Lovett or Leave It - Impeachment is my Safe Word

Episode Date: December 15, 2018

Cohen faces the music. Trump faces Pelosi. And Favreau and Vietor face Lovett's 2018 quiz. What a week. What a year. Jon is joined by returning champions Alicia Garza, Megan Gailey, Louis Virtel, Jon Favreau, and Tommy Vietor to break down a wild week of culminations and confrontations. Plus: Lady Gaga's repetitive sound bites, romaine lettuce's bitter downfall, Amy Adams's many Oscar snubs, and we announce our 2019 Lovett or Leave It tour. Terrific.

What is up, Los Angeles? What is up, Los Angeles? I know why you guys are in a good mood. It's Crime Week in America. We used to watch something called Shark Week. Now we watch something called Crime Week. Michael Cohen, his only crime was loving Donald Trump too much. I've said this before.

It continues to be true. I would say 90 to 95% of the world's problems are men dealing with the fact that they are men. But I don't know what happened to Michael Cohen growing up on Long Island. I know the world that produces that accent, and it's a cold, empty place. And I don't know what kind of love Michael Cohen got

or didn't get. I don't know anything about his home life, but all I'm saying is if you are willing to commit crimes on behalf of Donald Trump, you are, like, a couple hundred hugs short growing up, at least. You figure what? A happy kid gets, at minimum, 50 good hugs a year, right?

A happy kid. How many hugs does a happy kid get? Honestly, let's think about it. Is it one a day? I think you could be happy with fewer than one a day. What do you think? Three a week? Look, you miss a day, you get the hug the next day. You're not fucked up. What do you guys think? How many hugs a week do you need to be a happy kid? Three.

Is three consensus on three? Ten? Ten hugs a week? Got a fucked up... That's a lot of hugging. Let's say three to be conservative. So that's 150 hugs a year. So let's say 20 years, roughly. We're talking about 3,000 hugs.

Somebody check it. Somebody check it. Are we good? Anybody here an accountant? Or annoying? So you need 3,000 hugs to not commit crimes on behalf of Donald Trump if Donald Trump asks you to commit crimes. 3,000 hugs growing up.

I'm saying this is a guy that we're talking max 1,000 hugs. Don't feel bad for him. 1,000 more hugs, maybe we would have actually told Mueller everything. You know? Thousand fewer hugs, he'd have fucking held out for the pardon. So, I don't know

what this formula is. Inventing this on the spot. Alright guys, this is our last live show of 2018. And we've got a great one for you. Next week, we're gonna have a year in review with some of the best of Love It or Leave It.

So, that's gonna be great for you, that's cool. Love It or Leave It is going on tour in 2019. We're going to Washington, D.C., South Carolina, New Orleans. You know what's funny? Now when you read a list of American places you have to modulate to avoid sounding like Howard Dean. You can't do it. Like if you just even do it with any kind of emphasis. We're going to Chicago, we're going to Madison, you're fucked. But those are all places we're going to. Milwaukee, Boston, Houston, Dallas,

Austin, and we start in DC we end in New York City at Radio City Music Hall. Appreciate your... What the... How big did this thing get? It's just a gay Jew rambling for an hour. So take that. Syosset High School Class of 2000

look who's out of that blue recycling bin and even the uncool kids realizing I wasn't cool enough to be friends with them it was the strength I needed to get me to this very place so I thank you Syosset High School Class of 2000.

I also thank the bigger kids that sort of took my side against some of the other bigger kids and said, this one's not so bad. And he wasn't. Shut up. I've fully processed it. I'm fine. It doesn't undergird every exchange I have we don't carry around the wounds of high school a completely artificial and inorganic way

to experience adolescence all of us all the time it isn't like one of those unseen fundamental forces in our culture that has transformed the way we live something that has only really existed for like the better part of a century we act like it can never be changed, needs to exist exactly the way it does. This thing that popped up to basically train children to work in factories is now something everyone agrees, everyone needs to go to their entire childhood,

even though the only kids that like school are the weirdest fucking kids. And not only that, we say you have to get up and go at 7.15 in the fucking morning. Jobs don't have homework like that. You don't go to... Nobody goes home from work and says, my eight bosses gave me eight different things to do,

and none of them coordinated. That's not a company. That's not how anything works. No one says, oh, fuck, all five of my bosses gave me five books to read. What is that training for? Hey kids, you want to hate science? Guess what? We found a way to make you hate it.

We're going to teach you one of the subjects for a whole year and make you memorize a bunch of very, very important facts that you will forget. Fucking dumb. Ninth grade, Mrs. Satz's class. The kid who sat in front of me, whose name I remember, and the kid who sat behind me, whose name I also remember, when Ms. Satz would turn and face the blackboard, they would just lift my desk up like three inches, then drop it. What do you do about that? How do you fight that?

What are you supposed to do? You let it power you later. All right, let's start the show. Great. We have a fantastic panel, all returning guests. Very excited to have them. She's the Special Projects Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance and a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Please welcome back Alicia Garza.

Hi, Alicia. How you doing? Good to see you. Highly caffeinated. Perfect. Exactly. I've caffeinated. Perfect. Exactly. I've never experienced another feeling. She's a comedian that you can hear on the NFL's The Checkdown

and co-host of Crooked Media's very own Hysteria. Please welcome back Megan Gailey. Hi, Megan. Hi. I loved high school. All right. He's a co-host of Crooked's very own Keep It. Please welcome back Louis Vertel.

Hi, Louis. I forget that you come in from the back on this show. I feel like Scottie Pippen entering the arena. Not familiar with the reference. Okay. Now, Lewis, I recently learned something on an episode of Keep It that... Go on. That Lewis Vertel is like your stage name.

It is, unfortunately. And that actually the name is Vertel. It is a disgusting German name. I do not think you can go by Vertel and I don't think you should tell anyone. No, I thought I was confiding in just my friends here and you are now exploiting me and making me feel

undervalued. I think that's okay because to me it's one step away from covering. Yes. Well also my first name is fake French sounding Vertel. It passes, you know what I'm saying? We all pass in some way in our life. You ever seen Mad Men? A lot of covering we do in our day-to-day lives. Let's get into it. What a week. On Wednesday, a federal judge handed President Trump's former lawyer and crime doer, Michael Cohen, a three-year prison sentence,

one for each year Donald Trump has taken from all of our lives. In making his case for mercy, Cohen accepted full responsibility for his crimes, including facilitating illegal hush money payments to two of Trump's former mistresses, a word that feels very romantic for what we are

describing. He also responded and weird. I think we should be done with the word mistress. Yeah, that's like something from the movie Pillow Talk. It's like 1959, no later. He also responded to Trump's attacks on him as a weak person by agreeing and adding that Michael Cohen's real weakness

was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump. But in the end, because Cohen does not offer prosecutors complete cooperation, he received only modest leniency and joins Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Mike Flynn, and George Papadopoulos as the fifth person in Trump's orbit convicted of felonies stemming from the Mueller investigation. How many? Yeah. But there's more. A prosecutor, I mean, it's as if, what if those girls in Salem had accused somebody of being a witch and then that accused witch lit the town lake on fire with her eyes,

you know? But there's more. You'd be like, oh, wow, good witch hunt. Glad we did this one. We caught some witches. Salem saved. Let's become terrible sports fans in 400 years. But there's more. A prosecutor working with Mueller commended Cohen for providing credible and valuable information regarding any links between a campaign and a foreign government and sought to tell us the truth. That's very interesting because there is no way Mueller would find this credible information valuable if it amounted to no collusion. Seems it to imply it amounted to, yes, collusion. But Trump's Wednesday only got worse from there. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York announced that they had secured a non-prosecution agreement with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, in which AMI confessed to making a $150,000 hush money payment

in concert with Trump's presidential campaign and in order to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election more specifically these prosecutors contend ami made the payment in cooperation consultation and in concert with at the request and suggestion of one or more members or agents of trump's 2016 presidential campaign according to prosecutors cohen's ami chairman and aptonym david pecker and and at least one other member of the campaign had attached a conspiracy in august 2015 to buy off women who might come forward with stories about their affairs with trump and at least one other member of the campaign had attached a conspiracy in August 2015 to buy off women who might come forward with stories about their affairs with Trump. We know Trump himself attended such a meeting with Pecker.

Children. Good Christina Ricci movie, I recommend. Pecker. John Waters, right? Moving on. Lewis does this very adorable thing where he puts a right on the end of a movie fact as if, A, we're going to question him him, and as if B, he doesn't know exactly what he's talking about. Just agree. The question is whether other members of the campaign were also present

and whether they were party to it when it came time to make the payments. Cough, Don Jr. Cough. In completely unrelated news, on the same day around noon eastern time, NBC reported Trump had not yet come to work and had likely been watching TV in the residence all morning. The president just

didn't go to work. The president didn't go to work. The president flaked out on being president. And you know what? Good. Every time I see a story that Donald Trump's golfing

cost us $80 million and he's been at Mar-a-Lago 342 days, I'm like, let's have more. That's not enough. I will say, in terms of tax dollars, it goes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the post office, getting Trump out of the fucking White House to go to golf.

It still feels to me, though, like with Michael Cohen going to jail, we're still in chapter one of the John Grisham book. I think we've finally gotten to the John Grisham book, though. You know what I mean? It was like all this prologue about law. And now we're finally getting to the part where, alright, maybe this might actually go in the direction of a conventional thriller, which is not exciting, daunting, and horrifying. I was just thinking it was a bad episode of The Sopranos.

It does feel a little bit like one of those Sopranos episodes where a character you didn't care very much about pops up because I don't know, Steve Buscemi wanted to be on The Sopranos you know no like Michael Cohen to me feels like the first person killed in a James Bond movie like easily like before the theme has stopped playing somebody who was just pushed off a jet ski maybe he's wearing a turtleneck like seemed sinister but it's his boss's boss we've got to get to.

It seems like it went so fast too. Like, this was like SVU episode amount of finding him and putting him in jail. I mean, Real Housewives of New Jersey didn't get Joe Giudice in jail this fast. Like, he went fast. Alicia, Trump is now officially an unindicted co-conspirator

in crimes committed to influence a presidential election. Being an unindicted co-conspirator is what led Republicans to break with Nixon. Do you have any hopes that that will happen here? Look. He's so special. I think he's just going to ride it till the wheels

fall off. He's going to be that person who literally they're going to have to take out in handcuffs in his like fuzzy slippers. And he's going to be all disheveled in that thing that he combs over. It's going to be like on the wrong side and it might be braided and maybe like there might be dread threads on it. You know, like he's just going ride it until i think there's nothing left megan get us back on topic here uh we got these kind of crime buckets and it's kind of hard to sort but let's sort these things into three crime buckets bucket one bribery we saw reports today of questions around money that went to the inaugural trump was trying to build a tower in moscow while the rnc platform was being changed it also explains

why trump is tougher on female american journalists than he is on say saudi murderers so bucket one is just bribery and looking out for himself bucket two cheating to win the election that's what these payments of stormy and karen mcdougall were about uh that's what's potentially accepting a legal foreign influence was about and then there's bucket three, obstructing justice to hide crime buckets one and two. If you want an example of that, see Trump's Twitter. He's been reenacting that, what was

that movie where there's the jury and there's a... The juror? The juror. I was thinking of not 12 Angry Men, but the juror. Is that the juror where they... The Verdict? The Verdict, no. They made all of these movies in the 90s, but The Juror. Is that The Juror where they... The Verdict? The Verdict! No. They made all of these movies in the 90s, but there's one movie where there's a juror, and somebody's trying to intimidate the juror.

Come on! But it's sexy, too. It's a sexy juror movie. It doesn't matter. The point is, he's been reenacting it on Twitter, trying to obstruct justice left and right, including firing Comey. Bucket one, bribery. Bucket two, cheating.

Bucket three, obstruction. Megan, which bucket are you most excited about turning over? I love that this turned into like the Bozo game. There's also a fourth bucket of crimes committed before he became president, and that's real estate and mob related and whatever other seedy, gross things he was doing. And you do kind of hope there's a fifth bucket that's just all of the above. Because you want to see the empire fall from him down to everyone excluding Tiffany. Tiff doesn't know.

She doesn't know. They did not call her I think her punishment is being like you guys know they don't like me is this a woke take Marla Maples

seems nice I don't even know if we have to go that far but Marla Maples and Tiff seem like

if they went to jail, they'd find friends. Yeah, right. When the rest of them, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. They're not going out like that. Alicia They're not going out like that.

does not think they're going out like that. No, no, no. It really was just an incredible week. It's like Mueller is on Double Dare and he's just going through snot and blood and piss and tweets to find the crimes before Mark Summers' OCD flares up. In the waffle of our despair,

he starts pulling indictments out of the noses in Mount Rushmore. I love that part. Alicia, we've talked for a very long time about how Mueller's got to do his thing. A watched Mueller never boils. Mueller can't save us, we have to save ourselves, right? That there's a bunch of systemic problems that existed that led to Donald Trump,

that empowered Donald Trump, that Donald Trump is taking advantage of, and if we want to win, we can't spend all our time talking about this fun stuff, we've got to do the hard work. And yet, it does seem right now, it is genuinely important

that congressional Democrats call the hearings, get to the bottom of what we're seeing every single day. I mean, Wall Street Journal reporting today that the inaugural was compromised. We need that kind of congressional investigation. What do you feel about that right now? Because I know we've talked about this before, and now it's been about a year, and here we are. This stuff does feel like it matters. What do you think?

I know people who smoked a joint who spent more time in jail than Michael Cohen's going to spend in jail. So let's just start there. And that might be why Trump has decided to take up criminal justice reform so that he can free his friends. But I don't think that we can, like, hang our hats on impeachment. We have an administration that is, like, hell-bent on changing the rules. And so as long as this person is in that position, we should be very concerned about the integrity of what we call democracy. So what that means is don't sit around waiting, watching TV, waiting for Mueller to like do the thing because at the end of the day, he can only go so far.

waiting for Mueller to like do the thing because at the end of the day he can only go so far what we do need right is people on our side who are courageous enough to say hell no and who are innovative enough right to be thinking about even when we don't have the majority how do we stop the gears from turning and how do we clear out the trash out of the White House so that we can save what's left because I hate to say this and this is like funny and fun but also sad which is at the end of the day there's decades of damage being done every single day and so it's going to take not just the people in the White House but it's going to take every single person in here to say I don't consent and to not actually consent to make sure that people get to exercise their voices. Right. I spent a lot of time in Georgia during the midterms. And I can tell you what's happening all throughout the South with voter suppression is like incredibly scary.

So don't wait for impeachment to happen let's hope it does but at the same time let's get some other work done I think that's a great place to leave it when we come back okay stop hey don't go anywhere there's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back! Before we get to OK Stop, when we were upstairs doing the calisthenics and stretches and...

And shots. And shots, we do. The, the, the... What is it called? The asana and shots? we do. What is it called? The asana and shots? We were upstairs. Louis Vertel plucked from the shelf a book called

Leonard Maltin's 2002 Movie and Video Guide. Did anybody else collect these growing up, the Leonard Maltin movie books? No one else did. Stop lying. Look it.

Right in the front row, I see it. And he just said casually, you know, I had this book when I was a kid. And I remember all the star numbers. All the rankings. I may have had a lot of time as a child. I don't understand. I would just flip through. And if a movie came on TV, I would need to know what he thought of it.

Because he didn't give four stars a lot. And when he gave something bomb, which is zero stars, you remembered it's like, he is pissed. I'm wearing Street Fighter socks right now. Street Fighter is my favorite game of all time. Street Fighter, bomb, 1994, etc. These are things that should be culturally important and for some reason

aren't. Lewis. Go on. Black Sheep. He hates Chris Farley. I think Tommy Boy is one and a half and Black Sheep. He hates Chris Farley. I think Tommy Boy's one and a half and Black Sheep is bomb. Correct. I'll do one more.

Unless you get it wrong, then we'll do another until you get it right and cut it out. Oh my God. We checked you on this stage. Life is Beautiful. Oof, okay. I think he likes it.

Okay, it's the 90s. He became softer about giving four stars later on. I don't think he went that high. Oof. Tough one. Best actor. I'm gonna go three and a half. Correct. Now it's time for a game called Okay Stop.

We'll roll a clip and the panel can say OK Stop at any point to comment. Now all we want to do is this, right? People are like, please stop. Stop faster. On Tuesday at the White House, Donald Trump met with Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and a scarecrow dressed up as Mike Pence to discuss the looming potential of a government shutdown. What was supposed to be a photo op soon turned into something much cooler. Let's take a look. There are no votes in the House, a majority of votes, for a wall, no matter where you

start. That is exactly right. If I needed the votes for the wall in the House, I would have them in one session would be done. Go do it. It doesn't help because we need 10 Democrats in the Senate. No, don't put it on the Senate. Okay, stop. You go ahead.

I just like how Chuck Schumer is sitting. It feels like he's like, Would you like a Werther's? Because they're in my pocket, would you like a Werther's? Because they're in my pocket, so they're a little warmed up. They've been under my tush. And you seem like a good fella, a nice whippersnapper. You wanna negotiate?

Okay, let me ask you this, and we're doing this in a very friendly manner. Okay, stop. I really like that. Because he's trying to message this as it's happening. He's like, and this is friendly. This is friendly. That's why we're doing it.

We're doing it because it's friendly. Someone told me that. This is a friendly thing. Everything is friendly. Now I'm going to go say something fucking heinous at you. Also, why does Mike Pence look like he has gas? You know, like it looks like he's doing the one cheek. But he's farting towards Trump know what i mean like he's farting on trump then so here's what happened my so about two weeks before

this happened mike pence was sitting at home with mother um and they were dearest and they were having kettle corn uh which in his house is just actual raw corn from a kettle. And he was munching on that, flipping through the channels, and as he took one big bite, the Will & Grace remake came on, and he saw a gay person who wasn't ashamed, and it just sat wrong. Also, is he possibly, Mike Pence, the only living person to be embalmed. He always seems to be wearing casket makeup. Yeah, yeah. He's definitely giving me Weekend at Bernie's.

Yes. It does look like his best friend is about to run up and hug him because he was killed by bees. Is that, you know? Seen the movie. Terrible, that's why I stopped myself. How many stars? Two and the movie. Terrible. So I stopped myself. Two and a half.

Oh, what? I will win easily with the Republicans. It doesn't help to take that vote because I'm not going to get the vote of the Senate. I need ten senators. That's the problem. You know, Nancy is in a situation... Okay, stop. Something that is bothering me is how in covering this people are saying she's doing something that people don't usually do,

which is fact-check him in person. Does it really count as facts if there are things in, like, a third-grade social studies book? She's like, shall I tell you how the country works? These are things that can be verified by any number of people, and for some reason she has to waste her time doing it. I would say yes. I would say Nancy Pelosi is both the first woman

to be speaker and the last woman to whom you should try to explain Congress. Where it's not easy for her to talk right now, and I understand that, and I fully understand that. Okay, stop, okay, stop. What in the entire fuck? What is he talking about? She can't talk right now?

He doesn't know how to talk or read. I mean, he's a complete idiot. And there's just like nothing else to say about it. Like, what? Like, that's the point in the, you know, when I was watching this before, I like took off my shoe and just, you know? I want to be like that journalist.

That threw it at George W. Bush. Yeah. You kind of put yourself in that mindset. That's why they will never have me at the White House. That's why. Because I'll throw heels. I'll throw heels. You know what I mean?

For a minute I thought you were calling Cardi B a journalist. Good discussion, and we're going to see what happens. But we have to have borders secured. Mr. President, please don't characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting. Okay, stop. Nancy Pelosi, I am a fan. I love Nancy Pelosi. I believe she is the best speaker in a generation, if not longer. I've said that before.

I'll say it again. She never got the credit she deserved because there's no other reason. Paul Ryan's been on a bunch of magazine covers. They never put Nancy Pelosi on, not for a while. And she faced this revolt. And I think there are legitimate arguments. There are illegitimate arguments. I'm much more interested in the argument about pulling her to the left than I am about pulling

her to the center. I am interested in the argument about why we need a new generation of leaders. I'm not interested in an argument that says she shouldn't be the leader because she shouldn't be the leader. Nonetheless, she doesn't get the credit she deserves for being fucking tough, for being political, for breaking out knives when she needs to break out knives, for being nice when she needs to be nice. And I'm just glad that she's getting this cultural moment. I'm just glad. I liked it. I heard her say that and I was like, people are going to like that.

Furthermore, that line, don't characterize the anger I'm bringing, that is better than... Don't characterize the strength I'm bringing, is better than any line in that horrible Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie trailer. So it is actually disturbing on a writer level

that just on the fly she is better than the best of Hollywood. And there is Nancy Pelosi merch now available on the Hysteria website. Yes! There is a great Hysteria t-shirt. Of the House Democrats who just won a big victory. Elections have consequences, Mr. President. Let me just say... And that's why the country's doing so well.

Okay, stop. I just... Chuck Schumer's like, I haven't talked in a long time. This meeting's been going on for a while. I haven't said anything in a long time. I was thinking about what I was gonna eat after. And then all of a sudden, I realized I was sitting here for a while.

When should I talk? When should I talk? When should I talk? I'll wait till the woman's talking, and then all of a sudden i realized i was sitting here for a while when should i talk when should i talk when should i talk i'll wait till the woman's talking and then i'll talk i do think you can even see a snapshot in that interaction that trump though he may have disdain for pelosi he respects her and like when she was talking he was nodding and then he heard chuck even like say a syllable and he was like shut the fuck up Chuck. Wear your weird glasses that hook around your ears Chuck. I am proud to shut down the government for border security Chuck because the people of this country don't want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. So I will take the mantle.

Okay, stop. I would like to point out, just on a color level, that Trump's hair matches the chair. It does. It does. Very, it's, his whole color scheme is Crayola. Yeah. It also kind of looks like he's holding his breath. His face is not orange, it's red.

For border security. But we believe you shouldn't shut it down. Thank you very much, everybody. Okay, I just will also just say that Chuck Schumer, when Trump says, I'm going to shut it down, I'm going to do the shutdown. It's my shutdown. I own the shutdown.

Anyone says otherwise, you send them to me, Mr. Shutdown. Chuck Schumer's like, yes. It's like when I'm at the deli with my relatives and the bill comes and they didn't put the soup on there. And you're like, free fucking soup. And that's okay, stop. Lewis. One more for the road.

From Leonard Maltin's 2002 movie and video guide Let's open to a random page Days of Thunder, 1990 Bad If you would like to see the best Days of Thunder We have a film called Top Gun that exists This is where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman met Indeed, and she was like

My hair could not be curlier It's low I I'm going to go two. Correct. When we come back, we're going to play a game about impeachment. Don't go anywhere. Just love it or leave it, and there's more on the way. And we're back. And we're back! The Mueller investigation has been going on for a year and a half at this point,

and for a while, Republicans seemed pretty confident everything would work out fine. But something changed over the last two weeks. Individual one, which is Donald Trump's gamer tag, which he picked after... which he picked after Xbox banned anti-Semitic screen names, was implicated... That was for so few... That was... I'm glad. I'm glad the people who like that like that.

He was implicated in the crimes committed by Michael Cohen. The prosecution agreed, the judge agreed, even the defense agreed. Michael Cohen committed crimes to help sway the presidential election, and he did it because Donald Trump directed him to do crimes. And with Democrats taking over the House in January, a lot of smart people and a lot of dumb people have started to talk about that dirty, naughty word. Impeachment.

Whisper it with me. Impeachments. Feels good to be around so many people that share my kink. And it's also my safe word. Shut up. There is a debate to be had about the politics of impeachment. When it's appropriate, what are high crimes and misdemeanors? What is right legally? What is right politically?

What's also true is we're not the first group of people to look at the president and say, let's push this fucker's performance review up a few years because fuck. So we thought we'd look back and compare our situation with the last two presidents who faced impeachment in a game we're calling Nixon, Clinton, or Trump. Would anyone out there like to play the game? Hi, what's your name?

Name's Rob. Rob. Yes. How you doing? Doing quite well. And yourself?, what's your name? My name's Rob. Rob. Yes. How you doing? Doing quite well. And yourself? Where you from, Rob?

Local. LA boy. Great. Are you familiar with Article 2 of the Constitution? I imagine it's the impeachment article. There was a lot of ways to get out of that. I chose the wrong one. And you didn't.

All right. I'm going to read a sentence, and you have to tell us if it's about Nixon, Clinton, and or Trump. Are you ready? Yes, I am. Journalist Carl Bernstein described this president's conduct as unhinged. Nixon and Trump? Nope, just Trump.

This president recorded himself discussing hush money payments to people who were arrested for committing crimes on his behalf. Nixon. Correct. This president was recorded discussing hush money payments to people who were arrested for committing crimes on his behalf? Nixon. Correct. This president was recorded discussing hush money payments to people who were arrested for committing crimes on his behalf? Trump. Correct. This president fired the person responsible for the investigation

into wrongdoing that took place during his presidential campaign? Clinton. No. Nixon and Trump. U.S. prosecutors filed court papers that indicated the president committed a felony violation of campaign finance law by directing hush money payments that were made in an effort to influence the presidential election. Trump.

Correct. The House passed two articles of impeachment accusing this president of obstructing justice and committing perjury. Clinton. Correct. Twenty-five officials from this president's administration were convicted of crimes. Four of them were members of his cabinet. Nixon. Correct.

Thirty-six people have been indicted in the investigation to this president, including his national security advisor and five people who worked for his campaign. Trump. Correct. When asked about this president, cool beer drinking bachelor Lindsey Graham had this to say. Powerful people abusing the law, not a good thing. What the president did was undermine the rule of law.

When you take the legal system and you trash it, I think that needs to be dealt with. Clinton. Correct. When one of this president's former advisors pled guilty to lying to the FBI, Lindsey Graham said, I don't see this as a big event. Trump. Correct. When asked about this president having an affair and then breaking the law to cover it up,

Orrin Hatch said, this great nation can tolerate a president who makes mistakes, but it cannot tolerate one who makes a mistake and then breaks the law to cover it up. Clinton. Correct. When asked about this president having an affair and then breaking the law to cover it up, Orrin Hatch said, I don't care. Trump. All I care, all I can say is he's doing a good job as president. You can make anything a crime if you want to.

You already got it. It's Trump. And finally, this president was taken down, at least partially, by Deep Throat. Rob, you got it. All of the of them. Yep. Guys, give it up for Rob. He won the game.

When we come back, we're going to play a game wrapping up 2018. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. This is our final live show of 2018, which we all agree will go down in history as the year of Yanny and Laurel. The hot duck.

And of course the year we all agreed motorized scooters are good and have absolutely zero downside. Betsy just shouted, you almost hit me with what I saw you. It was a rolling stop. But what's nice about one year ending and a new one beginning is that it's time to pause and reflect on what we learned this year and how we can take that knowledge into next year

and use it to make our world a better place. And we learned a lot in 2018, so I thought we'd quiz some folks on it. Please welcome to the stage two of the smartest straight host of Pond Save America, Tommy Cheekbones Veeder and John Ironman Favreau. Hi, boys. We're not going to hug.

Just go there. Hey, everyone. Hi, John. Hi. Are we playing the movie game? We are not going to play the movie game. I sincerely have no idea what this game is. Me neither. Travis said, will you show up tonight?

And we said, sure. Yeah. All right, Tommy. It was a long time ago. Here's how the game works. I'm going to list three things that happened this year. And you have to place them in chronological order. If you are correct, you get a point.

If you are wrong, you do not get a point. If the game is tied after four questions, we have a tiebreaker. Are you ready to play Pod Save America More Like Fraud Save America? Sort of. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that whoever loses the game has to say out loud, Pundit is the best dog in the office, Michael Avenatti for president. It's binding, so. Okay, here we go.

Question number one. Please put these events in order. The Supreme Court narrowly upholds Trump's Muslim ban. Hawaii issues a false alarm that a ballistic missile attack is imminent. Roseanne Barr is fired from her show after a racist tweet. All right, you guys ready?

Yes. John, what do you got? Hawaii, Muslim ban, Roseanne. Tommy? Yes. John, what do you got? Hawaii, Muslim ban, Roseanne. Tommy? Hawaii, I said SCOTUS, Muslim ban, Roseanne. So close. It was Hawaii, Roseanne, travel ban.

But you guys are doing so well. Question two. Put these in order. This is hard. This is really hard. This is really hard. All these games are so easy. Usually. Trump meets with Putin in Helsinki.

Omarosa releases secret recordings from the White House, including one where Trump acts surprised that she was fired. And Melania's office releases a statement saying the First Lady will watch any channel she wants. After reports surfaced, Trump flipped out on her aboard Air Force One for watching CNN. What? That happened? It did. It CNN. What? That happened?

It did. It did. What do you got, Tommy? I said Melania, Omarosa, Helsinki. I said Omarosa, Melania, Putin. Oh. It was Putin in July, Melania later in July. That is so mean, Travis.

That is so fucked up. Travis, what did they do to you? And then it was Amorosa. Travis, I'm glad we did you this favor and came to the show. Wait, what was the order? Say it again. It was Putin and Melania then Amorosa. Fuck. So close.

Next question. A North Korean envoy presents Trump with a letter from Kim Jong-un in a comically oversized envelope. These all took place in June. You fucking asshole. The U.S. announces its intention to withdraw. Wait, what's the second?

North Korean envoy presents the envelope. The U.S. announces its intention to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council, and Melania photographed wearing a jacket with the text, I really don't care, do you? What do you got, Thomas? Wait, I'm going to change it. He says he's going to change it. All right, I got letter, human rights, Melania.

Yes! Last minute I got that. Last minute I did. I had UN Human Rights Council letter jacket. Rub it in, asshole. I remember the jacket because we did the show in Nashville when you wore the jacket. I wore the jacket.

I remember the day of that. Putting it together, using clues, using context. How did that place the giant letter in time for you? How did that help? Well, I knew we did that at the end of June. And then, I don't know, I just figured the month was binding. Yeah, the month was binding. Question!

The next. No question. Allison Mack, an actress from the show Smallville, is arrested and charged with conspiracy and sex trafficking after being caught helping to run a sex cult in New York State. That was a weird story. Weird story. Weird story. John's like, what are you fucking talking about?

A passenger dies on Southwest Airlines after a window shattered and they were sucked out. And Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, is dismissed just days before he was set to retire with a pension. The reason given was lack of candor, but McCabe said it was retribution for his role

in the Russia investigation. What was the order of Southwest, Allison Mack, Andrew McCabe? What do you got, Tommy? Allison Mack, Southwest Airlines,

McCabe. Mack, McCabe, Plain. It was McCabe, Plain, Mack. But you guys did so well, but John is up by one point. And therefore, he's won the game. What did he get?

A parachute gift card. It was worth it. Now, if you want, before you go, we can do the tiebreaker that never was. Here's what you have to do. Each of you, I'm going to say an event, and you have to say what month it happened in. Oh good, okay.

Facebook suspends Cambridge Analytica. March. Correct. Wow. Rudy Giuliani is booed at Yankee Stadium. June. It's May, but the end of May. So close.

You really were close on May 28th. It's amazing. Don't belittle me. Trump orders airstrikes in Syria. May. April. Can I get a shot at this shit? You could have gotten it.

Tommy would have gotten it. I'm so sorry, Tommy. Trump orders airstrikes in Syria. April? You got it. In your face, John. The New York Times publishes its massive investigation into Trump's wealth and tax schemes. September.

October. Got it, Tommy. Because it was in the midst of the Kavanaugh stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Trump announces the largest ever sanctions against North Korea. Ooh, February. Got it.

Tommy is fucking crushing the lightning round. And finally, Joe Biden and Trump both argue over who would win in a fistfight. February. I was going to say... April. It was March.

I'm going to say Tommy came from behind in that lightning round. But guys, give it up for John and Tommy. I'm going to call it a tie. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you. I'm not going to make anyone say that sentence. Guys, give it up for John and Tommy. When we come back,

The Rand Wheel. Don't go anywhere. Just love it or leave it and there's more on the way. And we're back back with Alicia Megan and Lewis for the rant wheel

this week on the wheel and you guys know how it works we spin it we talk about the topic this week on the wheel we have Amy Adams Super Smash Brothers

the unfilled cheap staff position motion smoothing on TV school star times which let's face it I covered it Gaga repeating herself flying while black and romaine lettuce Motion smoothing on TV, school start times, which let's face it, I covered it.

Gaga repeating herself, flying while black, and romaine lettuce. Two equal problems. Let's spin it. Okay. It has landed on Flying Wallback. Okay, so first of all, I do a lot of flying, and I see really gross stuff on airplanes. For example, and I'm going to call you all out, how many of you take your shoes off on the airplane?

I do. But I bring different socks. I bring nice fuzzy socks. Okay, socks. We'll have a conversation about how many of you are barefoot? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Some of you are lying. I was recently on an airplane from San Francisco to New York and somebody next to me in first class took their shoes off, socks off, put their feet up on the, you know, you're in the bulkhead, and then proceeded to clip their toenails. Not in first class.

In first class. Although it's unacceptable anywhere, to be honest. Because how many of you think that planes actually get cleaned? You think there's like steam cleaning and stuff going on? It's just garbage being picked up. That's it. So if a kid pukes, you know, they might wipe it up, but they don't steam clean. But I just don't understand.

Like, where were you raised? Can I just ask you a quick question? What does this have to do with being black? I'm going to get there. Well, one, I've never seen black people do this. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Ever, ever. And this is, I mean, it's a real thing.

But here's my other issue. Why are folks always trying to elbow me as if I'm not boarding before you? That's a flying while black thing. I get a thing where I'm in line and some guy, usually, with a tie, is like, excuse me. I'm like, no, no. And then I walk past him. Nice.

And then he has to walk past me as I'm sitting there with my Bloody Mary. But there is always some white dude who's like... I'm definitely getting on the plane before you. You're not here for this. You must just be here to cheer me on as I walk down the runway. And did you end up sitting next to Don Jr.? Now, if I was clipping my toenails on an airplane,

there would be an air marshal. I'm quite sure of it. I can barely bring my hair products without TSA doing all the things. All the things. And don't get me started on what happens when I bring my vibrator.

Let's spin it again. It has landed on Amy Adams. That's not me. Suggested by one Louis Vertel. Shocking, I know. I can't believe it either. This thing happens every couple years or so where we think we're going to give Amy Adams an Oscar

and we are, as people with organs and stuff, excited to do that. We enjoy Amy Adams. We want this for Amy Adams. If professionalism were a superhero quality,

she would be, is Aquaman one of the famous ones? Why did I start that metaphor? I don't know. Guys, she is in this movie called Vice coming up. You know what this is? The Christian Bale movie about I don't know. Guys, she is in this movie called Vice coming up. You know what this is?

The Christian Bale movie about Dick Cheney. Guys, this looks like some RuPaul's Drag Race sketch challenge version of 2000s politics. It looks like it's gonna end in a lip sync between

Lynn Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. I cannot do this bit again where Amy Adams gives a fine performance and we don't fucking give it to her for the sixth time cementing her as the Glenn Close of our generation. Strong words, I know.

People are crying. And I want more for her and by that I mean winning due to my toxic maleness. She was... Yeah, give it up for Amy Adams and Lewis. Who won... Was she nominated

for the Arrival? For Arrival? No, she was not, along with Annette Bening and 20th Century Woman both snubbed that year. That was the year of... That was Emma Stone

and La La Land beating Natalie Portman and Jackie and Isabelle Huppert and Elle, Florence Foster Jenkins and Ruth Nega and Loving.

But Moonlight won. Indeed. Indeed. I consider that a rival snub. That's a snub. One of the great 2010 snubs, yes. We gotta move on but Lewis do you believe, did you join me in believing that Florida Project was one of the great snubs? I love Florida Project. Correct! Let's spin it again. It has landed on romaine lettuce. Okay, this one's me. I just don't think we realized

how much we needed it. Like, what the fuck has been going on? You walk into Trader Joe's and it's bare. You go into Chipotle and they're like, we're so sorry. Like, we didn't even know. Our country was built on romaine lettuce. And I've been experimenting.

I've been trying. I've been buttering. I've been aruguling. And it's just not the same. It's horrible. Truly, E. coli makes the heart grow fonder. Because now we realize how good we had it, and we need it to come back, and I'm so happy.

And God, I'm so sad for those people, and I just want it crispy and green and beautiful and back in those bags. We took Romaine for granted. We did. We thought it would always be there until the day it wasn't and we realized we never told Romaine we loved you. And over Thanksgiving, the only

holiday people cook. We just removed a whole like chunk of the pyramid. By the way, there was a strand of people on Twitter when this happened who were very like, well, if you're eating romaine, you're the problem anyway. It's like, no, we eat fucking romaine lettuce. You can't avoid it. Stop pretending you're above

fine, light, green roughage. Yeah, it's not iceberg. We're not animals. Let's spin it again shut up it has landed on Lady Gaga repeating herself I did want to talk about this one because how many of you people saw this? How many of you guys saw this?

We all did. Everybody saw it. This video of Lady Gaga using the same anecdote again and again and again and saying, you know, there were a hundred people who told me. No. No, but Bradley Cooper said yes. And she said it a lot. It was her thing she went to and her thing. And she said it a lot.

It was her thing she went to and her thing. She would turn to Bradley Cooper and she would say with great fanfare and emotion and sincerity and maybe even a little water in those eyes that Bradley Cooper was with her. And it was as if it was the first time she said it. But it wasn't the first time she said it. It was the thousandth time she said it. And people were sharing this as if Lady Gaga did something wrong. What kind of greedy, childish, little cultural creeps have we become? We demand these people, politicians, Gagas, others,

do incredible amounts of press in order to get in front of us in our various siloed little mediums. I don't watch it there. I get my news about Gaga through a tiny box that appears in one app. So she's got to fucking get herself into that goddamn box. I get my political news from an app that searches Twitter for topics that are my Facebook friends like, and that's where I get my news. Roosevelt got to do one fireside fucking chat. Lady Gaga has got to say the same shit a thousand times. Hillary Clinton has to say the same thing a thousand times.

Barack Obama has to say the same thing a thousand times. Donald Trump has to say the same thing a thousand times. And so now our standard is we want someone authentic. A word we use to stand in for integrity. Well, what does authentic mean to us now? It means doing a great job at being incredibly insincere. Being so fucking good at it. You have to be such a good actor so that you can seem authentic.

That's what we, this content-hungry little fucking sugar-eating monsters we've become demand from everyone. And the second we are exposed to the thing we make them do, the product we demand, the press and publicity we need in our fucking eyeballs

before we'll deign to buy a movie ticket or cast a vote, we're offended. How dare this person repeat that soundbite that I need to know was said just once, just once for me. And so we allow this idea of authenticity to stand in for integrity. Meanwhile, you know who's really good at being authentic?

Donald fucking Trump. He's great at putting on a show and saying it like he's saying it for the first time. You people happy with that? You happy with it? So give Lady Gaga a goddamn break. Let's go out on a high note. Can I add something quickly about her?

Please do it. Before awards season heats up though, as, I assume she will be winning a lot of things, as a member of the gay community, I am already sick

of her thanking me. Another very important point. Let's go out on a high note. I really want to end on a high note, but can we just talk about Romaine Lettuce

really quick again? Romaine Lettuce? Just really quick. Because, you know, the reason there's the whole E. coli thing is because the workers, yo. The workers. I couldn't let it pass. So the reason that we no longer have romaine lettuce in Whole Foods is because of the ways that these corporations treat their workers. So people are forced to pee and poo in the fields because they are not given bathroom breaks

and they are paid shitty wages. So if you want romaine lettuce, fight for workers' rights. I think that's right. And I'll add one thing on top of that. The reason these companies have the ability to treat these people like shit and the reason that an outbreak can cause the ban of an entire kind of lettuce across

the entire country is because the supply chains have gotten so concentrated because all the wealth and power and because all of the farming is now done by such a concentrated few that they have built these massive incredibly delicate supply chains where any failure in it can cause

us to lose an entire fucking vegetable and gives them the ability to control what people make and they don't have anywhere to compete with and so they've taken the power away from ordinary people and given us shit-covered lettuce.

Good point. Yes. Alicia, we should never have moved off the topic of Romaine without making it. Thank you. Let's end on a high note. Here's the thing, guys.

It has been two years since Donald Trump became president. Two years, right? We are almost halfway through this guy's term, alright? And we didn't know where we were going to be two years into this. We didn't know how bad it would be. And guess what? It's pretty fucking bad, alright?

It's pretty fucking bad. We didn't know if our institutions would hold up. We didn't know how the media would be. And guess what? It's pretty fucking bad. All right? It's pretty fucking bad. We didn't know if our institutions would hold up. We didn't know how the media would do. And I got to say, given a lot of B's and C's out there, let's just be honest. But you know what? Still a pass. You're still moving on to the next year. And the thing is, after all of that, where do we stand now two years in? Has he done a lot of damage? Yes. Has he hurt a lot of people? Are there a lot of people who don't get to say we survived the last two years? Absolutely. We should never gloss over the amount of harm and hurt and immiseration and destruction that this presidency will cause for decades and the successes that Donald Trump can claim on his own behalf. However, as we sit here two years later, Democrats are about to take the gavel in the House of Representatives.

A lot of the rampant criminality and corruption of this administration is in the process of being exposed. An investigation that many people thought would not be able to survive has somehow, against the odds, managed to survive to this day. We just saw the biggest turnout in a midterm election in a fucking century. And we did it the old-fashioned way with a lot of fucking democracy and a lot of people listening and paying attention and doing it like they never did before.

And so the only thing I'll say is we have to keep this up. We have to keep this up for another two years. We have to keep this up until this guy is gone. And not only until this guy is gone, until we keep paying attention and address some of the underlying problems that we were talking about that led to someone like this being able to attain power in the first place. And the thing I want to go out with in 2018 is the thing that keeps me hopeful every single day is there will be a day when this person, this fucking terrible human being, this shell of a man is no longer president. And on that day, this amazing thing will happen, which is we'll all still be paying

attention. We'll all still be paying attention. And I sincerely, when things are dark, when I read a story about a little fucking girl who died in American custody, who came over the border and was fucking dehydrated, when I read that someone's lost their life in part because this president has so dehumanized a group of people that that toxicity and evil has so corrupted our institutions and made them that much worse. When I think about that,

I remember that we're paying attention now and we can keep paying attention. If we're still paying attention the day Donald Trump is gone, it will no longer be because we're paying attention to stop the evil he can do. It will be because we'll have the chance to do some actual fucking good. And I look forward to that every single day. That's our show. I want to thank Alicia Garza, Megan Gailey, Louis Vettel, Jon Favreau, Tommy Dieter. Thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you guys for listening to this show and supporting this show. So, so grateful.

Have a great new year and have a great night. Bye.