Lovett or Leave It - Ronan Will Find You

Episode Date: September 15, 2018

Disturbing allegations emerge against Brett Kavanaugh, CBS ousts Les Moonves and confronts a misogynist workplace culture, Serena Williams deals with a bunch of bullshit, Tucker Carlson goes full fascist, and in honor of the high holidays, we atone for how our culture mistreated Monica Lewinsky, Marcia Clark, and Britney Spears. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii joins Jon to talk about the Supreme Court and being the best senator on Twitter, and Erin Ryan and comedian Janelle James join to break down a big week of news. Also, it's fine that Ronan doesn't listen to the podcast. He's busy.

Good evening, Los Angeles. Thanks for coming out to the Late Show. to the late show. You know, I want to say at the El Rey, but that sucks. The El Rey. That's like saying pin number. Just say at El Rey,

but that also feels wrong. Right? We're here at the Rey. We're here at the King Theater, right? Yeah, yeah. Seven years of Spanish. You hear that, Ms. Canestrero? And you said I wouldn't amount to anything.

Nah, you thought I would amount to anything, but the one thing I wouldn't amount to is a person who could speak Spanish. But shout out to all the teachers in the Syosset public school system who socially passed me through years of Spanish. Because if I couldn't do well in school, I really wouldn't have had anything. Don't awe.

We're here in a part of Los Angeles called Miracle Mile. And it's called Miracle Mile because it's a miracle. Because it's a miracle... Because it's a miracle if you can walk a mile without being hit by a bird scooter. Folks, these scooters... I love the bird scooters. Can I just... We're going to do a yay or nay. Give me a yay on the bird scooters. Give me a yay on the bird scooters.

Yay! Give me a nay on the bird scooters. Yay! They need to be accessible. What? They need to be accessible? What are you missing? They don't have a wheelchair version.

That's true, but... But aren't wheelchairs the bird scooters of wheelchairs? I know, but I mean, like, you come with wheels, you know? I mean, aren't you kind of gilding the lily? What do you want to do? You're in the, you already got it. She's saying, why do I get a motor? She should get a motor. Why isn't there an accessible motor for her? I get it. Still. I'm at zero wheels. You're at two wheels.

Four wheels. You're already at four wheels. Pretty greedy to ask for two more wheels. Six wheels? Come on. Six-wheel Sally over here. Next week, we have two shows at the Improv. We're gearing up for the midterms.

We have back-to-back recordings, and we have some great guests lined up so you can get some tickets now. And if you haven't, reminder, pledge to vote on November 6th. Be a voter. Unfuck America at votesaveamerica.com. Fuck America at votesaveamerica.com.

Some breaking news today. We learned that California Senator Dianne Feinstein confirmed that she had received a letter containing allegations about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. She did not share what those allegations are, but she did refer them to federal investigators. And she said that she was respecting the anonymity of the woman who wrote the letter. Democratic House Representative Anna Eshoo also received the letter. Two sources verified it to the New York Times. In response, the Trump administration claims that Kavanaugh has been vetted repeatedly since 1993 and that this is an 11th hour attempt by Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer to delay Kavanaugh's confirmation.

This is obviously a strange story. I don't know if any of you have been following this today, but it does feel as though we are learning some of what's going on and very clearly not learning all of the story. And it's really hard to tell what's been going on. And I think that's true not only for us, but it seems like it's been true for members of the Senate and members of the committee as well. So I think we're still unpacking this and it seems like it's been true for members of the Senate and members of the committee as well. So I think we're still unpacking this and it seems like it's happening in real time. And at this moment, I don't think we know how significant it is or if it will play a role

in whether or not Kavanaugh's nomination is delayed or changed at all. But we're actually very fortunate. We have a very special guest who's going to help us unpack this and all the news of this week. So please welcome to the stage, he is the senior senator from the great state of Hawaii. Please welcome Senator Brian Schatz. Senator, thank you for being here. Please go right here. Guys, Senator, thank you, and I apologize for what I'm about to do. Guys, can I get a shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, please? Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots.

That went as well as could be expected. Senator, welcome. Thank you. You don't have to apologize for that at all. That was a great introduction. They don't do that on Meet the Press, do they, huh? Senator, what do you make of this strange story? It seems as though Senator Feinstein received some kind of a letter. It's a letter that she did not reveal publicly or necessarily even to the committee

until after not only the hearings, but after the closed door meetings. It's been referred to investigators. We don't know the content of this letter. Do you know more than we know? No, not about this. Look, this is a strange situation. It was emerging while I was on the plane trying to check on Wi-Fi and people were texting me and a lot of people don't know the situation. So look, this will play out over the next several days. I know people are investigating, members of the Senate for sure, but obviously journalists are trying to get to the bottom of this. But here's what we do already know about Judge Kavanaugh. The process has been corrupt from the beginning. We only have 4% of all of the documents related to

his public service. We're not asking for documents related to anything other than when he served in the government as a judge or as a staffer. And the problem with Judge Kavanaugh is not just that he's conservative and he's going to be the swing vote on all the things that we all care about, but it's also that there was a unique thing that happened, right? There was this list of acceptable judges by the Federalist Society, and then he made the list after that list was provided. Well, maybe he was waitlisted. Sometimes you apply, and you're on the cusp.

Maybe they want to see more from you. They want to see your fourth quarter grades. They want you to write another essay, because maybe your essays were weak because you did them last minute. So I think where he gets extra credit, I think where he got that value added, where he differentiated himself from that 20 judge list provided by the Federalist Society promised by President Trump is that he has this weird and unique view about executive power and about the ability to investigate a president. And that is really the only distinguishing characteristic.

You know, Mitch McConnell didn't even want this person to be up for confirmation because of the long and dangerous paper trail, but they put him up for confirmation anyway. And near as I can tell, the only distinguishing characteristic is this person doesn't think that the president should be subjected to any kind of investigation, that the president himself is above the law. I feel like there's been a lot of focus on the issues that politically people believe would have the most impact. So his statements on Roe and the right to choose, his views on health care. But this is something that has not played as big of a role. One of the things that I found shocking in some of the emails that Senator Booker released was a reference to his

belief in the unitary executive and his understanding that it was politically infeasible, but still something that he believed. Would you mind telling people what that is? Yeah. So, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but the unitary executive was something that Scalia articulated in a minority opinion. He was the only person offering this opinion. It's this view that the executive branch cannot be divided in any way. In other words, the legislative branch can't really prescribe within the executive branch what can be done and what cannot be done. And this is a really expansive view of executive power. It's actually the reason that we can't get even some of the people who in the Senate

on the Republican side who are very worried about Trump to try to pass this Mueller protection bill because they have adopted Scalia's view of the unitary executive. It is a dangerous view of executive authority. And I'll just make one more point about Kavanaugh. You know, he didn't used to have this view when he was Ken Starr's deputy. And he was asked what changed, and he said 9-11. And I thought to myself, have we not gotten beyond the point where you can just wave a wand and say 9-11 and the argument is over? And that was really concerning to me because to me what Judge Kavanaugh is is not just a conservative jurist. He's not John Roberts. He's not even Neil Gorsuch.

He's a Republican operative who is posing as a judge. Now, he is a smart guy. He's a careful guy, as near as I can tell. But he is a Republican operative. He's been in all of these wars, whether it's torture and George W. Bush or all of the judiciary fights when he was a staffer. I mean, this man comes from the Republican Party, not just from the conservative movement. Yeah, and I think there's a reason this would appeal to Trump, because one of the consequences of believing in a unitary executive is believing that all power emanates from the president, right? The president is who is empowered by the constitution and therefore the attorney general, the solicitor general,

the special counsel, all of the authority in those positions ultimately emanate from the president and therefore the president is ultimately in charge of them. And so regardless of what the law says, if it did reach the Supreme Court, what he would say is the president can fire any of them, the law says. If it did reach the Supreme Court, what he would say is the president can fire any of them, doesn't have to respect what they say because they are all 100% using power. He has granted them via Article II of the Constitution. That's right. And the thing about our system of government is we intentionally kind of attenuate power. We want it to be difficult to pass a bill. We want it to be difficult to even pass a rule. We want people to have to struggle, and we want some of the questions about where authorities lie to be unclear. It's an invitation

to struggle between the three branches of government. It's not a parliamentary system. It's not a monarchy. But President Trump very clearly thinks that anybody who works in the executive branch, actually anybody who works in the government, works for him, is answerable to him, and what we've got is a sort of intellectual version of Trump's view of the executive power. We already didn't have enough information. He already lied to the Senate on multiple occasions. We have not received nearly enough of the documents that were owed. It is a farce of a process, and we've also learned very damning things about what he does think about Roe and what he does think about healthcare. So, you know, this fight isn't over regardless of what happens in the next few days. Now, on a much less serious topic, before

we bring out the panel, there is another matter to discuss, and it is this. I believe you are the best senator at Twitter. Do you follow Senator Shost on Twitter? That was like scattered applause. So, can you offer some advice to some of your colleagues who treats Twitter as a place to put out press releases and terrible, terrible, terrible sentences. So, listen, I didn't intend to be as active on Twitter as I became. It was Trump that caused me to be more active on Twitter. But I'll say this. There are so many members of the Senate who,

they get off that little train, and they're perfectly comfortable being really articulate, very direct, very forceful, often very interesting in describing their positions verbally to the Hill press. When they get on the Twitter machine, they have to run it through their comms shop, and it becomes like they're selling soap. So one of the things that can work for folks is to just be themselves on the medium. I think the challenge is that it makes your communication shop go absolutely nuts. And occasionally you say something stupid.

I mean, I have said a few things that I regret on Twitter. What? And you just have to delete them. You just delete them. You just delete them. You just delete them. And then it's gone. And then it's...

All right. All right. And then it's... All right, all right. And then it's gone. Good advice. Delete it. All right, let's bring out the rest of our panel because we have a great show. She has toured with Chris Rock and she can be seen on the comedy lineup on Netflix.

Please welcome Janelle James. Hi, Janelle. Thanks for being here. Hello. How you doing, Janelle. Thanks for being here. Hello. How you doing, Janelle? I'm good. This a late, uh, y'all out late. She's the host of Crooked Media's Hysteria podcast

and a writer for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Please welcome back to the show, Erin Ryan. Look at that. Erin, you've got some fans out there. Hi. Yeah. Hi, people. All right. Let's get into it. What a week.

On Sunday, CBS announced Les Moonves would be stepping down as the head of CBS just three hours after America's favorite Me Too avenging angel, Ronan Farrow, reported new sexual assault allegations against him. You know, you can cheer. He doesn't listen. A few days later, CBS's 60 Minutes... You know what? He's busy. A few days later, CBS's 60 Minutes chief, Jeff Fager,

stepped down after reports of bullying and misconduct, also reported in detail by Ronan. I actually wrote, I forgot that I put on the card that he doesn't listen. And then I wrote, and it's a safe space to have this conversation because, again, he does not listen. But it's fine.

In a piece for the Hollywood Reporter this week, the creator of Designing Women, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, wrote a piece about her relationship with Moonves that drew a big red circle around the fact that harassment and misogyny is destructive whether it's sexual in nature or not. Bloodworth-Thomason detailed how Moonves rejected her pilots,

kept her shows off the air, killed deals she was working on because she wanted to bring a women's perspective to what she created. He used his power to squash her at the height of her career and he had the power to do that. Margaret Sullivan wrote a great piece about this,

I thought, in the Washington Post about how Moonves and other media elites not only harmed individual women but created a misogynist culture, not just behind the scenes but on the camera. She wrote, it's impossible to know how different America would be if power happy and misogynistic men hadn't been running the show and so many influential media organizations, certainly not just CBS. You know, men who are making the important choices about what we see, who we see, and what stories we tell in our films, in our news, in our politics,

have often been men who carried this dark connection to Donald Trump. And beyond sort of these specific acute instances that are reported, I think one of the hardest things for us to talk about is not just individual instances of misconduct or harassment, but the more deeply embedded notions about leadership, intelligence, charisma that often flow from men in positions of power who have a dim view of women. Erin, do you find that in this discussion, even now in the wake of all these revelations about Me Too, that we're still focused on the specific incidents and not the larger culture in which they're allowed? Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the challenges with having this conversation, and this is something that I've brought up before,

but it's that when we're talking about an individual man who has had an illustrious career and he advanced to certain heights and he used the power that he obtained at those heights to take advantage of women, to abuse people, to assert misogyny over an entire industry, what we do know is what that man was capable of within entertainment. We know that Louis C.K. had a show that was great. We know that Louis C.K. was a really good stand-up comedian. What we don't know is what could the women that were deterred

by him have done. And that's like, it's an unknown quantity. There's no way that we can possibly have any idea of what that looks like, what that is, and what we've lost. So I think the main problem or the main challenge that I have when I'm, you know, talking about this, thinking about this, is that how do you get in a conversation with somebody about this and convince them that maybe the world would be better without somebody that they consider a visionary because we don't know how much better or if it would have been better. Because we can't run the counterfactual. We can't run the other scenario. Right, exactly. Janelle, what do you think?

In keeping with what she's saying, it's not only the fact that we don't know what we missed, it's that these people got to get so high it almost becomes their defense when something happens. Everybody's like, but he's so funny you know what I mean so if he wasn't ever able to get to do it for so many years he wouldn't even been able to build this so called illustrious

career you know but like another thing that I've thought about and that you reminded me of Janelle is that some I think that that for certain men the access to sex is part of the reason that they even try to do the thing. Well, it were. I mean, that's why I'm in it.

We did it. We did it. We won feminism. Senator, you know... I think they're doing fine. They've won feminism. That's not true. That's not true at all.

So, as we look at what we've learned this week about Moonves, you can add that to the list. You have Moonves, Fager, Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, others, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes. These are the people who played a very large role in determining how we think about politics and how we covered a man accused of misconduct and a woman who may have been the first female president. Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House, never made it on the cover of a national news magazine until this week.

Do you see the connection between these sexual misconduct revelations and the way women are covered, including the way some of your colleagues are covered in the Senate? I absolutely do. There's no question about it, and you've described the ecosystem exactly right. We think about it in entertainment. We think about it in politics.

We think about it in business. I think about this kind of misogyny, this kind of predatory behavior, this kind of ecosystem that gets created where men are abusing women in a professional context, sometimes physically, often emotionally. But I think about it in the service industry. I think about it in the construction industry. I think about it because, you know, these men are at least being taken down in some kind of spectacular way.

Some of them are. But some of them are, and it becomes an object lesson for them. But to me, the object lesson is to understand this happens at every rung of society in every profession and that taking down les moonves is satisfying and important and allows us to have a broader conversation but but i think about hotels i think about restaurants and i think about women who don't have uh ronan farrow trying to take down some predator who is just managing a

hotel and an awful guy. And so I think about that and what we can do to kind of create a context where we're fair to everybody in every context. You know, that's what I worry about. Well, Steve Wynn, casino magnate and former Republican Party official, notoriously abused people in the service industry in Vegas. And to this day, the RNC has not returned the money that he has donated to them. Just a reminder, the RNC has not returned the money that Steve Wynn donated.

And because it's worth remembering from this day to the end of time, Ronna McDaniel, formerly Ronna Romney McDaniel, decided to invest money into the Roy Moore race after multiple credible allegations of child molestation reported. So that's just something to never forget.

And it's on my list of heinous individual actions that I will remind you of. You can hiss. That's a free one. You can hiss on that one. Worth remembering that one forever. That's why I was just shaking my head when he said these people are being taken down. Like, they're not.

They get to be embarrassed for a couple months hot out in Italy. They're still rich, and then they kind of come back, or nothing really happens. I don't think anyone's being taken down. I haven't seen that yet. Also, I hate the characterization that, like, they were taken down by the Me Too movement. They were

taken down when they put their dick out in front of a woman who depended on them professionally. I mean, but they've been doing it for years. So they did take, the Me Too movement did it. It was a delayed takedown. They tripped over their dicks several years later. It was a delay. So why don't we think about it like this?

Actually, we know that. Why don't we think about it? Maybe it's that they, we know that. Why don't we think about it? Maybe it's that they tripped on their dick, but Me Too was there to catch them. Exactly. Right. Right. For the first time. You know?

They tripped on their dick many times before anybody said anything. It is so awkward to catch a pantsless man just tripping over his dick. I'm just imagining some guy just Donald Ducking, just whoo! Senator, I don't want to scare anyone, but I, your faithful host, John Lovett, am Jewish. Last week, the media got together and all celebrated Rosh Hashanah. And we are now squarely in the 10-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur known as the 10 days of repentance.

So I thought over the course of this show, we could spend some time to reflect on the sins of our society. So please join me in the Atone Zone. first in the atone zone monica lewinsky monica lewinsky was 22 years old when she was thrust into public spotlight her boss and a man she was infatuated with bill clinton was 49 not only was she manipulated by her boss but she was also manipulated and used by her close friend linda trip who secretly recorded monica and then released those her boss, but she was also manipulated and used by her close friend Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded Monica and then released those recordings to the public. She was the butt of jokes for decades, and even to this day we say her name with a bit of a smirk. The scandal was also treated like

an affair, and not an episode of sexual misconduct, part of a larger pattern of sexual misconduct and harassment. She was treated like a late-night punchline, and to this day is defined by it and rarely asked about anything else. Monica Lewinsky got a shitty fucking deal, and we should atone. When we come back,

OK Stop. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. And now, OK Stop! We'll roll a clip, and the panel can say OK Stop at any point to comment. Tucker Carlson. He's like a gateway drug for white supremacy. But this week on his show, Tucker was incredulous when his fellow Fox News host wouldn't agree that Democrats hate America.

Let's watch. The real threats we face today may be from within. Leaders who hate the country they govern so much that they seek to make American citizenship irrelevant. Most people who live in this country already know that because it's obvious. Maybe that's why they're yelling so loudly about Russia so you won't think about it. Okay, stop tucker carlson talking i just kind of space out it's like a charlie brown adult voice and then i focus like on the aesthetics which are slightly first of all his name is tucker like why are we even that's a dog name that's for sure seriously it's a dog name try to reinvent himself with a tie instead of the bow tie shit like we wouldn't remember who he was. Why is he still on TV?

I thought he was done for, but he came back with a tie. That's what white men get to do. They just come back with some different attire. And they get a second chance. Okay. Changed a lot in the past 17 years since 9-11. Brit Hume has been here the whole time. He's Fox's senior political analyst.

And he's been tracking the changes to American culture and politics. I gotta say, Tucker, you know... Okay, stop. Tracking the changes to American culture and politics? It's called getting old and not understanding that that's what's happening. What is this newfangled contraption

that I'm supposed to use to call people over my hand? It's a cell phone, you fucking old piece of shit. Well, it's interesting too, though, because he's going himself. You've been tracking the changes to America. Like what Tucker laid out at the beginning, I think, was his articulated intellectual version of the kind of corporate Fox News fascism

he's practicing, right? Everything is changing. It's the immigrants. It's the tech barons. And you see it and you get it, but the elites don't understand. Yeah, but here's the thing about him talking about real American citizens,

and the implication is white American citizens who were born here. That's what Tucker is always implying. Like, it takes literally no effort to be born in America. No choice, no effort whatsoever. I did literally nothing to be born here. It takes a ton of effort if you were born somewhere else and you're trying to come here.

I feel like we should reward effort. Aren't we a country that rewards artwork? No, not anymore, no. I think this is funny, the threats we now face are from within. I like to think about it like he's having an existential crisis. And it's like a cry for help. He's like, it's in me. I don't really want to do this.

I'm a Thai guy now. But they won't let me, you know? You know, I love you, but when you were talking about leaders who hate our country, I don't think there are any leaders out there who hate our country, except in foreign lands perhaps. I think there are people who may have all the wrong ideas about how it should be governed, but I don't think they hate our country.

And I don't really think it strengthens the case to say that they do. Oh, no. Okay, stop. You know what? Fuck you, Tarka Carlson, for putting me in a position to go way to go Brit Hume. What's going on? It's not often somebody with that accent is saying the right stuff, so that's cool. That's cool.

You, if you have the richest people in our country desecrating our national symbols and that's considered a sign of heroism, what does that say about the attitudes of the people doing it? Or if you have people saying that America was never a just and good place, I mean, those are... Okay, stop. I just want to point out, I actually watched, I'm sorry to say this, but I watched Tucker for about seven minutes a night just to see what's going on. It's part of my job.

And this is actually not the worst. This is not that bad compared to what he usually does. Usually he's actually more overtly racist than this. This is sort of dystopian and terrible. But he's worse. I would say this is like, they got four out of ten. Tucker Carlson, not that bad. Some hostility toward the country, I think. He's worse. I would say this is like they got four out of ten. Not that bad.

Some hostility toward the country, I think. Well, they're criticism to the country. Whether they're actual acts of hostility, I must be permitted to doubt. Okay, stop. It must be so weird for Tucker. He brings it on like, hey, you want to come on my show? We can talk about how

Democrats and brown people hate this country and don't belong here. And Britt's like, no. I'm actually kind of old-fashioned terrible. I'm what used to be terrible before you started doing this. He's like Reagan terrible. No, he's just at the era where you don't say it out loud. Right, that's right. He's like, you're fucking up.

You're telling everybody. So that's all that is. So that's all that is. It's too late for me to pretend that I'm like not seeing all this bullshit right now. I'm just tired of everybody acting like we don't know what's going on. I think there are people with some profoundly wrong ideas about the direction this country ought to go and that their critique of America as it is is wrong. But I just don't think it rises to the level of saying they hate our country. I think the word hate Boy, I hope you're right.

Good comeback, Tucker. And that's OK Stop. And now we return to the Atone Zone. We as a society owe a heartfelt apology to Britney Spears. Britney Spears was thrust into the national spotlight as a teenager, dancing around as a sexy high school girl in her first music video. When she was 17, she first posed in her underwear in the cover of Rolling Stone.

She had been an A-list celebrity for around five years when things got too much. Just a few months after a tough divorce, her aunt died of ovarian cancer. This aunt was one of Britney's closest family members and helped raise her. She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers before she shaved her head and attempted to smash the window of a car with an umbrella. This public meltdown was an obvious mental break and a sad moment for someone we all knew at the time was struggling with drug abuse, but we laughed at her struggle and allowed late-night hosts to joke about the episode for years. We even shamed a young man on YouTube for crying and asking us to leave her alone.

He was right. For Britney Spears, we atone. When we come back, we're going to play a game about Trump's poll numbers don't go anywhere this is love it or leave it and there's more on the way and we're back I love Britney Spears I wanted to get that on the record

she's great her Instagram is the shit. Quinnipiac University, the Harvard of Hamden, Connecticut, released a poll this week. Tough hit. Tough hit. That wasn't all that keen on Donald Trump. The poll found that the majority of Americans do not have very

favorable things to say about the racist narcissist with a 300-word vocabulary currently occupying a building that used to house American presidents. So here's how this works. I have the answers to this survey, the most common responses. I'm going to go to our panel one by one. Each will have three guesses.

Whoever ends up with the most common response by the end will have won the game. So I will start with Senator Brian Schatz. What are the most common views voters had when asked about Donald Trump? Corrupt. No. Really? No. How many do I get?

We're going to go around three times. Janelle? Dumb as bricks. What did you say? Dumb as bricks. Dumb as bricks. Or some other inanimate object. you don't get it no i'm not giving it to you i'm sorry i'm gonna say dishonest uh that is the number two response

60 say he is not honest so senator shots back to you idiot no. No stupidity on this chart. No, sorry guys. No stupidity on it. See, that's why we're here right now. Like, what in the world? What? It's not orange. I hope not.

They're actual human qualities. Stop judging him by the color of his skin. That's what he does. I got it. Content of his character. Narcissist. Narcissist. I'm it. Content of his character. Narcissist. Narcissist. I'm going to give it number seven, not mentally stable. Crazy.

I'm going to say... I can't believe stupid ain't number one. That's crazy. I already said dishonest. I think unpresidential. Number five, not fit to serve as president. Senator, we're going to go back. Let's go through it one more time.

This is fun. I'm having a good time. Angry. Senator, I'm giving to you the number one answer. 65% say he is not level-headed. I'm counting it. I'm counting it. You want to go one more time, Janelle?

Immature. Since it seemed like y'all being polite and shit. You know what? I feel like that counts under not mentally stable again. I'm going to go with poorly dressed. It's not on there. The ones we missed are does not share voters' values, poor leadership skills,

and does not care about average America. Because he's stupid. I'm going to give you stupid. Janelle, you've won the game. He's a dum-dum. One last time, we travel to the Atone Zone. In her career as a prosecutor,

Marsha Clark won 19 out of 20 murder trials, including the murder of television actress Rebecca Schaefer. But from the minute the case started, the media was focused on her appearance during the OJ trial. She was mocked for her clothes and her hairstyles. Tabloids published topless photos of her and reported often on her ongoing custody fight over her two sons. Johnny Carpenter referred to her as hysterical, and the judge advised the jury not to be distracted by her short skirts. She was called the devil, and for years afterwards blamed for the loss of the OJ case, being called America's loser

and recently portrayed as a bumbling idiot on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and SNL. Marsha Clark was a civil servant maligned for being a woman and for the clothes she wore and blamed for being part of a trial in which a wealthy man used all the resources at his disposal to win. And so, to Marsha Clark, we atone. We come back. We're going to play a game about Serena Williams. Hey, don't

go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back! Serena Williams is one of the best tennis players of all time, behind, of course, Mario and the misunderstood supervillain, Waluigi. Last weekend,

Serena lost the finals of the US Open after being penalized a full game by a ref who didn't like the way she was speaking to him. Serena spoke to the press after the game and rightly pointed out that men say and do things much worse on the court all the time, and the only reason she was penalized so harshly was because of her gender. Famous potty mouth John McEnroe agreed with her, saying,

I've said far worse. She's right about the guys being held to a different standard. There's no question. But the media has a hard time coming to terms with the fact that they often treat women differently, so we thought we'd highlight some famous examples of this in a game we are calling Women Be Like. Women Be Like. I don't know. That's what I was going to call my podcast,

but then I was like, I'm going to call it something good. Before we get to the game, though, I did want to talk about the Serena episode because it was pretty outrageous. Erin, what did you make of it? I saw a woman expressing anger in a way that was calm. She obviously had a lot going on behind the scenes, I saw a woman expressing anger in a way that was like calm. She obviously had a lot going on behind, you know, behind the scenes, but she was like doing it in a way that was like really measured.

And it sort of reminded me of that feeling that when I was working in corporate America, like the right before you have to go and like cry in the bathroom feeling, you know, it's like I, I'm angry. I'm trying to express why, but nobody hears why I'm angry. Nobody understands what I'm saying. And so I'm going to go run to the bathroom, like I'm about to throw up, but instead I'm going to go cry in there. And it just was, I think that the reason it became such a like zeitgeisty moment is because like every woman knows how that feels. Every woman. And then like having somebody just react to it like, you're hysterical.

You're crazy. You're out of control. Calm down. That's such a signpost of being female. And it sucks, but it's just what happens no matter who you are.

Janelle, what'd you think? This is why sexism and racism sucks because if those things didn't exist, we wouldn't have to be looking into why things happen.

It wouldn't be this whole discussion. It would be either was she belligerent or was she not? But now it's like, because those things exist it puts a whole new layer of bullshit on it. Can I curse on this? I don't know. Yeah, say whatever.

We're going to get some F-bombs out of Set Her Shots. Word. And then what followed, the hysterics from the men who were like, we think we're going to boycott Serena matches in the future and that cartoon and all that shit. It just kind of proved what everyone was saying. It's proof that it's racism and sexism because they didn't even let it lie at the instance. They didn't even let it lie at the instance. They then took it into all these other directions,

these disrespectful directions about somebody who is like the best athlete in the world. You know what I mean? So she's earned the right to cry. And she's mad, you know what I mean? She's earned the right to fight about the ruling. She's earned the right to cry if she's upset. When I was watching it, I was watching it thinking, I can't believe this is happening

and I can't believe how inevitable it will be that there will be a debate about this after. That there will be people who argue that this was not unfair and not unreasonable on the part of this judge and on the part of this sport. And that is to me what is so frustrating.

Those people still exist. That's what sucks about living. Well, there's like a tyranny. I mean, there's also like a tyranny in like expectations of what it is to be ladylike. Like the word classy to me is very loaded because it implies that you're calm. You are like covered up. You're not loud or messy in any way.

And I think being loud and being messy are the best ways to get your point across a lot of the time. I mean, it also means not black. That's why they're saying it. So she's not being classy. She's saying she's being black. And then also, like in that cartoon that you mentioned, Janelle, her opponent, who was Japanese and Haitian,

was depicted as being white and thin. That's what I'm saying. It's like way to prove our point. You know what I mean? Totally. And so we will now play a game about the ways in which men and women have been subject to opposite treatment in similar circumstances. Would somebody out there like to play the game?

What's your name? Shelly. Shelly. Where are you from, Shelly? Orange County, the 48th. Are you from the 48th? Great. And you're going to help Harley Ruda win?

Already. Nice. Okay. So I'm going to read you questions. The panels have multiple choice answers in their hands. It will be your job to suss out the correct answer. Shelly, are you ready? I'm ready.

Question one. During the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake were performing Rock Your Body as a duet, blissfully unaware that they were about to enter Nipplegate. At the end of the song, Timberlake yanked a tear-away breastplate off of Jackson's outfit, revealing her breasts, but not actually the nipple. That's specific.

Since that was covered by some kind of weird futuristic pasty. They tried to pass it off as a wardrobe malfunction, though Timberlake did the yanking. His career didn't suffer at all. What happened to Janet Jackson? Is it A? She faced a decade of backlash, CBS and Viacom angered that the performance cost them.

All future halftime shows essentially blacklisted Jackson, keeping her music videos off MTV, VH1, and radio stations. The blacklist spreads to include non-Viacom media entities as well. Roughly five weeks after the performance, her album is released, and thanks to the blacklist, underperforms all of her previous work. Her career has continued to fade ever since, this despite the fact that the FCC has now admitted that they overreacted in their punishment of Jackson and last week's discovery that the man behind Janet's black list was none other than Les

Moonves. Yeah, or is it B? The Senate voted to establish a committee to investigate Nipplegate, and the subsequent Nipplegate hearings ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Or is it C? After listening to harrowing personal stories from those most affected by the incident, Jackson said, I understand the pain I have caused. Families expected to watch men give one another massive debilitating brain injuries for money, but instead they saw most of a boob. What do you think, Shelly? It's A.

It is. It's A. You got it. Question two. JFK suffered from debilitating back pain and a slew of other health problems. He was prone to infection after a risky spinal surgery, had persistent problems with allergies, along with digestive system issues. It seems likely he was battling some kind of venereal disease during the Bay of Pigs invasions. He took a ton of drugs to treat this stuff. He took corticosteroid pills, painkillers like procaine, and a drug cocktail injections from Max Jacobson, a.k.a. Dr. Feelgood.

These injections contained a proprietary blend of vitamins, enzymes, placenta, tranquilizers, and amphetamines. Always amphetamines. Don't woo amphetamines. He is to this day often considered an archetype of virility. In 2016, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came down with walking pneumonia, how did society react? Is it A? America went to the grocery store to pick out a get well soon card, but didn't feel good about any of the options. The ones that were supposed to be funny barely made sense, but the non-funny ones were weirdly formal

and made it seem like the illness was really serious. Eventually, America just decided to send a text. Or is it B? Even before the Clinton campaign disclosed the candidate's illness, Sean Hannity had devoted airtime to speculating about her health, attempting to paint her as weak and frail, qualities often inside the women as a way of dismissing them. The far right and some on the far left even used this diagnosis to regurgitate sexist conspiracy theories about her having some sort of neurological disorder, maybe a stroke or MS, with memes and conspiracy videos popping up all over the internet to prove their point. Or was it C?

A 113-year-old Dr. Feelgood was summoned. He ran at sprint speed to her side. He shot Hillary full of high-grade amphetamines. Gave himself a little taste, too, and Hillary and the speed doc spent the next 36 hours writing a screenplay about a dog and a veterinarian changing places

called Dog Vet. I like making people read such stupid things. What do you think, Shelley? What's the correct answer? It's B A man could get that movie made right now I would watch it A man could get that movie green-lighted right now

A man would get that movie made Les Moonves would sign off The vet's a man, right? Alright People won't like a woman vet. I won't make it. She's busty. Maybe a busty vet. I don't want to watch a movie about a vet I won't fuck.

Oh, by the way, that's not me pretending. That's literally from the articles. Not the vet part, but that sentence. Yeah. We got it. Senator. Question three.

Question three. In 1988, Rob Lowe made a sex tape with a 16-year-old. He agreed to 20 hours, yeah, he agreed to 20 hours of community service to avoid criminal charges and his career hardly suffered at all. There are jokes about the sex tape in his 2016 Comedy Central roast. In 2010, Rob Lowe's buddy, Charlie Sheen, was found guilty of assaulting his wife, but he was

allowed to go to rehab instead of prison, and soon after he landed the role in the TV series Anger Management. Tim Allen was arrested for drug trafficking before he was famous. He got a really lenient sentence because the judge was, no joke, impressed by his stand-up. Mark Wahlberg committed some hate crimes before he was famous, but it's okay because he forgave himself. In 2001,

when Winona Ryder was arrested for shoplifting, what happened to her career? A. A jury found Ryder guilty of stealing America's heart and little women. She was sentenced to life without parole in a maximum security prison.

Tough. Was it B? The major Hollywood studios warned Ryder that her career would be placed on hold until she could commit a more serious crime. Or was it C? Her career was non-existent for over 15 years.

She was a common late night comedy joke and she fell into relative obscurity. She's only really been accepted back into the limelight thanks to the Netflix hit

Stranger Things where I haven't seen it but I think she fucks an alien. What do you think, Shelly? It's C. It is. It's C.

You got that right. And Shelly, you've won the game. Guys, give it up for Shelly, who's won a parachute gift card. When we come back, the ran wheel. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back! Now it's time for the rant wheel.

Here's how it works. We spin the wheel. Wherever it lands, we rant about it. This week on the wheel, we have locks on cinnamon raisin bagels, senators on Twitter, Henry Cavill, new iPhones, people focusing on 2020 instead of 2018, Norm Macdonald, Eric Trump, and Paul Ryan's identity politics. Let's spin the wheel.

It has landed on lox and cream cheese on cinnamon raisin bagels. The order of Cynthia Nixon who came almost within 20 points of beating Andrew Cuomo who came almost within 20 points of... It's tough.

Of beating Andrew Cuomo and who may have lost a few votes by ordering lox and cream cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel in New York. Now, she didn't lose those votes because it's a bad order. She lost those votes because people lack imagination.

There are two kinds of people in this world. People who think lox and cream cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel is gross and people who have tried it. Because let me tell you something. I was born on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Don't say stop to me. It's true. side of Manhattan.

Don't say stop to me. It's true. I was raised surrounded by bagels. My first memory is of bagels. Every day the morning begins with bagels.

You open the freezer, there are bags of frozen bagels. Because sometimes you buy too many bagels and you freeze them because you go to the deli and you say give me a dozen a mix but there aren't a dozen people to eat the bagels Yum Kapoor is coming

you know what there's going to be for dinner there's going to be bagels so no one tells me how to eat a fucking bagel Yum Kapoor is coming. You know what there's going to be for dinner? There's going to be bagels. So no one tells me how to eat a fucking bagel. Love bagels. And cinnamon raisin bagels with fish on them is delicious. Yes.

Cinnamon raisin with tuna is good. Cinnamon raisin with white fish salad is good. Cinnamon raisin with lox and cream cheese and a slice of tomato is delicious. And if you see a movie called Delirious starring John Candy and Muriel Hemingway, you will find out that at a key moment in that movie, Muriel Hemingway orders lox and cream cheese on cinnamon toast, which disgusts the chef behind the counter. But it is an endearing quality for our main character, because she marches to the beat of her own drummer. And she may not seem like the natural person to play the part

in the weird soap opera world that John Candy's created in a movie that has very strange gender roles, which gets to some of the topic we've been covering tonight. But he loves her because she's great because she's the kind of person that gets locks on a sweet bread that has raisins in it. And if you tell me that fish and cheese and cinnamon and raisins don't go together. If that's wrong, I don't want to be right. Fish and raisins are good. Spin it again.

It has landed on Norm Macdonald, which was suggested by Janelle. Yeah, I'll take this one. I'm a comedian, so everybody want to text me about it, as if I know this motherfucker personally. But I'm a fan of Norm Macdonald, of his comedy. McDonald of his comedy and it's just upsetting to me that these motherfuckers don't really take into consideration black people like me that already got to explain why I like his folksy ass bullshit that he does like I think it's hilarious and I've been defending him my whole life it feels like and then he's gonna come out and do some shit like that so it makes you wonder if he is really like the minimalist genius that i thought he was or is he just fucking stupid you know i i'm so glad that's where i'm leaning right now

because that whole interview do y'all know what we're talking about he did an interview he's just like on the wrong side of every subject they picked out and it's like are you doing a bit but then also why i felt i know i felt the same way. I'm sick of defending Norm Macdonald. I have such an affinity for Norm Macdonald's comedy and to watch him

go into that interview and say such, it's, there is, I get that there, this was not a case of, This is not a case of someone being avant-garde.

This is a case of being someone fucking stupid because, you know, it is one thing to say I don't care what people think. I'm going to say what I believe. It is quite another to be so fucking inarticulate. To also, even just in the same breath, compare Louis C.K. to

Roseanne. To talk about them in the exact same way. Also, to then, you are a comedian. You've been doing this your whole life. You are really going to make fun of Nanette, which you haven't seen? What kind of person does this? I'm going towards stupid now.

Even if that's how you feel, why say it out loud? I don't understand. Disappointing. This is another example of how money makes you so insulated. He needs to just ride a city bus for a couple blocks and see some real people and really know. He also said he didn't know racism was that bad

until fucking Sasha Baron Cohen came out like, get the fuck out of here. But must be nice. Let's spin it again. It has landed on people focusing on 2020 instead of focusing on 2018. A suggestion from Hawaii's senior senator, Brian Schatz. So I'll be very brief. Don't do that. Um, uh, it is...

It is... We got about 55 days left, and it's not just not focusing on 2020. It's honestly not. In terms of politics, don't focus on anything else other than vote-getting. This is not even the time to talk public policy. This isn't the time to follow every twist and turn of the Mueller investigation.

This is the time to knock doors, to make phone calls, to actually get out the vote. That's what we got to be focused on. Let's save everything else for November. All right, let's end on a high note. The high note is this. This is it, guys. We are in the home fucking stretch. As Senator Schatz pointed out, This is it, guys. We are in the home fucking stretch. As Senator Schatz pointed out, everything of the past two years led to these next eight weeks. All the complaining, all the we're exhausted, all the this isn't normal, all of it. All the donating, all the volunteering, all the marching, all the protesting. All of it led to getting people to vote in the next eight weeks. The primaries are just about done,

if not done completely. I think they are now done. This is it. We have our candidates. We know who is in these races. We know what we have to do. We need to pick up these seats in the House. We need to win some seats in the Senate. We need to win up and down the ballot to make sure they can't gerrymander us into needing to win by 10 fucking points again. So go to votesaveamerica.com. Do whatever you have to do, get involved. All of your tweeting, all of your worrying about this,

all of feeling like the campaign of the next last two years never ended, that you can't believe how much you've been focusing on the news, you didn't mean any of it. You didn't care about any of it. You don't mean it unless you do something now. Now is the final eight weeks. Because

if we don't show them, if we don't show Trump that there are people who want to hold him accountable and enough of us to outvote them and win this House back, he will believe he has permission and he will be right. If we don't win the House, it won't be because he thinks no one will hold him accountable. It is because he will be right. If we don't win the House, it won't be because he thinks no one will hold him accountable. It is because he will be correct. And that is why this election is the most important midterm election in our lifetimes and that is why everyone

has to do everything they can. It starts right now. That is our show. I want to thank Senator Brian Schatz. I want to thank Janelle James. I want to thank Aaron Ryan. I want to thank the El Rey. Thank you all for coming out and have a great night. Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it