Lovett or Leave It - No Coup for You

Episode Date: November 14, 2020

Biden wins and Trump tries to un-lose. Naomi Ekperigin is back to cover a week of dumb legal challenges and dumber press conferences. Then Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman talks about how well the vote went in PA and historian Michael Beschloss joins to discuss the unprecedented rejection of democracy by Republicans and what happens next. Plus listeners share high notes and join to play a game as Georgia heads into two make-or-break run offs. What a week.

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, Back in the Closet Elect. P-P-P-President Elect. Bum, bum, bum. Love it, leave it, love it. He's in the closet again Love it Leave it He's back in the closet again

Is that good? Travis, that song was abysmal. Once again, I call upon you to help make sure that we never have to hear that song again. If you want to make a back-in-the-closet elect theme song, whatever that means to you, please send it to us at leaveitatcrooked.com. That's leaveitatcrooked.com.

Later in the show, we are joined by the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, and Presidential Historian, Michael Beschloss. But before we get to the show, just a little 2020 housekeeping, or should I say Senate keeping? I'm sorry. Boo. 2020. Thanks, Travis. Thanks for coming in with the boo. Look, we won Georgia for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and we managed to get John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock into a runoff. The Senate hangs in the balance. We can help Reverend Raphael Warnock defeat Kelly Loeffler. We can help John Ossoff defeat David Perdue. We have a shot. And if we flip the Senate, we can stop Mitch McConnell's obstruction. We can pass a climate bill. We can raise the minimum wage. We can expand healthier. We can do so much of what we've been fighting for for the past four years. That's why Vote Save America is back with Adopt-A-State Georgia. You can sign up to Adopt-Georgia at votesaveamerica.com slash Georgia. Keep an eye

on your email for the best ways to help organizers on the ground. They flipped the state for Biden and Harris. We can help them finish this out. There are ways that you can donate directly to the campaigns, to Stacey Abrams, to a bunch of other really good organizations through our Every Last Vote fund

that's helping people right now. So go to votesaveamerica.com slash Georgia. But first, she's a comedian, actor, writer, and co-host of the podcast Couples Therapy. Please welcome back returning champion, Naomi Ekperigan. So good to see you. Ooh, so good to see you. You're still giving me COVID curls with a hint of shape.

You bet. And we're just doing our best. We're doing our best today. COVID is still here. Even as we have had a big victory, we are confronted by the reality that our problems remain despite achieving a big goal. And we do our best. I think the children had to learn this now. You know, I think as a whole generation of children who are learning, life's not supposed to be fun. You know, they were going to learn it sooner rather than later. Let's get

into it. What a week. On Saturday, the day our last episode was released, the AP Times and networks finally called it and anybody who isn't afraid of Newsmax or Lou Dobbs acknowledged that Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States of America. Across the country, people took to the streets waving American flags, chugging champagne and malort, dancing on cars and singing Sweet Caroline in front of the White House as Melania hummed along inside. Wow. I forgot about her. I forgot about her in the mix of all this. You're right.

This is some free time for Melania finally. I just like imagining her along in the White House being like, what was that? Nothing. What was, excuse me? Nothing, I was just humming. Humming what? Nothing.

As you all know by now, Rudy Giuliani and Corey Lewandowski were planning on giving a bogus voter fraud press conference at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, but accidentally booked the parking lot of a business called Four Seasons Total Landscaping, which is located in industrial Philadelphia between a dildo store and a crematorium.

Now, Naomi, this was one of the funniest things to ever happen. Twitter has already kind of had its way with this material. But I did want to say one thing, which is I'm proud of us because while we knew it was a parking lot next to a normal run-of-the-mill sex shop, we all ran with calling it a dildo store. Because dildo is a funny word. And when you say sex shop, it conjures many things. But when you say dildo store, it conjures fewer things. Fewer things in a livelier array. You know what I mean? To really think of it. That was literally the funniest thing to ever happen in the world. Like it was

too, it was just so perfect. It was just so perfect. It's like, you're such a loser on so many levels, you know, not just presidentially, just psychically you're a loser. Existentially you're a loser. Look, there's nothing wrong with having a press conference next to a store that sells sex toys. We have to be sex positive. We have to be dildo positive. Well, I'm sex negative, John

Lovett. I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm sex negative and I'm no longer afraid to say it. Okay? I just, it's so it's the moisture, it's the liquid, I just like am sex negative. And so it's like, I don't have to be anything else.

No, you can be sex negative. You can be sex negative. Thank you. All I'm saying is we can flip it and say this. Oh, you can't believe they held a press conference next to a dildo store? I can't believe I have to buy dildos next to a place Rudy Giuliani goes to undermine democracy. What's this press conference doing next to my dildo store? I'm just a good American Democratic supporter, believer in voting and voting rights, trying to buy a sex toy.

And I got Rudy Giuliani here. And especially, like, I feel like that's the weekend you needed it. That's the weekend you needed to get out some tension by yourself, you know? And you're right. Giuliani's a real buzzkill. A real sexual buzzkill.

Like Rudy Giuliani being like, okay, the press conference is over. Thanks, everybody, for coming. You all go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go, go, go, go, go. No, I'm fine. I'm fine.

I don't need a ride. I have a car. I have a car. No, I know it doesn't look like I have a car. I have a car. Just go, just go, just go, just go. I'm not. No, I'm not.

I'm just going to read emails. I'm just going to. I'm fine. You guys go ahead. No, I'm not going. I'm not going anywhere. As we all expected, Trump is refusing to concede, claiming over and over that there was massive voter fraud while the campaign begged supporters to bring them evidence of it.

Claiming you made a massive discovery and then scrambling to prove it's real is what we call in politics pulling a Theranos. Oh, there it is. Take that. There it is. Elizabeth Holmes. Never forget Elizabeth Holmes. I feel like we've forgotten her. And I want to say I really appreciate you bringing her back into public consciousness. I feel like we've forgotten her, and I want to say I really appreciate you bringing her back into public consciousness. Have I ever told you that I met Elizabeth Holmes at a party and I told Ronan she's super convincing either she's being railroaded or she's a sociopath?

But I did find her persuasive. You did? I was like, God, yeah. This Wall Street Journal thing's a racket. Fake news. I want this cool blood test. She's smart. I like her. I'll give her money.

She's smart. I want this cool blood test. So deep. Such a deep voice. I know. The campaign was also forced to shut down their voter fraud hotline after it was inundated with prank calls from TikTok teens trying to order pizza, report Antifa, and tell long-winded stories that slowly revealed that they spotted the Hamburglar.

It's ironic that prank calls are decimating the Trump campaign because it was Trump's idea to give the jerky boys the Mark Twain award. That was a journey. Okay. It was a journey. It was a long, what I call a long muddy walk. That's a long muddy walk. We got there, but we kicked up a lot of dirt. So let me tell you, I just want to tell you a little BTS on that joke, a little behind the scenes. I was like, oh, I want to say that the Jerky Boys are heroes. And then I was like, back of my mind, I bet they were racist. Back of my mind, I'm like, I feel like those voices are not allowed today. I don't remember, but I was in summer camp, I think. And so I was like, wait, we can have Trump give him an

award. Then we're safe because Trump sucks. That was real good. Okay. Now I see where you went there. I see where you went. That's why. That's what happened. That's what happened in the story of that joke. Also this week, the Trump campaign has been aggressively asking for donations to fight the election results. But the fine print says only donations greater than $8,000 will go toward that. All smaller donations are funneled into a new PAC or the RNC to spend how they see fit. Trump has had a tough week, so who can blame him for cheering himself up

with just some light grifting? Just some light, just a hobby of grifting. Meanwhile, Trump has actually said to close aides he has basically no path to keeping the presidency while still publicly rejecting the legitimacy of the election. Of course, privately admitting it's hopeless while publicly acting like there's a

chance of success is a skill Trump learned raising Don Jr. Ha ha ha! Yeah, baby! Get him! Get that DJ! Get that DJ! We gotta get the last couple ones in because we're about to forget that they exist. You know,

we're this close with this close. Honey, I hope so. They look so much like if Jabba, the hut lost weight, I was looking at an image of the two boys, you know, Eric and Don,

and I forget which one doesn't have a chin, but I just, it's like they were smiling and it's, you know, it's a very specific person to look worse when they smile, you know? And they're two of those kinds of people. It's like, they were smiling. And it's, you know, it's a very specific person to look worse when they smile, you know? And they're two of those kind of people. It's like they were smiling and it was like, oh, too much, too much.

They smile like they deep down, like they know deep down, you know? They just know. They know what's going on. They know. They all know. First Lady Melania Trump is reportedly refusing to meet with Joe Biden. He will become first lady when Joe Biden takes office. That is, of course, unless Jill can make it through her terrifying Christmas maze.

Find the Slovenian goat ornament to buy herself an extra 10 minutes before the Minotaur is released. Oh, that's fun. Wouldn't you want to be a fly on the wall for that? Fucking Jill and Melania. Like, what was that conversation even be? Melania wouldn't say words. She would just kind of sit there silently. And then I think Jill would just like take a sip of her tea.

It's like inside of that room, all the kutraman, the power, all of it kind of melts away and it's just two people. I think about like the letters that presidents write the next president and put in the desk. And, you know, the one, you know, the one from like George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton is like, your success is now our country's success. I'll be rooting for you. Or Reagan wrote a letter to George H.W. Bush and it was like, I'll miss our Thursday lunches. And the letter from Barack Obama to Donald Trump was like, dear Mr. Trump, here are the reasons why democracy is important. Please, please chill the fuck out. Hey, hey, chill the fuck out. Please, please try for the love of God. It's really important you not make this all about you, please. And he didn't sign it Barack, he signs it B-O. I think there was like a real, there's a real balance, right? To try to be cordial without being familiar, without treating him with the respect.

All that's worth saying, it's like when Jill Biden and Melania Trump are sitting down to have a conversation, I don't care that Melania is the first lady and Jill Biden's about to become the first lady. That's Jill Biden humoring this lady who has no business being there. Oh, God, that's so true. Oh, my God. We never have to talk about her again. Ooh, Melania. Never again. That's beautiful.

Because she's going to go into hiding. Like, we're never going to see her again publicly, I think. The rest of them are going to die. We barely saw her when she was first lady. Well, thank you. She was not interested in this job. At all. She was livid.

She was like, I don't want to be here. How dare you? Yeah. This was the worst way to get a green card I could have possibly imagined. I ought to say that. I don't even know. I'm going to get in trouble. I don't want to be here. How dare you? Yeah. So this is this was the worst way to get a green card I could have possibly imagined. I ought to say that. I don't even know I'm in good trouble. I don't care. Trump has also told senior government officials to block cooperation with President-elect Biden's transition team, which means Joe Biden's team of seasoned professionals with decades of governing experience won't be able to get any pointers from RNC interns with donor parents who were promoted to deputy ag

secretary. Like I want them to get the resources and I want Joe Biden to get the briefings. But like the whole idea of the transition is like you meet with your cohort so you can learn the ropes. They never learned the ropes. They don't know the ropes. These people don't have the ropes. They will literally be walking around and they'll be like, here is a bathroom. And it's like, sir, that is an office. Like they couldn't give you a tour of the building they worked in, first of all. And then second of all, briefings? You know Trump's briefings are written in wingdings. There is no way there is anything useful on a sheet of paper in his office. There was this, there was a story about, and I think it's, you know, jokes aside, it is worrying, right, that Donald Trump will leave office and obviously he's going to need money. He needs a lot of it. And he has all these

classified information that he does not respect the institutions that classified it. He may use it against him. He may be angry at the deep state, something he's invented. And then I'm like, wait a second, Donald Trump is going to reveal information. He hasn't learned anything new since like 1989. Like he hasn't retained anything that wasn't on a New York Post cover with Dinkins on it. Like that's the last thing he retained. Oh, my God. Oh, that is the one silver lining, right? Dumb as bricks. So that at least he's not going to get anything out there. He just doesn't. He just doesn't think he needs to learn anything.

So he hasn't. I mean, I said this to Alyssa last week. It's like, we really now have this experiment complete. Like, he got to be president of the United States. You travel the world. You meet every foreign leader. You have access to the deepest, darkest secrets of this country. You can call upon wisdom from anyone at any time in the world at your fingertips.

You can meet people who understand every facet of life, scientists, people who have suffered, people who are advocates. You have access to virtually every aspect of humanity. And he learned not a thing. He grew not at all. Nothing. Nothing. Wow. Think about how much you grew in your first job. Just like, oh, I learned about that.

I learned when I was a paralegal. And I learned when I was, like, was emptying boxes. You know, you learn. You just learn. Okay, I grew just reading the Harry Potter. I mean, we don't like her anymore, but it was part of growth. And it's like, the fact, it's almost like, to me, it feels like, oh, it's way more work to not grow.

Like, it's almost like it was active. You know what I mean? Like, how did you manage that? That is really hard work. It's like harder to stay dumb when you have all that access. Like, I really learned from Harry Potter that human beings come from immutable groups, and those groups are really, really important.

We should really divide children into groups when they're small and judge them in perpetuity by those groups and not allow them to choose their groups. Have the groups chosen for them by adults or by a system they can't understand and have that dictate the terms of their existence until the day they die. That's sort of what I took away. I can't believe, I don't know. I don't know, Naomi. I think the warning signs were there. Oh, I guess you're right. I guess you're right.

I don't know. This bitch said if I had a feeling, I could turn it into a horse. And yet for some reason, I can't change my gender expression and identity. Okay, JK. I'm done. These aren't the issues we came to discuss. Yeah, no, and I'll just confess right here, I haven't read Harry Potter. Well, you got it.

I got the gist. I got the gist. Three more White House staffers have tested positive for COVID, including Housing Secretary and blinking enthusiast, Dr. Ben Carson, all signs point to the White House election night party as a super spreader event.

But Corey Lewandowski claims he got it while he was in Philadelphia, which means all those people didn't even have to go into the dildo store to get fucked over. Back to that. Back to that. We're back. We're back at the dildo store. And with some very promising news,

Pfizer, who we all stan, announced this week... We have to stan. We can't help it. It's Pfizer. We love them. Announced this week that their COVID vaccine was 90% effective against the virus,

and Dr. Anthony Fauci said it might be available to all Americans by April 1st. I want that vaccine, Naomi. And look, I know they say that it's going to go to frontline workers and maybe nursing homes first, but you know that Palantir is involved, and that probably means, I've seen them talking about their supply chain,

I think that means that there's going to be some of these cold trucks that get rerouted, and I want in on that action. Oh my God. We could have that for for you i don't want the first round i i was there too i was there too and the longer this goes on the more i'm like just try it on me like it honestly like i have i was so i would have been so cautious and now i'm like i don I don't know. There's a trial. I'll do it. Put me in. Put me in. And finally, a source told Reuters that Trump is planning to run for president again in 2024. That's the whole joke, right?

There's nothing after that. As if America would ever elect Donald Trump. Maybe. That's why your name is Lovett. Oh, is that why? Naomi, how are you doing? Honey, I'm doing my best. I'm doing my best in choir, just feeling stir crazy, feeling very yellow wallpaper. I just, I'm just seeing things in the walls and I don't know what to do about that. But, you know, I'm doing good. Still podcasting. How are you doing?

I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. Part of me thinks, look, obviously what Trump is doing to undermine the election is very scary. I understand being scared. I understand taking it seriously. We should obviously take it seriously when one of the two major parties abandons democracy, even if our laws right now are still strong enough to resist it. But a part of me does think that a lot of people are kind of vibrating with anxiety around this because it's a complicated moment. You know, it really is. Like we are at the end of this election. It was a, you know, we focused on 2018. We focused on down ballot races. We focused on the Senate. But removing Trump was like the great goal of tens of millions of people all at once, all over, all at the same time. And we're on the verge of it being done. It won't feel safe until he's truly gone. Yet there's

not much we can really do right now on that one project of removing him. We're still in this pandemic. They're attacking the democracy. They're attacking our victory, which we're so proud of. And we're stir crazy and we don't know what to do with these feelings. So I feel like a lot of people are texting and tweeting about the coup attempts

because they need the feelings to dictate the news as opposed to the news dictating the feelings to some extent. You know what I mean? I do. I think it's also, you know,

there is something that you said, you know, a little anticlimactic, right? Like Joe won, but not in some of the places we wanted him to. And it took a week to find out. And like, and I just, you know, people were celebrating in the streets. Oh my God. You know, in so many places. But other than that, it still was that feeling of like, oh, but now what?

It doesn't feel different yet. The world doesn't feel different yet. As you said, it's like, we it's like we're still in it. So I think there's also that too. Because you're like, okay, we did the thing. But it doesn't feel like, what do we do now? Who should I be tweeting about? Who should I be hashtagging?

It's a little bit like we drove to the church. We banged on the glass. We fled the altar. We got on the bus. We can't believe we did it. And then all of a sudden we're like, oh. What's your last name? Like, I feel like that's the energy of the graduates.

We're like, I don't know your last name, do I? You know, it's real, real uncomfortable. Real like, do you want to get a burger or? We should probably find out if we have anything in common. Exactly. It's interesting. Like, there is a connection, right? There's a connection between the people who Democrats think should be part of their base, but are choosing whether to vote at all. And the kind of rural white voters who have abandoned Democrats for Republicans.

And the connection is they just don't see any tether between what Democrats say and what actually happens. They don't see any connection to it. And so like we talk to people who complain about the electoral college, they complain about the Senate, I'll complain about the Senate. But these anti-democratic institutions have been with us. We can either fundamentally restructure the country, which is incredibly difficult, or we can go figure out why a state like Utah expands Medicaid, but would never vote for a Democrat in a million years. Why a state like Montana legalizes weed and then rejects Steve Bullock. We have to start having that conversation. That's all. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. For real, for real. Naomi

McParrigan. Well, honey, this was good for my soul. I hope it was helpful. Cut out all the offensive things I said. You know your audience is very active. I don't like them coming in with mentions. I said, honey, I'm not here for it. I'm too old. Listen, if you come into Naomi's mentions with anything short of worship,

you throw your phone in the fucking garbage. All right, you hear me? Well, I'm trying to become the Kamala of comedy. You know that, honey. I'm like up in here. I am exactly Kamala D. I don't know. I was like, you hear me? Well, I'm trying to become the Kamala of comedy. You know that, honey. I'm like up in here. I am exactly Kamala D. I don't know. Like, I was like,

she's up in here, honey, giving you a laid hairstyle and a supportive Jewish husband. I said, hello? That's me. That's right. That's me. That's right.

That's right. Supportive Jewish husbands. Listen. Yeah. Maybe we all find the supportive Jewish husbands in our hearts, you know, that we all need. Be the supportive Jewish husband you want to see in the world.

Exactly. Exactly. Thank you so much, Naomi Ekperigan. As always, when we come back, I'm joined by John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. He is the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. Please welcome John Fetterman. Thank you so much for being here. Hey, thanks for having me.

All right. When this comes out, it is Saturday, a week since the networks and everybody called it, almost two weeks since the election. You have been sounding the alarm about how ridiculous some of these accusations of voter fraud and malfeasance have been. Where do we stand right now in counting the votes and certifying that Joe Biden won the vote in Pennsylvania? We're very, very close to finishing all the ballots. I believe the deadline is the 23rd in Pennsylvania to certifying. And this idea that there was any fraud, I mean, it went off incredibly smoothly, actually. This was by far and away the biggest election we've ever had in Pennsylvania. And what was even more unique, in addition to the record high turnout, was the fact that we were using mail-in ballots for really the second time. And it worked beautifully, quite frankly.

And the, quote, delay that there was in counting all the ballots was only because, and only because that's the way the GOP orchestrated that, because they wanted to. They didn't grant any additional time to pre-canvass. They didn't even give us 24 or 48 hours to open up the envelopes and let us just get the ballots ready to be counted. So that's exactly how it was orchestrated. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. If we weren't in this sort of fake argument over these accusations, I think we'd all be talking about how remarkable it is that this election went off so successfully and that I really actually want to applaud you and other leaders in Pennsylvania for the job you did just getting the word out and educating voters to

make sure their ballots were in on time, the naked ballot issue, the fact that so many people showed up and voted provisionally because of what the courts had ruled about the potential for ballots that came in late to be counted. What are some of the lessons for you as they make these allegations, these false allegations about how to make sure our elections are safe in the future? Because, you know, this is an incredible crisis in terms of the coronavirus. A bunch of effort was made to make sure people could vote fairly. And Republicans in the legislature made it impossible. They basically said, we don't want to count ballots before people vote and we don't want to count ballots after people vote. How do we protect votes against this kind of stuff in the future?

Well, in Pennsylvania, it's going to be difficult. The grand irony in all of this is, is that the vote by mail law was championed by the GOP more than anyone. And you can look up the votes. A lot more Republicans voted for it than Democrats because their holy grail was to get rid of straight line voting. In other words, you walk into the ballot uh room and push one button and vote straight democrat down the line and then you were done and that was the thing that they they wanted to get rid of worse than anything and they agreed to do mail-in ballot just to get rid of that as an option in pennsylvania and then when the dynamic flipped after the pandemic and it became obvious that you couldn't vote safely or as safe as you could in person so what they decided to do was is like it became clear that and their messaging was and I'm using, you know, the slang.

It's like your pussy. If you vote by mail, you need to just do your civic duty and work and vote in line. And it became clear very early on that an overwhelming majority of Democrats were going to vote by mail and the same wearing masks and practicing social distancing. And the Republicans were going to vote in person. So we knew that there'd be a red wave coming and there'd be a blue wave. And we wanted it to just be on election night and have it go smoothly. But they refused to allow that pre-canvassing. So we knew it was going to collide, but there'd be a delay without pre-canvassing so we knew it was going to collide but there would be a delay without pre-canvassing and whichever way was bigger would be the one that prevailed and that's exactly what happened now to make it any safer to make it run any better i don't think it could have if they would have given us three days of pre-canvassing we would have dropped our

results with florida and all these other states that have mail-in ballots that allow basic pre-canvassing. So I've made a big deal out of it. The only documented case of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, and I've said this time again, and it's documented, is a Republican in Luzerne County who tried to have his dead mom vote for Trump. And that's the only case. And this idea that yelling about voter fraud in the absence of any evidence whatsoever is not free speech. That is the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater. And it is damaging the Democratic franchise of our country. And it is a threat to the peaceful transition of power, which is one of the bedrock principles of our entire country. You know, you brought up this straight ticket

voting. And just for people listening, basically, you know, on a Pennsylvania ballot, you could just check, I'm voting for the Democrats or I'm voting for the Republicans. And the Republicans wanted to change that. It sounds like they were a little bit worried. Desperate to change that. Because they wanted to get some Trump voters. They didn't want people that were going to vote for Joe Biden to not be able to vote for a name that they recognized. They were worried about power. They were trying to keep their seats. And so they allowed for mail-in balloting. And then when there was this negotiation in Pennsylvania over trying to count the ballots early, Republicans said, oh, well, then you have to get rid of some drop boxes. We need a concession.

We need some kind of anti-democratic concession if we're going to let you do that. And it sounds like what you're saying is Democrats have been trying to strengthen the electoral system in Pennsylvania, and Republicans have been trying to get concessions in order to do that, which is another way of saying they view democracy as a democratic value and they need some other thing to make it worth their while. Look, obviously I get that that's power. Is this how they talk about our elections? Is this how they, do they, do they talk about fraud? Do they make these allegations about the voting boxes when nobody's around, when there's no cameras on? From the president on down to the lowest state rep or whoever knows that there's no merit to

any of it. Because right now you have the Pennsylvania GOP arguing that there was fraud, but not in their race. In my race, there was no fraud. But yeah, the other race, oh, there was fraud. Absolutely. And it's absurd. And there's zero integrity or logic to it. And they know that. And this is just saying whatever there is. And it's absurd. And there's zero integrity or logic to it. And they know that. And this is just saying whatever there is. And that's why I'm saying that it's reckless. And I believe it's unlawful to say these things that are defamatory of our democracy. Where's your evidence? Every Republican in Pennsylvania has been feverishly looking for voter fraud for over a week. And the only thing is, again, my dude in Luzerne County

that tried to vote for his dead mom for Trump. Where is the evidence? They don't have it. They know it. We know it. Everyone knows it. But they're banking on the principle that the bigger the microphone, people will believe that the lie is true. And that's precisely what their coordinated effort is with the president's campaign. So I want to step outside of about this fight over the votes themselves and more about sort of why Pennsylvania was so close. You know, you're somebody who has gotten some notoriety because you don't sound like typical politician. You speak your mind.

You're pretty incredibly direct. You know, we've seen in across the country, progressive ballot measures, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid, legalizing marijuana. You've been outspoken about that. A host of other issues, even in just very red states, these kinds of progressive bills pass. And yet Democrats struggle to get elected. Democrats struggle to convince majorities in those states that they're on their side, or it's really close. It's a really tough fight. What are some of the lessons you take away from seeing 71 million people sign up for Trump after the last four years we have? What are you thinking about when you see these people that you think we should be able to convince and we're not able to

convince? If I did anything right in this election, it was recognize how inherently popular Trump was going to be. And I was warning. I was like, you know, when I read that the economists gave him a 93 percent chance of losing in Pennsylvania, I'm like, get out of here. Like, this is not true. And then when you see the pictures from these events, the president understood how he needed to play Pennsylvania. And I have to say, like, if Pennsylvania was winnable, he did everything that he could. In fact, I suggested on Twitter back in September, whatever candidate made the move to legalize weed, whether it was the president or whether it was Joe Biden, could have locked it up. And I feel like that view has been vindicated because you see how close the election has been

and how powerful. I called it the bazooka of legal weed. And that is focusing in on these true principles. And the war on drugs has been a disaster. It has punished communities and people of color vastly disproportionately. Florida passed a $15 an hour minimum wage. I mean, like that is mind blowing to me. When we can't get our legislature to go above $7.25, the federal minimum wage, you're not going to convince people that Donald Trump is

wrong. You don't have to convince all of them that he's wrong, but you have to convince and reach a certain majority of them. And I think that's what the governor and I did in Pennsylvania. Trump won Pennsylvania in 16. He and I won Pennsylvania by 850,000 votes, a swing of nearly 900,000 votes. So that tells me that there are people that are open to like a good, earnest, honest argument. That swing total is remarkable as the most votes any governor and lieutenant governor team ever got in Pennsylvania history. So my experience in Pennsylvania is, is that if you run on these kind of core values and truth and you convey it with a level of integrity and sincerity, that that is where you need to be. And it's the direction more than the specific destination, as far as I'm concerned.

You know, in 2016, I know that you got behind Bernie Sanders. This election, you stayed out, you were lieutenant governor. What are you hoping to see in terms of policy announcements, direction from Joe Biden? What do you want to see from this transition that'll tell you that Democrats get it, that they understand what they need to do to provide that vision, provide that direction? Sure. Well, we're at record high levels of COVID in Pennsylvania and we are across the country. I mean, the building's on fire right now, in terms of that. So I'm encouraged to see the president-elect making that a priority and him convening the task force and being able to make this argument very effectively that masks are not an argument anymore. We are going to take this virus very seriously and we're not going to wage war with each other or science. We're going to wage war with this virus.

And I think that's first and foremost. I've been discouraged by some of the infighting in my party, blaming one side or this or that. And it's like, you know, right now we all need to come together as a country and a party. And it's like, I don't begrudge any rep, whether it's state or federal, their opinions, their views, how they articulate and

carry their flag for their constituents. I would never judge anyone for running on their truth. It's not going to cost me any votes. You know, I'm going to run on my truth. So I hope we don't digress into that kind of stuff that you've seen happen. And I think Joe Biden understands that the virus, first and foremost, is the top order of business because we are headed for a really grim winter if he doesn't. Yeah. Last question. You've also publicly talked about losing a ton of weight. I haven't talked about it a lot, but people kept asking.

And I agreed to talk about it because if it could help somebody else. What is the worst thing you've eaten in the last two weeks? The worst thing I've eaten? What's the worst thing you've done to yourself? I've done some horrible things to myself this past two weeks. Out here was, there's a pizza place called Vincent's. I really had an unhealthy relationship with one of their large pies. I actually used to celebrate after Pennsylvania was called last Saturday. So, you know, cutting out grains and sugars was my secret. But I kind of fell off the wagon to celebrate. But yeah, it's been a strange time here in Pennsylvania.

I miss normal, whether it's the pandemic or this idea. Like, you look at the president's Twitter feed, and you're talking about so-and-so changed 500,000 votes and all this other stuff. And it's just like, this is like North Korea or something, you know? And we have to turn our backs on that. The media has to turn its back on that. Any citizen that just, it just, I'm just grateful that enough news organizations have called it, especially Fox.

Like right now, Fox News is public enemy number one on Trump's Twitter feed because math, because math. They called Arizona. They call Pennsylvania. They call these states. And I salute them because math carried the day. It certainly did in Pennsylvania. I knew as soon as X number of provisional ballots of mail-in ballots were as predictively democratic as driving a Subaru or predictively Republican voting in person as a underarmor golf shirt. You know, I mean, you could just know, you just knew that how it was going to break down. And it was math. And it took too long, in my opinion, to call it in Pennsylvania, but I'm glad they did.

And now it's just math. And there's no way the president can win at this point. Well, Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, thank you so much for your time. I think you earned that pizza. If you had to cheat on anything, a Vinnie pie is, you know, it's worth the hit. It's worth the hit. All right. That's good advice, too. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you for having me, really. Thank you to the Lieutenant Governor for joining us. When we come back,

we're going to play a game about these Georgia runoffs. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. The Senate. It gives 40 million Californians the same power as 500,000 people from Wyoming who are called Wyomingites. But it feels like it should be Wyoming's. people from Wyoming who are called Wyomingites, but it feels like it should be Wyoming's. And the word for the way we describe someone from a place is called a demonym,

a word you rediscover when you Google it and are like Michigander. Sure. Anyway, we thought, but weeks ago, that the Senate could be ours. And then the polls were like, no, no, no, no, not yet. But in Georgia, where thanks to tireless organizing by Stacey Abrams and Black Voters Matter and many other organizers and campaigns and volunteers on the ground, Joe Biden won the state. And we have a chance in this runoff to flip both of Georgia's Senate seats. That is a chance to end McConnell's obstruction, raise the minimum wage, expand health care, restore voting rights, fight climate change, and it's a chance to eject two of the most ridiculous, corrupt, pathetic politicians in Washington. In fact, the Republican senators in Georgia are so corrupt and craven, we don't think you'll be able to tell who is who in a game we're calling

Loeffler, Perdue, or Mr. Burns. Joining us to play, we have Amy, who is, I believe you're in Georgia right now? That's right. Yeah, I'm in Decatur, just outside of Atlanta. And you've been volunteering and you've been not, what have you been up to? So for the general, I did a bunch of texting with the Georgia Democrats and the National Party in Fair Fight. And then I wrote postcards with the Georgia Postcard Project, where we were sending postcards all throughout the state to get out the vote, give people the voter protection hotline number and all that sort of thing. So I'm excited to do a lot more of that for the runoff and maybe some phone banking too. Great. And just so you

know, look, you know, Stacey Abrams encouraged us to make Georgia and adopt a state. All right. And we can't go back in time and add Georgia, but we have added it now for the runoff. All right. So people listening home, you know, you can go to votesaveamerica.com slash Georgia and you can adopt Georgia. But Amy, here's how this game is going to work. I am going to say a fact and you have to say if it describes Senator Kelly Loeffler, Senator David Perdue or Springfield oligarch and likely Trump postmaster general backup pick, see Montgomery Burns. Okay. Okay, that's going to be hard, but I'm going to do it.

Are you ready? Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, here we go. This person's spouse is the owner and chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and together they sold millions of dollars worth of stock in companies that were vulnerable to the pandemic back in March before the worst of it set in,

forcing an investigation from the Department of Justice. That is Kelly Loeffler. Correct. This person owns a state prison, a casino, shares in something called Confederated Slave Holdings, and Ticketmaster. Is that Mr. Burns? It is. It's Mr. Burns.

Okay. In 2016, this person said, We should pray for Barack Obama, but I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109 says, it says, let his days be few and let another have his office. And their office was later forced to issue a statement saying this person does not pray for Obama's death. I hadn't heard that one, but it's got to be Purdue. It is, it is, it is. An ad for this person boasts that they are more conservative than Attila the Hun,

someone who assassinated his brother to seize power, then ruled an empire that pillaged, blackmailed, and destroyed countless cities, contributing to the fall of Rome, and earned the title, The Scourge of God. I literally cannot believe that it's real, but it is Kelly Loeffler. It is Kelly Loeffler. And one other note I'd make is I think whoever was doing the costuming got Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan confused. I believe that they said Attila the Hun, but that looked like a Genghis Khan costume. That's all, you know? And I just want some authenticity. I want some research.

If we're going to do an odd, racist, just fully bonkers ad, can we just, can we be meticulous? That's all. That's all I ask for, Amy. Get the cosplay right. Come on. Come on, guys. Yeah, get the cosplay right. Next, this person is a climate change skeptic and he urged Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement

and said we should eliminate the EPA. That's Purdue. Correct. This person co-sponsored legislation that would repeal the ACA's guarantee of health insurance for those with preexisting conditions, then he repeatedly lied about it. Perdue?

Correct. This person attempted to buy out and tank local newspapers after local journalists ran unflattering stories about their record. Mr. Burns? Correct. After attending a private Senate briefing on COVID-19, this person's spouse bought stock in a company that makes PPE, even though they continue to downplay the pandemic. Purdue? That's Loeffler. This person also bought stock in a company that makes PPE on the same day of that private Senate briefing. David Perdue. Correct. I think the

distinction is spouse. That's the only real distinction. But both of them are pretty corrupt. Shockingly corrupt. Shockingly corrupt. I'd say so, yeah. Shockingly corrupt. In 2020, this person introduced legislation to ban trans women and girls from participating in women's and girls' sports. Purdue? It's Loeffler. It's Loeffler.

Oh, man. This person called for the resignation of Georgia's top election official, who is also a Republican, over vague, unsupported claims of failures in the election. That's both of them. You got it. This person's net worth is over $25 million, making them one of the richest members of the Senate. Kelly.

Nope, that's Perdue. This person's estimated net worth is $800 million, making him the wealthiest member of the Senate and possibly the wealthiest politician in Washington. Kelly. That's right. And finally, this person blocked out the sun to create a monopoly over the electricity sold in the town.

It could be any of them, but I'm going to say Mr. Burns. It is Mr. Burns. Amy, you have won the game. I love the Stacey Abrams merch. For those listening, you conducted this entire game as Amy was in Stacey Abrams merch, which we always appreciate. Amy, thank you so much for playing.

Thank you for what you're doing down there in Georgia. And again, to those listening, we've got a shot here. It's going to be hard. It's going to take a lot of work, but we just surprised everybody by winning Georgia. Surprise everybody except Stacey, let's be honest. And a lot of people in Georgia who told you so, like Amy, like Latasha Brown, you know, everybody has told us, fine, we can win Georgia again. We got to flip these two seats.'ve got to elect Reverend Raphael Warnock. We've got to elect John Austin. We've got to get rid of Kelly Loeffler and Perdue.

Sonny Perdue is his father? I think cousin or uncle. What's going on down there? They're not father and son. They're not father and son. They're definitely not father and son. Are they connected to the chicken? No.

I think they're not. But the chicken Twitter account got a lot of shit. And I felt really bad for Eliza or whoever was running the chicken Twitter account recently when she was getting a lot of complaints. when the time comes. Well, we've lost the thread. The point is, if you're listening to this, go to votesaveamerica.com slash Georgia. You can donate to our Get Mitch Georgia Edition Fund. I believe we decided to call it Get Mitch to Georgia to Senators. And you can donate to Ossoff, to Warnock, and to Fair Fight. You can also go to votesaveamerica.com slash Georgia to donate to our Every Last Vote fund, which is supporting a bunch of really good organizations directly on the ground helping

to organize in Georgia. Amy, thank you so much. Thank you. Let's win this thing. Let's do it. I'm ready. Have a great rest of your night and believe in us because I think we can do this. We believe in you.

We believe in you. Yeah. Thank you guys for all that you're doing. Amazing. Thanks, Amy, for playing. Thanks to everybody for signing up. When we come back, I'm joined by Michael Beschloss to talk about this unprecedented moment and what it says about the future of this country. Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. He is a presidential historian and author of 10 books on the presidency. Please welcome fellow EIF, Michael Beschloss. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks, John, from the vast number of people who went to Williams College, right? Yeah, it's right. It's the few and the proud. Right. We like to think so. So, all right. We're 10 days out. The president of the United States,

I'm no historian, but is doing something quite unprecedented as far as I know, by not accepting the results of the election. I want to ask you a very specific kind of technical question. What the fuck is going on? What is going on is something we have never, ever seen before. We've had a lot of different kinds of people who have been president. We have never, ever had someone who refuses to accept the results, refuses to concede, and even worse, now is sending all sorts of signals out that are really ominous that he's open to abusing the power of the presidency to try to keep himself in power, even though he lost. You know, Trump is doing this. A lot of Republicans seem to have embraced

his doing this. There were people that were talking about this before the election. Now that we're here, are you surprised by how willing so many Republicans have been to either look the other way, speak out of both sides of their mouth, or outright embrace what Trump has said? I've been astounded by the fact that even though Trump lost, so many of these Republican senators, other leaders are continuing to put up with all sorts of things that, you know, they're supposed to be conservatives, most of them. You know, when you and I were in college, weren't we taught that conservatives are supposed to defend democratic institutions, small d, you know, the ones that allow us to live in freedom, and they have not defended them for

four years. And the surprise is that even after the election is over and Trump's going to be out of office, they're not being any more courageous for the most part. And, you know, our families, our friends, our liberties right now are dependent on the possibility that Donald Trump might try to stay in office and do some very bad things in the next number of weeks, even if he leaves. You know, you talked about courage. And I think one of the things that I've felt over the past couple of years is when we are relying on politicians to be courageous, there's an incentive problem in our system, right? We shouldn't be courageous to believe

in democracy in America. Right. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, as a historian, what you see as some of the trend lines that led to a place where there's this incentive structure? Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader today said, well, I don't know even if Joe Biden will be president in January. Right. Can you imagine we'd ever live to see a day like this? Right.

And so this is somebody who's doing this. That's not out of ideology. That's not out of some deeply held belief. That's fear. That's not out of ideology. That's not out of some deeply held belief. That's fear. That's political cowardice. So can you talk a little bit about what the trends are that you see that created an incentive over time for someone like Kevin McCarthy to behave in this way? Well, Kevin McCarthy is actually what the founders of this country did not want. What the founders of this country did want was, you know, Cincinnatus leaving his plow.

In other words, someone leaving their profession to serve in Congress, for example, for maybe a term or two, then going back to their hometown. And if they felt compelled to cast a vote or make another kind of decision that might cost them their job, they would do it because they were perfectly happy to, you happy to go back to the farm. Instead, what we've got is a cottage industry of people like Kevin McCarthy who are desperate to stay in office forever and to put up with almost anything so that there is no chance that they'll be defeated. If Lindsey Graham had a life he was happy to go back to back in South Carolina,

do you think that he would have gone through all the contortions that we've seen him go through over the last four years, subjugating himself to Donald Trump, who trashed him during the 2016 campaign? That was exactly the kind of political figure our founders did not want. They wanted figures with courage and guts. The other example, you can tell me if I'm wrong, that people point to in terms of a corrupt president, Pete, you talk about Nixon. Nixon is somebody that lost some of the faith

of his Republicans in polling before he was removed from office. The Republicans were punished at the ballot box after he was removed. Lost over 40 seats in 1974. Clearly something different is happening. Here we have a president making Nixon blush with his behavior. I would beg for the days of Richard Nixon during the last four years. And yet we are in a knockdown drag out fight to potentially have a chance to win the Senate if we win two Senate seats in Georgia. Republicans look to have gained seats in the House. Donald

Trump will receive more votes than anybody but for Joe Biden in this presidential race. What lessons do you glean from that, that there is this disconnect between defeating and removing Donald Trump and the Republicans that enabled and supported his anti-democratic, his corrupt, his economically right-wing policies? Well, there are two ways of looking at it. One is that a lot of people voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. And let's say that Mitt Romney had been nominated in 2016 or 2020, they would have voted for Romney, and those would have been the same people, to some extent, that we see at Trump rallies. The more grim way of looking at it, which I think is something that we should really pay a lot of attention to, is this country is open to the possibility of authoritarianism and fascism. A lot of people saw that in Donald Trump. They liked what he saw. Donald Trump only went down because he was sloppy and ugly and because of terrible things happened this year, a pandemic,

an economic crisis, a racial justice crisis that he obviously did not stand up to, divisions in this country. But if you had someone with the same political views and the same authoritarianism and the same openness to fascism, but instead it was what used to be called friendly fascism. You know, a more suave person who did not make the kind of tactical mistakes that Donald Trump makes and did not say the kind of stupid things that he says. If you had all that, you know, in a smooth package running for president four years from now, that person might go a very long way and we should pay attention to that. I mean, that's a terrifying prospect. What I come away with when I see

these efforts to overturn the votes, these efforts to insinuate that there's fraud where there is none is, well, thank God we won by enough that we don't have to worry about. Thank God that our system is strong enough to handle this pressure now. But if the election were closer, if the authoritarian were more sophisticated, as you say, we'd be in real trouble. We are in real trouble, though. I mean, I think, yes, first of all, whoever thought that we'd be in a situation where a candidate just doesn't have to win by, you know, one electoral vote, but has to be winning by so much that no one can steal it from. That was the case this year. Worse than that, you know, this whole thing about charging vote fraud that does not exist, Donald Trump is still going to be in office for over two more months. Look at the

power that is at his disposal. Defense Department, he can create wars. Department of State, Pompeo is one of the most partisan, craven secretaries of state we have ever had. Who else would have said this week that he's going to preside over a great transition to the second term of Donald Trump? Is that who you want for your secretary of state? Donald Trump still oversees the FBI, threatened to fire the FBI director. Same thing with the CIA and other intelligence services, same thing with Department of Homeland Security, for more than two months, he's going to have the ability to use all those things for his own purposes. The more benign version of this is that he keeps on trying to use them to try to squeeze money out of the presidency or get some political benefit that might make it more

possible for him to have a media organization that will feebly try to compete with crooked media for the next couple of years and fail, of course, or run for president in 2024. The worst version of that is that he's going to use all this immense power that is at his disposal, but I believe presidents should not have because it's so dangerous, but they do. And he will use those things to stay in office. Ultimately, that power comes from the deference of Republicans. It comes from the power, the Democratic power he has and is abusing, right?

He is a, you know, an improv authoritarian. He's semi-fascistic. He uses the tools of Democratic legitimacy when it suits him. He abandons them when they're no longer useful. Absolutely. We are right now succeeding in removing him. And so I want to get to what you said, which is your fear about the next time, your fear about the fact that so many have embraced somebody with these anti-democratic tendencies. You know, we talk a lot about whether or not our institutions are robust enough to resist fascist encroachment.

But we don't spend as much time talking about people being resistant to fascist encroachment, the way that it can insinuate itself into people's hearts, I mean, to be earnest about it. And we talk about misinformation and the way misinformation corrupts people, but we don't also talk about the ways in which people seek out misinformation, the way in which there's a huge market for Fox News, there's a huge market on Facebook for this information, for Breitbart, for Newsmax. There are millions upon millions of people who are seeking out this confirming information, largely confined to this right-wing bubble. We can talk about how dangerous this is, we can talk about how harmful it is. What is the way out? What are the historical examples of people that have walked up to the brink of this kind of authoritarian tendency and pulled back? What is the way out? What are the historical examples of people that have walked up to the brink of this kind of authoritarian tendency and pulled back?

What is the off-ramp? Well, usually they're saved by leaders or a system. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln happened to come along and save the Union. Thank God he was the one nominated for president by the Republicans that year. Had there been a less effective leader, this might now be two countries or three countries, literally, as well as sometimes figuratively. Or FDR in 1932, there were a lot of people, for instance, who voted against both FDR and the Republican, 6 million votes for Norman Thomas, the socialist. Many people did not know which way to go. Or 1940, this country was almost divided exactly down the middle over

do we fight Hitler, do we fight the Imperial Japanese, or do we not and just say we're protected by the Atlantic and the Pacific. Thank God Roosevelt was elected because if he was not, and if he had not built up our defense, we probably would have lost that war. Many of us would not be here, or those of us who are here would be living in a world dominated by unspeakable cruelty. So that's what leaders can do. The other thing that you were talking about is the system. I don't feel quite as sanguine as you do. Look at the judicial branch, which is supposed to check the power of the presidency. Donald Trump, by my estimation, created three artificial vacancies on the Supreme Court in Philadelphia. Number one was the one that should have gone to Barack Obama in 2016, who wanted to choose Merrick Garland. McConnell

blocked him, so handed the new Republican President Trump an opening for him to appoint Gorsuch. Vacancy number two. Anthony Kennedy was on the Supreme Court. We know that Donald Trump leaned on the guy who used to be his banker at Deutsche Bank and gave him all these illicit loans. Guess who that was? That was Anthony Kennedy's son. We know that he sent all sorts of messages to Anthony Kennedy saying, if you get off the court, I'll make it comfortable for you by appointing one of your protégés, which he did. That was Kavanaugh. And then the third vacancy, just in the last month, of course, was a case where, if you use the precedent of Abraham Lincoln, where, if you use the precedent of Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln had a court vacancy in October of 1864. Roger Taney, the racist author of the Dred Scott decision, chief justice died.

Lincoln said, I can't in good conscience make this appointment before the election. It should be done by the new president. He waited until December. So the point I'm making is that if you had had a president who was more respectful of democracy, he would not be essentially the person who is the architect of one third of the Supreme Court as we speak, which may rule on the 2020 election. He's appointed a lot of conservative judges. As you and I have both said, he's intimidated Republican leaders of the Senate so they do not stand in his way, even when he's a lame duck. So you've got a president who's actually very eager to grab power and surprisingly, to my mind, good at it. And the usual checks and balances are not there as they should be. I come back to my question, which is, you know, I hear all that.

I agree all that. We are fighting all of that in every way that we can. But what I'm trying to figure out is, are we doomed to this kind of conversation forever? Are we doomed to anti-democratic right-wing politicians fighting them to within an inch of our life, barely able to remove them? Or is there some process by which we can hope to see a Republican Party that is no longer controlled by this nationalist, it used to be a fringe, this nationalist movement, this anti-democratic movement in its party. And if it does require leaders to kind of, whatever,

appeal to people's better angels, how does that happen when you have institutions like Fox News and all of these right-wing institutions making it very difficult for that kind of reasonableness to prevail? Well, institutions wax and wane. You know, there were a lot of newspapers that were very powerful 20 years ago that either don't exist anymore or not read very much. So the idea that Fox News will have this kind of influence for the next 50 years, I don't think so. There will be competitors. But more important than that, the zeitgeist changes.

You know, the key to all this is exactly what you said, John, a few minutes ago. You were talking about 1974. It was just after Watergate. The Republicans lost more than 40 seats in Congress. And the people who were running for office that year, even Republicans, were hard put to say, I'm going to show you that I'm not another Richard Nixon. I'm more honest. I don't use his methods. I have a different approach to public life. Nixon was an epithet by the time of that election. And I think to some extent that is beginning to happen with Donald Trump. To a lot of people who loved him because he was a winner, well, today he's not a winner anymore. He's a loser. He lost reelection, which most presidents are competent enough to avoid. And the other thing

is that this is a case, I think to some extent, like the scene in The Wizard of Oz where the witch seems all powerful and someone throws the bucket of water on her and she melts and suddenly she doesn't seem so powerful anymore. I think once Donald Trump is out from under the presidency and with legal problems next year of the kind that he cannot escape, he's not going to look like such an appealing figure anymore. And the president of the United States is going to be Joe Biden, who wants to heal, who wants to unite, who wants to bring out the best in this system. Leaders, as you well know, have a very big impact on what our political values are.

Final question, Michael Beschloss. You're on Spring Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. You go into Papa Charlie's Deli. What are you ordering? You know, I was there so long ago. Some of the sandwiches in those days were named after actors who probably long dead at this point. They haven't changed them. They haven't changed them. You can get yourself a Yule Brenner. They haven't changed. I assume the bread has been changed since then. You can get a Blythe Danner. You can get a, they've added a Gwyneth. I think I should explain for our listeners that the reason for this is that Williamstown Mass, where our college is, has this wonderful Williamstown Summer Theater Festival. And a lot of the actors that we love really got their start or really began to advance by going through that experience and ate at Papa Charlie's, just like John and me. Well, Michael Beschloss, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your insights.

This was a great conversation. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Great to talk. Be well. Thank you so much to Michael Beschloss for joining us. When we come back, let's end on a high note. Don't go anywhere.

This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Because we all need it, here it is, this week's high note. Hey, Love It. It's Sammy in Washington, D.C. I am driving back from getting my post-election day COVID test because I was a poll worker. And it's Monday morning, the first Monday in Biden's and I just feel really happy. I just am like really relieved at the state of the city. The city just like partied this weekend and had like the best time socially distanced kind of everyone's wearing masks. And like DC came back to life on Saturday and it was amazing to see. So thank you for all

the work you did. And I hope that you can like like, take a second to bask in it because it's amazing. Thanks. That's my high note. Hi, John. What gives me hope right now is knowing that come January, we're finally going to have educators in the White House where they belong. White House where they belong. And it's so great to know that as an art teacher, knowing that Betsy DeVos will never have her grubby little Dolores Umbridge fingers in my classroom ever again is absolutely magical. So magical, I might actually break out glitter with my kindergartners. I'm not actually going to do that, but it's still really great.

kindergartners. I'm not actually going to do that, but it's still really great. Hey, love it. This is Jack out of San Francisco. My highlight for the week isn't really so much as a highlight for the week as it is an overall highlight. I lost my job during the initial shutdown for quarantine. A few months back, I joined a IT internship with the end goal of getting us up to senior level IT. And I'm actually on my final month, which is great because I am part of a polyamorous relationship. And I actually live with my girlfriend and her other boyfriend. And I am the only one who is unemployed, which sucks. But I'm just so grateful to be with people who are so loving and understanding. And I only really want to repay that kindness, you so loving and understanding and I only really want

to repay that kindness you know and anyway I appreciate everything you do Joan bye hi this is Becca from Atlanta and my high note this week is the culmination of something I've been working on ever since Justice Ginsburg died I've been channeling my anxiety into cross stitch and I made a little stitch of her face with a quote and I put a picture out on social media to see if anyone wanted to buy one. I got my daughters, who are 9 and 11, to help me stitch, and so far we've raised over $300 for the Get Mitch Fund, and we're not even done yet. Thank you. Bye. Thanks to everybody who sent those in. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 323-521-9455. Thank you so much to Naomi Ekperigan, Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, and Michael Beschloss,

and everyone who called in. There are 52 days until the Georgia Senate runoff. Yeah, there's another deadline. Deal with it. Go to votesaveamerica.com. Help. I know we got a lot of extra anxiety, but you don't know where to put it. Put it here. And, of course, have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg, our head writer,

and the person whose gender reveal party started the fire, Travis Helwig, Jocelyn Kaufman, Pallavi Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers, Thank you.