Lovett or Leave It - Send Him Back

Episode Date: July 20, 2019

Trump finds a new low. Republicans find ways to avoid confronting him. And Tom Cruise finds a way BACK INTO OUR HEARTS. Backstage in Salt Lake City, Lovett catches up with Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, Dan Pfeiffer, and Erin Ryan on Trump's fascist rally, the CNN debate draw, and the Cats/Top Gun divide. Then we go to a fantastic live show with James Adomian, Kiran Deol, and Jenny Yang to cover Democratic infighting, straight bars, and how we finally got Bernie Sanders on the show.

Hey everybody, welcome to Love It or Leave It. I am your host, John Lovett. We have a great Love It or Leave It coming up with Jenny Yang, Kieran Deal, and James Adomian, and also Bernie Sanders may have stopped by. Cool. That's not true. It's sort of true. You have to listen to find out. But we recorded earlier this week. We are in Salt Lake City about to do a live show. We wanted to update you on some of the other stories. I'm here with Dan, Tommy, Aaron, and John. Let's run through the news. Over the last week or so, the phrase love it or leave it has come back into the mainstream. What? I'm slapping you. Anyway.

Sorry, sorry, go ahead. No, no, leave this part in. This is going so smoothly. When we named this show, it was after a jingoistic nativist chant from the 50s, 60s, and Vietnam era, sort of as a kind of subtle rebuke, Dan. Subtle. And also a way of reclaiming patriotism, and a way to use my name in the title. Dan, is time a flat circle? Yes, time is a flat circle.

This is going great. On Wednesday, Donald Trump held a rally where after going on a vicious, dishonest rant about Ilhan Omar, the crowd began chanting, send her back. The president then said earlier today that he denounces those members of his crowd that did the chant despite not stopping him in the moment, even lied about it, claiming that he had tried to silence someone.

In fact, he did that thing where he kind of walks around and lets the kind of evil wash over him. John, do you think Republicans have done enough to push back against their president? Do you think I think they've done enough? I'm asking a question. I'm a journalist. I did think it was interesting that some of the Republicans were more quick to condemn the crowd than they were the president when he made the racist comments in the first place. So they were quick to say,

oh, we didn't like that crowd, that was bad. But when Donald Trump said, leave America, they were like, what, that's fine, he was just joking. Right, it was like, Tom Tillis did that. He's like, well, he's not in charge of what the president, what will people say in the crowd, just some words from the crowd, but they're just repeating back.

I don't like it, I don't like it, the president doesn't like it either. You cynical jerks missed Marco Rubio's one minute, 50 second video where he said he was not going to engage in this discussion because it is unfair and he's going to be above the fray, which is why he filmed a video about it. He sucks. He sucks so bad. He's the worst. I hate him so much. So the Rubio video is so funny because he takes, he has this video and he says, you know, there's people that want me to take a stand one way or the other, divide us, make me choose between

denouncing racism or denouncing the people that denounce racism, but I'm not going to get into that game. And it's like, don't worry, Marco. Literally no one thought you were going to get involved. No one thought you were going to get into the fight. Not Donald Trump. Also, no one cares about you. No one thought you were going to get into the fight. Not Donald Trump.

No one cares about you. No, you have made yourself invisible. You are morally absent from the conversation. No one worries about having your vote. McConnell doesn't worry about it. Trump doesn't worry about it. Democrats forget you exist. So you don't need to film a video to let us know you're not going to enter the fray.

The fray is not expecting you. There is no C card with your fucking name on it in the biggest debates of our fucking time. You seem like you still care. I don't care. It doesn't bother me. Well, actually, that seems, that's a really good point because a quick path to relevance for any

Republican who's sort of wishy-washy and no longer someone who's talked about would be to actually come out and denounce what the president did. Or embrace what the president did, but let's hope denounce. But if you're just a craven right-winger and you want attention, you could come out. That would require a spine, principles, some sort of integrity. Not great for Rubio.

It's also just the last point on this that a bunch of Republicans have privately, of course, said how frustrated they were, and it did lead to Trump saying he renounced it, wouldn't want to do it again. It's a reminder that when Republicans do decide to even do the smallest amount of pushback against Donald Trump, it can work. It's not impossible. Next topic, CNN held a draw to determine the debate lineups. It lasted one hour. They paused it midway through to do analysis about what the rest of the draw might mean. We found ourselves denouncing it in real time as a stupid spectacle that made Democrats look small and reduced one of the most

important moments in our politics to a game. And then I do think it's worth all of us admitting that in the final moments, we were on the edges of our seat like it was the final moments of the fucking Super Bowl. That's true. We cheered. We cheered. It was just like the NBA playoffs. You don't have to really watch until the fourth quarter. That's my experience of the playoffs. I like sports and you really don't have to watch most basketball games until the fourth quarter.

CNN, by the end it was thrilling and we all were cheering and clapping, but CNN should be truly embarrassed that they paused their own draw where we would have figured out the final results, the final stage, everything would have been set to do stupid punditry in the middle. That is the most

outrageous decision in cable news history. The best moment was they decided before the final four that Tuesday night was the moderate night and they spent five minutes talking about how we're going to have all these moderates on stage together debating each other and then Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren end up in that night.

Because the liberals hadn't been drawn yet, you bozos. There are two points to this. One is cable TV is ultimately about filling time. There's always 24 hours a day you have to fill. And they wanted to keep everyone, like us, watching until the suspense moments. And there's

a more serious point here, which is there is something not healthy about taking politics and covering it like sports, right? And we've been on that trend for a long time. Politico branded themselves as the ESPN of politics. But once you have turned the debate into the NBA draft lottery, I think there's some Rubicon that we probably crossed.

Yeah, none of those people that were on the fake desk at CNN in the big studio that's supposed to look like, I don't know, a spaceship, none of those people that were on the fake desk at CNN in the big studio that's supposed to look like, I don't know, a spaceship. None of those people are ever actually going to feel the effects of a new administration. Really. They're rich. They're privileged. They live in urban areas. They're relatively protected from the effects of legislation and the effects of a president. The people who are impacted by the next election are not people that are treating it like a game. Yeah. I agree with you, Erin. Final topic.

Earlier today, new trailers for both Top Gun sequel and Cats dropped on the internet. One made me horny. The other made me really horny. Any guesses? The real Tom Skerritt guy? I hope Cats were just... It was the hope that I might get to see my man, Tom Skerritt.

Cats was one horny. Top Gun was two hornies. I got to tell you, I am a sucker for a really cool fighter jet flying fast just above the ground on, like, a desert salt flat. I bet there's one right nearby. I bet this shit is happening. We should go find it. Yeah, I mean, as in most days,

today really came down to an oiled-up Tom Cruise versus pussy. Well, I think we all know what side I fall on. Before we were talking about the trailer, Aaron said that maybe this one they'll call Powerbottom Gun. It's a sequel. It's a sequel. It's a sequel. Yeah. Evolution in the character.

They put fighter jets in the trailer, but actually he flies a fighter jet for five minutes, and then it's two hours of him coming to terms with the fact that he's gay and was in love with Goose. All right. When we come back, we will have the live show we recorded in Los Angeles. Don't miss it.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Good evening, Los Angeles. Listen, it is a Tuesday, so I need you to provide double the amount of participation for the people that haven't come in yet. Yeah. Yeah. Pod Save America at the Greek Theater, August 17th. We will have performances by Amanda Seals, best host, Jim James.

Jamel Hill will be joining us, and we have a very exciting guest that we cannot announce just yet, but next week, yeah, yeah. Who is it? Exciting. Proceeds from the show will be donated to organizations at the forefront of the fight to protect the vote across America. The show starts at 7.30. Tickets are going fast.

Crooked.com slash The Greek. Okay, calm down. Out of control. Do you know how it's annoying when people tell you their dreams? I had a very specific nightmare. And basically, here it is. I was sentenced to death. And I was placed in a giant pie tin,

walled with crust. And I was packed in a giant pie tin walled with crust. And I was packed in with a bunch of people and we were over kind of an open pit that had not yet been lit. And just as the executioners were bringing the torches to the wood beneath the tin, the man next to me in the tin turned to me and said in a deep British accent,

they call them screaming meat pies. Cutting back on marijuana is giving me terrible nightmares. Truly vivid, cinematic nightmares. And we need to legalize it. We need to free the people jailed because of unjust laws and then we do need to have a nuanced conversation about some of the dangers

after, not yet everybody be cool right now, harmless our position is officially weed is harmless but after, once we get it legal then we all sit down and we have a talk about what it might or might not be doing to our brains it's not as dangerous as alcohol or cigarettes it's not as addictive as opiates but we need to talk about it it like a centrist on a peloton bike sometimes you have to admit marine doubt has a point

you know we were gonna do an opening about trump and the tweets and we'll talk about it but it's like how much racist tweet content have we all imbibed already? I just don't know what to do. It's maybe the most racist and un-American thing he's ever said, which is impressive because he's a lifelong racist with no bedrock values whatsoever. And then earlier today,

the Democrats couldn't manage to just pass a resolution without stepping on their own dicks. Why'd that guy walk off the podium? Just stay there. Do your job. Just drops the gavel and walks away. I relinquish my command. Stay up there. You're a member of Congress. You can't just walk away from the dais.

Embarrassing. I'm going to die in a pie. We're all having stress dreams, okay? Joe Biden did weigh in. This was his comment. If Trump doesn't have a racist bone in his body, then Trump doesn't have any bones. Now, I think it's helpful to do the contrapositive, which is if Trump has bones, they're racist bones. Therefore, if he has no racist bones, he has no bones. He's boneless.

Now, some might still call him a wing, but I don't think it's fair to call a boneless anything a wing. It's just a piece of chicken. What's a boneless wing versus a tender? All right. You guys want to start the show? All right. We have an incredible panel for you tonight.

We have a great show lined up, some very exciting segments. She's a comedian, a former labor organizer, and host of the podcast A Little Forward. Please welcome back Jenny Yang. Hi, hi. So excited to be back. Good to have you back. Thank you. She's a comedian, actress, and co-host of Crooked Media's Hysteria.

Please welcome back Kieran Deal. Hi. Hi, dear. No hug? No hug? I'll give youieran Deal. Hi. Hi, dear. No hug? No hug? I'll give you a hug. Okay. That's your threshold for an awe?

Two human beings on a stage touching shoulders? We touched heads. Heads. He's a writer and comedian. You know him from Last Comic Standing, Comedy Bang Bang, and his very funny fake debate toward Trump versus Bernie. And he's the host of the podcast, Underculture. Please welcome James Adomian.

Hello, hello, hello. Good morning. Good morning. Doctor? Doctor? How you doing, James? I'm great. Thank you, John. Ooh. I'm sitting on this stage.

It's exciting. It's a good stage. This is the best crowd, really. Love it or leave it. You've got a hot crowd with a lot of energy in the room, mostly coming from the cricket in the ceilings that is in the improv comedy club. Dude, the cricket coming for the silent moments. And I'll also be honest, this afternoon at around 3.30,

Travis and I were in an unused office at Crooked Media that we call therapy. And saying, what the fuck are we going to talk about? Because how many times can we scream Trump is racist into a microphone? A lot. We kind of built this show around it. But still, there's that cricket. That's insane. The cricket is so pissed off

about the tweets he had to show up here and chime in crickets always do the family guy style bit where it's like funny and then not funny but they keep doing it and then it's funny again and then it's not and they keep doing it

that's the only bit that crickets know how to do crickets are famous for commitment. Yes. They don't care if they lose the crowd. They don't care if you literally try to find them and kill them. They commit to the bit. Tough hecklers to throw out, too. It's so funny.

Even the slightest bit of silence, there is a literal cricket. Shh, listen, listen. All right, let's get into it. What a week. Oh. Last November, if you don't remember, Democrats took back the House. the House. And among them were four progressive congresswomen of color,

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Representative Ayanna Pressley. They teamed up and started working together on progressive issues and began to refer to themselves as the squad, which if anyone else did it, we'd hate, but because it's them,

we're fine, but then when we say it we feel bad because we don't like casually saying the squad they became instant celebrities not just because they're good at instagram live all that was helpful but also because of their tough stances and votes almost immediately a narrative started forming in the media that pitted these women and nancy pelosi against each other this was at times most definitely true but also has been misrepresented by Republicans to increase infighting within the Democratic Party. All four of the women voted for Pelosi to be speaker,

but at other times they have vocally challenged her when she's stayed less progressive on issues. The most recent example of this being a border bill in which the squad, and again, not my term, were the only Democrats to vote against. So in an interview with Maureen Dowd, we all know what happened there, a fight broke out.

Then sensing a nuanced conversation about race and power, Donald Trump decided to burst through the walls of the argument like a racist Kool-Aid man. He tweeted on July 14th pretending to defend Pelosi and suggested that the squad should go back to wherever country they came from. This, every casual observer understands, is a remarkably racist thing to say about American citizens,

especially since three of the four women were born in this country, and the one that wasn't has been a citizen longer than the First Lady. What fa... Who is a patriot. What fa... I don't really care, do you? She was just waiting for a response. You guys are talking about the jacket, right?

The jacket. Did I get it right? Yes. I think it's something like that. It was the Zara jacket. Zara didn't take enough heat for having that jacket to sell at all. What the fuck is that jacket? Who's that jacket for?

Not cool people. Also, there's a bunch of people that bought that jacket before Melania Trump had it. And they're like, that jacket got fucked. They're like, can we return this? Oh, no. That's the worst case of same outfit at a party. No, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

I thought it was kind of cheeky. What's followed Trump's tweet has been two days of media outlets debating whether or not to call the president a racist, and Republicans flat out refusing to say that the tweet was in bad taste. Very few came out against the tweet, and almost none of them called it racist. This culminated today in a House resolution that passed with bipartisan support condemning the president's comment about the four members of Congress. Jenny, obviously we've come to expect this from Trump.

What do you think would be the most productive takeaway or conversation that could come from this saga? Number one, apparently some spokesperson of Mike Pence's was quoted saying like, oh, Trump can't be racist because he has Elaine Chao in his cabinet. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Take away for anyone. Never use my friend is Asian as a I am not racist defense. Okay. I was like, are we really at square one on this?

Everyone in here, you can all use me as your excuse now for being not racist. Yeah. First of all, Mike Pence's spokesman, you just call of Pence. And then that's just easier. Also, McConnell was asked, would it be racist to say to your wife, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, go back from where you came? And he went, oh oh for five minutes i saw people saying things like uh i hate to go home tonight and be mitch mcconnell gonna have to face that

no these two people are fucking stone cold in it for the same reasons they are cool she's cool with him saying anything he's cool with her saying anything i feel like their bond is rock fucking solid and dare i say it pretty sexual i just want us to face the facts that marriage that marriage is strong the marriage between mitch and Elaine Chao is obviously strong. She's the labor secretary, right? Is she transportation now or labor now? She's transportation now. She's been both. And actually,

it's crazy. Twice in history, there's been a woman who's been both labor secretary and transportation secretary and whose husband has been majority leader because Liddy Dole also had those two jobs and her husband was Senate majority leader. What are the odds of that?

This is why the Illuminati is real. It proves everything. Or Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chow were just looking at the Dole's as their guiding path. That was their house of cards.

Their personal house of cards. Like their personal house of cards. They're like, yeah. There are Beatles. The future. When Mitch McConnell opened up his high school locker, there's a picture of Bob Dole. When Elaine Chao was pumping iron in the garage, there's a little picture of Liddy Dole on the mirror

as her inspiration. Inspiration. Like how I use Chris Pratt. He's a thick man. He should just be a thick man. He's beautiful as a thick man. He is. He's beautiful as a thick man. Why do they have to eat nothing and become just sinew for Marvel?

Let him go on his journey. Kieran, it feels like every few months Trump says something racist. We call him racist. He says he isn't. It just happens again. Do you think we've learned anything so far from this episode? Are we just going to be in this cycle till the day he's re-elected?

I told you I'm going to be peppering those in between now and 2020, so fucking deal with that. People don't change terribly. You can never be a totally different person than who you are, but you can be the best version of are but you can be the best version of yourself or you can be the worst version of yourself and what's been interesting to watch

about trump as he's kind of progressed over the course of his like career in the media is he's just become kind of like a caricature of who he began as it's a little bit of a bummer and how do you if you are a person going about your day and you're looking at Twitter, but you also have to like do your job or do whatever it is, how do you like both respond to, you know, something that's egregious and not normalize it, but also not be so reactionary that you let it like ruin your day? James. Hi, John. It's 2020. James. Hi, John. It's 2020. Already? So clearly what we are seeing is what Donald Trump plans to do, whether he's being strategic or not. His idiot, savant, racist, base-riling brain has

landed on this once again as his main way of engaging in politics. This is what he did in the run-up to the midterms and making it about the caravan. Obviously, it did not work for him. This is what he did in the run-up to the midterms and making it about the caravan. Obviously, it did not work for him. It's what he's going back to. It's September of 2020, and Donald Trump has done this kind of thing again, looking to paint Democrats as radical

while using racism to get it in front of people and also simply by being racist. Who do you view amongst these Democratic candidates as the best able to take that moment and respond to it? Because they'll have to respond while still making an argument not just against Trump, but for something better. That's an interesting question. I think we'll have to see what they say. Yeah.

I think the ball is in their court in many ways. Trump has capitalized on moments when, for example, Nancy Pelosi is criticizing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a lot lately. Yeah. And he's smart enough of a game player to go, oh, I'm going to insert myself and make them both lose. I think the important thing is going to be to back up the squad. I think he's one of many people that are harshly

criticizing them because their ideas are good and popular and they terrify all of the libertarian bros so much because they don't respect their sacred ideas and they represent a new world. And so

I don't know which candidate is going to handle it the best. I'm waiting to see. I like that Bernie stepped forward and is raising money for them. People are still daily coming forward and talking about it. I do probably think that Biden won't help no matter what he says. Did you not hear the bones thing? The bones thing rules. Hey, you motherfucker. If you don't have racist bones, guess what? No skeleton.

You are a jellyfish. You are a non-vertebrate person who doesn't have motor reflexes that run through your frontal cortex. They run entirely through a more primitive nervous system. Boom! Oh! Another Joe Biden dunk.

I think we're lucky right now to have four congresswomen that are that awesome. I haven't seen that in my life. I remember that I really loved Bernie Sanders, and I remember when he got elected to office, we were like, oh, Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders in the Senate at the same time, and then Russ Feingold lost. And so it's really cool to have four representatives

this awesome, who are this young at the beginning of their careers, some of them too young to run for president even. And they're very popular, and their ideas are very popular, and they have the bad guys terrified. That's why this is happening.

I think that they're still winning. You're going to get a lot of negative attention when you're good and you're winning. Yeah, I think that's right. I also think it has, I hope, shown Democrats in Congress in stark relief how counterproductive it is for us to fight amongst ourselves in public in such a personal and petty way. You know, I have a long-standing personal belief about a zombie apocalypse, and it is this. It is that I believe the zombie apocalypse is possible, and we will take some heavy losses in the early days. However, films overestimate how hard it will be

to rebuild once we've gotten the hang of the rules. Because ultimately, a zombie is just a tiger that makes more tigers when it bites you, but our problem with tigers is not getting bit by tigers. We're good at not getting bit by tigers.

You see what I'm saying? It's obviously very dangerous that zombies can turn human beings into zombies. That makes them a fearsome predator. You're with me. But once we figure out how to stop being bitten by them, which, again, should be simpler than these films make it look, they're just tigers, and we can defeat tigers.

Point is, zombie TV shows and films figure out pretty quickly that zombies aren't as ferocious an enemy as you want them to be, and so it becomes about people fighting each other, creating an opening for the zombies. I think, imagine that you've got four awesome women of color, young zombie slayers that are taking care of the zombies

and then Nancy Pelosi wades in and goes, you guys need to email me privately. Let the squad do their job. Back them up. Nancy just wants to know what kind of weapons they're using to murder the zombies.

It makes sense. And in fairness to Nancy Pelosi, she's been killing zombies herself for 50 years. For a long time. For a long time.

For a long time. That's true. One thing that does make me incredibly optimistic about this is like, you know, the rhetoric is the rhetoric, but at the end

of the day it's like this congress is more diverse than any congress in the history of the united states even given that trump is in office and even given all of the the terrible and pessimistic stuff that's happening and i find that very encouraging because to me it means that regardless of what you say or what kind of tantrum you throw as a 70-year-old man, it's like change is genuinely inevitable. The truth is that the argument that they're having is real and important, right? And it's how to fight. It's an argument about how to fight. And I think it's one we need to have and it's serious, right?

Like these are real differences that you can't just paper over. You can't just say let's be united because we're trying to decide what it means to be united and what we're all standing for together. I just think it's important. I hope the wake up call from this racist nonsense is we can find a way to have these disagreements without creating the space for Donald Trump to use it against us so easily. That's all. Can I just say I'm really

disappointed that none of us acted out Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao having sex. Just Dixie on the Sonos. Alright. Dixie on the Sonos. I'm in the mood, Elaine. When we come back, we'll have a segment with a very special guest.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. We have a treat for all of you tonight, all right? For those listening at home, you're not going to believe who's joining us. For those of you here, you're also not going to believe who's here because they're here for real. Thank you. He's the junior senator from the state of Vermont and a candidate for president of the United States.

Please welcome Senator Bernie Sanders. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. By the way, fun fact, senator from Vermont is the only thing I'm junior at. I'm getting booed by someone to my left. That's ironic. I think that she thought Bernie Sanders was really here. I am really here. What's the problem? That's what I'm saying, because her head whipped around to look for the door, not realizing he was already on the stage.

Since 2012, Grover Norquist, a man who looks like Horatio Sanz, read too many YouTube comments, has asked Republican candidates for office to sign his pledge committing them to his core values. No new taxes, no elimination of tax deductions, no talking when Big Bang Theory is on. And since I consider myself the Grover Norquist of people who are physically attracted

to the angry bagel boss man, Travis, you son of a bitch. To clarify, if you are listening at home, that is a prank card. Sometimes my wife, Jane, pranks me with some of my speech cards. And I will mean to say the top 1% of the top 10%. And she puts in a joke line,

so it says the top 2% of the top 12%. And it throws off the math by a very small percentage. So during the primary, we're starting our own pledge, pinning presidential candidates down on the issues that matter most in a segment we're calling Queen for a Day. Senator Sanders has agreed to be the fifth candidate to face the gauntlet. Are you ready? Okay, sounds ready.

Sure. Sounds ready. First question, on day one, do you pledge to eliminate daylight savings and never let the American people see dark before 5 p.m. again? Well, I thank you for this question, John. For far too long, American families have not been able

to save as much daylight as their parents or their grandparents were. I think we need a mass movement for people to come together to be able to change the regulation of daylight and, yes, force the Wall Street bankers to allow us to save as much daylight as we need. Elizabeth Warren has introduced a plan to break up the big tech companies.

How many accidental reply-all emails would a member of your cabinet need to send before you fired them? I see what you did. There was a very enticing preamble that had nothing to do with the question. Next question. As president, will you give Michael Phelps an official armband about the time we got all mad at him

and made him go to rehab for taking a bong rip after winning like 100 gold medals at the Olympics? Look, I think that Michael Phelps ran a clean race. I admire him for that. We disagree on a lot of political topics and I've always been more of a fan of the butterfly stroke. I disagree aquatically with Michael Phelps. But I

think as Americans and you know, citizens of the world, we can come together and figure out how to knock our ears on the side of the pool when we have water in our ears. Yes!

I'm so inspired right now. So you're a no-nonsense sort of guy? Oh, look, I can handle about 4 or 5 percent nonsense. When someone claims to have read a book but actually just listened to the audiobook, does it count? I didn't. That was...

I couldn't hear. It sounded to me... You were so fast, it sounded like the Honey Nut Cheerios bee. That's correct. It's day one of a Bernie Sanders presidency. What should America do with all the people who are really into paintball? Well, paintball has its place.

I think that paintball should be tightly regulated. I've been criticized for being for a leftist a little bit too in bed with the large paintball gun manufacturers. But I will remind you, I got a D- rating from the National Paintball Association. They have no place in my inauguration.

What should the default mustard be when someone says with mustard? Yellow mustard or spicy brown mustard? John, I treasure the ability to answer this question that you have given me. I think it's a privilege.

When I think of spicy brown mustard, I and a lot of Americans think of Grey Poupon, which immediately makes me think of two, you know, Bentleys, two members of the 1%, probably the top 10% of the top 1%, handing spicy brown mustard from window to window. In my view, and when I say that, what I always mean is that's the way I see it and therefore that's the way it is.

In my view, yellow mustard is the only kind of mustard that anybody needs. What kind of Jew from Brooklyn is going to come on this stage and tell me that yellow mustard is the mustard? Well, let me finish. A little too much fucking Vermont for you, sir. Let me finish.

Okay, if you're going to try to turn Brooklyn against Vermont, then maybe you should. I've got news. You've got a place in the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign. I don't care for mustard myself. I eat entirely oatmeal. You're texting with your vice president, Andrew Yang. You send a really funny joke.

Would you rather he writes the word ha ha ha or do that iMessage thing where you can add a ha ha bubble to the text? Oh sure, if you double click on a thing and it says you got an exclamation point or there's a heart or a ha ha ha couple of little things.

If Andrew Yang, and I am open to the possibility he could be my vice president because we might enter a divided convention. If the democratic establishment forces andrew yang on their reluctant nominee bernie sanders in a divided contentious convention if andrew yang is my lyndon johnson then yes i think that that's entirely appropriate to double click on my message however he will never be able to communicate with me that way

because I use a jitterbug and I am proud of it. Rank the Spider-Men Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire. Well, okay, there's only one Spider-Man that matters to me, and that is the Prince Spider-Man. The Prince Spider-Man. I don't go in for a lot of the big motion pictures. I like Spider-Man when you can see him on the page, and you go, there he is.

He's swinging. I believe it. I don't like seeing, oh, he's swinging. I don't believe it. I'm sorry. He's swinging. I believe it. I don't like seeing, oh, he's swinging. I don't believe it. I'm sorry, that's incorrect. The correct answer is Andrew Garfield never played Spider-Man. That's not real. Well, I thought you said James

Garfield. James Garfield, the former president, did briefly play Spider-Man. Next question, Senator Sanders. Taking clothes right... Taking clothes right from the... There's just no reason to cough right in the mic, Senator Sanders. Taking clothes right from the... There's just no reason to cough right in the mic, Senator. And yet, for far too long,

the elite of this country has been encouraging us to cough off microphone and therefore stifle exactly how bad things have gotten. I see. Next question, taking clothes... You take that answer. That's a good answer. I see. Next question. Taking close... You take that answer. That's a good answer. I think that was good.

That makes a lot of sense to me. What I'm learning is that if I bullshit long enough, you will move on to the next question. I wish that Rachel Maddow would have applied those rules at the last debate. What's wrong with that? I'm keeping it light and easy. I get a whoa.

Sorry, Andrew Dice Clay has grabbed the mic. Can we remove Andrew Dice Clay? Let me get him out of here. Get him out of here. Next question. Taking clothes right from the dryer instead of putting them away, lazy or efficient?

I remember in America when Franklin Roosevelt was president. When a dryer was a fantastic luxury. And when we had a dryer, we would not only carry the clothes and lovingly put them inside the dryer. And we didn't have our own dryer. There was a community dryer.

How old are you? Oh, well, you remember the main? Personally, no. I'm a little bit older than that. You're a little bit older than the main. Look, let me put it this way. I grew up with William Jennings Bryan. Like he was a

boy while you were a boy. You grew up together. I'm slightly older than the concept of a nickel. But look, if you're in a hurry, throw your socks at the dryer. Next question, and you need to be honest with the American people. Who would win in a no-holds-barred street fight? You, Joe Biden, or Guy Pearce in character as Old Waylon from Prometheus?

Well, Prometheus is a fantastic, if lopsided, film. Well, Prometheus is a fantastic, if lopsided, film imagining the possibility that human beings are descended from a higher alien culture and I have to respect the vision of, it was Ridley Scott? I have to respect the vision of Ridley Scott. I think it's a greater work than some people say Gladiator was. Correct. But, look, I know how to handle Biden and Guy Pearce in the arena, if you will. You got to headbutt Guy Pearce and go for Biden's throat.

That's exactly what I'm going to do. You got to be mean, and I will bite. I will bite. If it's just me and no rules, I will bite Joe Biden. You'll bite him? I will be biting Biden. Do you have a specific part of him you'd go for first? Well, I don't want to hurt the guy too much. I'm going to bite him on his hand.

You're going to bite him in his hair? I said hand, son of a bitch. Oh, sorry. Final question. Finally. Why won't the real Bernie Sanders come on this show? Let me say this, and when I say that, what I mean is I'm going to say something.

I am not opposed to coming on the show. However, I noticed that it tends to happen live at the Improv Comedy Club here on Melrose in Los Angeles, and I'm more of a comedy store guy. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Senator Bernie Sanders. You ran him through the gauntlet. He did great. He was, wow.

He was, you know, I'm still 85% for Bernie Sanders after that. Before and after. He's my guy mostly. It is truly insane that a 77-year-old Jew from Brooklyn chose yellow mustard. And it's something I'll be thinking about for a while. I don't know. You have to take that up with Bernie. I will take it up with him. I'm just like thinking about for a while. I don't know. You have to take that up with Bernie. I will take it up with him.

I'm just thinking about it. I'm thinking about the kind of mustards he would have had growing up. Sure. Gildans. Yes, and that's it. End of list. When we come back,

we're going to play a game about Nelson Mandela. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. There is a famous quote from Nelson Mandela's inaugural address that goes like this. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. It's a beautiful quote by Nelson Mandela that has popped up all over the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. It's a beautiful quote by Nelson Mandela that has popped up all over the place, like when it was read aloud in the film

Akilah and the Bee. Go over there and read the quotation that's on the wall. Read it aloud, please. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Or in an inspirational scene that features in the background Channing Tatum in the film Coach Carter. We got shit to do, sir. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. But here's the thing about that quote. Nelson Mandela never said it.

It was actually written by Marianne Williamson. it. It was actually written by Marianne Williamson. A quote that has been widely attributed to Nelson Mandela for so long it has made its way into various films attributed to him is actually from the 1996 book A Return to Love.

People on the internet loved the word so much they started attributing it to Nelson Mandela and it stuck. Jesus Christ. So she really is a warrior of energy. She is. She is.

She helps a lot of people. You guys are making some really good points. In fact, the discovery made us laugh. It also raised some interesting questions, which is why we're playing a game called Girlfriend, you are so the president of South Africa. Would anyone out there like to play the game? Hi, what's your name?

Evante. Well, this is going to be fun. Because here's the deal. We're going to read you a bunch of quotes. Some of them are by Nelson Mandela. Some of them are by Marianne Williamson. My friends are going to drag me about this. It's really rough.

So, you know, good luck. If you think it's Marianne Williamson, Laura Dern's old roommate, you say Marianne. If you think it's Nelson Mandela, hero of South African liberation, you say Marianne. If you think it's Nelson Mandela, hero of South African liberation, you say Mandela. Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world. Mandela.

Marianne. The time for healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us. Mandela. Got it. God damn it.

Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do. Marianne. Mandela.

We are to do what there is a deep psychological and emotional imperative for us to do. That's our point of power, the source of our brilliance. Our power is not rationally or willfully called forth. It's

a divine dispensation, an act of grace. Mandela. Marianne. What reparations carry that race-based policies do not is that reparations can carry spiritual force. There is an inherent mea culpa. Marianne. Marianne. You got it. You knew that one.

Nice. Did you get some help?. You knew that one. Nice. Did you get some help? Is there some help happening? Nope. All right. She was just crazy at the debate, so. Oh, yeah, that's all right. All right.

It is in the character of growth that we should learn from both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Mandela. Got it. We are no longer ambitious for ourselves, but rather inspired by the vision of a healed world. Mandela. Marianne. I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles. Marianne. Mandela.

Mandela. Marianne. It's a tragedy what is happening. What Bush is doing, all Bush wants is Iraqi oil. Marianne.'s a tragedy what is happening What Bush is doing All Bush wants is Iraqi oil Marianne Mandela The underlying cause has to do with Deep deep deep realms of racial injustice

Both in our criminal justice system And in our economic system Marianne Long live the Cuban revolution Long live comrade Fidel Castro. Mandela? Yeah, that one's Mandela. Avante, you've won the game.

Don't let anyone drag you. That was made to be hard. I'm going to go back to D.C. and they're going to drag me. They're going to drag you. Yeah, it's fine. Are you from D.C.? Yeah, I'm from the DMV area. Okay, okay, okay.

Great. Well, so great to have you. I'm so glad you got to play. You've won the game and a parachute gift card. Yay! Thank you. What were you going to say? Just really happy to be here.

Okay, okay. Great. How lovely. I'm sorry we made you play this game. Who knew the line was so thin? I know, I know. The Bush statement. Wow.

That was like, that sounds like an American. Nope. Nope. It was Mand, that sounds like an American. Nope. Nope. It was Mandela. Bush was hated worldwide. Yeah. It's almost as if we've kind of forgotten we had a maniac president who plunged our country into chaos, dysfunction, and

immiseration while cratering our reputation around the world literally 15 years ago. But it's... How quickly we forget. Out the back of the fishbowl. Yeah. You know?

Those days are over. Clean the tank, we forget. I also learned that you should never play the end of the second act of a movie by itself because it'll always look cheesy no matter what happens.

Yes, I will. I think that's mostly true. However, the 90s were a rough time for long-held shots and people standing up in classrooms to say something. Like, two things happen

in movies, certainly in the 90s, that never actually happen in the world. One is someone taking over a podium at an event in which they were not meant to speak and them winning over the crowd. Something that happens repeatedly in 90s films. Whereas in real life, someone's like,

get this guy off of here. This is a high school graduation. Why is he telling us he's sorry for spending too much time being a lawyer? Security, security. Instead of going home to be with the family. Like, get off, that's crazy. There's a whole bunch of other people here

that don't know, in your mind, there's music because this is so narcissistic. Because it was written by an L.A. narcissist and made by L.A. narcissists, so nobody stopped it on its way to production. It's just a narcissist who grabbed the podium. Get him off there. It's a bad dad narcissist. Get who grabbed the podium. Get him off there. It's a bad dad narcissist.

Get him off the podium. It's another one of these L.A. bad dad narcissists living out a fantasy about reclaiming their relationship with a few kind words and some music. Get him off. Get him off. Get him off. I have to respectfully disagree with you, John.

I really believe that any movie, any subject matter, any television show that you take out of context, I'm talking Game of Thrones, I'm talking Breaking Bad, I'm talking end of the second act out of context

with that music swell and just the faces, you're going to be like, that's very dumb. Yeah. Second thing that never happens in the real world, no one ever stands up to say anything in class.

Ever. No one has ever stood up next to their desk and started telling the teacher something. If anything, you slouch further. Yeah. Like, why are you standing doesn't make you easier to hear. When we come back,

the rant wheel. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or or leave it and there's more on the way and we're back now it's time for the rant wheel you know how it works we spin the wheel wherever it lands we rant about the topic this This week on The Wheel, we have 13 Reasons Why, Straight Bars, Happy Birthday the Song, The Question, Is Rice Healthy? Big Little Lies, The Game Diablo 3, The Potential Black Female 007, and the phrase, Love It or Leave It. Let's spin the wheel.

It has landed on is rice healthy? I have a question. Is rice healthy or not? Is it? Is it? Or is it just carbs? It's not. Is rice healthy?

If you think it is, applaud. If you think it's not healthy, applaud. What are we doing? What are we doing? If I have a bowl of rice, am I eating a healthy meal? It depends on what type of rice, am I eating a healthy meal? It depends on what type of rice.

And it depends on what you're eating it in combination with. A taco from Taco Bell on top. What if you don't care how healthy it is, but you need it to cut the spice? Then it's perfect. Then it's exactly what you need. Shut up, brown rice. Don't you say that about brown rice. Also,

what's cauliflower rice? What's bamboo rice? What's going on with all these new kinds of rice? They're not rice. It's ripping Los Feliz in two. Listen, listen. Barring war and atrocities, my grandparents lived to be 90-something, okay? Rice is nice, okay?

You just have to eat it right. That's it. In and of itself, it's not unhealthy. Believe two billion Asians. That's a good point. Not a lot of conclusions there. Let's spin it again. It has landed on Happy Birthday, the song. A song that is beloved by millions, right, Kieran?

That's correct. As a person who has just had a birthday, thank you, one person, thank you, thank you. No, no, it's fine, I'm not Bernie Sanders. It's fine, it's fine, no, it's fine. I'm not Bernie Sanders. It's fine. It's fine. No, it's fine. I had a birthday on Friday. It was actually during the Crooked Media party, which was not my birthday party, but let's just go ahead and call it my birthday party. I realized, like, I feel like the song is a little bit played out. It's something we've heard. It's something we've done. It's a little bit repetitive. I'm ready for an update. And it reminds me of

when I was 21 years old and I turned 21 in India. I am an Indian person. You can tell by my face and your eyes. And when I was there, I was in the most Indian place you could possibly imagine a pizza hut and a gentleman came out like a palatial like palatial

upper middle class pizza hut and it was like a gentleman came out and I love India let me just preface it with this and I think that this is something we could all take as a lesson moving forward

but a man comes out like completely stone faced completely stone-faced, completely stone-faced, and he was shaped like a microphone stand. And he steps on the table, and he goes, excuse me, what is your name? And I was like, oh, my name is Giddon. And he was like, say, my name is Giddon, and it's my body. And I was like, my name is Kitten and it's my birthday

and then I shit you not 20 Indians came out of the wings of this pizza hut like it was a Bollywood movie all shaped like the microphone stand completely stone-faced and they just surround the table and they just start slapping like this you guys can do it

happy birthday pizza hut pizza hut birthday birthday pizza hut like this. You guys can do it. Happy birthday, Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Birthday, birthday, Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Birthday, birthday, Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. For like 11 minutes. Of just, birthday,

Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut. Birthday, birthday, Pizza Hut. And you're like, why are you saying the name of the restaurant inside of the restaurant? I was like, this song would work way better across the street at McDonald's. But guys, what a gift. Because now when it's anyone's birthday in your life, and you have to go onto Facebook, you don't have to be the person who's

like, happy birthday, John. You have a great one, James. You have a lot of fun, Jenny. Now you can swoop in there like a colossus astride a motherfucking empire in all capital letters and you can just be like, happy bud day

B-U-H-G-A-Y pizza hut, one word, bud day pizza hut, happy birthday, B-U-H-T-A-Y, Pizza Hut, one word, birthday, Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut, birthday, birthday, Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut, birthday, birthday, Pizza Hut. 50 pizza emojis and everyone else is going to be like, what the fuck? It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

Let's spin it again. Happy birthday. Happy again. Happy birthday. Thank you so much. Happy birthday. Thank you so much. Thank you, John. Thank you, Jen. Happy birthday, Pizza Hut.

Thank you, guys. Oh, wow. It has landed on straight bars. Oh, wow, yes. Well, as a notorious homosexual, someone would say without remorse, I spent most of my time in what we would call gay bars. This is me.

This is James Adomian. And yes, my friends are in gay bars. That's where my friends and my sexes are. But I have to go to straight bars sometimes, usually for a show. But sometimes not for a show, just because they have good pizza or something. But sometimes not for a show, just because they have good pizza or something. And I realized that there's a kind of straight bar that's so straight that it's like a gay bar

for straight people. Where you're, as an outsider who's not a straight, you go in and you're like, oh shit, this is where they manufacture other straight people. And I went into a place like that, and I'm realizing that I need to learn how to be more accepting. Because I was turned off from the very beginning that they were playing Alice in Chains.

That's not music you play to attract a gay crowd. Yeah, we come to scoot the booster. Or whatever the lyrics are, what they're saying is, no gays, but kind of politely. Like, no gays, please. And that note, like now it's like the 2000, it's almost 2020s. And so nobody ever is like, we don't want gays here.

But there's like other subtle indicators, like televisions all over the bar showing multiple fights from around the world. And I didn't know until very recently that there was more than one fight per week. But I went into this place, and they had several fights from different time zones happening at the same time. And these guys are like, they had several fights from different time zones happening at the same time

and these guys like, I need to see every fight until a real act of violence breaks out around me. Not a drag race crowd. And there's also this, I want to say this, there's this kind of straight bar person that only exists in straight bars. We don't have any of these people on Team Gay.

And I'm assuming there's a couple of straight people here. They're all on Team Straight, which is the guys that have a beard that twists down into an Olive Garden breadstick. We have none of those guys.

The gay have none of those guys there when we know there's we know the gay have none of those guys with this thing what does this thing mean it's there to be like i ain't sucking on nothing if you get me down there i guarantee it'll feel bad so i'm trying to learn i'm trying to learn. I like the straight bars where they're like, you can have a gay date here. We have a reciprocal arrangement in Los Angeles. The gays have Ackbar, where we allow straight people to come have a date there. But don't come, please.

It's too full. We don't have room. Let's spin it one more time. Let's spin it one more time. It has landed on Big Little Lies. Actually, you know what? We should do this earlier before your rant. But gay news. Now for another edition of gay news.

Gay news is back. So is Big Little Lies. Okay, here's something that's happened now. All right, listen. It happened slowly. It happened subtly. But the transition is now complete. Big Little Lies has achieved its final form,

which is Ally McBeal. And it's time we fucking face it. All right? Spoiler. All right? We are heading towards a final showdown in a courtroom between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law, which is the ultimate Ally McBeal episode, which is all that I ever wanted, because if you told me, hey, guess what?

We're going to remake Ally McBeal with HBO production values, and Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, I would have made a John-shaped hole in the wall to get to my television as soon as I fucking could. Every once in a while, I get on this stage and I just lose my fucking mind. And I want to thank you all for being here for one of those nights. Fifty years ago, we landed on the fucking moon.

And I used to write a bunch of speeches about it for Barack Obama. And one time I wrote a beautiful speech about the moon landing when the president went to NASA. And I wrote about Neil Armstrong stepping off of the fucking lunar module and putting his feet on the moon's regolith. And then Jon Favreau said to me, no one's going to know what regolith is. Can we change it to sand?

And I said, people know what regolith is. And he said, no, they won't know. No one's heard the term regolith. I was like, no, it means like, you know, the dusty surface of the moon, the regolith of the moon. And he said, no, literally have never heard that word before. What the fuck is wrong with you? Can we just change it to sand? And I was like, I don't know. I think it sounds cooler to say regolith. And he said, do you really think Barack Obama is going to say regolith, a word literally no one has ever heard in their entire life.

And I said, can we at least leave it in and see what he thinks? And he said, I guess, yeah, we can leave it in. We can leave it in and see what he thinks. And then he crossed it out and he wrote sand. I want to thank our panel. Jenny and

Kieran Deal, James Adomian, and as always, Nancy Pelosi and Ilhan Omar have a great night and Bernie Sanders Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Street, street, child Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Street, street, child