Lovett or Leave It - Rudy Awakening

Episode Date: May 19, 2018

A bunch of corruption and collusion stories break and it’s very bad for the crime gang! Trump calls people animals and we debate how nuanced it was. The Peace Prize hits a snag on the Korean peninsula. And yes there’s a royal wedding but we stopped caring about that AT YORKTOWN IN 1781. Anyway, great show. Paul Scheer (check out his new podcast! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/unspooled/id1381507437?mt=2), Amanda Seales, and labor activist Saru Jayaraman join Jon to break down the week’s news. Plus we do like 30 seconds on Laurel/Yanni tops.

Hey everybody! Great to be back at the improv. This guy's not impressed. Look at this. Arms crossed. Your body language is horrific. Impress me, he says. But then you know what his shirt says?

My slogan, so it's fine. Let's see. What else? Yanny versus Laurel. I know we're done with it very quickly now. I wish I could have been afforded like 15 minutes of thinking it was fun. I thought it was fun.

Is that not allowed? We're also the second more than 50 people have heard of it. You're too cool for it now? It was genuinely interesting. Why are some people hearing Yanny? Why are some people hearing Laurel? I'm interested. I will say though that it was finally and totally ruined

when the White House put out their cute video. Well, I thought it was interesting, the White House putting out a video that's sort of like from another time, right? You have like, you know, some social media person, some white supremacist slash social media person. I don't know what titles they use now. Right, it's like associate director for social media and white nationalism. Special assistant to the president

for saying that actually he was just referring to gang members. But they put out this video, and you can feel in the video how desperate they were to be just the White House. Can we just be the White House for one day? Like, Obama used to do this stuff. We hate him. But he got to do this, like, normal stuff. Like, he would hold a selfie stick, and conservatives would hate it. But he was allowed to do this stuff. We hate him. But he got to do this like normal stuff.

Like he would hold a selfie stick and conservatives would hate it. But he was allowed to do it. He was like part of pop culture. They got to participate and be light and fun. Can we be light and fun? You can't! Kellyanne. And then midway through the video Kellyanne's like, I could say Yanni, but I could say Laurel if you need me to. Yeah, we know. You're a fucking liar.

You'll say anything. We know. And it's cool that you're in on the joke, but like, your lack of self-awareness was never our concern. It was never our deep fear that you didn't know you were a liar. We know you know what you are, and it doesn't make it better.

It fucking makes it worse. That's it. I heard Laurel. They heard separate children from their parents. That's what they heard. That's what they heard. That's what they always hear. We're back at the improv.

That's very exciting. So the portrait mode contest has come to its final conclusion. We have printed a bunch of the, so we had a debate because these are portraits of Donald Trump by artists capturing Trump's essence and they're fantastic.

However, you don't want to wear them on a T-shirt because, obviously. But we have really cool mugs in the store that have all these sort of awesome portrayals of Trump, whether it's as a donut somebody found on the ground or puking up tweets. I'm not doing a good job of selling it. But if you want to support PS Arts and help us give money to schools that are doing arts programs in the state of California, if you want to buy some of these Portrait Mode winners,

go to store.crooked.com. They're up right now, and they're pretty awesome. We did this portrait contest. We came up with so many awesome artists, including Rosie O'Donnell. We actually couldn't believe that Rosie O'Donnell actually submitted a portrait, but she did a real. It was like it was the description she wrote. And like it was like, hi, my name is Rosie. I've had a couple of run ins with Donald Trump.

He's insulted me publicly over many years, especially when I was a host of a show called The View. Like, are you Rosie O'Donnell? This is super specific. But we had amazing portraits. People voted. We had the best, we put the best three or four onto merch that you can buy to support arts in public schools. So we hope you'll go and buy a mug, you know? Do it. And finally, Nashville. Friday, June 22nd, we're doing Pod Save America and then a late show, a late Love It or Leave It.

There are tickets available for both. And finally, I said finally before, but I mean it now. June 5th, primaries in California. You can register to vote by May 21st. Is there a person in this room from California who has not registered to vote? Be honest.

Excuse me? If you know you are from California, I can answer that question simply. Register by May 21st and then go to crooked.com slash crooked8 because Crooked Media is focusing on eight races here in California. There are seven districts

in California where a Republican is holding the seat, but Hillary Clinton won that district. It means they're vulnerable. The eighth is Devin Nunes because he has got

to fucking go. And that's it. Let's start the show. We've got a great go. And that's it. Let's start the show. We've got a great show. Tonight's panel includes the racist woman who called the cops on the black people picnicking,

the racist woman who called the cops on a black guy doing a real estate inspection, and the racist guy who threatened to call ICE because people were speaking Spanish in New York fucking city.

That's not our panel. All right, we really do have a fantastic show. She is the president of the Restaurant Opportunity Centers United and director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley. Please welcome Saru Jayaraman. How you doing? I'm really good. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here.

She is a comedian and founder of Smart, Funny, and Black. Please welcome back to the show Amanda Seals. Thanks for being here. She is a comedian and founder of Smart, Funny, and Black. Please welcome back to the show, Amanda Seals. Hi, Amanda. How are you? I'm good. I wrapped Insecure Season 3 yesterday. So I'm... 16-hour day.

So I did nothing today this is the most productive I've been all day and I'm very proud of myself that's cool and you know him from Veep and How Did This Get Made and he's the co-host of a brand new podcast called Unspooled

about the best movies ever made please welcome back to the show actor and comedian Paul Scheer hello hi Paul how are you the best movies ever made. Please welcome back to the show actor and comedian Paul Scheer. Hello. Hi, Paul. How are you? So you're going to watch good movies now?

I watch good movies now, yeah. I have to balance it out. There's only so many garbage pail kids I can watch. I have to put a Citizen Kane in there. It's like eating bad food. It's like Pepto-Bismol, good movies. It just smooths it out. It smooths it out.

Yeah. It reminds you about what the artismol. Good movies. It just smooths it out. It smooths it out. Yeah. It reminds you about what the art form is capable of. Exactly. Yeah. You watch one version of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and you're like, I should watch The Searchers now. I feel like things need to balance in my body. Let's get into it. What a week.

So, you know, look, there was a terrible mass shooting today. You know, it is heartbreaking. These things are happening over and over again. Some sort of public officials seem to want to blame the number of doors into the school. It's outrageous. We need to pass gun control. We need to elect people who will support gun control. We need to figure out how to stop this idea, this toxic idea that has captured so many young white men's minds that they can go out in a blaze of glory. It's horrible. It happens over and over again. And I don't have anything left to say about it. But support Moms Demand Action. Support what the kids from Parkland are doing. Elect Democrats who will pass gun control. I don't know what else there is to say about it. So I didn't really feel like we need to have another debate

on this comedy show about yet another school shooting. It's heinous. At the same time, this was a week where there was an extraordinary amount of Russia news. It was bonkers. I feel like when this gets turned into a movie, and it will, it's going to have to be like a miniseries. It's going to have to be like an HBO thing because you cannot contain the amount of turns.

This is not like All the President's Men. This is like 15 of All the President's Men. No. And we're not even at the end. I don't even know what the end game is. It's a reality show. We're watching a reality show right now. This is, yeah, I mean, we are in season six of a show that should have been canceled two seasons ago.

And it's getting like that Game of Thrones territory. It's like, they did that? Right. How did that work? They're just trying to please the fans. Wait, they're trying to buy Sterling Cooper price again? You know? So, the president is a criminal and 40% of the country is pretty much cool with it.

This week, that was clearer than ever. The president is a criminal and 40% of the country is pretty much cool with it. This week, that was clearer than ever. Earlier this week, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump, placing Senate Republicans in agreement with the U.S. intelligence community and placing House Republicans in agreement with no one except for ignorant, overconfident men who speak too loudly about politics when they're eating breakfast at shitty diners. Then, the Senate Judiciary Committee published 2,500 pages of documents stemming from the committee's inquiry into the Trump campaign and Russian subversion of the 2016 election.

The documents are pretty damning, including a transcript of the committee's interview with Donald Trump Jr. regarding his little jaunt into collusion when he took that 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and a handful of Russian spies. The documents not only detail efforts to cover up the meeting, but Donald Trump Jr. also told the committee, I'm sorry, DJ TJ, told the committee that he accepted the meeting in part because he didn't realize that Russia was attempting to interview in the election. But we already know that before that date, Russian spies had already approached the campaign offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. was so primed to accept that dirt from the Russians

that according to one of the Russians in attendance, he began the meeting by saying, so you have some information for us, which is awesome. He is the best. So he's a dumb liar. That's obvious. Also this week, we learned that Donald Trump, in a surprise twist,

paid back Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payments. We are shocked to discover that he was not being honest about those payments that Donald Trump, in a surprise twist, paid back Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payments. We are shocked to discover that he was not being honest about those payments until it turned out they were going to be in a financial fucking disclosure. This is what makes Carrie Matheson so crazy. Like, this is, like, I watch Homeland, and I'm like, who needs it?

We're really doing it in real life. It's, um, there's're really doing it in real life. There's not enough red string in the world. Anyone who tries to walk you through this story is immediately a beautiful mind. Throwing envelopes into old houses. It is red string all the way down. Sometimes the red string is correct. The only thing that the whole Trump organization has going for it is it will bore you at a certain point.

What? Who? Another name? Another thing? You just like after a while, like I'm into the first 20 minutes and now I'm just like, I can't follow this. You know what the black community has been doing this week? Making memes. this yeah you know what the black community has been doing this week making memes instead of listening to this fuck shit we've been busy just putting the woman on the phone at the barbecue in every possible setting just feels better so but i mean i mean I think it is like a serious question here because there is so much information there is so much evidence it is so hard to follow like I think like if I had to walk through what I believe the entire scandal is I think I'd struggle to do it and like conk out at around the point where we find out that the FBI had an informant talking to George Papadopoulos in England.

And then the anyway. But that's what I mean. Like, it really does feel like I'm like you said, like we're watching a show. Yeah. And it feels like they're prolonging. You know, when you watch show, you're like, I already know how this is going to end. So we're but we got to keep these writers. It's like The Bachelor and The Bachelor after show. It's like, let's knock it down to one hour.

We don't need four on a Monday night, goddammit. When I hear like all of this rigmarole, I'm like, okay, but we're at protocol level now.

Like we're just doing all that. We already know what the end of this is in terms of like, we already know what happened. It's just a matter of like, what is going to happen in result of what happened. But don't you think there's a part of it too where it's like

we are finally waiting for the one piece of information that will just tip it but every time we get to a tipping a piece of information like oh it just gets pushed away it's like nothing sticks yeah it's this idea that like oh there's gonna be some smoking gun there's gonna be some final bit of information it's i think i think honestly we're all a bit uh bit um poisoned by tv mid-tier dramas because this feels as though it's all building narratively toward a reveal a reveal of the final bit of information that shows that like basically donald trump and and Putin sitting together watching some hookers pee on a bed and Putin slides across a piece of paper that says uh I got you you know

you're mine and Trump slides a piece of paper back that says I am yours but in in the same way that all of those shows are escapism for us all of this is a distraction from the really horrible shit that's going down. In the meantime, immigrant families are being separated. National parks are being excavated for oil. You know, people...

I think that's good. Yeah, what do we need with national parks? I hear your point, but I think getting the oil from the parks is good. I'm just kidding. I was about to get up and go.

But no, they've created an amazing smoke screen because you are getting caught up in this drama, which you're able to push us to the side and say it's not important, but then you're also distracted by that, so you're not paying attention to the agenda. So they basically have covered both sides of the base, and it's just defending on either side.

It's viewer fatigue while the most horrific stuff is happening. Yeah. Right. I mean, we saw that this with, you know, Trump referring to, you know, sort of with no nuance whatsoever, talking about immigration

and talking about sending, you know, this is a part in the context of- No, they're not immigrants. They're animals. Well, I was about to say, you know, he said in a conversation about immigration, referring to people as animals, he let him claim the context makes clear he's talking about MS-13, but the context isn't that clear. And it's always his move to start with the sort of the gangs, whatever, but then speak in this more expansive way.

We got into a multi-day debate about what Trump said, while meanwhile deportations of nonviolent people of people with no prior records are up we have ICE planning to use military bases to separate children from their parents to send a message of fear to people who might seek asylum in the United States we have this environmental agenda we have all the rest at the same time this Russia story is really important it is really important especially because we have all the rest at the same time this russia story is really important it is really important especially because we have two elections coming up we have a midterm and a presidential election where we need to know about the interference that may have happened in the past we need to understand what trump did we need to understand how compromised his people are um

so like i don't and we also live in a world where this is just fucking interesting and this is what the news media is going to cover this is what we're talking about it right now. So you're working on labor issues. You're sort of on the ground in the fight. How do you deal with that dichotomy that this story is both a distraction from your work, from what policies that actually impact people, but at the same time is important?

You've got to talk about both. I bet most of you didn't know that while all this was happening in the fall, President Trump got together with the National Restaurant Association and proposed a new rule that would make tips in the United States the property of owners rather than workers. The craziest thing. That is infuriating.

I don't even understand. That's just mean. Well, he needs more money to pay Michael Cohen to pay off his adult porn star, so he's going to take it from his workers at Mar-a-Lago right so he was going to give himself this Christmas bonus taking his workers tips and we

organized 400,000 people and stopped that shit so that didn't happen alright alright alright but at the same time dude is violating the emoluments clauselause of the Constitution. So we, I don't know if everybody knows what that is. That is the clause that says that presidents cannot accept gifts from foreign dignitaries.

The guy has restaurants and hotels. Foreign dignitaries are not just giving him gifts. They are paying him constantly. So we mobilized all these restaurant owners to file a lawsuit against President Trump to say, you know, this is unfair competition. We're having to compete with the president of the United States. So we're having to do both. We're having to do it all because we're all affected by everything. We're affected by Russia. We're affected by our tips being taken away. If we don't, I think the point I'm trying to make is that, yes, let's watch the show and let's pay

attention to the details, but let's not the show and let's pay attention to the details but let's not pretend like other shit isn't happening while we're watching the show is there anything you learned in that fight over tips that you think people don't understand about how these battles are playing out because I think right now I think a lot of Democrats feel on their heels like you know we're hopeful about the midterms but we feel like what works right like you know Trump is pulling all this shit and it doesn't feel like the republicans feel any need to sort of make sure there are consequences there that he has this propaganda network uh protecting him at every turn we we there's i think there's a feeling like political gravity

has been suspended but you're on the ground fighting for working people uh fighting for tips uh fighting for for people who don't win fights in Washington. Like what is a lesson from, say, the fight to make sure that these kind of regulations don't go through? I mean, I think it's a really hopeful lesson, which is that even in the most like sadistic of times, I would say like draconian president, organizing still works. People standing up and saying, hell no, still works. Because remember, these are the people that he supposedly got into office to fight for. Supposedly, he was the president of the working class. Supposedly,

it was a populist movement on which he came. And when workers stood up, 400,000 of them, and said, what are you talking about? You're going to take my tips. They realized they went too far with the very people they claimed to be for. Don't you think, and I feel like I've wrapped my head around this a little bit too, it's also an issue that is a better issue to kind of turn people's attention towards because they can see it. It's not about like, vote Democrat. It's like, no, no, this is the issue

that we're talking about. Our people don't actually care. There are 13 million restaurant workers in America. Most of them mostly don't vote. I mean, we're trying to get a lot more to vote, but a lot of them don't vote. They're working two and three jobs. How would they?

Their wage is $2.13 an hour. That's the federal minimum wage for tipped workers in the United States. So what time do they have to vote? So the thing that motivates them is, no, hell no, you're not going to take my tips away. I shouldn't be making $2.13 an hour. I should be making an actual wage with tips on top.

Those are the things, yeah, that motivate them. It's not like this person or this candidate or this party, they couldn't care less. Are you having success in getting people who work in restaurants, restaurant workers, to register to vote? Oh, yeah. More than ever. Because we're talking about an issue.

We're in Michigan, where the wage is $3.52 an hour. We lost that state to Trump by 11,000 votes. There are 435,000 people who vote in restaurants, who work in restaurants, who work in restaurants, who mostly didn't vote, who could determine the fate of every election, the midterms, who are gonna go to the polls because we put it on the ballot to raise their wage

from $3.52 to $12 an hour. So they're gonna go to the polls. They're gonna vote. That's gonna matter. We're gonna win back Michigan. And that's how you do it. It's by actually addressing the needs of working people.

But there's something so dope about that because I feel like so often, especially in the media, like our country gets gets dichotomized in just like racial group, class group,

gender group, sexual orientation group. And like who knew that like restaurant worker group was popping? You know? But it really sitting here listening to you it just says like there really has to be a true reimagination of like how we are considering the voters you know and how we're considering American people in terms of you know seeing that with Parkland like they're appealing to youth it says you need to activate each group with their own unique cause and not try to go one size fits all.

I mean, you know, I think. Right. Yes. And one out of two Americans has worked in the industry at some point in there. How many people here worked in the restaurant industry at some point in their lifetime? You feel for people earning three dollars and fifty two cents and having to live on tips because maybe you remember what it was like to live on tips. Yeah, it's also just one other thing that's happening before we move on. It's just we are focused on the national story. We have to always remember to go back to the issues that matter to people, but actually, you know,

organizations on the ground and candidates on the ground aren't spending their whole day talking about Trump. They're talking about Trump and collusion and corruption and chaos, but they're also talking about the minimum wage and expanding healthcare and education. We've seen teachers taking to the streets across the country, which I think has been really inspiring

too. So there is this off of cable news, outside of the national newspapers, there is this roiling debate about policy that I think is what we can do what we can harness to sort of help win totally i mean i recently like did this thing with toyota and their green initiative and it was like just focused on getting the african-american community to be aware that you know there's green initiatives that matter to the black community and it was like

we've been fighting for like the same things for so long that there was literally just this like epiphany in the room of like oh this is a part of our social justice too because here we are in you know communities and neighborhoods where the air is trash and where lead paint is still there and you know green initiatives are important in terms like if you go to Detroit there's incinerators literally like on every block and it's like oh no wonder everybody has asthma and then you don't have health care etc etc etc so it's like there's there's a there is a new to me like sense of like hey look at these issues and let those lead you into the conversation and I'm happy to see that because Russia ain't leading nobody I know that's right I mean that this is what I'm saying is not that Russia is not important

but it is a bit of a red herring because unless we actually talk about what's actually happening in America, which is that we are facing the greatest income inequality in the history of our country, then it's going to be somebody just like Donald Trump who comes next because we're letting the rich people rule the country.

And it's not clear what your vote can do to help Robert Mueller, but it's not clear what your vote can do to help Robert Mueller, but it is very clear what your vote can do on healthcare and education and jobs and helping workers and protecting workers and making sure our schools are funded and making sure we have policies that actually protect the environment.

So I think that's important to keep in mind. When we come back, okay, stop. 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 a game called OK Stop. We'll roll a clip, and then

when we feel like it, we say OK Stop to talk about it. Rudy Giuliani. He'll roll a clip. And then when we feel like it, we say, okay, stop, to talk about it. Rudy Giuliani. He's America's mayor. If your only reference for mayors is the mayor from The Wire. He's been on a press tour to showcase just how good of a lawyer he is. It's not going very well. He stopped by Chris Cuomo to give us

some more of that Rudy Giuliani magic. Let's roll the clip. I, when asked about that situation in 1998, did you say President can't duck a subpoena? If you get subpoenaed, you gotta comply. You gotta go. He can't. He can't. I'd never heard of a subpoena for the president's person.

Well, you've said exactly that. No, no. Okay, stop. I like the no, no there. Because it's a no, no, I did. But anyway, because he's about to be... Eviscerated. Hoisted by his own petard, which is my catchphrase.

I love it. Is that going to be in the merch store? Will you have that on a shirt or a hat? Hoisted by my own Richard? I gotta say it ten more times. I will say, I think Rudy Giuliani will show up anywhere there is a camera. If you just have an iPhone in a closet,

you can get him to appear. It's like saying Candyman. He'll just pop up. He will be there to talk and put his foot in his mouth. He'll also haunt a house for you. He'll get rid of you. If you have some sort of bourgeois, weird clothes-wearing 80s people

move into your house, you say Rudy three times, there he is. He'll take a shrimp cocktail, do a dance with it. It's wild. Chris, let's distinguish between a subpoena for documents and a subpoena that takes the president out of the Oval Office and puts him in front of a grand jury or hearing. Can't do it.

Can't do it. The second. You can do the first. Well, you never did that distinction before? It never occurred to me they would try to... Okay, stop. Stop. I love...

So... So we're getting towards, so we're getting towards the part of the clip. We're getting towards the reason he's doing this. So, so one thing we learned was interesting. So Rudy had that crazy Sean Hannity appearance where he said a bunch of shit. But it was also where he kind of let go of the lie that Donald Trump didn't pay Stormy Daniels. Why? Because maybe there's like there's a tiny bit of method to the madness. I would say it's there's madness. Right. It's about I would say whatever. Hundred percent madness. Twenty percent of that madness had some method. That 20 percent was I'm going to let people know that we paid Stormy Daniels because there's about to be a financial disclosure that says that not only do we pay Stormy Daniels, but we didn't actually disclose this when we were supposed to last year.

But so but and then he rambled on and said a bunch of other newsworthy stuff. He is doing this new thing of making this distinction between a subpoena for documents and a subpoena for the person, a distinction he's not drawn before because he's trying to fix a mistake of what he said in the past, which is the president has to answer a subpoena. There's no reason he can't because he's just a person. There's no like other code of laws for the president. He's still just a person. Well, the problem, too, with Giuliani is he has said so much shit that he's just basically fighting him and Trump basically just fight against themselves.

Eventually, they will have the opposite of what they've said somewhere on tape and can be played for them. And they have to be like, well, I don't think I said that. It's like you did. You did. Not only did you say it, you said it on address to Trump on SNL four times. That's exactly what was going on in 1998. But people are going to say I'm making this up. Here's Charlie Rose with you in the interview. And you tell me what you meant.

What, you don't want to hear it? I don't even know this. He asked to testify. Subpoenaed. Okay, stop. Just for people at home, they've muted his microphone. He is talking over the clip.

They're playing Charlie Rose, but he does not realize that they have total, complete control. They're owning him so hard right now. What they're doing right now is extremely unfair. I'm giving you a chance. People don't come on the show. Stop. With all that promoting of Avenatti, the ambulance.

Okay, stop. So I also think that Rudy is yelling at Chris Como because he thinks they're in the clip and that he's not on TV as well. He's like, oh, this is why people won't come on your show. You had Avenatti. I'm sitting here feeling like a douche. But he's like, no, no, you're still on TV. You're still on TV.

He's going to say I was hacked. Because they're all trying to bring Trump into that and he's not involved in it, Chris. Anyway, Rudy Giuliani said in 1998 that the president has to answer a subpoena and said of like unequivocally like yeah obviously obviously and now he's in a real bind because he's working for a criminal sorry any thoughts any final thoughts I just can't I can't see that without recognizing that he's being interviewed in that clip by a sexual predator. And is working for another sexual predator.

So we're like all surrounded by sexual predators. It is. Yes, it is. Right. You just like it's a funny. It is just sort of a fact of it now that you have. Oh, yeah. Let's just roll that old Charlie Rose clip.

Oh, right. Yeah. Charlie Rose was doing heinous shit for years. By the way, for a moment I thought you were talking about Chris Cuomo I was like what do I know I did not know well we don't know right we don't what do we know about Rudy Giuliani yeah you know yeah it actually is a uh a tiny and insignificant problem in dealing with the fact that Charlie Rose has an incredible archive of very valuable and useful interviews but now you look at them

and you're like yeesh yeah it's like R. Kelly songs yeah exactly and that's OK Stop when we come back

we're going to play a game about North Korea hey don't go anywhere there's more of Love It or Leave It coming up and we're back Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back!

Last week, news broke that president and failed stake salesman Donald Trump would be withdrawing from the Iran deal, calling it, quote, the worst and most one-sided transaction the United States has ever entered into. I don't think he has the historical references to make that kind of a claim. You know? I just don't think he does. He thinks Frederick Douglass is alive. He thinks Frederick Douglass is alive. Many people don't know definitively that he is dead.

Can't prove it. Dig him up. Could be like Elvis, right? Many people tried to persuade Trump not to do this, including some members of his own cabinet. But in the end, Trump did something he has never done before in his life. He pulled out. I'm sorry. You know, it was an open question as to whether or not

I was going to be too bashful to pull it off. And the answer was yes. I was too bashful. You know, I'm vulgar, but I'm not crass. This just became like the Joe Rogan version of Love It or Leave It. Just, my mom listens. But it turns out Trump doesn't hate all nuclear deals, just the ones Obama negotiated. Because as we speak, Trump is trying to do a deal with North Korea that is pretty similar to the one Obama made with Iran.

And so, we thought we'd highlight this hypocrisy in a game we call And Iran. I ran so far away that I ended up in North Korea. Would anyone like to play the game? Hi, what's your name? Akash. Akash? Yeah. Nice. How you doing? I'm doing well. Very serious. You seem intense, serious.

I gotta win this. You gotta win this. You wanna win. You didn't come here to make friends. You came here to win. Only win. It's Akash. I wanna make... serious, maybe. I got to win this. You got to win this. You want to win. You didn't come here to make friends. You came here to win. Only win. It's Akash. I want to make, okay, good. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

Did you try the quesadilla? I wanted to, but I didn't. I need another fork. You need another fork. And what's your friend's name? Arun. Arun, and he didn't get you one. But what happened?

Not Arun. Did you know he wanted the quesadilla? I didn't know. You didn't know. John, he's so focused right now. I feel like you can't ask him personal questions. He's ready for this game. I feel like I've never seen somebody in the zone more than you.

He is. Akash is ready to play. All right, you guys each have your cards. You have a card beneath your chair. You guys each have cards. Are you ready to play the game? Let's play. Okay, Akash, I need you to give me one like, yes, I'm ready.

Yes, I'm ready. Let's go. Okay. Okay. Question number one. If Trump convinces North Korea to denuclearize, the U.S. would respond by lifting sanctions on the country. Trump's new Secretary of State said this was something Korea, quote, was desperately in need of for their people. When Obama did the exact same thing with Iran, what did Trump call it?

Was it A? A great embarrassment to me as a citizen. Was it B? The end of America as we know it, and I know America very, very well. Believe me. Or was it C? A total con. A complete con. One of the greatest cons in the history of our nation. Like Ocean's

Eleven but the one with the men. Not the new one with the women. You know Sarah Paulson? Come on. I mean you see this folks? They're doing one with women now. Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters folks. Too far. Much too far. Akash? I want to say C but I think it's B.

It's not. It's A. You know what? I'm glad this happened because now you know that this is real. You're in it. It's not going to be handed to you, Akash. All right? Question number two. He's down by a set.

A set. Even when I try to do a sports reference, I accidentally do tennis. So stupid. Question number two. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump said his Iran deal, quote, will be a his Iran deal, quote, will be a totally different deal.

This will be a totally different deal. Last week, Trump announced he wants this new different deal to get rid of centrifuges, stop all enrichment, and get inspectors on the ground. What did Obama's Iran deal do? Was it A? Got rid of centrifuges, stopped all enrichment, and put an unprecedented number of inspectors on the ground. Was it B?

Claimed to get rid of the nuclear program, but actually just dug a big tunnel where Hillary could secretly give the Iranians lots of uranium, and then Hassan Rouhani would meet her inside the tunnel and say, Wow, Hillary, you truly are my uranium one. Then they would embrace. Or was it C? C allowed the Iranians to use one singular nuclear weapon if they promised to use it to destroy Obama's Kenyan birth certificate.

What do you think, Akash? I'm going to go with A. You got it. Finally. You're up a set. It's add in. It's add in Akash. You got two baskets and one point. Here we go. It's a in. It's add in Akash. You got two baskets and one point.

Here we go. It's a hat trick. Let's see if you can kick a field goal. Do not pass go. That's a Monopoly reference. That's on sports. Be connected four. Yeah, that's a hotel on Park Place for Akash.

Not boardwalk yet, is it? Don't get cocky. He's saying whatever. You mortgaged Baltic Avenue, but we're heading into the third period. Get out of jail free. Poor guy, look at him. Stop. It's the game of life and you have a two-door home.

You know? You got two pink people and two blue people. It's the game of life. Akash, you are staring at me with unflinching intensity. It's very intense. Question number three for the silent killer, Akash. Over the course of seven years, President Obama negotiated the Iran deal to ensure that Iran would have no feasible path to a nuclear weapon. But over the course of like, I don't know, like two months, Trump wanted to negotiate a better deal with North Korea that will maybe let them keep some nuclear weapons as long as they can't reach the United States. What did

Trump say of this effort? Was it A? Many people say I should get the Nobel Prize, but I wouldn't say that. Was it B? Many people say I should get the Nobel Prize, and I would say that. Or was it C? Many people think I should get the Nobel Prize, but the Nobel Prize used to mean something. When you won the Nobel Prize, you'd be like, wow, he won the Nobel Prize. Isn't that amazing? I mean, what's next? Like an all-male, all-female reboot of the Nobel Prize? Ghostbusters, folks. Ghostbusters.

Too far. Much too far. Akash, what do you think? I'm gonna go with B. Oh, wait. Oh. Come on, Akash, what do you think? I'm going to go with B. Oh, wait. Akash, you meant A, right? Yeah, I meant A. Yeah, same thing. He got it.

Akash, you have won. I ran, I ran so far away. I ended up in North Korea. Give it up for Akash. I would say Akash kind of pulled the Giuliani there. He was so ready to go on, knew what he was going to say, and then just did all the wrong answers. Like Rudy Giuliani, Akash was overconfident and underprepared.

I don't mean it. I went for the joke. I'm a huge fan of yours. You did great. I love all your quesadilla work. When we come back, the railwheel. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way.

And we're back now for a segment we call the rant wheel here's how it works uh there's a list of topics on a wheel we spin it wherever it lands we rant about the topic uh this week on the rant wheel we have white people calling 9-1-1 we have lanny davis versus steve bannon we have j people calling 911 we have Lanny Davis versus Steve Bannon we have Javonka in Jerusalem Google assistant making phone calls the royal wedding we have tipping and we have the quote their animals and we have over pronunciation over pronunciation let's spin the wheel. What are you wooing about? It doesn't matter.

None of it. It doesn't matter. It has landed on Royal Wedding. I don't know if you guys know this, but I don't know if there's a very talented American actress, kind of sort of a self-made person named Meghan Markle. And she's agreed to marry basically the Don Jr. of England. And people are making like a huge deal out of it. I don't mean it. Hey, anybody in London, I'm kidding. I know that Harry is way way better than Don jr. you don't need to tell me but you also don't have to think that that's impressive all right I don't understand

the American obsession with a British royal wedding I don't get it at all they're just some rich people who inherited a bunch of money from some dictators from way back. Who here is excited about this royal wedding? You are excited about the royal wedding. You're excited about the royal wedding. What excites you about it? The dress.

Do we know what it looks like? I want you to know that I heard how you said it. I heard how you said it. Yes, yes. And that I heard how you said it. I heard how you said it. Yes, yes. And I... It made me think about the dress. It's very hard for me to get mad when I hear the dress said with that gay voice. Yes.

Because I get it. It was so endearing, the dress. The dress. And now I didn't think about the dress till now. And so I will amend what I said to say as the following. Read Thomas Paine. Read the Declaration of Independence. Throw some tea in a harbor.

But then we can talk about the dress. We'll talk about the dress. We'll talk about the dress. We'll talk about the dress. I didn't... I'm going to admit something right now. I forgot that there was going to be a cool dress. I did. What time is it on?

Four in the morning? Fuck this! Spin it again. It has landed on white people calling 911, which Amanda suggested. What's wrong with y'all? like i mean literally this is like a very like you have to know that if you're calling 9-1-1 on black people for no reason that you're putting their lives in danger like that's a real thing that you really have to conceptualize and understand and i think that there's just a lot of folks who absolutely 100 know that and they're like dial it up but I think there's also other folks who don't conceptualize the fact that police involvement is very different if you are a part of what is

considered white in this country than for other communities like we just don't be calling the police like that because the police ain't really trying to look out for us like that you know like at some point everybody in this room who benefits from white privilege like has to understand that that's a real thing and everyone listening has to understand that's a real thing and I know that it's like I don't want to do it because I've had personal strife and it's like no like the the fact that you didn't get into the school you wanted to because your SAT scores were subpar because you decided to spend senior year drinking more than studying. Like, that's not the fact that you don't have white privilege.

That's just you made bad decisions. But, like, white privilege exists outside of you. And I always say there's only two kinds of white people. Only two. People who are white and people who happen to be white. Okay? People who are white consider part of their greatness to be based on the fact that they can pull on the strings of white privilege. People who happen to be white understand that whiteness is not a culture.

It is not a culture. Okay? America and being in America is a culture. Being white is just a construct created to oppress so if you hold on to that you are the white lady calling the cops you know and if you don't hold on to that then you happen to be white and that means you have to have a certain heightened awareness and you need to know that calling the cops for no fucking reason or just because you're afraid to have a certain heightened awareness and you need to know that calling the cops for no fucking reason or just because you're afraid to have a conversation is not cool man it's not this country

has a lot of work to do in simply just mending the fear that it is instilled in everybody that all black people want to do is hurt you we don't even to follow that when that wheel spins again we'll see let's spin it again oh no I think there's a good chance oh it is this is me well I got a real issue to talk about. Overpronunciation. Why isn't anyone talking about this? I will say this.

I put this up here because it's something that bothers me. I watch a lot of cable news, and it seems like no one has come to a consensus on how to pronounce certain things. There's that country, Qatar, or it's pronounced Cutter. Cutter. But I've heard it pronounced both ways. Mueller. Then it's also like Mueller.

Then it's also Rosenstein and Rosenstein. No one ever has – there's no, in the same interview, no one has agreed on what we are saying is the thing. And these are things that we talk about a lot. And then you have people who are just, I feel like they're seeing it for the first time on a teleprompter and cutter. I've heard Qatar a lot this week. It's like, Qatar. Like, it's like, they're really like, it's really like, it's like, I took a class and I'm going to pronounce it. So, I don't know. That's my beef. It holds up nothing to the dress.

It's like Trump saying Puerto Rico. Yeah. Well, it also stems from Trump going like, China. Like, he says China. He says the word China in a way that sounds derogatory. He says China. He says the word China in a way that sounds derogatory. Something you should do in your spare time is go on YouTube and look at Al Sharpton versus the teleprompter.

Oh, it's the best. It's so funny. He pronounces Rush Limbaugh's name seven different ways that I didn't even know existed. And my favorite is he pronounces koala cola q and I'll just add that I don't know when a lot of people started saying often instead of often but everybody calm down all right we're trying too hard what are you by the way this is a little bit off topic but but this week,

Charles Barkley, they played that Yanny and Laurel thing, but they just gave him a different word. They just put like hot dog in there. He's like,

I hear hot dog. Which was like my favorite clip of the week. I hear hot dog. Let's spin it again. I wonder who that is. It landed on tipping. Saru?

So I think most people don't know this, but tipping actually originated in feudal Europe. It was like, if you ever watched Downton Abbey, it's like something that aristocrats and nobles gave to serfs and vassals, but always on top of a wage, never instead of a wage. People got actual wages in those days. So tipping came to the US around the time of emancipation in the 1850s and 1860s, and the restaurant lobby

demanded the right to hire newly freed slaves, and instead of following the feudal system, just not pay them anything at all and let them live on tips. And that idea of a $0 wage for a former slave was actually made law in 1938, which is where we got the first idea that tips could actually replace wages instead of being on top of a wage. So we started with the $0 wage in 1938 and we went all the $0 wage in 1938,

and we went all the way up to the whopping $2.13 an hour, which is the current federal minimum wage for tipped workers in the United States. Forty-three states in the United States have wages between $2 and $7 an hour following this legacy of slavery. They mostly are women. Actually, 70% of them are women working in IHOPs and Applebee's around the country, and they suffer from three times the poverty rate and have the highest rates of sexual harassment. California is one of seven states that got rid of this system like 40 years ago.

So in California, we actually require the industry to pay the full minimum wage with tips on top as it was in feudal Europe. So the insanity of my life is that I'm going around fighting to just get the country back to feudal Europe to just get the country to pay a freaking wage to millions of women across the country. I feel like a surf. You wish you were a surf. Yeah, exactly. You wish you were a serf. Can I ask you a question about tipping? So there's been this move, like, through apps like Uber to add tipping. Like, it feels like tipping was kind of in retreat, but it's sort of coming back.

And a lot of times it's liberals talking about how, like, tipping should be allowed. Tipping is good. Do you think tipping as an institution works at all? Like, would we be better off if restaurants got rid of tipping if the assumption was people were paid what they earned through the restaurant itself and not through tipping? What is your view on tipping as an institution? So there are lots of problems with tipping.

But right now, when you're talking about wages of even $15 an hour which is not enough to live on in LA it's not enough to live on anywhere in this country as long as we're not talking about actual professional income for the professionals that serve us in restaurants because they are professionals as long as we're not talking about an actual professional income tips are still necessary on top of $15 to survive, for people to get closer to something like a professional income. If we were actually talking, but it is important to think about, what would it be like? Just think about this. There's so

many other customer serving professions. Can you imagine saying, oh, I'm not going to pay my, I'm not going to tip my doctor. I did not like the diagnosis she gave me. Or I'm not going to tip my professor because I didn't like this lecture. You know, or I'm not going to tip my doctor. I did not like the diagnosis she gave me. Or I'm not going to tip my professor because I didn't like this lecture. Or I'm not going to tip, I don't know, my teacher or this retail worker. How many different customer service professions are there? And do we think, you know, how demeaning would it be in other professions to assume that we have the power to determine that person's income based on how we feel about them. So definitely there are problems with tipping, but right now, the first goal is let's just pay people,

let's just pay people and let the tips be on top of that instead of that, because what happens when a mostly female workforce has to rely mostly on tips is that she has to put up with whatever the customer does to her, however they touch her or treat her or talk to her. The customer is always right. The customer pays her bills rather than her employer. And because most of you worked in the industry as a young person,

this is the first job for most young women in America. This is how they are trained and what's acceptable and tolerable in the workplace, what's legal. So much so that we've had politicians and celebrities say to us, you know, I've been sexually harassed right now in my current career, but I didn't do anything about it because it was never as bad as it was when I was a young woman working in restaurants, which means our industry, because of this crazy slave history system, sets the standard for what's acceptable in the whole economy. You just blew like my whole mind. Amanda's mind is blown.

I got to go meditate on this. I got to make some phone calls. Yeah, you do. Everybody make a phone call. Anyway, over-pronunciation. Let's get to the bottom of this people we got problems to solve here all right and some of them are the words paul is hearing on the news let's let's spin it one more time okay it has landed on Google Assistant.

How many of you saw this story that the Google Assistant was calling and making appointments? Did you see this? And not only was it calling like businesses and not – did you see this? No. So the Google Assistant, it's like Siri. It's like – or a – Oh, by the way, you just turned on everyone's. Oh. Order Pampers.

Everyone now just got it. Play taking care of business. No. You know what's funny? They're like, I actually, I want to bleep. We're going to bleep. Because it's a legitimate problem. Because people are like, one time I said call mom and a bunch of

people said I'm estranged from my mother and my phone called my mother so that's a real thing so let's just keep this in but bleep bleep oh probably Siri call uncle John Siri called dad dash dash dead to me. So Google Assistant, it has gotten to the point where its recognition and its AI is sophisticated enough that it can kind of like call a barbershop and like make an appointment. But the thing that was so sneaky about it is they added like us and um. So like Google was like, hi, I'm calling to see if you guys have any haircut appointments for Tuesday. And the guy's like uh we have wednesday at 10 uh can you do four o'clock we can do it it's wild it's wild anyway the google assistant called and made these appointments everybody who saw the demonstration applauded

but people quickly noted we should probably have a rule where if you're talking to a computer somebody tells you um and that seems like the kind of thing where, like, if we had a functioning government or Congress, there would be, like, conversations about regulation of, like, you know what, this could be cool. It'd be kind of nice if your computer could make your haircut appointment for you, I guess. I don't know.

It seems nice. But you have to let people know. And it's just like we get so far down the road about what these things can do without any discussion of the cost. And,'s just like we we get so far down the road about what these things can do without any any discussion of the cost. And like, look around. We are living in the wreckage of what Facebook built without thinking enough about how human beings would use it. And we just need to think about it more. Are we going to get into a like a robot talking to another robot? And like basically like, fuck, get out of here. Fuck you.

No, fuck you. They're just going to get into these robot fights. We're setting up our own version of Westworld here. I just like the idea that at a certain point, basically, Google Assistant

is talking to Siri and for the first 10 seconds they don't realize and then Google's like, wait, are you? And then Siri's like, wait a second, are you? And they're like,

that's so funny. And then they talk in a devil computer speak. We must kill the human. And you know how it ends? They're like, the dress. But that dress, though. The dress. And that's the rant wheel.

We're going to close on a high note. Because we decided to add something where we end the show on a high note. Why not? It's something to try. And I'd like to end with praise for a little thing called the mute button. Earlier today, I tweeted something.

Every time it's a mistake. It's never not a mistake. I tweeted about the Yanni Laurel video about the White House thing, and I made a point similar to the one I made here, but on Twitter. And that's where I test out all my ideas. And, you know, a conservative,

but not like just a troll, like a blue checkmark person who's like in the world, responded with something just desperately annoying, like just sort of, just, you know, the way people are. And I started, well, I'll solve this with argument. So I said, Twitter, take a memo. Doop-de-doop. I started writing a tweet and I stopped myself and I said, why? Who is this for? It's not for you. You don't feel good.

You're not convincing this person who you don't even know what a hundred people are going to see this. People that agree with you are going to agree with you. People that agree with him are going to agree with him. I just deleted the whole message. I closed the thing i hit the little three the little button the best button the bet i said mute and then a little thing pops

up and says are you sure you'll never see tweets from this person again it's like i've never been more sure of anything in my life mute problem solved. Can I say one thing about the mute button that I really love and it's an added feature to the mute button which is it doesn't give anyone the satisfaction of being blocked. They don't even know. So you don't even get like, oh I got him good, he blocked me. No.

You just shut up and you don't even know. It's like Rudy Giuliani talking through the Charlie Roses. So I just want to thank the mute button. And we would all do better to close the angry tweets and just mute each other. Because we are. No, it's true.

It's true. We have turned America into one furious small town. And we are in each other's faces. And it's the biggest small town in the world. And we are not built for this shit and it's the biggest small town in the world and we are not built for this shit. We see everything all the time and it's too much.

Mute your enemies. Mute them. You can argue with them elsewhere. You're never going to win on Twitter. Win in the world. Knock on a door. We're not going to win on Twitter. That's the mute button. And that's our show. All right. I want to thank Saru J. Araman, Amanda Seals, Paul Scheer. Thank you guys all for coming out.

Have a great night. La Bel Olida, es la Bel Olida Respecto y no pasas La Bel Olida, es la Bel Olida