. Bye. Bye. Get calling. So thanks to everybody who joined on Omegle. This is our last show of the Trump administration. It has been a very long four years. And when Biden is sworn in on Wednesday, it will be bittersweet because of all the damage that's been done, damage that can't be undone because this pandemic has caused so much pain. But I also just wanted to say on the political front, I do think over and over again, we have been robbed of moments to take pride in our accomplishments. Democrats win the House in 2018 in a huge wave, but it looked disappointing at first and took time for the scale of the success to become clear.

Democrats in 2020 win the White House, but the counting of absentee votes takes days, and the president refused to accept the results, like Ralph Bellamy and Don Amici at the end of Trading Places, making it harder to celebrate our victory until Trump is truly gone. And then Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff win an incredible feat for those campaigns, for Stacey Abrams, for Fair Fight, for LaTosha Brown, for Black Voters Matter, for all the great organizers in Georgia. We won the House and the Senate and the White House, and then the insurrection happened. So look, four years ago, we woke up after the election with Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate. And then over four very long years, very hard years against misinformation and

right-wing propaganda and the bully pulpit through a pandemic and economic crisis and daddy's home too, we won them all back. And we don't know, as we're recording this, how much chaos there may be between now and Inauguration Day. But at that moment, when Joe Biden takes office and Kamala Harris takes office, I hope we can all take a moment to celebrate it. I hope you can take a moment to appreciate how far we've come and what so many people fought so hard to make possible from everyone who donated and made calls and volunteered to the work John Tommy and I did

through the shadow app to hamstring Bernie Sanders. This was for me, seriously, for me, this was the hope I held on to for four years, what I told myself in the worst moments, not just the hope of getting rid of Trump, but imagining what America could look like when Trump was gone, but we were all still paying attention. So as long as we are all still paying attention, allow me to clear the deck so we can start the Biden administration fresh. Here we go. Florida Project was robbed at the Oscars. Connecticut pizza is actually really, really good. And I love it. I love Pepe's.

Senator Chris Murphy, you were right. The thing we cut out of Ronan's newlywed game was ******. Tenet makes no sense and not in the cool way that Inception makes no sense. Spencer is real. Bloodborne is better than Dark Souls. I am not sorry for making a joke about football in New Orleans so bad that Mayor Landrieu had to step in to calm the crowd. Pundit does not bark. And I will say, Texas barbecue is the best barbecue,

but our Kansas City show was canceled because of the pandemic. And for all of you in other places that claim great barbecue, we'll be back and prove me wrong. When we come back, Gareth Swisher. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Kara Swisher. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. She is the host of the podcast Sway from the New York Times and Pivot from Vox Media. Welcome back. Thank you. Returning champion, Kara Swisher. Wearing my beautiful

orange theory t-shirt. I'm scurrying from the bottom of the sweatshirt barrel right now. Yeah, that's it. Look, I think we've all changed our standards in terms of what we wear day to day. This is what I dressed like before, so I'm lying to you, really, in so many ways. So in 2018, you wrote this in the New York Times. Facebook, as well as Twitter and Google's YouTube,

have become the digital arms dealers of the modern age. These companies began with a gauzy credo to change the world, but by weaponizing pretty much everything that could be weaponized, they have mutated human communication. Connecting people has too often become about pitting them against one another and turbocharging the discord to an unprecedented and damaging volume. They have weaponized social media. They have weaponized the First Amendment.

They have weaponized civil discourse. And they have weaponized most of all politics. Egg on your face, Cara. That is embarrassing. I'm a genius. I wish I could say I'm a genius, though I in fact am. It was so obvious where this was going to go, the consequences of what was going to happen. And as they continued to do this, this was two years ago or three years ago that I was saying this, you could see the beginnings of what was happening that many, many years ago, I interviewed Ralph Reed. And one of the things I reason I did was because I saw the right wing really beginning to use digital tools because they had been aced out of regular media they had before Fox News, most of the big networks were, I wouldn't say liberal centrists sort of

left leaning. But they were aced out of mainstream media. So they moved really fast into internet. And you could see it happening all over AOL, wherever it was, because this was the first time they had an ability to organize themselves and to express themselves. And you could, that's fine. That's perfectly fine. But as it kept going, you could see it becoming more and more radicalized, whether it was on YouTube, whether it was on Facebook, primarily, by the way, or even Twitter, you could start to see the cracks. And then when Donald Trump exploded onto the scene on the Twitter scene, it was super obvious what he was using it for campaigning, for radicalization, for just anger coalescing, I don't know what else to call it, just getting

everybody else hopped up. And so that's why I wrote that I was like, these tools are not being used for good things. They're as Mark Zuckerberg, a gauzy, you know, it's community care. I can't even tell you how many times he told me that. It was like, no, it's dangerous. And then when the New Zealand thing happened, you could see it and you could just begin to see where it was going to occur. And what happened at the Capitol should be no surprise to those who've been following this.

You just published two interviews that I think they go well together. They do. Like a wine pairing for the end of democracy. I don't know. Yeah, the apocalypse wine pairing. You talked to the creator, one of the creators of Parler, the right-wing fringe social media site. And then you talked to somebody from Dominion about the chaos that right-wing conspiracy theories have unleashed on that company. Yep.

And it was interesting listening to the Parler interview after the conversation about Dominion because here you have this person from Dominion saying this has been incredibly destructive. This is all bullshit. It's such incredible bullshit. This is Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani and President Trump. Being spread across Facebook, social media, writ large, YouTube, everywhere. And just somebody confronting this, you know, this multi-headed beast. Like you can't, you know, you chop off one head and it pops up

somewhere else and how destructive it is. And then you have this person from Parler who has this incredibly aloof, purposefully aloof, let's say, approach to the extremism, hate, racism, threats of violence, and the harm that they can pose as they appear on the site. But what was striking about the parlor conversation, I'm curious what you think about this. It struck me as a more extreme version of what Zuck and Jack would have said a few years ago. A few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, but about something, you know, the extreme version of the worst things on Twitter and Facebook and this extreme mentality about this idea of creating this public square.

Yeah, I was sort of struck by one that he was woefully unprepared for the interview. He sort of was like, hey, hey, now, so what I was doing it during the coup, which was incredible. That was what it was. So I was emotionally I live a mile from it. And so it was like worry, I was in a worrisome point of view. and I've sort of had it with these people. And he kind of had this Alfred E. Newman, I kept thinking of Alfred E. Newman, what me worry? Like, what? So there's a coup? I had nothing to do with it. Well, they planted on your site. Oh, no, it's a neutral sound. You know, this sort of casual attitude that was sort of this, it was, even though he lives in Las Vegas, he had this sort of tech bro attitude, which was sort of

which I've been living with for so many, two decades, essentially. And what was really interesting about it was it's the exact same sort of arrogant disregard for consequences. That's what I just kept thinking. They're like, do you have any understanding of the responsibility that comes with running a platform? And so that's what Mark has been doing since the beginning and Jack to a lesser extent,

but still the same kind of attitude. And I think he's been more thoughtful and has tried his best to come up with solutions except for banning Donald Trump, for example. But ultimately, where he got is where he had to get. And so the carelessness is what struck me with this guy, the carelessness of what he was making. Yeah, it was revealing to me in part because of what it showed about the mentality that I think led to this moment. And I actually don't mean this in a pejorative sense. Obviously, I have incredible credit. What I don't mean in a pejorative sense is

there was, I think, a sincere, not just spin, not just trying to sell the company, like a kind of sincere intuition idea about how conversation works, how discussion works that Jack had, that Facebook had. You see it when you talk to Mark Zuckerberg and he at first wanted to defend the idea of there being Holocaust denial on Facebook. You see it even in Jack's tweet this week

about how disappointed he was to have to ban Donald Trump. There is, I think, a sincere and fair discomfort that they have with this idea of being like editor-in-chiefs of democracy. They certainly do. It's a laudable feeling. It's a laudable idea, for sure. But it does seem like now, finally, too late, they are grappling with the consequences. Do you see a change, like a fundamental change in how these leaders and these companies are thinking about this challenge? You know, I've never seen a more powerful and wealthy group of people push power off as if they don't have it. They always try to pretend we're just guys.

We're just in our sweatshirts. Have you not met congressional Democrats? That's exhausting to me. I'm like, well, you have more money than God, like than anyone in the history of the planet. I think that's one of the things that really has to me. I'm like, well, you have more money than God, like than anyone in the history of the planet. I think that's one of the things that really has bothered me. But no, I don't think I think at their heart, they don't think they are responsible for this. I just think they, they now are, you know, there's political things that but you know, they of course, they did it three years and 11 months and 28 days into the situation like into the Trump administration. I think they waited to the last minute. They see what's coming down the road from the Biden administration, especially a Congress that is fully controlled by the Democrats. So they see vengeance coming, probably deserved vengeance. They see a possibility.

The links between them and what happened at the Capitol, I think, are being investigated right now. And I think there's not some pretty things that are come out about these platforms. And so I think they kind of they sort of had this come to Jesus meeting because of what happened, but they didn't do it until that happened, right? They were waiting until something terrible happened. But by the way, something terrible happened in New Zealand, that was all based on radicalization online, that was all based on then being broadcast online. They've had these little real, like all of us, these little realizations about Donald Trump,

but none of them add up to like, let's actually kick him off. Scott Galloway on my pivot podcast, I think said the smartest way was, he's been like a drunk driver, Donald Trump, who's been driving drunk for years. And he crashed finally, right? But he's been doing it over and again, and you've been seeing him do it, and they allowed him to do it. And that's the only problem is we haven't had a crash sooner. But we certainly have had a lot of little crashes all over the place. Well, we had right-wing extremists mailing bombs to Democrats. We've had QAnon violence. We've had, you know, people showing up at pizza parlors. We've had threats against the Michigan governor. We've had Charlottesville, right? All of these are moments in which, to a varying degree, there's been organization and incitement via these platforms. In fact, that's the only place this can happen now. That is where organization happens. I

think it's actually where their reluctance come from. I imagine, given truth serum, what they'd say is, of course, terrorism, of course, violence, of course, insurrection was organized on Facebook. This is the town square. This is what we was organized on Facebook. This is the town square. This is what we've built. But it's not the town square. See, it's a private town square. And that's where you get into the censorship issues that the right wing levels at it, which is just specious too. They broke the laws of a restaurant they were in.

They started pooping in the restaurant. You can't do that, right? You can't – whatever they did, they did that too at the Capitol. But you wouldn't allow – if you put this into any other business, what Jack or Mark did is fine. It's their private businesses. And that's another issue we have to discuss. They want to load it into the whole stupid cancel culture debate, which if you listen to some people, it's the world's biggest problem right now, which it is not. Like we have quite – like get in line, cancel culture people.

Honestly, I'm so excited. It's always the same elite white people that are doing this, essentially. We have to separate the censorship discussion, and it's not, I use that broadly, the discussion about violation of rules on these platforms and that they're private and they should have the right to do that, with the overwhelming power these companies have to do nothing to. And so I'm very interested in discussing their power, but not because of censorship, because there isn't an ability for Parler to go anywhere else. Now, in Parler's case, one of the things, because he's still not prepared, is he went on and on about Amazon. Amazon was really the death blow for that company, taking them off AWS, right, which is their platform to

serve it. He was like, antitrust. And I'm like, oh my God, you idiot. There's seven different cloud services you could have gone to. There's not one cloud service. There's seven. So, you know, I think he had plenty of chances. Nobody wants him. And there's plenty of places to go. And so they have to build their own technology, really.

He's got to, like, hook up with someone who's going to build that for him. But it's not a difficult thing. So it's super complex, and it's been made to be reductive, this debate that's going on. I agree with you. Cancel culture, not an issue. Well, sure. Inciting violence. However... Also an issue, Samantha, not on the new Sex and the City. It's right in there. It's like, okay, let's get mad about whatever.

I will say... I'm more mad about that. whatever. I will say. I'm more mad about that. Just a brief gay news sidebar. I did a pretty deep dive into the long simmering tensions between Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon and Kirsten Davis. And I will just say that in exploring that story, it's a rollercoaster. It is. Because there are moments where you think, oh man, they bullied Kim Cattrall.

She was mistreated. And then you go a little bit deeper. You go a step down and you're like, wait a second, does Kim Cattrall suck? And you know what? I miss the low stakes of this drama. I know. I miss the low stakes of this drama.

And where is Mario Cantone in all this? We need to know. Mario, get Mario Cantone on the blower. I also don't understand. I also like, there's like a little bit of like she never wanted to do Sex and the City again, but then you hear the whispers like, actually, she wanted a ton of money and then

got it. It's probably about money. You know it's about money. Come on. It's always about money. I just love a low stakes 2014 era online kerfuffle. So the Hilaria Baldwin thing was something you enjoyed in Hollywood. I just love a low stakes 2014 era online kerfuffle. So the Hilaria Baldwin thing was something you enjoyed

at this point. Ivanka and Jared not letting the Secret Service use the bathroom in their Calorama mansion. This is the level that I'm on. Have you seen this yet?

No. My ex lives nearby. I feel I have a great opportunity here to tell you in real time that the Washington Post published a story. It's worth reading every word. Today, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump would not let the Secret Service detail that was protecting their lives and risking their lives for them come inside to use one of their 6.5 bathrooms in their mansion. No. So at first, they set up a porta potty. No. Then the neighbors complained about the porta potty. Yeah. That's a rich neighborhood.

Then the Trump-Kushner detail would go to the Obama house, which is very close. Yeah, it is. And use that bathroom. It's spitting distance, as they say. But then,

and again, it brings me no pleasure to report this. I'm just sharing with you what is in the Washington Post. Democracy does die in darkness. Don't forget, a supervisor on the Kushner detail made a mess so bad in the Obama bathroom that the Obama detail banned them from coming back. And so they had to go to the Pence house or ask neighbors or find some other way to use the bathroom until they rented a nearby

studio basement apartment so that they could have a restroom while they were guarding Jared and Ivanka. Because again, they would not allow Jared and Ivanka to use one of 6.5 bathrooms. Wow. That's a story. You know, all this stuff is going to drop now. Everyone's going to drop off all the embarrassing things because the Trumps are about to be out of power. And so you're going to see both ridiculous stuff like this and really serious stuff like drop. I know.

Tons of information. And I'll focus on the serious stuff, but I want to take a moment today. You know, come on. Are you shocked by this in any way? No, I'm not shocked. These people hate the people that support them. They hate, like he was watching TV and calling the protesters low class. That's a low class coup.

We want a higher class coup. Like they should be dressed better if they're going to destroy the government. In any case, let's get back to the tech people. That's what gets me. Here's the last part we'll talk about. The relentless amount of lies that these people have been told have

steeped them into a kind of situation that is uncontrolled. Facebook and Twitter and the rest of it and Parler have crawled down these people's brain stems and pumped them full of lies. And they are going to have to be not deprogrammed. I don't, you know, it feels like NXIVM. You know what I mean? You're like, come on. Don't you see what's in front of you? And that's really the, how do you do that? How do you pull that out once they become addicted? How do you

change that? And that I don't have an answer to. I mentioned the town square metaphor, which obviously doesn't work because they're not only private, but I talked about this with Zeynep Tufekci. It's also inadequate to what these companies do. And in some sense, what they do is not take you into a town square. They create for every single user on earth a public seeming but quite private and individualized square in which they are given a version of reality. And you can have any version of reality you want. You can have a left wing one. You can have a center left one. You can have a center one. You can have a right wing one. You can have a completely off the wall, right wing, conspiracy addled QAnon square for yourself.

And that's your reality. That's the world. But it's not. It's created by these companies. It's 100% artificial. So you talked about the power that they have. You talked about the fact that Democrats are now going to have more capacity for oversight. Sure are.

How much of what has driven the decisions they've made been public opprobrium? How much has it been internal pressure from people that work at these companies? And how much of it is fear of coming regulation? I think it's all those things. I think the employees are unhappy. I think the one thing that employees have compared to other industries is power in these companies. And I think Mark has already worked everybody's last nerve at these companies, at his company, at least. And that had been a very complicit group of people working there as far as they never complained about anything. Muslims, so what? You know what I mean?

Like Google at least, the head of Google went to the airport, right? Sergey Brin and he himself is an immigrant when that happened. I think that they have the employee pressure for one. They've got pressure from not really from investors because their stock is doing as good as it can be. One of the things that's left behind is all these people have gotten richer by a factor of like doubling their wealth in the pandemic, during the pandemic, during this problem. And so one of the things that is interesting, you know, you have Elizabeth Warren, who Mark Zuckerberg called an existential threat. Do you remember? Yeah.

And again, I was like, Mark, I even think a comet hitting us is more of an exosanct threat than Elizabeth Warren. Like death is not, I was sort of amazed by that when he said that. But one of the things that's really important to think about is what is the threat to these companies? So it's employees, it's regulation, it's antitrust, it's fines, it's a new FTC that's going to be run by Democrats, which is going to be, although the guy who ran the FTC, I have to say, has done a pretty good job, the Republican. And so, but they're going to get funded more. Amy Klobuchar is behind, is going to be behind a lot of funding for the FTC. And then there's going to be legislation. And one of the things I'm worried about is, I don't think either Kamala Harris or, who would be stronger on this, because she has been

Attorney General of California, and she did do some things, you know, anti-tech, but she's sort of centrist in this arena. I mean, I'd be curious to talk to her right now. And I don't think Joe Biden knows anything about 230. The stuff he said about 230 seems undereducated, I would say. And so I am hoping that the people that really know things like Senator Mark Warner or Senator Klobuchar and Senator Warren will be at the front of this, because I think that's really what needs to happen. You have to deal with it on the platform point of view without violating things that we don't want violated. And at the same time on the wealth part because that's sort of separate. And one of the things that's been floated is a one-time wealth tax this year because these – I think nobody has gotten rich this year because of their innovation it's not suddenly they're so much better at amazon or tesla tesla he's now

the world's richest man he's added the the wealth the gdp of something like hungary scott galloway was saying like something you know and it's not because suddenly the tesla is that much better it's because of what the stock market's doing and so there's going to be a lot of things that people can pull on here because it happens to be that the tech people are the richest people in the world. All 10 slots are tech people. Yes, they're powerful. Yes, these are private companies. No, there's not a First Amendment issue at stake in banning Trump from Twitter. There are free speech issues that are different and are special to this. In your mind, what do you hope? What is your first column about what regulations they should do when the Democrats take over?

What are you hoping they start looking at in a way that is respectful of the unique role these companies do play? A national privacy bill to start with and some antitrust action. Amazon owning, as much as I like the Washington Post, Amazon owning, and I think they did the right thing in Parler, Amazon owning a marketplace and also selling on that marketplace. Give me a break. You know what I mean? Come on.

Google having 90% of the search market. give me a break. Like, come on. And you know, Facebook, when's the last time, I'll end with this, when's the last time a social media site was started? When's the last time a search engine was started? When's the last time an online commerce thing has been successful? It hasn't. And it's because these companies are too big. They're too big and has nothing to do with the Trump thing. They are too powerful. They are too big. And they have no legislation hindering them in any way. And they're not regulated, as is Wall Street, cars, planes, everybody else. So they need to get in line and get regulated just the way every other powerful industry is. And that is going to be difficult because we're in this hyper-part partisan environment where all we discuss is Donald Trump being banned on Twitter. Well, guess what? He's gone. He's gone from Snapchat. He's gone from Reddit. He will be gone from Facebook. We have to stop talking about Donald Trump and talk

about power. And that's what this is all about. He's also gone from Pinterest. Yeah, well, I was enjoying his scrapbooks. His Nazi scrapbooks. I don't know. What did he do on there? Whatever. Kara Swisher. As always, it's so good to see you. I don't know. What did he do on there? Whatever. Kara Swisher. As always, it's so good to see you.

Thank you so much. And thank you for that bathroom and Sex and the City update. I really appreciate it. That's, thank you. I always learn something. Thank you so much. And thank you for bringing us back on topic.

Thank you so much to Kara Swisher for joining us. When we come back, John and Tommy face a very tough quiz. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. So as all of you are very aware, this is the last episode of Love It or Leave It during the Donald Trump administration.

If this were the improv, the crowd would cheer loudly. I'd make a joke about, yeah, he's terrible. We get it. But it has been a long four years. Oh, that was terrible. It's been a long four years. And so much has happened that it is quite literally impossible to remember it all. But if anyone can do it, it's our next two guests. Please welcome back to the show, the star of Netflix's The Chef, Jon Favreau, and sports and fitness editor for the Young Turks, the chef, Jon Favreau, and sports and fitness editor for the Young Turks, Tommy Vitor. Fitness, Tommy. It's a compliment. Great to be back. Thanks for having us, Jon.

Great to have you. This game is simple. I will ask each of you questions, and whoever gets the most correct answers will win. And if you get the question wrong, your opponent gets a chance to steal. And it slipped my mind. I should have mentioned this. This is an oversight. When I asked you to be on the show, I forgot to say that every question has to do with something you tweeted over the last four years. Oh, no. Oh, no. What a good, such a good trick. You monster. And so let's play a very special edition of First Tweet Gets the Fave. Question one goes to Tommy. On May 26, 2017, you tweeted, Sweet stupid little Jared, you could have had a fun little life losing money on Manhattan real estate projects. Now you're in deep shit. What were you referencing?

Is it A, Jared Kushner just accepted a White House job running the Office of American Innovation? Is it B, the Russian ambassador told Moscow that Jared Kushner wanted a secret communications channel with the Kremlin? Is it C, a former editor of the New York Observer wrote a Washington Post op-ed about how much Jared Kushner sucks at his job? Or is it D, Jared Kushner had just fallen into an open manhole plopping right into

a river of piss and shit? I think it was B. Tommy, you got it. It was. How right I was. And how long ago that was. What happened to that secret back channel? Anybody ever get to the bottom of it? I was going to say, I still think that was a bad part of that whole scandal, and we never knew what happened.

Never heard about it. Question two goes to you, John. In April of 2018, Michael Cohen's house was raided by federal law enforcement officials. In April of 2018, Michael Cohen's house was raided by federal law enforcement officials. Which of the following was not a tweet you decided to use to add to the public discourse around that event? There's multiple tweets I sent about this. Is it A, bad, very bad? Is it B, well, fuck, get ready, everyone. Is it C, I bet the president will take this well,

or is it D, this is fucking bonkers? Oh. Which, I think it's A, bad, very bad. No, you tweeted that. No, the one you didn't tweet was, I bet the president will take this well. The rest of your contribution. Next question goes to Tommy. On December 29th, 2017, you tweeted an image with the caption,

can we please stop arguing for a minute and come together to laugh about this again? What did the embedded image show? Is it A, the photo of Sebastian Gorka wearing a strange suede waistcoat, holding a rifle and looking very serious. B, the photo of President Trump screaming while pretending to drive a big truck. C, the photo of Don Jr. in outdoorsman clothes, looking off into the middle distance like a real American man. Or D, a screenshot of Trump's infamous covfefe tweet. A. It is. It's A. You got it. It is A.

How do I know? I know Tommy's better than I know mine. Well, that's interesting. That's interesting. Mine were fire. Something to talk, something to think about. Something to think about. Question four, John. On March 23rd, 2019, you tweeted, anyway, I'm not going to make it to 2020.

Why? Was it A, it was the day before the Mueller report would be released? Is it B, it was the day Devin Nunes sued Twitter for $250 million because of mean tweets? Is it C, it was the day before the bar letter would be released? Or is it D, the day Ashley Feinberg found James Comey's poetry Twitter account? C? It was. It was C.

It was right before the bar letter was released. Bonus question. John, this goes to you. This was the headline after the bar letter was released in the New York Times. Who wrote it? The headline, a cloud over Trump's presidency is lifted. Oh, who wrote the story? Who wrote the story?

Oh, come on. Peter Baker. He got it. He got it. That was easy. That was really the headline? It was the news analysis headline, a cloud over Trump's presidency is lifted. If you look through my tweets,

I probably have so many tweets that reference a cloud being lifted just because of that story. And so does Ben Rose. Well, now I feel like I know you better now. This is good. This has been healing. This is a great game. It is pretty fun.

It is pretty fun. On March 20th, 2018, Tommy, you tweeted at a politician, stop begging, pass a law. To whom did you tweet that and why? Is it A, Susan Collins after she failed to support common sense gun legislation? B, Jeff Flake after he begged the president to not fire the special counsel? C, Adam Schiff after he begged for Trump's Deutsche Bank Russia connections to be declassified? Or D, Brian Schatz after he begged people to stop quote tweeting and just adding the word this? I wish it was D, but I think it was B.

It was. It was Jeff Flake, who was begging the president to not fire the special counsel. Question six to John. In 2018, I tweeted at you, Jonathan, don't do this here. Why? Was it A, you had just tweeted that I had admitted during soundcheck that I found Josh Hawley attractive? B, you had just tweeted that you wish Ruth Bader Ginsburg had retired in 2013. You said that a lot. Is it C, you had just tweeted that you hadn't seen all the Star Wars films?

Or is it D, you had just tweeted that we were spending too much time focusing on impeachment, which was unrealistic? C. It was C. It was about the Star Wars films, or is it D, you had just tweeted that we were spending too much time focusing on impeachment, which was unrealistic? C. It was C. It was about the Star Wars films. You know, Lovett always talked about Ginsburg not retiring. I never did that. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no. It was... You were right. You were right. Just saying. I don't know. Rest in peace. Nothing against RBG. Rest in peace, as I always...

I mean, let's cut this. Yeah, rest in power. Rest in peace, as I always... I mean, let's cut this. Yeah, rest in power. Rest in power. All right, you're both tied. You're both doing really great in this game. Lightning round. I will read a tweet, and you both have to tell me who wrote it.

But it's one of us. It's one of you. Oh, okay. At Marco Rubio, you know damn well he's not an excellent choice, you pathetic suck-up. Tommy. Yes, it was about John Bolton being named to NSA.

Next tweet. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, assholes. Me. No, that was Tommy after he tweeted a clip where someone fell over trying to take a selfie on the Laura Ingraham show. I remember that. I'm such a dick. Jesus Christ. Next tweet.

Good for Elon. This is the right move. Every other CEO should follow suit and then speak out loudly against this lunacy. Oh God, I hope that was Tommy. Me. Alliteration alert. No, it was John.

It was me. In response to woke bae Elon Musk threatening to leave the White House Advisory Council if Trump pulled out of the Paris Accords. That's after he blocked me for attacking him. Remember when that was a thing? All those CEOs were on those stupid boards? I criticized him.

He blocked me. He unblocked me. I said, good job for leaving. That's good. That's good. Next tweet. Lindsey Graham is asking great questions. Tommy.

John. It was actually me. That was about Lindsey Graham's questioning of questions. Tommy. John. It was actually me. That was about Lindsey Graham's questioning of Mark Zuckerberg. I call him as I see him. That's fair. You're a straight shooter. Enemy of your enemy. Next tweet. Haven't seen

this many takes on a document no one read since Infinite Jess came out. Tommy. That's Tommy. It's very Tommy. That was after the Mueller report dropped. And finally, I screamed through the entire video. Screamed? John.

It is John. You screamed through the entire video. It was about Republicans getting worked up over that time Obama wore a tan suit. Look at John. That's such a millennial. Oh my God, I'm screaming. So lame.

He's so screaming right now. I'm screaming right now. We cannot help but scream. It's about the tan suit. What's such a millennial. Oh, my God. I'm screaming. So lame. He's so screaming right now. I'm screaming right now. We cannot help but see. It's about the tan suit. What an original controversy. Butter emails, John. John's still with her. Tommy, I'm going to say you both won the game.

You both won the game. It's a tie. It's a tie. That's it. That is the last game of the last episode. I want to play that all the time. You both won the game. It's a tie. It's a tie. That's it. That is the last game. What a game. Of the last episode. I want to play that all the time. That was very fun. That was very fun. That gave me flashbacks of like getting a call from you at like 645 and running down to the improv and doing some last minute segment about the Jared Kushner news about the back channel.

Yeah. Man. Those were the days. A lot of breaking news in the New York Times about the Mueller probe that didn't really amount to much. No. No. No, it didn't. No. What did? But we got him. We got him.

We got him twice. But we got him. We got him. We got him twice. Three times if you include the election. We got him. We got Mitch. We got Mitch.

We got Paul Ryan. This is the last game of the last episode of Love It or Leave It of the Trump era. Thank you both for being part of it. Can you believe that? Wow. Four years. I'm honored to be here. Good luck with your next venture.

It's still going. We're going to keep making it. Jon Favreau, Tommy Vitor. When we come back, we'll end the show with the last high note of the era. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back because we all need it. This week, this year, this administration, here it is.

The last high note of the Trump era. Hi, Love It. This is Katie from Kentucky. And my highlight of the week is that although we couldn't get Mitch in the state of Kentucky, the voters of Georgia came through for us, and we got Mitch. Thanks for everything you do. Love the pod. Bye. Hi, I love it.

It's Claire from New Orleans, and my high note of the week is that I got to go watch my boyfriend, who's a med student, get his first dose of vaccine at the VA center here, and I watched as he got it next to a Vietnam vet, and it was so powerful to see and gave me so much hope to watch someone I love get a vaccine. Okay, that's it. Thanks for all you do. Bye. Hey, John Lovett. This is Caleb from Burlington, Vermont and I'm calling with my high notes of the week. I got the vaccine. I'm high risk, so I got the vaccine.

I paid off my student loans, and I'm also a personal trainer and was on the news for doing virtual personal training. So thank you so much for everything you guys do at Crooked Media. You guys are great, and I'm excited you got Jason Concepcion because he is hysterical. Hi, Lovett. This is Danielle in Maryland, and my high note this week is that my dad turned 75 on Inauguration Day. And he asked for three gifts for his birthday. He wanted a new president, and he's going to get it. He wanted Ossoff and Warnock to win in Georgia.

He's gotten that. And he wanted the vaccination. We're still waiting on the third one, but I'm really hopeful that it will come soon. Have a great day and thank you for everything you do to keep us laughing and informed. And if you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 323-521-9455. Thank you to Kara Swisher, Jon Favreau, Tommy Vitor, and everyone who got to talk to you on Omegle and everyone who called in. There are four days until Joe Biden becomes president. I think that's pretty good.

Have a great weekend and see you on the other side. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg, our head writer, and the person whose gender reveal party started the fire, Travis Helwig. Jocelyn Kaufman, Pallavi Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers. Our assistant producer is Sydney Rapp.

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