Lovett or Leave It - Oklahoma, OK!

Episode Date: July 11, 2020

A major set of rulings at the Supreme Court, a battle over reopening schools, and an announcement by Kanye in the best place for such things: a four hour interview with Forbes Magazine. Shea Serrano joins to talk about everything from the impact of protests on sports to the best James Bond movies. Josh Gondelman judges the monologue and has some lovely analogies. And Alice Wetterlund stops by along with a special guest with a tell-all book of her own. What a week.

Welcome to the 18th episode of Love It or Leave It, Back in the Closet. He was a political prince of last when COVID made him skidoo Now he's sheltering in place with Rawlin and Pundit too Love, it's back in the closet again So even though we're apart and can't congregate We'll take back the Senegal, adopt your swing state He may be lactose intolerant, but ice cream's still great Love, it's back in the closet again He knows Obama Love, it's back in the closet again He loves his mama Love, it's back in the closet again. He knows his mama. Love, it's back in the closet again.

He loves his mama. Love, it's back in the closet again. Love, it's back in the closet again. That song was sent in by the Allswell Sisters. Incredible. Incredible. Thank you for doing that. I was blown away, and I am sure John and Tommy are deeply worried about what these songs were doing to my already not-fragile-enough ego.

We want to use a new one each week. If you want to make one, you can send it to us at hey at cricket.com, and maybe we'll use yours. You can also tweet it at me. Before we get to the show, three things you need to check out. Before we get to the show, three things you need to check out. First, This Land. Following this week's massive win for the Creek Nation at the Supreme Court, Rebecca Nagel is releasing a bonus episode of the Crooked Media podcast, This Land, where she'll break down in detail what this week's incredible decision means and what's next for the Creek Nation. You can listen to season one of This Land now on Apple Podcasts

or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And keep an eye out for the bonus explainer episode out next week. Rebecca has been following this from the beginning when a lot of other outlets weren't, when this wasn't getting enough attention and it has culminated in an incredibly significant decision that she was working hard for and waiting to see. And so it's an incredible victory and it's really worth checking out that podcast. It's also just, the story is fantastically told. It involves these two murders and their incredible ramifications and tribal sovereignty and the history there. So check it out. Second thing you have to check out, Wind of Change, our hit podcast by Patrick Rattenkeef and Pineapple and Crooked Media

that's available on Spotify, where he investigated the scorpion song, Wind of Change, and whether it was written by the CIA. It is an incredible story. And right now there is a bonus episode on Spotify where Patrick talks to the unbelievably cool Joanna Stingray, the daughter of an anti-communist that smuggled music in and out of the Soviet Union. It's a story about this band, the Scorpions, this song, Wind of Change, but it's also a larger story about the cultural war

that took place inside of the Cold War. And it's just, you will not regret listening to Wind of Change. It's an incredible podcast. And finally, that's the ticket. Dan Pfeiffer and Alyssa Mastromonaco's series on the vice presidential selection process is out now on the Pod Save America feed. This week's finale episode

was on the development of the VP pick process over time, how polling impacts the decision, and ultimately who Alyssa and Dan think Biden will choose. So I guess they do some predicting. We recommend podcasts to you all the time. If you listen to This Land, Wind of Change, and that's the ticket, you'll be very pleased. All right, check them out.

They're fantastic. Later in the show, we'll be joined by Shea Serrano. We talked about everything from sports in the pandemic and amidst the protests to which James Bond is the best James Bond. It was so good to see him. Alice Wetterlin stops by, and she also introduces us to somebody

you'll definitely want to meet who happens to be a relative of a prospective vice presidential candidate. So you're not going to want to miss that. But first, he is a writer and producer for Desus and Mero on Showtime and the host of the podcast Make My Day. Please welcome back fan favorite, returning champion Josh Connellman. Thank you. I am one fan's favorite. That's my mom. But a huge fan.

Oh, yeah. She makes up for it. She's a big fan. Yeah, she likes me as much as all the other people in total who are indifferent towards me are indifferent towards me. Right, which is cool. That's what you want. That's what you want. All right, let's get into it. What a week.

cool. That's what you want. That's what you want. All right, let's get into it. What a week. On the 4th of July, a wooden statue of First Lady Melania Trump was set on fire near her hometown in Slovenia. This is really unfair. No matter how much Slovenians hate Donald Trump, it is wrong to take it out on someone who also hates Donald Trump. I feel like you're asking for trouble when you build a wooden statue. Yeah, it's like you might as well go tissue paper statue and you're like, oh, the rain hates Melania Trump. It is like a gun on the mantelpiece. It's like a wooden statue of a deeply controversial public figure. I think they might have known what they were doing.

Yeah, I feel like wood is not historically a statue material. That's like, oh no, we're not burning Joan of Arc at the stake. We're tying her to a statue. Like that's what wood is for. It's not for staying up. And I, for one, am deeply upset by the fact that cancel culture has come for Joan of Arc. Yeah. Honestly, the open letter did nothing right yeah the huguenots the huguenots did not see the letter in harpers honestly the huguenots are real philistines what a smug dickhead thing for me to say but it really made me happy um yeah i i feel like there's been a lot of statues coming down and it's like amazing that a wooden statue wasn't done in by like lightning or a breeze yet you gotta be a jerk for people

to tear down a statue of you in your hometown yeah nancy kerrigan is from my hometown and she could like set fire to the town hall and people would still be like, she got the silver medal though, and she should have had gold if it weren't for, you know, the thing. It's like when the Yankees lost the World Series after 9-11, or like when Nancy Kerrigan got the silver and not the gold,

like America demanded a certain kind of dramatic outcome. It wasn't provided. I know. And it's not even, it wasn't like there was a lesson. Like, you know, at the end of Rocky, when Rocky loses and you're like, it wasn't about the boxing. But like at the Olympics, it is about the ice skating.

It's about the medals. It's about the skating. It's about getting that gold. Right. You're not like, oh, what a character victory. Speaking of sports, this week, Major League Soccer became the first major pro sports league to resume games in the United States, playing in Orlando to empty stadiums. This won't be that difficult of a transition because MLS players are used to playing in empty stadiums. And much like every major league soccer season, I was not aware that it had begun. So it is like normalcy is starting to return. I don't pay attention to the sports a lot

of people pay attention to. Soccer, you know travis wrote this joke i think and he insulted his own sport of soccer and i just just want to be clear that i'm not denigrating soccer it's travis wow wow yeah well i know no loyalty no loyalty no loyalty and an own goal as they call that i think yeah yes yes it is red card get him. I don't know what that is. The white woman who called the police on a black bird watcher in New York was charged with false reporting. Ironically, she'll now spot some birds of her own, Josh. Jailbirds. Okay. I'm so sorry.

That's like, um, that joke, you know how they say like, uh, there's like some parable about an artist, a great artist drawing just a perfect 360 degree circle. And everyone's like, why? And they're like, well, it's perfect.

And you're like, but it doesn't look good. Like that's that joke. It is so perfect. And you're like, but why? I, I,

I think it's an insult to like the platonic solids. No, I think that's a platonic. To the circle itself. A platonically perfect joke. I don't think it was. And I think you gave it a perfect reading. It's just, look, this is also how I feel about the movie, The Social Network. Everybody did their part beautifully and I don't care.

Not at all. I'm so conflicted because at this moment where this woman did this horribly racist thing and was caught and there there needs to be some kind of repercussion for that kind of thing but like at the same time there's this big movement towards prison abolition that i i'm i'm really interested in and so like sending her to jail i don't know if that's the right answer can we like bar her from brunch forever can she never wear a t-shirt to yoga class that says like namaste namaste with a picture of her dog like these are the things like is there a punishment that fits her excessively white crime maybe she can't access cooking videos on instagram yeah absolutely i i

think we need something right like next um she's never allowed to reread the 50 shades of gray books like we just need some kind of restorative justice that's commensurate with the crime because i wish there were some way that every time this woman drank rosé it would taste the way like soap cilantro tastes to people with that genetic thing you know sadly we don't have judges with that kind of power yeah i i think we have a lot of battles being waged on social media. And it's been true in recent years. But a lot of it has been saying, look, like, look at who our justice system fails.

It fails to hold certain people accountable. And it holds to account people for reasons that are completely unfair. I'm conflicted about it too, only insofar as the fact that she's faced public repercussions shouldn't be allowed to stand in for a justice system that actually treats people fairly and holds them to account on a same standard that everyone's held to, that we build together, because that's the only way to have a system that works. So, you know, that's my view on it. I think that's so right. There has to be a justice system that is equal for everybody, and we can't just go, well,

this person was shamed, and so that's fair, when other people have to suffer so much more dire consequences. I totally agree. Yeah. On Thursday, the Supreme Court released its last batch of big decisions for the term. The court unanimously rejected Trump's argument for immunity from investigations seeking his tax returns. A majority, including both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, rejected efforts to prevent prosecutors in New York from subpoenaing President Trump's private and business financial records via Deutsche Bank, while the court sent back to lower courts

an ongoing dispute over congressional subpoenas. The result, a process that will only maybe produce vital information long after the election is over. So good news, everybody. The president is only above the law in practice. That's the sort of upshot. This is obviously frustrating, Josh. But obviously, we can be glad that when Democrats won the House,

Democrats sprung into action to get those tax returns. Because when Nancy Pelosi was campaigning in the run-up to the midterms, she said this in an interview. She said demanding Trump's tax returns is, quote, one of the first things we do. That's the easiest thing in the world. That's nothing. And everybody seemed to understand that the issue would eventually play out in a lengthy legal battle. So Josh, why do you think Richard Neal, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, waited until May of 2019 to issue a subpoena to the administration for Trump's financial records and waited until July of 2019, six months into taking the majority to sue for these documents when everybody

knew it would take forever. Josh, why do you think that happened? I'm not that mad about it, but why do you think it happened? You know, I am the right person to ask that question to. And here's what I think about it is she said it would be one of the first things they do. They haven't done like that much other stuff. So I think she's still in the right you know like as long as you don't accomplish much for like six months uh then anything can be the third thing you do six months later um i don't

know i don't know what the what the problem is with like attempting to hold trump to account for all the bad things he does i want the government to be relentless in its advocacy for citizens in terms of making these horrible current global health conditions better and ameliorating the violence by law enforcement against black people. I want them to be relentless in advocating for citizens there and then against corruption. This is moving at the pace of like how I play pickup basketball, where's like you know you do one thing you're like okay i'm gonna need a breather and you just drink water for a while like just keep going like they they the house impeached you know the senate acquitted and then it was just like well uh i'm cramping so we're gonna need a second yeah i do think yeah richard neal had a kind of a democracy cramp he had a democracy on what he advanced democracy cramp classic democracy cramp little stitch in his uh

constitutional side you know basically he ate like right before doing uh impeachment you can't do that and he got a little he got a little stomachache you know you're not supposed to do impeachment for 30 minutes after you've eaten, you know? Our democracy needs electrolytes. Can we get democracy a banana? The internet thinks it's a potassium thing. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can allow employers and universities to opt out of the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate for religious or moral reasons and will mean many may lose access to birth control coverage through their insurance at work. Another banner day for a private insurance system where access to health care and human

dignity itself is tied to your job. Very cool. I'm very preachy today, Josh. I will say I want every person to have access to comprehensive health care, including comprehensive reproductive health care. But purely on the politics, it's tough when you're going up against a group of nuns like Little Sisters of the Poor. It's just, it's, gotta face it. Those nuns are out there. They're like declaring victory and we're like, ah, there's nuns. Yeah. Oh, come on. What do these nuns have

against safe sex? I do think, again, speaking of like fair and restorative justice, if you vote against people having access to free, effective birth control, you shouldn't be allowed to cum. Is that okay if I say that on this podcast? Yes. You should be legally prohibited from orgasming. It is so frustrating to me when people say this. I mean, again, this is the thing that many smart women have said for a long time of, you know, Viagra, free and available to people with health insurance, birth control not. I think it is so cruel to me to not allow people control over their own reproductive freedoms. It is like

if I sued to say, I don't have to pay for your cholesterol medication because I think old people should be dead, according to God. Like, that's what it is. It is so ruthless and brutal. It's also true that, like, basically we have decided that health insurance is this public necessity, public good. You know, the vast majority of Americans believe everybody should have health insurance. Everybody should have coverage. And yet we meet it out through private interests. And these private interests have values. They have their own concerns.

They have their own set of things. And so we basically set a standard for what we think this public good should be. set of things. And so we basically set a standard for what we think this public good should be. And then instead of providing it to the public via the government, our collective organization to provide for each other, we said, no, no, we have to keep this private system. And I understand why we have this private system. But the fact that there's no public option, the fact that there's no public system means when we want everyone to have access to something like reproductive health care, it's meted out through an organization like this group of nuns who don't want to provide it. And the court has said you have a religious objection. You have a right to not provide that through insurance. And I think

like this decision is now done. We need to find a way to make sure that when we say there's a public good, a public right, basically, to access to reproductive care, that it's not provided through private corporations. It just doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's again, it's one of those things that's so frustrating to me because there's so clearly a better, more comprehensive way for this country to care for its citizens, right? And there was this big, there is still a big push for Medicare for all. And now what we're getting instead is like handmaid's tale for some. And that's not a compromise to me. Like that's not a health care system. Also this week, in what is one of the most consequential

legal victories for Native Americans in history, the Supreme Court ruled that nearly half of Oklahoma, including Tulsa, is part of an Indian reservation. Trump, of course, recently held his rally in Tulsa, which likely contributed to a spike in cases. So in a twist on an old racist trope from the movie Poltergeist, it looks like Native American land that turns out to be a white burial ground. That was... Oh, man. That's bleak, and it is correct.

The way that this country treats indigenous people is horrifying, and something that affirms their sovereignty and rights is good. And then to go back, Trump holding rallies, encouraging people to not wear masks because the disease is imaginary, is just so reckless. I know he would like me to die. I don't think he cares if I live. I live in New York City. I vote to the left. I work in comedy, all things the D8s. But it's like so ghastly and eye opening that he also wants his own supporters to die for him to look good.

You know, Democrats and anti-Trump people have said for a long time, like, this is a person like we don't want to be hyperbolic, but he doesn't care if you live or die. He just doesn't care about anyone but himself. And then nature was like, well, what if we create a test case to see if that's true? And he really doesn't care. He just doesn't care. Yeah. Doesn't care. It's phenomenal.

I don't think he wants people to die because I don't think he recognizes the self of other people. I don't think he wants his supporters to- He just doesn't care. Yeah, because he doesn't acknowledge them. They're all in his mind to him. Well, they're just tools. Yeah.

He doesn't care, yeah. Right. Also in Supreme Court news, Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized last month for a head injury sustained in a fall. But to be fair to Justice Roberts, those TikTok dances are pretty hard. They're hard.

So you see, Josh, I think Justice Roberts, he concealed a medical emergency because he was embarrassed because he had been trying to do a TikTok dance. That's what I think happened. I think that his failure to disclose something of vital national interest when his very life, one of the few jobs where your term expires when you die because he was embarrassed. If I got hurt doing a TikTok dance, there's so little that would be more embarrassing. I would be like, yeah, it was a zipper accident and I was out for days.

You know what I mean? There's nothing more embarrassing than that. Zipper accident. Chief Justice John Robertson, a classic, there's something about Mary unfolded at the Supreme Court today. That's what his doctors would say. He said, Justice Roberts, this is a full something about Mary and we have to operate immediately. Yeah, you've come down with a cute case of there's something about Mary-itis.

We need to do a there's something about Mary-ectomy. It's a torn Farrelly and we don't see this often but it is serious i sympathize with chief justice roberts because i conceal any medical problem from anyone you know i don't want them i that's like a a dumb toxic masculine thing about me is like my arm could be falling off and i would just be like nah nah, just keeping it loose, buddy. Walk it off. Just hanging loose today. Nah, I'm good. I could walk it off. Been stretching.

President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have each threatened to cut funding from schools that don't resume in-person classes this fall. And a few hours after Trump complained that the CDC's guidelines to safely reopen schools were too strict, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the CDC will simply issue new guidelines saying, we don't want the guidance from the CDC to be a reason why schools don't open. Which is wild because that's like saying, we don't want a failed safety inspection to be the reason your flight was delayed. The point of having the guidelines is that if you don't follow the guidelines, it might not be safe to reopen.

That's why they're guidelines. Yeah, we don't want this machete-wielding monster to be the reason you don't return to Camp Crystal Lake this summer. Truly horrendous. It is so bad. I mean, I do think this is, maybe he's trying to stop it because Don Jr. and Eric have some kind of competitive Billy Madison situation where they're both trying to pass 12th grade so they can inherit their father's money. I don't know. Why does he want this? He wants all the pain to be borne by other political actors and all the credit. So he knows that it's a huge crisis if our schools can't reopen safely because he knows

that parents have to work, that kids will fall behind. It's a cataclysm for kids in the fall if a lot of people can't go back to school, if teachers don't feel safe, if administrators and school nurses and custodial staff and all the people that run our schools, if they don't feel safe to take care of those kids. And by the way, parents not feeling like their kids are safe when there's so much we don't know about the virus. And by the way, kids with disabilities and immunocompromised kids and kids with other conditions and all the rest mean that it will have a huge economic and moral ramification for this country. He doesn't want to own that. So he says, open the

schools. And if you don't open the schools, it's your fault because he doesn't care that he's putting superintendents and teachers and governors and local leaders in an impossible position where they don't have the resources to safely do this. They don't know how to do this. They're trying to figure it out based on plans from teachers unions, from scientists, from local experts and all the rest. And so he just wants to put the pain onto other people because he knows that parents will be pissed if the virus continues in such a way that they can't go back to school. He just doesn't care. I mean, it's the same thing as always. That's what I think. It's true. The worst thing I've ever done as a married person is I came home really late from a concert and I was so drunk and I threw up on top of the

toilet. Like I made it to the toilet and I threw up on the lid. Sure. Classic. And then I went to bed not realizing what I had done. And then I got up at 6 a.m. to leave town for a flight. And my wife got up an hour later and was like, oh, my God, what happened? And had to clean up this horrible mess that I'd left. And that is Trump's intentional style of governance. He's just like, whatever comes out of me, it's anyone else's fault. And I don't care. I won't even be there. Sorry, Maris.

When confronted with rising numbers of cases across the country, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, I think any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down. It's not for me to say because each state is different. Fauci went on to say, but why should you... Here's my Jewish mom voice. Are you ready?

Why should you listen to me? It's not like I'm the nation's top infectious disease official. I'm sure you know best. You do what you want. You always do. It's just nice to hear your voice. And are you coming home for Passover? I need to call my mother more because if I, I'm not calling my mother enough clearly, because when I'm calling my mother more, the voice comes quite naturally. Oh, that's so funny. Every state went on the kind of DMX Rough Riders anthem model for taking care of this disease, which is they stopped, right? Everything stopped. The cases dropped. They shut it down. And then they just inexplicably opened up shop. And you got to keep it shut down. That's what DMX neglected. Shut them down. Keep it shut down until it's safe. Then open up shop. Outdoor dining still seems a little sketchy to me, but I guess it doesn't rhyme. So I'm not DMX. You know best, Mr. Big Rap Star with your dogs. I will say too, it's like,

okay, dining al fresco, but the food isn't made al fresco. The plates aren't kept al fresco. And you're putting the employees at risk because you can't combine orange juice and champagne in your own apartment. According to a New York Times-Siena poll of the six battleground states most likely to decide the presidency, voters who said Bernie Sanders was their top choice for president now back Biden over Trump 87 to 4%. And you can support that 4% on Patreon. How incredibly specific. You're not even going to touch it.

Kanye West announced this week that he no longer supports Trump and will be running for president himself, described in a four-hour interview Kanye did with Forbes magazine, which the magazine described as rambling. I bet. Kanye has spoken at length

about his struggles with mental illness. It's sad that his wealth means in some ways he ends up exposed because there are fewer guardrails and money can overcome a lot. Also sad, he's going to win. Congrats to our next vice president, the person who DMs Kanye at the exact right

moment. This is, I want to be like, John, you're being hyperbolic and you're being ridiculous. And then when I go to say those words, bile rises up inside me. Yeah.

And, and, and I taste copper and smell smoke and I'm on the verge of passing out because it's, it's sure. Anything's possible except for good things. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman will retire from the military rather than face President Trump's retaliation for his testimony in the House's impeachment inquiry. Sounds like another person who didn't read the Harper's Magazine letter, Donald Trump.

People got to read that letter. Well, Donald Trump didn't read that letter as a subset of Donald Trump not reading things. Yeah. He's like, oh, he hasn't gotten to that issue of Harper's yet. In January. In January. Yeah. He's got quite a backlog. He's got a stack of Harper's and New Yorkers that's just, whew. Yeah. And he's still making his way through the Utney Readers. In January, is there still, I don't even know if there still is Utney Reader. In January, Netflix said that The Crown would end after its fifth season. Yet on Thursday, Netflix announced that The Crown would film a sixth and final season.

And I, for one, am overjoyed. It was ridiculous to think that they could fit all that lack of action into five seasons. There is so much that these people with no jobs have to not do. You can't expect to not tell this many stories without a sixth season to not wrap up all the lack of drama. Prince Philip is cross with Queen Elizabeth over a ceremony involving a bridge.

That is a three-episode arc. It's gotta breathe, Josh. It's gotta breathe. I don't care about the problems of anyone who owns a scepter. I just, if you own a scepter, I'm not sympathetic to what you have going on in your life. I love The Crown and I will always watch The Crown, but it is funny because I do have this conflicted relationship with it because the show has such

reverence for these people and I do not. Oh yeah. Because I come away with this being like, what are you doing over there? Get these. Just take the money. Just take the money and use it for other things. Yeah, you can still be the queen, but you don't have to be a rich queen. You can be a queen who drives for Postmates at night. Queen isn't enough of a job to fill someone's whole calendar. Please give me five stars. That is a good. She does have a good wave.

I did the wave. It's an audio medium. Oh, yeah. John did the wave. It was very good. And I was going to do the accent, and honestly, I just couldn't commit. I couldn't commit, Josh. I did the wave. It's an audio medium. Oh, yeah. John did the wave. It was very good. And I was going to do the accent, and honestly, I just couldn't commit. I couldn't commit, Josh. I couldn't commit.

And finally, on Thursday, Starbucks announced that they would be requiring customers to wear masks. For the love of all that is good, protect my gay baristas, and don't you dare say protect all baristas, Josh. Don't you dare. And don't you dare say protect all baristas, Josh. Don't you dare. You're not going to trick me into saying having an all baristas matter moment on your podcast.

Everybody should wear masks. That's like one of those rules that they shouldn't have to make. We should just know like every Starbucks, it's a rule, but every Starbucks doesn't have a sign that's like, hey, man, put your balls away. Like people just know like every starbucks it's a rule but every starbucks doesn't have a sign that's like hey man put your balls away like people just know that you know that's part of an overarching part of being in society yeah don't press your exposed butt on the uh snack boxes right and there's nobody that's like oh there wasn't a sign or it's like oh it's my body my choice which is like such a heinous appropriation of the language of reproductive justice. Josh, this was a genuine pleasure. Always such a pleasure. Thanks to Josh Gondelman for joining us.

When we come back, we'll be joined by Alice Wetterland and a very special guest. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. This week, a judge ruled that Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, could go ahead with publishing a tell-all book about Trump's family secrets. This followed the revelation that Claudia Conway, the 15-year-old daughter of Kellyanne and George Conway,

has a TikTok where she badmouths Trump and her own parents' marriage. We truly are living in a golden age of family members betraying their racist relatives, but they're not the only ones who want in on the action. Today, we are lucky enough to have an exclusive interview with Alice Warren, niece of potential vice presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who will give us the inside scoop on the tell-all book she is writing about the senator. Alice, thank you for being here. Oh, yeah. John, thank you so much for having me. You know, I am just rip roaring excited to tell you about the book that my Aunt Elizabeth Warren does not want you to read. So she isn't supportive of you writing this book? Oh, no, she's very supportive, actually. You know,

I told my Aunt Liz about this book idea, and she sent six tell-all books as inspiration. Why is she like this? She's constantly barging in and offering to proofread my writing. It's like, hey, Aunt Liz, stop checking in on my career goals, okay? I'm not Facebook. I believe in privacy. I don't know if you've ever heard this before. You sound a lot like your aunt. You sound a lot like Elizabeth Warren. Have you ever heard that before? Oh, sure. It's not the first time, John. No, and thank you so much. It's something I picked up from my family, from my aunt Liz Warren and, you know, from my mamas and my daddies. Okay, so let's get to the material here. You have promised that you have shocking secrets about Elizabeth Warren that only a family member could know.

So what are some of the big reveals readers can expect to find in your tell-all? Well, I don't know if you're sitting down, but Elizabeth Warren used to be a Republican. That is not news. That is pretty common knowledge. Oh, you knew that. Okay. Well, you know what? That's not all. Did you know that my aunt Liz has a secret Twitter account? Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. Now we're getting somewhere juicy. Okay. Tell us, well, you know, these can be very bad. You know, we've seen terrible secret Twitter accounts where people get out their demons, terrible ideas, terrible views. What did you find? What did you find? Okay, well, literally every single tweet is just a reply to the U.S. women's soccer team. I mean, she's writing things like, way to go and looks like a great time.

One time she replied to Megan Rapinoe just with a gif of Megan Rapinoe. You can't make this shit up, okay? In Chapter 5, I talk about how last Thanksgiving, Bailey got into the yams and took a big structural shit in my parents' den. New carpet. Very salacious stuff. So, I cannot look. Alice, I can see how that might be a little bit annoying to you,

but they're not really that bad. In fact, some of this sounds even a little bit endearing. What? Endearing? Okay, John, I want you to walk a day in my shoes, okay? You try spending the holiday with her. When I started dating, you know, Aunt Liz, she got it in her head that she should give me the talk. Think about this. I am a teenager.

It was brutal. She used PowerPoint. An appendix was referenced. There was footnotes. And now, oh, she claims to dislike Facebook. Sure. But why would she leave a comment on Facebook on a picture of me and a boy saying, now, who's this? Well, he seems damper.

I could have died. It was embarrassing. Sorry. You know, it just dapper. I could have died. It was embarrassing. Sorry, you know, it just sounds like normal aunt stuff to me. You can't do a TikTok dance challenge when Aunt Liz is around. She'll be screaming at you about data privacy and trying to dance along. I'm starting to get the feeling that you don't have enough for a book. Well, I'm glad you brought up books, John, because every Christmas she gets me a book by a woman author that she believes should be more famous because she hasn't gotten enough attention because of ingrained cultural misogyny every year. Okay. She once

told me in confidence, John, and this will be in the book, that she didn't get the appeal of Stanley Tucci. I mean, that doesn't seem, okay. Okay, well. Do you have a title? Okay. Do you have a title for this? I do. I have a few titles, John, and I would love it if you could help me pick one out, okay?

Sure. What do you got? All right. Okay. Let's see what your titles are. Okay. Very exciting. The first working title I have is Big Structural Mange, the true story of Bailey the

dog. So a pun there, but it seems like you're suggesting that Bailey might be poorly cared for. Is that what you're alleging? Oh, no, no, no. They love that dog. No, it was about the pun, but how about this? No, Liz, I still haven't seen Silkwood, Tales of Life with a Nosey Aunt. So she just wants to talk to you about movies about feminist union efforts. Let's just, here's one more option. I think you're going to love this. Now, she persisted

in being tight-fisted. Wait, subhead. I wanted to go to Coachella. A niece's story. You're writing a book because she wouldn't give you some walking around money for Coachella. I've got to cancel this woman. I've got to do it quick. I don't know that

I can support this effort to take down your aunt. It seems like she hasn't done anything that bad to you and for some reason she's even been remarkably supportive of your effort to write a takedown about her. Can I just ask for you you and your cohorts to help me out? Okay, my aunt is too nice. She is supportive. She is ethical. And I can't do shit with that. Think about it. I bet Loeffler's niece got a big old

catamaran with that COVID cash. Trump's niece, she's doing great. You know, the salacious media economy works great for the relatives of those at the top. It works great for the runs with actual tax havens. It just doesn't work so great for the rest of us everyday Americans of relative political superstars, okay? Wait, how about this? I got this. Is this something? You know who else loved to dance while sticking it to corporations in a purple jacket? The Joker. I'm really sort of honestly disappointed. I feel like you maybe over-promised a little bit. And honestly, the one thing I thought you were going to bring up, I thought you'd bring up the Native American thing.

Oh, gosh, no, John. I think you and your friends did enough damage to her with that already. I just asked a question, Alice Warren. What are you, Chapo? Get out of here. We're done. We're done. Okay.

Thanks for, and thank you so much for having me. we're done we're done okay thanks for and thank you so much for having me alice warren alice wetterland thank you so much for being here that was so funny well i just got here john oh i'm sorry yeah uh well thank you to alice warren for joining us yeah uh obviously she had to leave and um but then there's alice wetlin, who happened to also be, I guess, where similar ships passing in the night. You miss Alice Wetterlin. You just miss Alice Warren. You never see us together. Yeah. It's true. Alice, thank you so much for being here. It's so nice to see you as always. Shortest segment I've ever done. I love it.

When we come back, Shea Serrano. Don't go anywhere. This is Love love it or leave it and there's more on the way and we're back he is a staff writer at the ringer and a three-time new york times bestseller welcome back shay serrano it has been so long i was just the other day thinking to myself it's been a long time since i was on John's podcast pretending like I knew what I was talking about. I'm excited to be back here pretending, baby. First of all, you know, you can be humble. You can bring the false modesty to this conversation.

You know what you're talking about. The last time I saw you, I believe you were in Austin, Texas, in front of a huge crowd of Serrano heads. The first time anybody has ever said Serrano heads ever. Serrano heads. Ever. Shay Bays. That's even worse, I think. Have you heard that one?

I can't be first to that. I can't be first to that. You're the first one. All right. You're the guy. You're the guy. I did it. So, Shay, thank you for coming on the show. How frustrating has it been to be dealing with a state governed by someone like Greg Abbott, who has been behind the curve or worse time and again? It's fucking miserable is what it is it's like every time this guy opens his mouth he says

the exact wrong thing and you just feel like helpless because he's the guy who goes on tv and says the thing and makes the rules and then you watch the people reacting to those around you and you're like no this is we're going the wrong way look at the our all of our numbers are doing this and they're all red instead of green and this is all bad it sucks it sucks a. It's really heartbreaking because it's it's not like there weren't people sounding the alarm. Everyone was saying, don't do this. It's not you can't just hope for the best. You have to actually sort of respect the science here so that people can maybe get back to their lives sooner. And it seems like Texas is now kind of one of the the signal places having this sort of terrible. Well, for Texas, like the first time, but really kind of exploding cases what are people saying right now about schools like what are you hearing

about how this is going to affect schools in the fall the the latest that we've gotten is that they are setting it up so that if you want to send your kids to school if you need to they're going to have it open and they're going to try to keep it as safe as possible but if you want to do distance learning can like what we were doing at the end of the school year, you can do that. So Laramie and I, we just had this conversation this week, matter of fact, we were deciding like, okay, we have the chance to not send the boys back to school.

We have three sons. Let's keep them home this year and like just be safe as possible. Like it sucks a bunch, but like we have to do that to like help as many people as we can. You know what I'm saying? So one thing that you've been doing sort of throughout this crisis is you've been focusing on how to help people who've been reaching out for help that you've been doing it on Twitter,

people who need help with the groceries, with rent, it got a shout out from president Obama. Why was that important to you? What led you to do that? And what is, what have you learned in this kind of being a kind of one person direct aid organization i i've learned a couple of things number one there are a lot of people who need help just an unreachable amount of people need help right now so that's always like hard to deal with when you go like okay i have today five thousand dollars to hand out who can i send money to and then you get six thousand responses and you're just like shit this is awful so i haven't learned that the other thing i've learned is that a lot of people are doing

like really really good things everybody makes a big deal about all of the money that we've donated over this past two or so months it's been like i think like at this point 250 260 000 bucks that have just like straight cash handed out but most of that was like not my money or laramie's money i think between our family maybe seven thousand eight thousand bucks has gone out all of the rest is just like people on twitter they'll just like venmo or or whatever like oh here's five bucks extra that i had here's eight bucks extra and then and it all just adds up a bunch so those are the main things that i've learned like people need help and there's some good people out there doing it. I think the reason I felt the need to do that or try to do that is at this point, we have been doing this for years. My little group of people on Twitter has been like donating money to places. But when you're

watching all of this stuff happen, like if you grew up a certain way, you know exactly what it means when you hear like somebody in your house didn't get a shift that they were expecting to get like without one shift can fuck up your whole week and then that'll fuck up your whole month and everything sort of falls apart from there so when you start seeing news things about we're going to be closed for several weeks or several months like that's catastrophic for so many households so if i just have to send some tweets and like that helps out even 1%, all right, we'll do that. You also were talking about recently

about watching TV during this time. Yeah. And I've had this experience. First of all, I've definitely noticed that I've been watching a lot of the dumbest 90s shit. Yeah. Just like from a period, like stuff that was made at a time when people actually

believed that we were like on the other side of some problem there was a kind of like collective delusion that we were like the end of history was here and so all the movies are completely absurd uh like the bond movies just completely vapid and it's been helping me what have you been sort of feeling as you've been trying to like figure out what to watch you know what show i'm really really drawn to is a show called alone do you watch alone please tell me you watch alone oh my god no john you have to watch alone it's incredible i it's it's one of those survivor shows where they like take some people and drop them off on an island and then they're just like all right good luck and what's really great about this one is like on other ones, like there's one called Naked and Afraid where they take two people.

They take no clothes, no shoes, no anything. Good luck. You have to survive out here for 21 days or something like that. But you watch that and you say to yourself while you're watching it, oh, well, if I had clothes, I could do fine. If I had a fire starter, I could last for eight months or whatever. So this show, what they do is they take 10 people who are experts, experts at surviving in the wilderness. And they go, you can take any 10 items you want, anything you want. And then they get their 10 items and then they drop them off on this,

on like Vancouver Island in Canada. And they're like, stay here for as long as you can. And that's the whole show. And it's like a season rather than an episode so by like episode 10 you have two or three people who have been alone on this island for 70 days or something and they're cracking all the way up and it's just it's unreal to to watch it's unreal i love it how do they film it how do they film it so that's the thing the people who go they have to like carry the camera equipment themselves and they set it all up and it's really just it's an incredible show but it's always funny in the like first episode or second episode because there's always one guy who's like talking hella shit about like how he's gonna hunt the bear and do this and then like six hours later he's telling them i can't do this come pick me up and

then they have to come get i love that but the best thing john is when you get to the end of the season episodes eight nine and ten when they're really in the thick of it. They have been out here surviving. And you're watching them pull from this reserve that they didn't know they had, this strength that they didn't know they had. And I can't help but draw some sort of comparison between what they're doing and then what everybody in America is being asked to do right now. There's unprecedented time of even just staying in one place forever. It sucks and it hurts and it's bad but you watch these people do this thing

and you're like if they can do this like i can sit here and watch them on tv for another three weeks it shouldn't be a problem first of all i i have not been watching any of the survivalist stuff in part because i felt deeply burned by bear grills all right because my god bear bear grills was out there he was out there being like i'm gonna eat this bug and then he was just staying at hampton ends i remember when that story came out and i was absolutely heartbroken my god my son watches he has a bear grills has a new show called you versus wild and it's like interactive you get to pick what he does and he's. And he's still out there hustling. He's still making a living.

Shout out Bear. First of all, I just want to be clear. I respect the hustle. If you can like really embody the idea that you're trapped and alone in the woods and have to eat bugs and then somebody says cut

and you're like, get me a Fanta. I love it. I love it. I love it i love it i love it the um uh how hard was it to hear that fast and furious was delayed until 2021 heartbreaking heartbreaking on the like list of things that hurt my feelings when that got announced because you i've been waiting since fast eight for the new one to come and then the trailer came and we found out that han is still alive and i have a hundred questions that i need

the answers to and then it just gets pushed back a year and you just uh it's hard it's heartbreaking it's terrible alien aliens alien three alien resurrection i have a soft spot i obviously love alien i think alien is like one of the great horror movies, one of the great Alien movies. It's amazing. You're about to serve up a hot take, and I'm ready for it. I'm ready.

Here's my hot take. I'm ready for it. Here's my hot take. Alien Resurrection is good. Okay, all right. You went even further than I thought you were going to go. What do you think I was going to say? I thought you were going to say Aliens is better than Alien.

No. No. No. No. No. I really like Aliens. If we're picking favorites, I think Aliens is my favorite of the bunch. If for no other reason than because my guy Bill Paxton is just in there-

Game over. Throwing heaters the whole movie. I love this guy. Game over, man. I love it because because alien is a horror movie the first one a brilliant brilliant horror movie aliens is an action movie like a sci-fi action movie you got space marines in there sign me up any extra kind of marine sign me up so uh i also wanted to talk to you about sports a little bit look we've seen

two things happening at once around sports one is obviously the pandemic taking hold and forcing whole seasons to be canceled. I don't follow sports. As you know, my experience of I've been seeing all I've been seeing on Twitter is that some athletes seem to be in some kind of a bubble and it involves complaining about the amenities. That's sort of what I've gathered. And then at the same time, we've seen leagues trying to figure out how to respond to these protests that have taken hold across the country. I'm just curious what your reaction has been to the fact that after all these years of so many protests around the Washington Redskins name, so many opportunities for them to reflect on it, so obvious that it's something that ultimately has to change, that FedEx and Nike finally pushing back on the on the owners is actually leading to a potential of the name being changed. What was your what are you what's your response to that?

It makes perfect sense because they're responding to the pressure from money is all that it is. They didn't suddenly realize, oh, yeah, you're right. That is offensive. That's not what it was. Somebody said, hey, we're going to cut this check off. And they were like, oh, all right, that's you actually make a good point. We should change this. What's wild is the guy, Dan Snyder, was in charge of all of this. He has messed up this opportunity enough times that even now, when they make the announcement that it's under thorough review,

that they may change it. We're going to change the imagery. I still feel like he's going to fuck it up somehow. And they're going to come back, and he's going to be like, imagery. But like, I still feel like he's going to fuck it up somehow. And they're going to come back and he's going to be like, Oh, wait, we're gonna we're now the Washington brownskins in honor of the families being separated at the board like he could there's a very real chance he could just make it worse somehow. But yeah, that's all that it is. They're just responding to the money. But why do you think it took this long for the money to care? Right? Like,

you know, FedEx has been sponsoring this team for I don't know how long. You know, these other companies have been behind this team. Why do you think, is it just that this protest movement has finally grown to the point where it couldn't be ignored? I mean, what do you think? That would be my guess, yeah. The combination of these protests, which have been going on for a long time,

plus now social media to amplify everything, plus there's like this new player empowerment era that started maybe about a decade ago, where the players are like being big forces in all of this stuff. You have all of those things equaled together to yes, a thing that you can no longer ignore. You can't just like wait for it to go away. It's not going to go away. You don't want to be the company who two years from now is like still fighting this thing that you could have very easily just not fought. You don't want to be that. You can't be that. It's too detrimental to too many people's money is what it is. And which is great to like watch this sort of uprising happen. Like,

I don't think you or I were alive the like last time a thing of this magnitude was going on in America. So it's been really interesting and wild to watch. But yeah, hopefully more and more good things happen every single week. Black Lives Matter. I don't know why this is so hard for the NFL to just say those words. That's what I don't understand. It's like, what? Say it. Is it just that they're afraid of their base of white football watchers? Is that really what it comes down to? Because there are other leagues that have done so much better than this. See, that's the thing that gets me because all right, if that's going to be your thing,

what about what NASCAR just did where they just were like, you know what? We're not allowing the Confederate flag anymore. Like that's just gone. Like how was NASCAR ahead of you in this? If we're just like using broad stereotypes of like the way sports are viewed, NASCAR was very clearly the Confederate sport

if you're just making broad assumptions about things, like incorrect assumptions or whatever. But that flag is associated with this thing, so you would assume this is more of that. And then the NFL is behind them with all this stuff. I just don't understand. I don't know if they're placating a racist fan base or if they're just like so far invested

that they feel like if they turn around and pivot at this point, they're going to look like idiots, even though they absolutely already do. I just don't understand why this is so hard to get right. I don't know why when your league is predominantly black, you can't just not be shitty. You know what I'm saying? I don't get it. I don't get it. It does seem like part of it is just the leadership, the team owners, their statements over the years, it just seems as though they're a group of people completely disconnected,

not just from their players, but from political conversations generally, that they're very much afraid of a kind of political backlash that what we've seen with other companies, other teams, other industries just hasn't happened, right? Like companies and teams that have said the right things, done the right things, there's no evidence that doing that is so terribly harmful for these companies. Even if it is terribly harmful, sometimes some shit just has to be terribly harmful if you're going to like stand up and do the right thing. Like do that.

Do that. Make $5 billion less. Only make $90 billion or whatever and say a nice thing. It's cool to watch the players sort of stand up for themselves and make their voices heard. That part is like inspiring, seeing these guys like risk their careers. That part is like, all right, I'm with that. But this other section, I just don't understand. I just don't understand.

Moving on to a lighter topic before we wrap up. Have you seen the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies recently? John, who are you talking to, John? Of course I have. Are we yet ready as a culture to have an honest conversation about those films? What's the conversation? Because I was surprised to learn that Pierce Brosnan, culture to have an honest conversation about those films what's the conversation because i was

surprised to learn that pierce brosnan like number for number is the deadliest james bond we've ever had like just as far as murders go which i had no idea i didn't realize that i didn't realize that golden eye was a film that i love yes yes i revisited it and it is a tough watch it's bad it's a bad it's it like i i went into this my james bond rewatch thinking okay golden eye is great then they start to drop off and i'm just gonna see how you react to this daniel craig best james bond i'm i'm 100% with you. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Right? Here's my second part. Casino Royale, best James Bond movie ever. I think you've got the parkour running, the poker.

You've got the scene where he's being tortured. Oh, my God. It's great. I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. I think there's too much nostalgia for the earlier films. The Sean Connery films especially are given too much reverence. I completely agree.

And I will also say this. I love the film Skyfall, but it's not a Bond movie. No. It's a Batman movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a Batman movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you.

All right. See, we're aligned on this. So Guy Pearce and Daniel Craig, we're good. We're good there. But I will say Sean Connery, he's not my favorite Bond. I mean, Daniel Craig is. But I think Sean Connery he's not my favorite Bond James I mean Daniel Craig is but I think Sean Connery

is like the coolest looking James when you see pictures of them and you're like alright you got it Sean you got this one Sean you win this round

of this particular battle Shea Serrano thank you so much for being here still good to see you super fun as always stay safe in Texas

I'm gonna try you too thanks to Shea Serrano for joining us. When we come back, we'll hear this week's high notes from our listeners. 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, here it is, this week's high notes submitted by our listeners.

I love it. My name is Dawn. I live in rural Nevada. At the end of Pride Month, our local school district finally, after a nine-year battle, decided to allow transgender students to have all the same rights and locker room privileges as regular students. And that was a big win. My friend then calls me up and sits with me on Zoom a few days ago while I contacted my insurance and for the first time ever got on the list for bottom surgery. So thank you very much.

Happy late pride. Something that gave me hope this week is my husband's new job. He and his friend started a passion project a couple years ago, another round, another rally. It's a nonprofit that brings educational opportunities and emergency assistance to the restaurant and bar community. And since COVID hit, he and his team have been working around the clock to provide funds and resources. And a couple of weeks ago, the board decided to bring him on full-time. So he's resigned from his day job and is officially working full-time on his dream project. This is Cheyenne, by the way.

Thanks. Hi, I love it. This is Key in Denver, Colorado, and we had our primary here this week, and I've been working for one of the Senate candidates. And I was front banking and text banking and working along with a bunch of really great people and we lost and it sucked. But instead of being really discouraged,

I find myself now even more encouraged to go out there and to keep working and to make sure that we get the White House and the Senate fully under our control by the end of the year. Thanks, have a great day. Thank you so much to all the listeners who submitted this week's high notes. They were incredible. 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. 115 days until the election. Sign up for Vote Save America

right now to defeat Donald Trump, keep the House, and win back the Senate. A lot of you haven't done it yet. I'm talking to you specifically. If you specifically haven't done it yet, go to votesaveamerica.com, sign up. You'll find ways to help. You need to do your part. We all do. Thank you to Josh Gondelman. Thank you to Alice Wetterlin. Thank you to Shea Serrano. Thank you to our grocery workers, truck drivers, delivery people, restaurant workers, flight attendants, everyone who has to choose between staying safe and earning a paycheck right now. Thank you to our doctors and nurses and EMTs and first responders. And thank you to our whole staff working to keep the show going out and Crooked going strong. 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, and our head writer and the president of the East Side or Biden writers, Travis Helwig. Jocelyn Kaufman, Alicia Carroll, and Peter Miller are the writers. Our assistant producer is Sydney Rapp. Bill Lance is our editor, and Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McClain and Jamie Skeel, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast.

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