Lovett or Leave It - K-Popping His Bubble

Episode Date: June 27, 2020

Larry Wilmore is back and joins for the monologue. Ari Berman discusses efforts to fight voter suppression. We quiz a listener on polling from 2016 so no one gets cocky about 2020. And we share some moments from Crooked's pride parade live stream: Gay News with Tre'vell Anderson and Guy Branum, plus highlights from Sam Pancake, Brandon Kyle Goodman, Kara Swisher, Bowen Yang, Margaret Cho, Rosemary Ketchum, Katie Hill, Sam Feder, and Justin Simien.

Welcome to the 16th episode of Love It or Leave It, back in the closet. My approach is civil when other folks divide. There's only one place that it's safe for us to be. Don't you fear, cause I'm taking you with me. We're going back into the closet. You're never gonna wanna pause it. Just like the Wizard of Oz, it seems too good to be true. But you'd better believe it, cause love it or leave it's going back in the closet for you. That incredible song was sent by Rachel Guth and Ryan Martin.

I loved it. Magnificent. We want to use a new one each week. If you want to make one, you can send it to us at hey at crooked.com, and maybe we'll use yours, and you can tweet it at me. I have loved them. They've been so great, and I can't believe what you've come up with week after week.

Also, if you missed our first and hopefully last annual at-home pride parade stream on Wednesday, you can still watch it at youtube.com slash Crooked Media. It was very fun. Travelle Anderson co-hosted it with me. We had some incredible guests from the ACLU. We had a bunch of friends join to share their favorite gay moments of the years.

Everybody from drag queens trying to get you to adopt Pennsylvania to Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado, who I think was a little looser than anticipated. Plus, we were joined for some breaking gay news by Mondaire Jones and Richie Torres, who we spoke to just as it was becoming clear they were going to win their primaries that took place this week. So it was a great stream. And we raised over $50,000 for six

amazing organizations supporting and promoting the rights, health and safety of the LGBTQ plus community nationwide. And you can donate at crooked.com slash pride fund. Also some crooked news, Dan Pfeiffer and Alyssa Mastromonaco have launched a series about the vice presidential selection process called that's the ticket. The selection of the vice presidential nominee is the most important decision of the presidential campaign. And Alyssa and Dan will take listeners behind the curtains for an insider's perspective. You know. These are two people who know how this process runs from the inside. Alyssa has said so much experience helping Democratic nominees through the process of selecting a VP. So it's an incredibly informative, fascinating look at this process, and you will really like it. You can find That's

the Ticket in the Pod Save America feed right now. So please make sure you're subscribed. Later in the show, we'll be joined by Ari Berman to talk about how we can combat voter suppression, and we'll bring you highlights from Crooked's virtual pride parade with Travelle Anderson, Guy Branham, and some very special guests. But first, he's a comedian, actor, Emmy Award-winning producer, and current host of Larry Wilmore Black on the Air. Please welcome back, returning champion. Yes. The one, the only Larry Wilmore. Hey, John. Good to see you in your bunker. Thank you. Hunkered in the bunker. Hunkered in the bunker. We are all good to see you. Your bunker looks lovely. Looks like there's a flat screen television in your bunker and a printer. Yeah. You know, you got it. You got to be.

You have to be able to print out bunker instructions, you know, very carefully. You have to be able to print out bunker instructions, you know, very carefully. Let's get into it. What a week. Dozens of Secret Service agents were ordered into quarantine after Trump's Tulsa rally. You know, Larry, you sign up to be a Secret Service agent to keep the president out of harm's way. But there's sort of an implicit bargain that the president isn't going to dart into traffic. He's not going to play Russian roulette like in Deer Hunter, you know? They're going to have to take the name secret out of the Secret Service because all of these people, it's going to be public knowledge, you know?

It's amazing how much Trump makes the people around him vulnerable by his stupidity. It is amazing. But anyhow, yeah, I feel sorry for all those people. There's also no drama in a fight protecting the president from a virus. You know, the classic image in the line of fire. It's the moment they jump in front of a bullet to protect the president. That's part of our culture. But there's no bullet to jump in front of with a virus.

The only place they should have jumped is you're supposed to jump in front of the president while he's trying to board Air Force One. You fucking moron. No. Or maybe when Pence sneezes, we'll see his head go back into the left. Just back into the left. There was a second sneezer, Larry. It's time people open their eyes. People have to open their eyes. This week, primary elections were also held in Kentucky and New York with some big opportunities for progressive gains. In Kentucky, while votes are still being counted, Charles Booker took the lead over Amy McGrath. And in New York, two progressive, openly gay candidates,

Richie Torres and Mondaire Jones, were on track to win their primaries. And Jamal Bowman unseated longtime Congressman Elliot Engle. How did a former middle school principal defeat the incumbent by refusing to give the bathroom pass to voters unless they promised to vote for him? I'm so sorry, Larry. This is such a shitty election season. Come on. I mean, if that doesn't point it out, you know, we had progressive wins across the country. And then we also had examples of just horrific voter suppression in Kentucky and other places. And we saw the threat to the elections. Just, you know, forget malevolence, just basic incompetence of trying to make sure people get their ballots.

It's really it's very I talk about it with Ari Berman, who's an election expert later in the show. But we really do need to start paying attention right now. I think part of it, too, is there could be voter depression you know where people just feel like what's the fucking point you know yeah and may not even go out to vote for a lot of different reasons especially john if you have to wait in the line for three or four hours with covid around and you know you gotta work and all that stuff it's crazy i mean before covid i I mean, before COVID, I would not wait outside a restaurant for brunch. Right. For 10 minutes.

Right. And I don't get pancakes when I vote. No, you don't. At least when you get blood, they give you orange juice, you know. No. They don't give you anything when you vote. You get a sticker. A little smug sticker you get to wear.

And now we don't even have anywhere to wear the sticker. No, COVID. Kills the fun of the sticker. I voted, I may have COVID. You put that sticker on it today. I voted, check in with me in two weeks, see how I did. This week, the Dixie Chicks changed their name to the Chicks because they didn't want to be associated with the Confederacy.

This follows Lady Antebellum changing their name to Lady A and Lindsey Graham changing his name to Lady G. Larry, here's what I don't understand. What did the Dixie Chicks and Lady Antebellum think the Civil War was about last week? It's the non-thinking of it. It's this heroine chic type of mentality, you know, in choosing names, you know. Ooh, Antebellum, that sounds good. Is that, is that, like, what is that?

Like, they don't even know what it means, you know? And the Dixie Chicks, like, Dixie has always been the celebrated word. You know, I wish I were in Dixie, hooray. You know, it's funny how this movement has kind of forced a lot of people to really consider what the fuck they're actually saying and what they're actually celebrating. But come on, Dixie Chicks. Seriously, you knew what that shit was yeah especially because they had made such a name for themselves as being willing to you know to

stand up to Bush to tell the truth and yet there was this it's it does really speak to even people who consider themselves progressive thought they were thinking about these issues in the right way just didn't have to pay attention just didn't have to consider the opinions of millions and millions and millions of black people. It just didn't have to be a part of the conversation, part of their thinking at all. Why should they start now? And speaking of starting now, Splash Mountain announced they would be removing all references to the Song of the South on that ride and reframing it around the princess and the frog.

I do think, Larry, that Disney is beginning to ask questions to which they will not like the answers. The Little Mermaid is the story of a girl who sees a hot boy one time and disfigures herself and gives up her voice to seduce him. It works and the only person who faces consequences is the drag queen who was right to hate King Triton's underwater dictatorial regime. Larry, do you know what that's called? It's not an aquatic regime. What is it?

It's an auto aquatic regime. Nice. I like how you did that. You know, there's a lot of fucked up shit in fairy tales, by the way. Yes. And this whole song of the South, Disney already knew that was problematic because they pulled the film like years ago. You couldn't rent it out. But they thought they would sneak the ride just right by everything you know if people

are going fast and they're on the roller coaster they won't see like a mammy you know going by or bray rabbit and bear fox you know as they were opening splash mountain in the late 80s they were pulling song of the south back then they started deleting reference to song of the south from the ride but what i find so strange about it is that like they have a lot of intellectual property splash mountain is a log that gets wet right you could really apply a lot of different ideas to it like it doesn't need to be about the sun like what does uh southern plantation life have to do with a log flume like why why did you need it to be that? Right.

Yeah, at least it's not like Lynch Mountain, you know. It's like, you know what? This Lynch Mountain, I don't know. It's a fun ride. I don't know why people want us to change it. It's just, it's something that happened. We didn't do it, you know, but it's part of our heritage. Then 2020, after careful reflection and consultation

with many members of our team, we've come to discover that for a lot of people, Lynch Mountain is an offensive term. Apparently it's a bad thing. So it's now Antebellum Mountain, and I hope people enjoy Antebellum Mountain. Antebellum is pre the war. What's wrong with people? We're not even at the war yet. It's pre-war. It's not about anything. It's about gazebos mostly. It's mostly about gazebos and frilly white dresses that's really the focus it's the beautiful how can i say birth of our nation you know uh back to disney uh beauty and the beast yeah is the story of a hostage who falls in love with her kidnapper because a witch tried to teach the kidnapper a lesson about being kind by torturing that kidnapper's household staff.

Yeah. She makes the prince ugly, but she turns human beings into inanimate objects and their only crime was working there. Right. And then Lumiere and Cogsworth and the tea kettle and the cup, they all go along with it. And then when they're turned back into people, they stay in their jobs. They stay at work. And at the heart of it is a heartwarming story about bestiality. It's like, you know, it says in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy fucked a cowardly lion.

It's like, I don't think that's what this story should be about, honestly. The number of people that have put that into their search terms is probably chilling. So these people who are at work, just happened to be at work that day, maybe some of them should have taken a day off, they're then captive for years to punish this guy for being a jerk

who kidnaps a woman. When they're finally turned back into people, they're the same age as when they went in because the cup chip is still a little boy, which means they were in that castle frozen in time. Did their families age? Where did their families think they were? Did they miss funerals? Did they miss birthdays? The world went on without them while they were trapped all for the crime of working for a shitty boss. I think we're going to need like a making of a murderer type of Beauty and the Beast deconstruction.

Somebody needs to go into that castle with some cameras and figure this shit out. I agree with you. There's way too many unanswered questions. I agree. Just once it would be nice if the happy ending in one of these movies was a restoration of like democratic civic institutions. Like the prince has decided to hold elections and step down.

Like the end of the movie, we got healthcare. There's a truth and reconciliation commission in Pride Rock to discover why these species have gone along with this dictatorial regime for so long. Yes, finally pre-existing conditions. Finally. Also this week, the Supreme Court made it much easier to deport asylum seekers without access to a lawyer. Finally, this Supreme Court stands up for the little guy.

Yep. Because it's easier to beat someone down from a standing position. Yep. And it's worth noting that RBG concurred with the opinion. She joined the conservative majority while Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Yeah, I think RBG was just paying back Roberts for, you know, him coming over to the other side a little bit to say, all right, I owe you one. Here you go.

You know, who knows how much longer I'll be on here anyway. Who cares? It's become this kind of a little bit of cult personality around RPG. And it's like, hey, you know, she's joining on some of these tough opinions. Can we at one point be honest about the fact that she probably should have retired in 2013 instead of risking the entire future of the country as a tiny, aging, often quite sick woman with so much on the line of her staying alive. Too much pressure to stay alive. You're never going to get me to say anything bad about RBG. That woman is a goddess

as far as I'm concerned. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. We have this expectation that our liberal judges are supposed to be liberal, conservative judges are supposed to be conservative. But honestly, the whole point, the whole lifetime appointment is that they're allowed to cross over to the other side. That happens to Republicans all the time. It seems to happen more, you know, starting with the Warren court and some of these other conservative appointed judges who have made liberal decisions.

You know, it hasn't happened as much on the other side, but when it does, we're like, what the fuck? Yeah, we don't like it. I know. That is fair. It's just not what the point is of the system, you know. Yes, it is true that you've seen people like Anthony Kennedy become better on gay rights. Roberts held up Obamacare. We just had this decision in which Gorsuch did a originalist, quote unquote, reading of Title seven to make sure that LGBTQ people were protected under Title seven of the Civil Rights Act.

that LGBTQ people were protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, we do expect the judges to have some sort of intellectual independence, of course. But I think it's more that because the court has become so powerful and because it is absolutely true that one of the reasons I think you do see this ideological inconsistency on the right is because the court has shifted so far to the right that we're pleasantly surprised when it takes not a left position, but a kind of moderate position. Even though it's slanted that way, if we look at the court decisions of the past 25 years, is it more balanced on the right? Well, I think it's more that we've seen some big decisions that run counter to our expectations. But even the Roberts court, again and again, even on it, you know, we just saw them deny

Trump's efforts to destroy DACA, right? And they didn't undermine that decision on ideological grounds. They basically said his decision was incompetent. And that is the big ticket banner decision on DACA. But over the course of the last few years, that court has done an incredible number of right wing immigration decisions. But DACA was also an executive action. It's not a law that they're ruling on, you know. Right, but it's just more that it wasn't a, it's basically that Trump's incompetence is the reason that we ended up with a progressive outcome, that's all.

Right, but I always felt DACA's on weak legs because it's an executive action, you know. I think one of the lessons of Trump is conservatives have really embraced executive power and liberals have been very critical of that up and until it was in the hands of someone they liked. Yeah, like Obama. Of course, of course.

But we as, I think, one of the lessons to me in the last few years is being more aggressive at restricting executive power, even when it's someone we trust and control. And we didn't do that. I agree. But I mean, the big slap in the face is, you know, the report about the 200 judges being confirmed recently and McConnell celebrating that when he blocked so many, as you know, you were there for so many of Obama's appointments many, as you know, you were there for so many of Obama's appointments, including, you know, the Supreme Court one, and just blatantly

did it kind of laughed in the face. And this is these are effects that, you know, we'll feel for decades. Yeah. 200 judges. It's going to be it's crazy. It's also why. Right. If we don't if we don't win in November, that will be ratified not only across the federal courts, which will make it more difficult to win cases, obviously. But if we do get a Trump reelection and RBG goes, it will mean that those 200 judges will be affirmed by a right wing court for the next 30 years. I mean, it's and it makes addressing climate change if we win in the future, impossible. It will make a whole, we're facing so many problems that will require a court to be willing to take on entrenched power. And if we don't win, it's terrifying. I agree.

And a 6-3 or 7-2 Supreme Court is way different than a 5-4. Way different, you know. Yeah. That's like not a good future. Yeah. You can't just hope to get Gorsuch if you have two more Alitos. Yay, the future. We got to win.

We got to win. Also this week, Winona Ryder accused Mel Gibson of making anti-Semitic and homophobic comments at a party. When reached for comment, Mel Gibson said, who said that? Me? Come on. I didn't say that. I wouldn't do it.

I'm kidding. I said it. Of course I said it. Did he say that? Did he go back and say? No, he didn't admit it. He didn't admit it. He denied it. But is there anything less convincing than Mel Gibson denying that he got drunk at a party and said some anti-Semitic and homophobic things? I mean, Mel Gibson tries so hard to be racist. It's amazing to me the way that people try so hard to be racist. I mean, that's really going out of your

way to get in the racist lane. It's not like a slip up or whatever. You know exactly what you're talking about. And you know if you said some shit like that. Two DOJ whistleblowers testified for Congress about political interference by Bill Barr, with one career prosecutor, Aaron Zielinski, saying he was pressured to issue a lenient sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, and another official saying Bill Barr improperly targeted cannabis suppliers because he personally doesn't like weed. A DOJ that's hard on drugs but soft on crime is a real mixed bag for Roger Stone, who very clearly has a lot of affection for both.

One of Roger Stone's unindicted co-conspirators is methamphetamine, Larry. That's it. That's the joke. It's true because you know how high you have to be to get a tattoo of Richard Nixon on your back, you know? No one can do that sober. Earlier this week,

the Trump campaign announced that over a million people RSVP'd for his campaign kickoff rally in Oklahoma. Only 6,200 people showed up for the event, or 0.6% of the original number. Only 0.6% of people showing up at your party. What is this? Ivanka and Jared's Hanukkah party I think they're just so tired of being inside in Oklahoma.

People just showed up to that thing, you know. It's also, I think, you know, we wonder, so how many people are actually kind of inside of this media bubble so thoroughly that they'd be willing to disregard public health experts, pretend that coronavirus isn't a threat or actually believe it's not a threat to just go to this rally? And I think there's good news in the fact that it was much fewer, many fewer people than they expected. Yeah. Right. Like 6200 people, as opposed to the 19000, 50000, whatever they thought they could get, I think is a kind of hopeful sign. I'm not happy that there are 6,200 people that care so much about protecting this sort of racist, misogynist administration that they're willing to do this or to believe the propaganda that they've been fed. It's not a good thing, but it's better that it wasn't full. I agree with you on that. I think it's a glass half full more than a glass half empty. Now, Trump's speeches in Tulsa and Phoenix have come even as coronavirus has been surging across the country. Texas Governor Abbott paused the reopening and closed down bars statewide.

And Florida announced that bars would remain open, but they could no longer serve alcohol. So if you want to be completely sober in a packed room with loud music and the risk of serious illness, visit Florida. Oh, Florida, you never disappoint me. You know, people ride manatees down there, you know. Florida always has a way of just somehow finding the wrong thing to do all the time, you know. Guaranteed, John, listen to me right now. Florida will find a way to go Trump's way. All right. You've laid down the marker. I hope you're wrong. I hope you're wrong. Trust me, they always find a way to disappoint us. And finally, late Thursday night, the Trump

administration petitioned the Supreme Court to destroy the Affordable Care Act, including the provision that protects people with pre-existing conditions like COVID, proving once and for all that Trump's own White House really doesn't want him to be president anymore. Yeah. And let's be clear. This isn't just Trump. This is the cynicism of the Republican Party, that they've been trying to do this systematically for years now with such a cynicism and such a contempt for the American people, as far as I'm concerned on this. This makes me so angry, just not seeing what's right in your face, how much people are suffering right now. And this is going to be your priority to dismantle, you know, a health care provision right now. What's wrong with you? Like, that's a priority to make it harder for people to

get health care right now. It's so sinister. And it also it does speak, I think, I do think one of the reasons that you've seen more of an embrace of Medicare for all is you look at what happens when you try to build a coalition around a center left solution. Right. That starts with a kind of market based approach. The health care system largely remains intact. Some people could get Medicaid. There's additional consumer protections inside of the health care system. You add some money for subsidies so people can buy into that system to reduce the number of uninsured. You kind of basically kind of try to reform and fix the system while keeping kind of the capitalist aspects of it in place, originally a part of the idea emerging from the Heritage Foundation.

And still they attack it as socialism in an unrelenting way for a decade or more as unconstitutional. It's a truly monstrous regime. It's a regime and it is monstrous. They're lying, but I will stand up for the center left in this because it's not like Medicare for All hasn't been tried over the years. There have been many instances where that's been tried, but it's been pushed back. It was tried in the 70s. It was tried in the 60s. As you remember, Hillary Clinton was was trying to do that even at the beginning of the Clinton administration, you know, a version of that. At least Obama finally got something that was listening to the needs of the American people, because

even though those other things were tried, nothing was done. And if people think it's going to be easy to get Medicare for all passed, and they're saying how hard it was to get a center left position passed, good luck with the one on the complete left. Good luck. Oh, no, I know. I'm not disagreeing. I'm not arguing that there was any like I was in the White House. I was in the I was a speechwriter for President Obama during that entire fight. And I remember how hard it was because we had a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House. But these are not all people that walked into government on the day Barack Obama became president. A lot of these senators and House members were moderates who'd been there for a very long time and who themselves needed to be convinced. We had to get it through with 60 votes in the Senate. And a lot of people

say, oh, you know, Joe Lieberman killed the public option. Joe Lieberman didn't kill the public option. A bunch of Democratic senators killed the public option, all right, which would have just been a way of accessing the public system. Today, that's seen as the moderate position. And fair enough, the politics have changed. But at the time, it was seen as really hard to get that final piece over the hump. When people say, oh, you should have gone further to left, it should have gone harder. And the final parts of that negotiation, right, to get something through a Democratic Congress, every single bit of negotiation was around how left can you get this thing while still getting those votes, including Joe Lieberman killing the Medicare buy-in. But even that, which would have helped so many people, finally had to come out of the bill. So we kind of had a political science experiment of how left you could be and get through the Senate without losing enough of the progressives in the House. And that's what we did. It was hard politics.

No. And in all fairness, there are two things since we're getting into the nitty gritty of it. Yeah. Yeah. One, I'm going to take an unpopular position, which I don't mind. I do not think President Barack Obama came out for the public option in a way where he could win over the American people. To me, he was too neutral in that. You know, he kind of gave it to Congress to figure out that bill. He wasn't leading on it, you know, which I thought was a wrong way to go. That was the way he wanted to play it. And I understand probably the reason why, which is my second point. Remember, this was trying to be done as the economy was cratering.

And people were very concerned about, you know, financial issues and all that. Rightly so. You know, I'm talking about any, not necessarily an ideological person. You know, people were worried about jobs then and all kinds of things. And this was something they felt they needed to do right away while they had the political leverage.

But I'm not sure if they had the American people leveraged at that point. And to me, the tipping point would have been Obama coming out publicly for the public option. You know, he may have been private for the public option, but I don't think he was publicly for the public option. You know, he may have been private for the public option, but I don't think he was publicly for the public option. He was public. I will say, I think you can talk about emphasis, but you look back at that fight and it's difficult

to appreciate now, but huge Medicaid expansion, a big political fight, huge consumer protections, all right? Right. Pre-existing conditions, a host of other protections, basically a patient's bill of rights, right? That was the branding before. Huge, huge passing, huge, huge bill in and of itself, right? So you have a big Medicaid expansion. You have a big set of consumer protections.

The third piece, massive subsidies for the private system so that if you want to buy into these marketplaces and your income is below a certain level, you get money to help make insurance more affordable. Again, another huge thing. And as part of that conversation, President Obama talked about it often. A lot of people talked about adoption. There should also be, as part of that marketplace, a public option so you can buy into a Medicare-like option. And I think in the selling of Obamacare generally, the radicalism of a public option was never part of the messaging. The size of it, the importance of it, how big a deal it would mean to a lot of places, especially with just one insurance option, it would be to have

a public option. I just don't think that was ever central to the case or the public option to this day is seen as smaller than what the actual impact would be. That was true then. That's true now. So I think in that sense, it's true. Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. It's it kind of went like public option, you know, when it was talked about, because I'm, I mean, you're right. You know what?

He may have talked about it, but it went by like that. It wasn't the headline, you know? Yeah. And you know, you have to campaign for, for the big headline and convince the American people that that headline is

important to get on board with, you know? Yeah. I don't know. There's my observation on it, but I'm sure he was very concerned about what was happening in the economy, you know. Yeah, I know. There's my observation. But I'm sure he was very concerned about what was happening in the economy, you know, and protecting people's jobs and all that stuff, trying to get that started. And that makes complete sense to me, too. Yeah. And still

getting it done because of Pelosi and doing it through reconciliation and and all that. It's an incredible the achievement of Obamacare. It's pretty amazing that it's an amazing achievement. And I do think that given that there was so much reticence on the part of some Senate Democrats around the public option, you understand why you start focusing on these three big pillars that you can get done. And you're saying, well, we can either fight for a bigger subsidy for private insurance or give there and do a public option or what have you. You start to see why certain things fell out just to get something done, given how hard it was. Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of what I want.

Yeah. That was good. We got into it. We didn't have... We did. Look at that. We had some substance, Jenna. Substance from home.

Exciting. People love the substance. We do jokes. We do substance. People a little bit of everything, you know? Larry Wilmore, as always, such a pleasure to see you. I'm always so grateful when you do the show because I know we

will have a funny and incredibly smart conversation. And I'm grateful to you. Thank you. Let's keep doing it, man. This is an important year. I appreciate you, John. I appreciate you a lot. Thanks, man. Thanks, Larry. When we come back, gay news. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's Larry. When we come back, gay news. Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. This week at Crooked, Travelle Anderson and I hosted Crooked's first and hopefully last annual at-home pride parade, which featured special guests, a bunch of amazing drag queens who did some insane performances to celebrate certain adopt-a-state states to get people to volunteer, a bunch of LGBTQ politicians, and of course, gay news. We raised more than $50,000 for the Crooked Pride Fund, which you can still donate to at crooked.com slash pride fund, which goes to a bunch of really

worthy LGBTQ causes, including organizations fighting for trans people and trans people of color right now. But for those of you who couldn't join or watch the live stream, we wanted to bring you some of our favorite moments. So let's start with gay news with me, Travelle Anderson and Guy Branum. And we are back. And look who it is. Look who it is. Sandra Gay O'Connor, is Sandra Gay O'Connor, AKA Judge Learned Handy. I knew that was for you. That was for you. Guy Branagh. Thank you for having me.

Happy pride. I had leftover Rocket Man beads from last year. So I am having corporate pride all on my own. I have a rainbow flag from AstraZeneca. So I marked the occasion. I bought this at the local gay store that advertises on Drag Race. I will say that I did, this floral head dress, I did purchase from Jeff Bezos, personally.

From his personal collection. From his yard sale. He did a yard sale. This is a time full of compromises. Yes, yes. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna personal collection. From his yard sale. He did a yard sale. He's a time full of compromises. Yes, yes. You know, when we have Guy here, there's only one thing we can do. Is everyone ready? Travelle, can you do it with us?

I'm gonna try, but I'm gonna let you know. I don't know. Is it body bop bop bop bop bop or it's you have to imagine it's a news break uh in like 1930s radio that's vaguely what we're what we're appealing to so it's this just in but up i'll kick us off earlier this month in bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act makes it unlawful for employers to discriminate against LGBTQ workers. While I'm happy about Title VII, I would have preferred Title 69.

Gay news. In Justice Kavanaugh's dissent, he complained that they were being too literal with Title VII. You see, Title VII is a living document, not frozen in time and truth like the US Constitution or his platter entries from when he was 18 years old. It's true, you guys. We shouldn't take discrimination on the basis of sex on face value. We have a private meaning that no loving person has ever heard of, like devil's triangle or boofing. Or boofing. Boofing, he has his own definition of boofing. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba Buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh Gay news.

Gorsuch was of course nominated by Trump to fill the stolen Garland Supreme Court seat. Trump reportedly said, when I'm this disappointed by someone I hired, I expected to be my son, Don Jr., who I despise because my lack of empathy as a human being means ironically, I am too objective about what makes him terrible. Deep down, Don Jr. knows this, but has never known any other kind of fatherly love.

Gay news. And deep down, Don Jr. knows this, but has never known any other kind of fatherly love. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba- federal form that asks you what sex you are. But don't worry, this is only because Clarence Thomas's computer got stuck on the 54-point font and his granddaughter won't speak to him to tell him how to turn it off. 135 pages, conservatives always make everything four times too long as a tribute to Ayn Rand. Gay news. Gorsuch explained the reasoning behind his opinion. Consider, Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop He then added, but what if these two hypothetical workers are attracted to the same man? Surely these esteemed justices would recognize that such a situation would be ripe with comedic possibility. If it pleases the court, I'd like to submit a pilot.

Gay news. The ruling applies to both public and private schools at every education level, which means that your favorite history teacher is finally free to talk effusively about Lady Gaga's Chromatica without fear of Madison's mom who regrets marrying Madison's dad,

taking out her generalized anxiety by coming for his job. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Gay news. Guy Branum, thank you so much. Guy, how are you this Pride? It is so lovely to see you. It's lovely to get a dose of Pride. Bob Bob. Bob Bob. Gay news. Bob Bob. Gay news. Guy Branum, thank you so much. Guy, how are you, this Pride? It is so lovely to see you.

It's lovely to get a dose of Pride. I'm drinking the official drink of Pride. It's vodka poured into a vitamin water. Like I'm outside in the sun. Thank you both so much for giving us this dose of Pride. Because there's been a lot going on and I think it's important to remember that the LGBTQIAA

community, yes, we have always been political. Yes, we have always been fighting. But we have always been making it fun. We've always been making it cute as our fucking job. Guy Brown, everybody. Thanks to Guy and Travelle. When we come back, we're going to talk to Ari

Berman, Mother Jones reporter, about voter suppression efforts and what we can do to fight it. Don't go anywhere. Love it or leave it. There's more on the way. And we're back. He's a writer and author of Give Us the Ballot, the modern struggle for voting rights in America. Preeminent voter suppression expert, but the good kind about how to fight it, not how to do it. Ari Berman, good to talk to you. Good to talk to you. Yeah, I don't want to be thought of as the preeminent vote suppressor. So thank you for making that clear. Otherwise, then you'll die. And then your relatives will comb through your belongings, finding the evidence of your malfeasance, which is what

happened with the last great vote suppression enthusiast expert. So first question, we had these primaries unfold across the country. We had a number of really positive results in terms of progressives winning. But at the same time, there were problems and questions around voter access, especially in places like Kentucky. Can you talk a little bit about what you learned watching these primaries unfold? Yeah. So what I saw that was good was that turnout's been up in a lot of states in spite of all the barriers to voting. What's been bad is that voting has become harder because of coronavirus. There are states where there's already a lot of voter suppression, places like Georgia and Wisconsin, and they were a mess. But there's also been places that I didn't think were going to have problems. And there were really long lines there too, places like Washington, D.C. and Nevada, where

you had like seven hour lines. And so what's happening throughout the primaries is that a bunch of states have had to really abruptly expand mail voting. So like in Wisconsin, they went from 6% of people voting by mail in 2018 to 60% in the primaries. Nobody thought that was going to happen before coronavirus. And then states have had to close a ton of polling places because they can't recruit poll workers or they can't find polling sites. And that's led to really long lines at the polls. So that combination of really quickly switching to vote by mail and also not having enough

polling locations and then already having all of these GOP voter suppression laws in states like Georgia and Wisconsin has made the primaries really combustible when it comes to voting. So I feel like I find this challenging just as an observer trying to learn what's going on, which is, as you pointed out, we have this long running effort at voter suppression that Republican governors and legislators have enacted across the country. At the same time, we have this unprecedented pandemic that is testing voting systems that already in a sort of a nonpartisan vector have been neglected in a whole host of ways and had

a whole bunch of problems to begin with. How do you sort out the incompetence from the malevolence, the unique circumstances of the pandemic, and the active effort to suppress the votes of Democratic voters, Black voters, young voters? How do we figure out where to put our energy and think about that distinction? So the big problem is that the pandemic makes the malevolent efforts a lot easier to pull off. Like take voter ID laws, for example. If you don't have the ID you need to vote, it's harder to get it now because people don't want to go to the DMV. Or think about voter purging. If you're removed from the voter rolls, it's a lot harder to re-register if you're in a state like Texas that doesn't have online registration.

Or think of all the new people that were going to register to vote for the first time who might not register because voter registration drives are essentially shut down in all of these places. Or think about the fact that states like Georgia and Texas had already closed hundreds of polling places even before coronavirus hit. So the way I'm looking at it is that coronavirus has added a whole new layer of voter suppression. But it's also made people like me have to expand our landscape because normally in an election like this, I'd be focused on like five or six states, right, that are like the key voter suppression hotspots. Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, those kind of places. But now I kind of have to pay attention to elections everywhere because a state that might not have a history of voter suppression might not be prepared

to vote by mail in large numbers or might have had to close a lot of polling places, not because of malevolence, but because of just the circumstances of the pandemic. So it is hard to separate that, but there are still lots of states where it's clear that Republicans are committed to making voting more difficult, places like Georgia and Texas. And coronavirus has just added to that. And you can tell because there's all of this litigation right now over whether to make voting easier. And the Trump campaign and the Republican Party are involved in nearly every battleground state on the side of making voting harder. So that's a very easy way to tell whether it's malevolent or not. I want to talk about the Voting Rights Act. So Chief Justice John Roberts

writes this opinion, which basically says we no longer need to require certain states that were required under the Voting Rights Act because of a history of systemic abuse to be checked by the federal government in terms of putting in changes to the way elections run. How much of what we're seeing is directly tied to that in those states, in places like North Carolina and Georgia and South Carolina and the rest of the South? And how much of it is just a larger trend unfolding? It's both. So there were efforts to make voting more difficult before the Supreme Court got the Voting Rights Act, but it's a lot easier to pull it off in those states that previously had to approve their voting changes with the federal government. So, for example, Georgia closed 214 polling places from

2012 to 2016. They would have had to approve that with the federal government otherwise. Now, obviously, the Trump administration wasn't going to block Georgia from closing polling places. But the point is, is that states have put in a lot new restrictions that they otherwise wouldn't have. The southern states and some of the western states with a long history of discrimination, they've closed over 1,600 polling places since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. States that purged the voting rolls, states that previously had to approve their voting changes under the Voting Rights Act, they're purging voters at a rate of 40% or more compared to the rest of the country. So it's not like states that weren't subject to this part of the Voting Rights Act didn't have any problems. There was suppression in Wisconsin and Ohio and

other places. But it's definitely true that Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, they've taken advantage of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act to make voting a lot harder in those states. So, you know, we previously talked about a lot of these issues on Pod Save America, and we talked about sort of whether or not we sort of crossed a precipice beyond which it's difficult to say we're having free and fair elections. And I think it can be really dispiriting for people because they see this unfolding and the tools at their disposal, one of the great ones is voting, right? That the way we protect our democracy is through democracy. But what do you see as like the key thing that people who care about this issue can do right now to make sure that we're doing as much as we can to protect the vote in November? Usually in most states, there's a way to be active to vote and to make yourself heard.

So I think enough people turning out can overcome some of the suppression. And I think that was really the fundamental dynamic of the election is those who want to limit participation versus unprecedented movement now to try to expand political participation. And to me, that's kind of the defining storyline of the election. So what can people do? If you live in a state that has male voting, I would request your ballot early and make sure you have enough time to get it so that your vote is counted because a lot of states have restrictive laws in terms of how to get a ballot and how to send it back. If you want to vote in person, I would urge people to vote early to avoid long lines at

the polls. I would urge people to contact their secretaries of state. Believe it or not, there have been a number of secretaries of state that are Republicans that have tried to do the right thing. The Iowa secretary of state, for example, sent absentee ballot request forms to all registered voters. The secretary of state of Washington state, which is a total vote by mail state, has been outspoken about supporting vote by mail. So I don't think the Republican Party is necessarily marching in lockstep with President Trump when it comes to vote by mail. I would urge people to be poll workers if they can. One of the reasons that states are closing polling locations is because they can't recruit enough poll workers

because poll workers tend to be over 65 and at risk. So if you're young and willing and able, I would urge people to be poll workers. The good news in the primaries is that turnout has been up in a lot of states. So even with an unprecedented public health crisis, even with the voting system being really messy, even with President Trump waging this unprecedented disinformation campaign, people are still turning out and voting. And I'm fully expecting that that trend is going to continue in November. But I think you have to start thinking about what you can do now to overcome the barriers when there's still time to change the system. You know, in terms of Republicans, you're saying that there is they're not in long sit with Trump. You know, we have seen this divide. There have been state officials that have tried to do the right thing. Then you go to

someplace like Texas and you saw this kind of sinister effort to undo the work of a few localities that basically said our reading of the rules makes clear that the fear of the coronavirus should qualify people for an absentee ballot, according to Texas law, turned into this big fight. Now, it's been said by a lot of people, there's really not a lot of evidence to say vote by mail helps Democrats or it helps Republicans. It's just not clear that that happens. So what drives a Republican official to so ferociously try to fight a local effort like that to make sure people in some of these cities where their elected officials want people to be able to vote by absentee to try to stop it? What do you think drives that effort? Well, I think in Texas, the way the law is written, it explicitly helps Republicans.

explicitly helps Republicans. Because in Texas, people that are over 65, who tend to be much more Republican and whiter than the population as a whole, they can vote by mail for any reason. But if you're under 65, it's very, very difficult to get an absentee ballot. You either have to be out of your county, in prison, or you have to have a physical illness or a disability. Most states have said that coronavirus is a physical illness or disability, but Texas has said that fear of contracting coronavirus is a, quote, emotional condition, not a physical one. So basically, it's an unbelievable situation in Texas where if you're over 65, you can vote by mail for any reason. If you're under 65, you basically can't vote by mail. I mean, you couldn't come up with a system more perfectly calibrated to try to help the Republican Party and rig the electoral system than something like that.

And that's what really concerns me about November. In states that have expanded vote by mail, I think people are going to use it in huge numbers. But in the handful of states where it hasn't been expanded, where it's really restrictive, people are going to have no choice but to go to the polls. And coronavirus cases are surging in Texas right now. So you're saying to voters who are overwhelmingly Democratic in Houston and Dallas and San Antonio and Austin, you have to put your life on the line to go vote in person. I'm really worried that Texas in November, if things don't get better, it's going to be a lot like what we saw in Wisconsin in April, which are these really horrific lines in Democratic-leaning cities, and no lines in Republican areas,

because everyone's either old and voted by mail, or coronavirus isn't as bad in those places. So I think we've made a lot of progress in terms of expanding voting access in the primaries, but there are a handful of states, Texas chief among them, that has made voting a lot more difficult with the express purpose of trying to disenfranchise Democrats and communities of color. One last question. So obviously, this is all taking place in the context of a presidential election. Do you believe that Democrats are right now saying what they should be saying? Is the Biden campaign saying what it should be saying to make sure that if Democrats are able to win, Is the Biden campaign saying what it should be saying to make sure that if Democrats are able to win, that they can do the work next year to kind of reassert democracy, to protect democracy in a proactive way rather than in the defensive way we've had to be in the run up to this election?

I think the Democratic Party is getting better about it. I don't think the Democratic Party is as aggressive about expanding voting rights as the Republican Party is at suppressing voting rights. I think there's still a ways to go. But I think if you look at all the bills that have passed the House, whether it's H.R. 1, which is the most significant democracy reform bill in a generation that would make it a lot easier to vote, whether you look at a legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act, whether you look at all the bills they passed to prevent foreign election interference, whether you look at the fact that they've to prevent foreign election interference, whether you look at the fact that they've passed $3.6 billion in aid to states to help them manage their elections in November. There's a lot that Democrats have done in the House that I think people don't even know about. But I would certainly hope if Biden's elected, they're going to make restoring the

Voting Rights Act a top priority. They're going to make putting judges on the court, if there's any vacancies left, who would support ruling in favor of laws that favor voting rights. I think it was telling that this bill, the For the People Act, H.R. 1, was the first bill that passed the House when Democrats took over. And so I would hope that that's kind of what set the tone for what they would do in a Biden administration, because Democrats don't want to repeat this cycle, tone for what they would do in a Biden administration, because Democrats don't want to repeat this cycle, right? When Democrats get in there, they want to really aggressively make it easier for everybody to vote so that Republicans will lose the voter suppression edge that essentially they've had for the past decade.

Ari Berman, thank you so much for joining us. It was a really helpful conversation. Thanks so much, John. I appreciate it. Thanks to Ari Berman for joining us. When we come back, we're going to play a game about Trump's poll numbers. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. As we mentioned earlier, polls released over the last few weeks show Donald Trump has some pretty bad approval numbers, some bad polling numbers, some pretty exciting swing state numbers. Pretty bad approval numbers, some bad polling numbers, some pretty exciting swing state numbers. The New York Times has Biden up 14 nationally and surging in swing states, up 11 in Michigan and Wisconsin, 10 in Pennsylvania, 9 in North Carolina, 7 in Arizona and 6 in Florida. The numbers are slightly lower in Florida and Arizona because everyone in the state is too sick to pick up the phone. I'm very sorry about that, Joe. While these numbers are obviously a reason to be hopeful, we also should not take them too seriously. And the reason we should not take them too seriously is because we all should remember what happened in 2016,

when a lot of people got pretty fucking cocky about polling numbers and didn't consider just how good a chance there were that Donald Trump would win. We do not want to do that again. And so we wanted to play a game to highlight just how similar the current narrative is to 2016 in a game we're calling, hey, let's not fucking forget to go to Michigan this time. Here to play is CJ. CJ, how you doing? I'm doing great, John. I'm fabulous. What part of the country are you in, CJ?

I'm actually in Louisville, Kentucky right now. Wow. So yes, that's right. We are fighting still for justice for Breonna Taylor. It's actually quite interesting because a lot of people are in Frankfurt right now. And we've got Charles Booker kicking ass too. Sorry, Amy McGrath, you're gone. Did you vote in the primary yesterday?

Yes. Absentee ballot though, because COVID-19 ain't playing. And so it doesn't sound like you voted for Amy McGrath. It sounds like you voted for Booker. Absolutely. Duh. Are you working right now? What are you doing?

How's your day? What do you do? You wake up and what's your day filled with? So I wake up and I will work for my allotted time, get off, play either Smash or Pokemon. And then I will hang out with my boyfriend for the rest of the day and then go home, watch Rinse Repeat. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Smash Brothers was never for me.

Well, he gets really frustrated. And, like, we just played because we haven't played in a while because it was like a moment where, you know, I know you probably do this with Ronan where you like play a video game with him. And then like, you know, he's like good, but like, you know how to play video games. So it's like a whole thing. Yeah. I just think it means so much to him that he has such fun playing the games. And that's the most important thing. It doesn't matter that he's how good he is or isn't at these games. I will say it was a real strain in our relationship in the early days of Diablo three. When an item would drop, you had to race to pick up the item. And whoever got there first got the item. That was not good for our dynamic.

But when they introduced items that only went to one or the other the game decided it was it's how we managed to stay together i'm just delighted by cj i'm fun i'm just gonna let you go i don't even need to host anymore i'm so sorry just take over you just take over no it's good i can feel you on the reins a little bit i'm so sorry i am not how do i am not at all i am the you have the conch. The floor is yours. I'm enjoying listening to you. I'm delighted. Since the floor is mine, everyone, please make sure that you keep in perspective that

everything that's happening around the country is not something that people are just randomly doing it because if they were randomly doing it, it'd be randomly being done all the time. We're constantly traumatized. Oh, if you can't hear me, I'm black, but we're constantly traumatized by seeing these videos of our brothers and sisters dying all the time. And when I say brothers and sisters, that includes our trans brothers and sisters and our non-binary brothers and sisters, well, non-binary siblings, I guess. But we really, really, really need you guys to support us. Don't try to look for reasoning in our frustration, because guess what's not reasonable? Racism. So like, please give us a moment. Let us let our frustration out. We're going to come together. We're going to win in 2020. And we're going to start taking things down from the bottom to meet you. Thank you for sharing that. But stop stalling, all right? Okay. You're trying to get out of this game.

Yes. All right, we're going to play the game. Here's how it works. I'm going to read a headline from Trump polling numbers, and you have to tell us if it was from 2020 or 2016. If you think it's from 2020, say 2020. If you think it's from 2016, say Bernie would have won. No, say 2016.

Okay. Say 2016. Are you ready? Yes, I am ready. Trump whacked by more damaging polls 2020 2016 State Senate Democrats grow confident as Trump tanks in poll 2020

2016 Donald Trump's love affair with polls is definitely over 2020 2016, CJ. I'm trying to catch the pattern. I'm such a flop. I'm so sorry. Trump's poll numbers are so bad, the GOP is starting to panic about a wipeout.

2016. 2020. Donald Trump's poll numbers collapse as general election looms. 2020. 2016. It's also 50-50. That's what makes this especially sad.

How embarrassing. I mean, yeah, if you could flip a coin, you'd probably be doing better. That's the reality. GOP aghast as Trump polls sink amid divisive racial rhetoric.

2016. 2020. Trump faces bleak poll numbers five months before the election. 2020. You got it. So you can no longer. Are you going to make that noise every time you get it right? Or is that just a one time?

That's like my one time, you know, like I have to get it out. I've lost like, what, seven questions. So, I mean, I might as well celebrate. You're doing great. It doesn't even matter. You're doing so well. Trump threatens to sue his own campaign manager over bad poll numbers. 2020. Correct. Donald Trump says phony WSJ poll, a Rupert Murdoch hit. 2016. Correct. Coming back, coming back. Pollster, Trump approaching zero hour. 2016. Correct.

New polling data shows Trump faltering in key swing states. 2020. Correct. Trump campaign looks at electoral map and doesn't like what it sees. I don't like what I see either. 2020. Correct. It's slowly dawning on Trump that he's losing. I don't like what I see either. I think 2020. Correct.

It's slowly dawning on Trump that he's losing. That's fake. That's me. Probably 2020, though. Correct. Why Donald Trump can't get to 270. 2016. Correct.

CJ, you've won the game. Look at that. A slow start, and then you came out strong and just started winning. Absolutely. I just did a hair flip. Yeah, I just want to make sure people understand that he did a hair flip. But I have no hair. CJ, you've won the game. I assume there's some sort of a prize. I don't know what it is right now. We'll make sure you get one. It was great to talk to you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

And hang in there in Louisville. I will. Hopefully I don't get tear gassed this week. Yeah, I hope so too. Bye, CJ. Bye. We come back. A few more of our favorite moments from the Pride Parade.

Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. To mark pride, we also asked a bunch of friends to submit their favorite characters who they always secretly believed or wished were either LGBTQ or at the very least LGBTQ icons. And so what you're about to hear is Sam Pancake, Brian Kyle Goodman, Kara Swisher, Bowen Yang, Margaret Cho, Rosemary Ketchum, Katie Hill, Sam Fader, Justin Simien, all sharing their favorite queer characters or characters they believed were queer or just some characters who they think speak to pride in some fundamental way. We thought it was really funny, enjoyable, and we think you'll like it.

Okay, now that SpongeBob's come out. Hi, SpongeBob. Of course, we always knew. Other fictional characters I hope and suspect are also queer. The Crypt Keeper of Tales of the Crypt. It's like a piano bar gay, like an ancient gay man. I actually think most characters are queer, but that's a different story. Pepe Le Pew, who I think is bisexual, if not pansexual.

Johnny Bravo. Why is he trying so hard? Obviously Velma on Scooby-Doo. Animal from the Muppets. Scooby-Doo himself. Okay, here's the deal. They've been entertaining us for decades, and I just want them to know that they can live their truth.

Ren and Stimpy, come on out. Tommy and Chucky from Rugrats, to me, were my queer icons. They weren't queer lovers. I never thought they were lovers. But queer besties? Absolutely. Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. They're not dating each other, but they are lesbians. And I also thought

Susie Carmichael, the black neighbor who would come over, let's just call it what it was. Angelica was a bigot, okay? And Susie would come over and handle her like black women do, right? They handle the situation, okay? Took care of them queer babies. I watched a ton of Xena, Warrior Princess. And by the end, we definitely knew Xena and Gabrielle had a thing.

As I was coming to terms with my sexuality at that age, it would have made a big difference if they just came out and said it. That ridiculous, over-the-top Southern belle, Aunt Pity Pat, foghorn, leghorn, Southern senator character, Miss Lindsey Graham, he needs to come out of the closet and stop voting against LGBTQI

legislation. That character, that creature needs to come out of the closet. Come out, bitch. Thanks to everybody who submitted their queer characters. When we come back, we'll end on a high note. 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. Here it is, this week's high note submitted by our listeners. Hi, Love It. My name's Jack. I'm a college student. I've been spending quarantine

in this small town in Rhode Island. My high note this week was going to a Juneteenth rally at our local post office. It was small, but seeing people take action to support freedom for everyone gave me really good vibes. That energy has carried me through today as I'm volunteering virtually to reach out to voters in North Carolina, my adopted state. Thank you. I love your show. Bye. Hi, I love it. This is Grace from Cleveland, Ohio. My high note for the week is that after battling a chronic GI disease for most of high school and college, I have inflammation free

for the first time in six years. Thank you to everyone who works on the show. Have a great week. Hi, John Lovett. My partner is transgender, and he began transitioning in January, and his top surgery got postponed due to COVID, which was disappointing for him, to say the least, and us. But he had it rescheduled finally, he had it on Monday and he's doing great and we are so very excited. Anyways, thanks for making our Saturday mornings I wouldn't say brighter but funnier. Thanks to everybody who submitted those amazing high notes.

If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 424-341-4193. That's our show. It is 129 days until the election. Sign up for Vote Save America right now to defeat Donald Trump, keep the House, and win back the Senate. Thank you to Larry Wilmore. Thank you to Ari Berman. Thank you to all of our guests who joined for our pride stream. Thank you to our grocery workers, truck drivers, delivery people, restaurant workers, flight attendants, and everyone who had to choose between staying safe and earning a paycheck this week. Thank you to our doctors and

nurses and EMTs and first responders. And thank you to our whole staff working to keep this show going out and Crooked going strong. Have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a product of Crooked Media. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg, and our head writer, former Mike Bloomberg speechwriter, Travis Helwig. Jocelyn Kaufman, Alicia Carroll, and Peter Miller are the writers.

Bill Lance is our audio editor, and Stephen Colon is our sound engineer. Sydney Rapp is our assistant producer, and August Dichter is our intern. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McLean 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 Yale Freed for filming and editing video each week so you can.