Lovett or Leave It - So that's what Mueller sounds like!

Episode Date: June 1, 2019

The special counsel speaks and people can't believe their ears because they didn't use their eyes to READ THE REPORT. An architect of gerrymandering dies and his daughter discovers a trove of damning documents. Oh and aliens! Returning champions Josh Barro, Tawny Newsome, and Langston Kerman join Jon to break down the week's news, old bad tweets by 2020 candidates, and the very important case of The Verve v. The Rolling Stones

Good evening, Los Angeles. Hey everybody. Tickets are still available for Love It or Leave It live in Minneapolis on June 7th. We'll be joined by Guy Branham, Anna Marie Cox, and we'll have Minnesota's own Senator Amy Klobuchar, the next presidential candidate to face the Love It or Leave It gauntlet. Also, subscribe to This Land and listen to the trailer right now at thislandpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. It's a really great true crime story about two murders separated by over a century playing out right now in the Supreme Court.

Control of half the land of Oklahoma is at stake and has to do with tribal laws. And actually, some of the justices have not been voting the way you think. It's very interesting stuff. And there's a murder in it, so we're trying to get some of that justices have not been voting the way you think. It's very interesting stuff. And there's a murder in it, so we're trying to get some of that true crime mojo. Those things rocket to the top of the charts. Love it or leave it. Never got past number two. Why? S-Town.

Oh, we're launching a new podcast. Pod Save America. Rockets to number one. Pod Save the World. Rockets to number one. Time to launch Love It or Leave It. Oops! Serial Part 2. How are you guys doing? How many

of you were surprised by what Robert Mueller said on television? Good job. You can read. You're all readers. A lot of reading comprehension issues being discovered by people who saw Robert Mueller read

aloud from the thing he wrote two weeks ago. The thing came with built-in fucking cliff notes. It was 400 pages with the cliff notes in front of every chapter, and news anchors are on television

blown away by the information being read out loud to them their job to know what was in the reports so there's a case before the Supreme Court right now over the 2020 census and efforts by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question. Wilbur Ross, a farmer's old pig that screwed up his wish to become a person. He almost got it. You know, he didn't put enough, you got to be more specific. If you're an old pig and you're going to ask a genie to turn you into a person, how old do you want to be? What do you want your personality to be like? What do you want your head shape to look like? That was

a dependent clause for the actual information. Originally told Congress that the request for a citizenship question came from the Justice Department in December of 2017, claiming it was about enforcing the Voting Rights Act. That they were adding a citizenship

question to protect the right to vote. Didn't really seem believable at the time. Turns out, Ross was pressing for the question months earlier, and there was pressure from creeps like Chris Kobach and Steve Bannon as well to add it from the early days of the administration. Quote, I am mystified why nothing has been done in response

to my months-old request that we include the citizenship question. Why not? Ross said in May before taking a huge slurp of split pea soup. He's got three cans a day, but he's trying to cut back his New Year's resolution. And yet, according to the Washington Post, in internal memos, the Census Bureau's chief scientist

had warned that adding the question would be very costly, harms the quality of the census count, and would use substantially less accurate citizenship data that are available. So it wasn't protecting voting rights. It would hurt accuracy. Then why? Why add the question? Well, at the end of this week, we were greeted with this New York Times headline, not the one about the aliens. Though that one about the aliens was pretty cool. And I like that a lot of people are like, if they're up there, like, where are they? Why aren't they landing? I don't know that I would i would land like i don't know if aliens have pets but like

if they do it seems like earth would be the kind of planet where your space dog gets parvo like you like you can't take your dog to earth they they don't we don't have shots for the things that they have there. Anyway, this was the headline. Deceased GOP strategist's hard drive revealed new details on the census citizenship question and you'll never believe the nickname Trump has for his corpse. The last bit wasn't in the headline.

Anyway, the man who died was one of the architects of GOP gerrymandering across the country. His name was Tom Hofeller. Now, after he died, his estranged daughter discovered a plastic bag among his things full of hard drives and thumb drives. Literally never in history a good sign. Nothing good has ever come from a bag full of hard drives. Literally never, ever in all of recorded time.

She opens the bag, a black cloud of smoke escapes, and what does she discover? A trove of documents. And this guy is a truly leading expert on redistricting. And what did he say? He said that adding the citizenship question would make it possible to draw maps that

quote, would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats and quote, advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. Not only that, there are tons of similarities between Tom's documents and Trump administration filings, including word-for-word copies in a draft letter from the Justice Department to the Census Bureau. And there was also a copy of that porn Ted Cruz liked on Twitter. Anyway, Wilbur Ross and others seem to have lied under oath and they did it to hide what has been obvious from the jump.

It's always been about suppressing the vote of Democrats and minorities. That's the whole point. That's their entire jam. I feel like part of the reason politics right now feels like a slog is it's a lot of people pointing out what's obvious to people who have invested their reputations and careers in pretending it's not true.

So it's not about getting your opponent to see it your way. It's about getting them to admit that they've seen it your way the whole time, but don't care, which sucks. So Justin Amash is just saying what Democrats say publicly and Republicans say privately. Robert Mueller and his deputy, Robert Mueller's square jaw, went to the cameras to say, I couldn't indict, but look at this shit. I mean, Robert Mueller... He's 24 gallons of whole milk poured into a Brooks Brothers suit. I called him at 200 pounds. That's how I got 24 gallons.

What do you think, 200? He seems like classic 200. He's crash dummy size, right? Like, they base the crash dummery on Robert Mueller types. Those are the only people that the car companies originally planned to survive car crashes. You needed to be Robert Mueller-shaped. Anyone shorter, female, child, no.

Cars were meant to protect the physical bodies of Robert Muellers. People don't know that. All I'm saying is, there's a point to all this, I promise. Trump's crimes have been obvious for a long time. The fact that he's unfit for office has been true for a long time. He's basically been instructing justice on Twitter and with Lester Hope for the better part of his administration.

What I'm saying is, if House Democrats found a bag full of secret documents in their deceased father's effects, it might seem uncouth to share it. You know, they might be worried about blowback. It might seem like an escalation. It might be unprecedented. It might get some on the right mad. But you do it anyway. You push aside those beige cardigans. You look under the musty golf shoes. You reach down past the 1970s pornos, and you pull out that thumb drive. Because sometimes you gotta root around in a dead man's shit to save democracy. That is the vibe I'm looking for from House Democrats. Get in there, into the personal effects of a dead man with whom you have broken your relationship.

I want House Democrats to be visiting their grieving mother and take a moment to go into a side room and start combing through the drawers. That's the energy we need, because it's not about persuasion, because everybody knows what's true. So, in conclusion, estranged daughter of dead gerrymanderer for president 2020 thank you i brought it back around all right let's start the

show she is an actor and podcaster. You know her from IFC's Brockmire and her podcast, Yo, Is This Racist? Please welcome Tawny Newsome. Hi. Hello. How you doing? I'm great, thank you. So good.

I was going to say, I really like the color of your, and I was going to call it a hat, but I didn't even know if it was a hat, and so I panicked and moved forward. I'm glad you did, because somebody earlier today went, I like your turban, and I was going to call it a hat, but I didn't even know if it was a hat, and so I panicked and moved forward. I'm glad you did, because somebody earlier today went, I like your turban, and I didn't know how to handle the politics of that either. It is neither.

It's a fraught headdress of some sort. Yeah, there we go. Well, thank you. And it looks nice. You can find him on Comedy Central and listen to his debut comedy album, Light Skinned Feeling. Please welcome back Langston Kerman.

Yeah, hi. Say something problematic about my outfit. How could I? It's perfect. Thank you. He is the business columnist for New York Mag and host of KCRW's Left, Right, and Center. Please welcome back Josh Barrow. Hi, Josh. Hey, how's it going? So good. Good. How are you doing? I'm doing well.

Let's get into it. What a week. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, or what would happen if a magic eight ball went to Princeton, made his first public statement on the conclusion of the Russia investigation on Wednesday, in which he also announced he's resigning from the Department of Justice and returning to his life as a private citizen, which I can only imagine is him waking up at

6 a.m. to do 1950s calisthenics before reading legal textbooks with a belt just tight enough around his neck. Twinge of danger. Too much? Is it an erotic thing? Yes. What the fuck else would it be?

I like that you were just like, no, this guy likes to have fun. Just sounds like a fun guy. Yeah, it's sexual for him. It's sexual. He reads the legal textbooks. That gets him aroused. The tightening of the belt around his neck

makes him, first of all, lose some of his breath, also introduce a little bit of risk, like he could fall apart and die. And as someone who's been in total control of his career for so long, leading a big organization, that little bit of a lack of control just adds a little bit of extra sexual arousal

for him. That's what I meant. That's what the belt was about. I think it's very unlikely Robert Mueller is into that. A lot of things are unlikely. Trump being president is unlikely. If I would have told you that you had to choose two things in September of 2014, one is Donald Trump's going to be president,

and the other is Robert Mueller likes a little autoerotic asphyxiation. What would you have bet on? Something to think about. In his statement, Mueller said the following. One, if his office had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. They did not say so. Two, charging Trump with a crime wasn't an option for Mueller. Citing Justice Department legal guidance, Mueller asserted that a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. This means Bill Barr lied. Barr repeatedly claimed in testimony to Congress that the Justice Department legal guidance was not the reason

that Mueller declined to charge Trump with obstruction. Mueller said emphatically that it was. Three, only Congress can hold Trump accountable for his crimes. Mueller said, quote, the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse the president of wrongdoing. That process is, of course, impeachment. As of this taping, there are currently 50 members of Congress who favor starting an impeachment inquiry, including Republican Justin Amash, but both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, who leads the committee that would start an impeachment inquiry,

made no explicit mentions of impeachment in their reactions to Mueller's statement. Nadler did, however, emphasize that it falls on Congress to respond to the crimes. Tani, I'll start with you. Yay. Why do you think the Mueller announcement seemed to hit people harder than the actual report, even though he didn't say much of anything new? Oh, I like this. Okay, because it's kind of like when your math teacher,

who previously had, to you, only spoken in numbers and some kind of arcane language that you didn't care about, suddenly started saying things with enough emphasis that you could tell something was going wrong in their home life. So it was like, he didn't say anything but read from the textbook, but I can just tell his wife has left him, you know? Like, it felt like the way he said, there are other options, like he's really leaning on these words

to where he's not saying anything that he isn't just reading, but like the inflection behind it. We haven't seen a ton of personality from this man, but this was a punk rock explosion from him. Josh, do you think Pelosi actually is playing a long game in which she knows she will end up at impeachment, or do you genuinely believe she sees it as a bad move or some third option? I think she thinks it's a bad move.

I think it's not as complicated as any sort of 20-dimensional chess here. First of all, I mean, we have polling data on this. A majority of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump. They think that the report shows wrongdoing and they do not want an impeachment proceeding. Now, I'm sure if Democrats moved into one, those poll numbers would move because every poll question is basically the same poll question now. And so if the Democrats are doing it, then all the people who don't like Trump will decide, okay, this was the right thing to do. So I think the poll numbers on it would change. But I think the question, it's weird. We're sort of having all these people are sort of asking, well, why not impeach?

And I think the why impeach question actually hasn't been answered yet. Like, it's not just like the president did something impeachable and therefore impeach him. What are Democrats going to get out of impeaching the president? I think that's Pelosi's question. Like, they're not going to remove him. And so what other goal is served through the impeachment? I think the answer to that is not obvious. So let me throw some what do we gets

from impeachment at you. We force Republicans in the Senate, including Republicans in states where Trump is underwater, to defend voting to not remove him despite the obviousness of his crimes. Thoughts? I don't think that's a difficult vote for them. It's priced in. They're Republican senators. They're supporting Donald Trump. I mean, obviously, it's bad for Cory Gardner in Colorado, who I think is going to lose his election anyway.

But I think mostly, you know, Republicans have decided that it makes sense politically to line up with what the president is doing. I think that calculus is the same with impeachment as with anything else. Left field pitch on another reason it could be good. Right now, where we're at is a kind of semi-impeached situation in which we are pursuing the case of impeachment without the tools of impeachment. We're pursuing subpoenas in Congress to investigate the president for his potential crimes, yet there's no clear goal of those hearings if not for impeachment, and there's no clear way to have a beginning, a middle, and an end to that process. What do you say to having a process where we declare we are going to do impeachment, we're going to look at his crimes,

there will be a set amount of time focused on this issue, compelling evidence, compelling witness testimony culminating in a vote, a vote we may lose, a vote that forces people on the record, but gets us out of this will we or won't we, one day there will be accountability moment we're in. Well, I'd say a few things about that. First of all, I think if Pelosi thought that it was inevitable that she was going to impeach, she'd want to move quickly for exactly that reason, that I think she wants an election that focuses on health care and other things that Democrats want on in 2018. And so if you move now, you'd get it out of the way. It wouldn't be a thing that would be happening in 2020. But I also, I question that you would actually force any of that to happen. I mean, first of all, I don't think there's any remedy if Mitch McConnell just chooses not to hold a trial in the Senate. Everyone's thinking about the example in 1999 when you had the trial of Bill Clinton, but that was a Republican majority

in both houses. And so you had, they impeached and then the Senate was run by people who wanted an airing of the grievances about the president. This time, you're at the mercy of Mitch McConnell about how exactly that process would go in the Senate. I think there's no reason to assume that it would be a useful public closure event where everyone gets to talk about how we feel about this and Democrats get to make their case and there's a useful public trial. There could be no trial at all or it could be a trial set on McConnell's rules in a way that would not get that message out at all. What a shame. I think we could get some cool t-shirts out of it, though. No, a lot of very, a lot of

great hashtags. A lot of cool memes, lots of you're fired memes, you know? Think about it, Pelosi, think of the memes. Langston. Hell yeah. How do you think Robert Mueller's gonna spend his retirement? Oh. Well, first of all, I had never heard his voice until this week. I didn't know what he sounded like. I'll be honest, I thought he was gonna sound more like he fucks,

but he doesn't. He doesn't really sound like he fucks that much, and I was surprised by that. So I hope he spends it fucking. I hope he bones a lot more and maybe his voice changes. Maybe it gets a little deeper. It matches.

I like, you know, his jaw is very sturdy, but his voice is a little more like mine. And I don't, I didn't care for that at all. It didn't feel good when he was talking. I didn't like it. What's so strange is to imagine

while you were watching Robert Mueller, you were projecting your own sense of inadequacy about yourself. Oh, yeah. I was like, this guy had to go to speech classes. I hate it. I still think we should impeach him.

Yeah. A big reason that liberals want impeachment is that it would feel good. It feels like he deserves it, and he does deserve it. And I think people have this idea that somehow it somehow, it's accountability. I don't know that impeachment without removal imposes any accountability, but I think there's a sense that he deserves it. Well, of course he deserves it. But I don't think that's important. I do think

it's important. But it's also, I mean, what we are talking about is ramping up the version of accountability that we are currently providing, which I think you would recognize is inadequate, right? Democrats in the House do not have right now the ability to get the testimony and information they need and the attention and the microphone they need to make the case they want. You're right. Mitch McConnell has control over exactly what kind of trial we'll see in the Senate. But in the House, you don't think that there is value to the country above and beyond the value we're currently getting from the versions of hearing we're currently seeing of having serious views, attention, coverage on what we learned in the Mueller report and a broader case about corruption and unfitness and abuse of power. There's been a lot of attention to this story

over the last few years, and I grant that you would get a greater intensity of attention for some period. But when I look back over that period, the president's poll numbers don't move at all on developments around the Russia scandal. When there's bad news for it, it doesn't matter for his numbers. When there's good news for it, it doesn't improve his numbers. And so I think the idea that, you know, well, by doing this and by bringing this forth in this even more public way, then finally people will be forced to pay attention and they will realize all of the bad things that he did.

I just think that's not true. I think it's a thing that doesn't move the needle. And I think that's what Pelosi realizes. There are other things they can do that move the needle. Well, I think Pelosi realizes that her caucus is not in favor of it. And she's trying to make sure that there's no embarrassing vote in which she doesn't have unanimity or close to it in her caucus. But I would argue, first of all, I feel like that's a bit of a straw man to say like, oh, it's going to finally change the minds of everybody. We're playing on the margins here. I don't think it even matters on the margins because I think it hasn't mattered on the margins in the last three years. I agree that we should be pursuing it to some extent.

But I think that that part of it is more about just the need for Democrats to get messy for a little bit. Like, I feel like a lot of the game has been sort of we are going to play by the rules. We are going to be polite. We're going to sort of always honor the way that he behaves. And to a certain extent, it doesn't work. Like, you kind of have to be able to, like, go up and say something wild and stand behind your beliefs. And people vibe with that because they recognize themselves in an honest reaction to a bunch of fuck shit. So it's like, no, I like that you're saying I don't like this person.

I would like for justice to be served as opposed to, well, we're going to figure out if it's the responsible. Well, I don't know what you're saying, bro. Just tell me how you actually feel. Yeah, I think that's right. But what I come back to is, I think actually this idea of impeachment

as having some grand consequence is probably not true in one direction or another. But I do see value in a concentrated effort in which Democratic elected officials seem as though they are responding to the will of their base to do the utmost to demonstrate their problem with what Donald Trump has done as president. It may culminate in a two-month period of attention that may not move the needle in terms of national poll numbers that ultimately may result in an acquittal. But it does afford us the ability to say, we held our trial, we made our case, we showed this

information to the American people, these Republicans in the Senate cowered, and now we're on to talk about the issues you care about most, health care, taxes, what have you, without this endless, almost impeachment, this endless semi-investigation world that we've been living in for months because the final thing that convinced me that we probably should do it is how unsatisfying and ineffective and bad these past few weeks have felt. And I know that you're going to make fun of me. Go.

But that is true. Well, I just, I don't buy the assumption that there has to be a satisfying option. Just because this is unsatisfying doesn't mean that some other thing that you might do will be any more satisfying. Yes, the Democrats in the House of Representatives are not holding the president accountable. That's because they lack the tools that would be needed to hold the president accountable. I mean, they can investigate and maybe we'll learn more things in the investigation.

But ultimately, it's the electorate that has the tools to hold the president accountable. The Senate's not going to remove him. And what do you say to the fact that Democratic voters are looking to their elected officials to prove to them that they get it? That they get how serious a threat they view Trump? I don't buy the existence of a voter whose key issue is, I'm really bothered by Donald Trump. I want Congress to stand up more to Donald Trump, who will then watch Congress not do

that and decide that the consequence of that is I'm not going to show up in 2020 to vote out Donald Trump. But that's not what we're talking about. That's over-talking what I'm saying. Again, we're playing at the margins. There are people who want to know that Democrats get how angry they are. They want to know that Democrats will fight for them the way that they believe they should be fought for. Yeah, I got all dressed up for prom. Somebody better ask me.

Take me out. Langston wants to fuck. I'm trying to fuck. Impeachment fucks. Investigations without impeachment are masturbation. Yeah. At least the hand job is what I say. That's a classic quote from me.

That is a classic quote from Langston. I've said it on every appearance of this show. It's his catchphrase. Don't go back and check. Every time I'm here, I say that. I wonder, and I don't know what it takes to move the margins. That's not my job, thank God. But I wonder, does it matter, these people, we probably all have them in our family,

who are kind of these diehard moderates, follow the letter of the law, don't pay too much attention to all the scuttlebutt and the bipartisan whatever, whatever. I lived in the Midwest a long time. I know a lot of these people who, if there was a clear example of wrongdoing as set forth, you know, these people who trust the government, who trust the process so much, that just need kind of a clear something, that impeachment could provide that to move the needle, at least for those people. I know plenty of those people who are just like, well, if he really did something wrong, we would know, wouldn't we? Because they don't just trust all the like gossip and the partisan bullshit. I think that's the role the Department of Justice could have played. I think

people see the House as a partisan political institution, which it is. I think this is part of the frustration with Robert Mueller, as you described described being like a magic eight ball if he had come out and said the president's behavior was indictable but I didn't indict him because XYZ I think that is something that might have convinced some people because of the standing that Robert Mueller has I think that what he said no it's not what he said what he claims is don't you believe that Robert Mueller believes Donald Trump committed crimes that if he weren't president he would be indicted for? What I was saying was that he didn't say that.

But we all know he believes it. You believe he believes it. He is... Got it. Fucking... You're right. I'm just interrupting you because you're right. The extreme...

He's a bizarre person. Like, his level of formalism. This has been something that's been equally unsatisfying to liberals and conservatives. Like, why doesn't Mueller just fucking say what it is that he's saying here in this report? Why didn't he make a prosecutorial recommendation one way or another? I think that's been unsatisfying to everyone. And I think he genuinely believes this thing about it's improper to make a prosecutorial recommendation if you can't prosecute. And what his claim is, is that because he knew he couldn't make the recommendation, he never even decided what the recommendation would be.

Now, I can't get inside his head. It seems like, you know, I think the readings of the report are convincing where people say, well, this is the sort of behavior you would indict. I can't tell you whether he's actually so capable of compartmentalizing that he never went through that mental exercise himself. But he definitely has made a very clear point of not saying it out loud. Yeah, he does talk like the book that instructs the Beetlejuice ghosts how to be ghosts, you know? And it is also frustrating to me, too, this thing of if I could clearly say

he didn't commit a crime, I would have said it. Because it does fall outside of how our system is supposed to work to say that if I had proved he didn't commit a crime, I would have said it, as if we're supposed to read between the lines. Because here's the thing. If he came to the conclusion that there wasn't a case for impeachment, you wouldn't have to say, I conclude that he didn't not commit a crime. You would just simply not say anything, right? It's all predicated on him avoiding saying Donald Trump should be indicted.

Yeah. I also was really listening to the way he said could. The way he said could didn't sound like I was not able to. It sounded like I was not permitted to. So I was really listening in that way, where he's saying we could not do this. We were not permitted to do this. But isn't there all sorts of testimony that happens

that would happen with impeachment? Isn't there all kinds of testimony that would happen with impeachment that wouldn't happen if there wasn't impeachment? And discovery. You could subpoena them before committees in the ordinary order. But they're violating those subpoenas. Don't we need judges to enforce the subpoenas? And they've been losing in the courts. That is true.

It is good. So maybe we're getting what we need anyway. There is some question of if they were able to defeat some of these subpoenas on this bizarre theory they have that there's no valid legislative purpose for the subpoena, then opening the impeachment inquiry could make it easier to enforce those subpoenas. Now, my expectation

is that the Trump administration is not going to win on that theory anyway. Do you think that if they lose in the courts on these subpoenas, that they will then obey the subpoenas? Because that, to me, is the moment everything changes, right? The moment they simply reject what the court has told them to do, that will be an unprecedented moment. Are you worried about that?

So far, the administration has more or less followed court orders than it has. I know they have, but are you worried about it? Not very. I wouldn't bet my life on it. The president didn't like a lot of the orders about the Muslim ban and that sort of thing, but the administration was following those orders while they were in effect. I think there's no difference for the person at home between a subpoena and going to the impeachment proceedings and all that stuff. I think there's two differences.

One is, I think, to John's point, I think it draws more attention, so more people are paying attention to what the fight is. But the other thing is, you know, it's not just people on the left who pay attention to what happens here. And I think the president likes playing a martyr. And I think the question is, you know, you talk about, you know, do Democrats want to see this done? I'm very skeptical that the particular kinds of voters for whom this is a top issue, I think are very partisan, very activated voters, where there just isn't that much to do with the margin in terms of activation for them. But I think on the Republican side, there are a lot of people who were marginally attached voters who turned out for Trump, who had not voted in previous presidential elections. And a very effective message for them is, the president is under attack,

and we need you to come out and defend the president from these attacks on him. So you have to remember, things that are effective at bringing out enthusiasm on your side can be even more effective on the other side. Yes. I would say this, though. That will happen anyway. The next year, that is what they are going to say no matter what.

I'm just talking on the margins. We're all just talking on the margins. Shut up. To me, I hear you. And I actually think probably the ultimate reality is it's going to be hard to know one way or the other whether or not impeachment was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, even if we do it.

But my final reason for believing it's right is it's not about whether we're going to do investigations or whether we're going to do some kind of process for trying to get to the bottom of what Trump did. It's whether it's going to be eight months of sous vide Trump or like two months in a pizza oven. And I just think the meat may not be as tender but it'll be a better roast on it if we get it in a hotter oven

for just two months. I think we fixed it, y'all. I think it's done. You guys still on board for impeachment? You didn't find him persuasive? I brought... Boo Josh if you didn't find him persuasive? I brought... Boo Josh if you didn't find him persuasive. Go back to New York.

I think this goes to my thesis of impeachment as, you know, like, liberal crowd-pleaser activity. Yeah, you know what? We've been through a lot. Let's please some fucking crowds. Lock him up. When we come back, OK Stop. Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. And now it's time for OK Stop. Here's how it works. We'll roll the clip and the panel could say, OK, stop at any point to comment. 45 minutes of what a week. We're going to move quickly now.

Laura Ingram, the woman in a white Porsche Cayenne who stole your parking spot, watched Mueller's press conference too, and guess what? She had a lot to say. Let roll the clip he went out of his way I believe to help Attorney General Barr he said that he appreciated bars releasing most of the report to the public and did not question his good faith in releasing it in the way yeah no but that you had to listen to him very carefully on that because I did.

He said, I don't question his good faith on that issue. I mean, you know, let's do our parsing. We're all lawyers here. Let's do the parsing. Okay, stop.

Okay, stop. Everyone is so convinced that they can read so much into Robert Mueller's tone of voice. Including Tony. Yes, yeah. I'm sorry. I paid too much money to go to an acting college. I definitely can read into his tone of voice. Including taunting. Yes, yeah. I'm sorry. I paid too much money

to go to an acting college. I definitely can read into his tone of voice. My mother sold a home so that I could learn dialects and fucking body movement. My question is, Saul, and you're giving him a pass.

Like, you know, a lot of people give him a pass. I'm not giving him a pass. There was no reason he had to come out because they were giving away the staplers? They're giving away the staplers today. Stop.

Wait, is Laura Ingraham a lawyer? Do we have proof of that? Or is that like one of those things that you could just say now? Well. Because I'll say it. I swear to God, I'll say it. I think she is a lawyer because portions

of The Devil's Advocate are loosely based on her life. That was Tiffany and Bertheson's greatest role. I'll stand by that. Come out in front of the cameras to resuscitate the whole impeachment thing. There was no reason he had to come out today. He came out because he's a member of this city. You don't live here. I do.

This city's legal establishment has always hated Donald Trump. Okay, stop. I mean, that's true. That's true. Anyone with a postgraduate degree hates Donald Trump. That's the world we live in. I like the hype man woman over on the left here.

Just the hype woman who's just like nodding. You know? She's like a boss tone. She's just like, mm you know she's like a boss tone she's just like everybody remember the boss tone no that was the guy who just danced in the mighty mighty boss tones they think he's uncouth they think he's not smart they think he didn't deserve the presidency he didn't okay stop this is still accurate yeah yeah i like this this part. Yeah, I mean, she's using that legal degree so far. I like that they think he's dumb, they think he has bad hair,

they think he's racist. They think people like me have pushed down the part of themselves that know it's wrong because it was an easier way to live my life during this time to make millions of dollars while ostensibly promoting conservatism

and forcing down the part of myself that is disgusted by the kind of man Trump is. Yep. And they never wanted him to be president. There's no reason for a prosecutor to get out there before the cameras. Your reaction? Okay, stop. Absolutely.

Does anybody else think Laura Ingraham looks like a candle that put itself back together? You know what I mean? Just like rebuilt the wax with whatever was at the bottom, you know what I mean? It's not good. I also, I'm sorry, I gotta take issue with the name The Ingramangle.

Like, do you want somebody to always sound like they have peanut butter in their mouth when they're saying the title of your show? Ingramangle. Like, get a hard consonant in there and respect your fucking self. And I disagree with Saul here. You didn't mind barging in front of the camera. I disagree with Saul on this.

He didn't prosecute the case, Saul. Nice try. I think that by coming out... Okay, stop. Hey, I do like her being like, shut the fuck up, Saul. We're done with you, Saul. She kind of sounds like a Chicago used car salesman sometimes. Like, hey, hey, hey, they didn't prosecute the case, all right?

You're just like, whoa, where'd this teamster come from? Saul, the face with your box is gone from the screen, you dumbass. No, bring Saul back. No, bring him back. One time. I'm going to fuck his ass up. Come here. Let me look at him, you piece of shit, Saul.

Where's your tie, Saul? Where's your tie, Saul? Where's your tie? Why are you scowling? You come on the angle looking like that, you piece of shit, Saul? I hate you. He's that jerk who has to have the last word, right? Okay, stop. Could you imagine being a supporter of Donald Trump on Donald Trump's network on the Donald Trump racist variety hour

also known as the Ingramangle. Ingramangle. The Ingramangle. And saying, check out this Robert Mueller guy, last word freak. He has said one word in three years. It's his first and,

that's the only, people, Langston hadn't heard his fucking voice. Never heard it. Donald Trump's on television every day. He's hiding ships in Japan. John McCain is dead. And Donald Trump can't stop getting the last word. Robert Mueller, last word freak.

What are you talking about? They got to cover up McCain on the USS McCain because Donald Trump, if he sees it in front of a memorial, on Memorial Day, will start yelling about famous veteran John McCain. So they got to cover up the letters. And wasn't it, it's not even his boat, right? It's like his dad's boat or some shit.

Yeah, his grandfather's boat. He just doesn't even like the idea of where this man came from. Also, free punch-up for the Ingram angle. The Ingram right angle. Come on, be better writers, everyone. I didn't like it, but I support your work. I mean, I just...

Look, I'm just trying to help her out. I don't have to come out and smear the president again like his report does, but then he also has to say, I'm not going to answer any questions from Congress or the Senate. I'm gone. Okay, stop. What she really wants is Mueller to go answer a bunch of questions from Congress. Be careful what you wish for.

So that's really interesting because today there was a report that Republicans in Congress started to change their mind and thinking like, oh, maybe we should get this Robert Mueller guy up here. Maybe start poking a few holes. So they can ask about the FBI conspiracy to frame the president. Right. I mean, that's literally how Republicans will spend their time if there is a Robert Mueller testimony. It's true of 2020 Democratic candidates. It's true of Republican members of Congress. When they're in their showers, they're all in a few good men, you know? Every single fucking one of them.

But when they actually get to the microphones, it's just night court. You know what I mean? It's like, in their minds, they're saying, you can't handle the truth. Once they actually get in front of the microphones, I can't remember any of the characters' names from Bull. I got it first.

If I wanted to clear him of a crime, I would have said so. That's right. It's like a girl thing. Okay, stop. Little casual woman-on-woman violence there at the end. It's like a girl thing. Robert Muller. Famous girly man, Robert Muller.

Robert. You know those you know those teen girls with their texting and their 400 page reports documenting multiple examples of obstruction of justice followed by several weeks of feeling as though your words are being poorly interpreted followed by an eight-minute speech in which you very carefully describe the findings of your report without leaning one way or another or adding fuel to either side's particular partisan angle. Classic teen girls. We wear pink on Wednesday, says Robert Mueller.

And that's OK Stop. Now back to What a Week. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I have ten more minutes to do. When we come back, we're going to play a game about some 2020 contenders' early tweets. Don't go anywhere.

This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Democratic politicians. There's nothing that scares them more than talking out loud without focus grouping at first. And for a lot of 2020 candidates, every single word they say is very carefully calibrated. But here's the thing. They've only been running for president for a few months.

And before that, they might have let their guard down just a little on a website we call twitter.com. So we went back to some of the first tweets ever sent by 2020 candidates, and some of them were pretty interesting, pretty revealing. So we're going to bring back one of our favorite games to showcase some of these early tweets in a game we're calling Early Tweet Gets the Fave.

Would someone out there like to play the game? What's your name? Mia. Mia? Yes. Are you familiar with Twitter yes okay follow you oh good so here's how it works Mia okay was it Mia yes I know I will read a real old tweet from a famous public figure and you'll have to guess who wrote it okay okay question one this current presidential candidate tweeted the following in March of 2009 it receives zero faves and zero retweets.

Los Lonely Boys. Cowboys Dane Hall tonight. Doors open at 7. Tickets $20. Clues. Just chime in when you think you've got it. He's a former mayor. He's at around 1% of the polls.

He's a twin. Cory Booker. No. Julian Castro. Sorry. There's no Cory Booker twin, I don't think. Is there? I would know that. That would have come up. Yes, that's true. It was Julian Castro.

Also in 2012, he sent a tweet that just said the word economy, and it got one retweet. Question two, Mia, and you're doing terribly. I know. In January of 2011, this presidential candidate tweeted the following. Walking down the street to go buy lunch and a bird just crapped on my arm. Clue.

This person is a member of the House. This person was critical of LGBT rights as recently as 2005. This person met secretly with Bashar al-Assad, and we don't really know why. Tulsi. You got it. They got it. I'm going to ignore the whispering.

The word Tulsi, Tulsi, Tulsi. Just her support is whispering her name on the wind. Question three. In March of 2012, this current presidential candidate received ten retweets and three likes for the following tweet. Spoke at invasive species conf today, except for understandable trauma associated with guys showing up with two huge dead smelly carp.

It went well. Clues. Is a member of the United States Senate. Is currently polling at around 2%. Could definitely take you out in a bar fight. Corey. Gonna go with him again. Amy Klobuchar.

So close. Mia, question four. In May of 2010, this current presidential candidate received zero retweets and zero faves when he tweeted... When they tweeted the following is it kirsten gillibrand at a plus k parens ashton kutcher saw you on huffpost loved what you said about changing way media is distributed and consumed thanks for introducing me to a new world for change. Clues. Former mayor.

Loves coffee. You've guessed him seven times. You got it. It's Cory Booker. Here are a few more, Mia, from Cory. Question. What does a vegetarian mayor, Booker, and a vampire have in common? Answer.

They both hate steak. Joke by Corey Booker. I believe this was a Halloween tweet. I hope. I hope this was in October. God damn it. Sorry. Been a long day and I have to do this.

Question. Why did Tigger and Eeyore have their heads in the toilet? Answer. They were both looking for poo you didn't have to do that no one forced him to do that body tired filters gone can't stop myself must pun why does santa have three gardens mia i'm sorry what because he likes to ho ho ho I love that this is him untethered just unleashed

Cory Booker we out here I just picture him coming home after a long day and like taking off his pants just like now I'm free to do my bad puns there are so many more that I'm not going to read.

Here's another one, Mia. And again, you're doing terribly in the game and there's no more questions. Now this is the part of the game where you win by me just reading things to you. I'm okay with that. You're doing great, Mia. Why I came? Thank you.

The stakes are so low and you're going to get the gift card. Next one. I need a cup of coffee. There's too much blood in my caffeine system. You're just kidding. I have so many more. I'm not in any way qualified to give advice on the stock market, but with all the coffee I'm drinking today,

buy Starbucks. I used to be a tea teetotaler. Being mayor has driven me to drink coffee. Now I'm like those

coffee drinking aliens from Men in Black. End of tweet. This is violence. Nah, he's gotta drop out. How do you face us now? How do you walk up to us? Final one I'll read.

This one, just know that where the rhymes are, there are the hashes, the little slashes that mark the line break. So just imagine the line breaks. You know, this is a poem. 4 a.m. sleep went away. Been shacking up with coffee all day. Black, brown, all different hues. Slurping my song.

The sleep lost coffee blues. Here's the question. Does coffee at this point have a right to claim harassment? Can coffee be like, nah, I'm not comfortable anymore. Hashtag me too. This isn't okay, Cory Booker. I just got mad that he's black. When we come back.

We don't need this. Oh, Mia, you've won the game. And a parachute gift card. Great job, Mia. The stench of Cory Booker's tweets has cleared away some of your wrong answers. No one even remembers. When we come back, let's talk about aliens and climate change.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Earlier this week, the New York Times dropped a story that surprised a lot of folks. They revealed that for the last decade, the U.S. Navy has been monitoring UFOs off the east coast of the United States that seem to defy the laws of physics. There are high-level Navy officials speaking on the record and even video evidence of the sightings. And because of this, people lost their goddamn minds. Are aliens coming to destroy us?

How long have they been here? Is there an existential threat to Earth? And this got us thinking. There is already an existential threat to Earth, and it's called climate change. And maybe we could get more people to talk and act on climate change if we just start calling it aliens. So we thought we'd highlight what we mean in a segment we're calling Killer Carbon from Outer Space. We'll go down the line.

Each panelist will read some facts about an existential threat that a current alien invasion is causing on Earth. Tawny, take us away. I'm Girf Whitley reporting for ABC News. We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. Terror spreads up and down the

California coast as the aliens continue their decimation of planet Earth, this time targeting, you guessed it, the trees. Right in front of our noses, aliens have been raising the temperature of our planet over the last century in what can only be considered climate

warfare. This ingenious death trap uses our own atmosphere to make forests more fire-prone. This sustained multi-year eco-attack has meant that nine out of the ten largest wildfires in California history have happened since 2003. And just last year, California saw more than 8,500 total fires statewide, the most ever.

But these violent extraterrestrials won't stop there. In November, well after the traditional fire season ended, one alien fire attack killed 86 people and destroyed more property than any other wildfire in state history. Aliens are killing us. Langston, you're up. Grib Tifton, CBS News. Aliens have arrived on planet Earth

and they are bringing death to coral reefs. For the past 30 years, we naively went about our daily lives blissfully unaware that creatures from outer space were ruthlessly killing half of the planet's sweet, sweet little corals. What is coral? No one knows. Is it a plant? Is it a fish? Well, it won't matter because if this extraterrestrial threat is not stopped, over 90% of the population will be dead by 2050. May God have mercy on all of us. God have mercy on all of us. Hey, hey, you clap.

You clap for her, you clap for me too. Josh, you're up. I'm Grenice Bleachers, WTNH News Channel 8. These invaders from another world bring with them naught but pestilence and death, and their cruelty and destruction knows no bounds. Fifty years ago, dengue fever was all but eradicated from the United States, but since 2001, there have been outbreaks in Hawaii, Texas, and Florida, as though the malady were reanimated by a sinister inhuman intelligence. Martians are also worsening the spread of other mosquito-borne illnesses, including

Zika, West Nile virus, and malaria. As the terrible plans of these spacemen come to fruition, increasing numbers of humans will suffer from asthma, heart disease, mental illness, venomous snake bites, and of course, complications associated with the increasing number of abduction-related probes.

I'm Splat Frample, filling in tonight for Grenise Bleachers who died of dengue fever. We're approaching the end of planet Earth. The little green flying saucer men have weapons we cannot begin to comprehend. By this century's end, temperatures in New Delhi could be so high

that it is literally uninhabitable, and humans could not stay alive outdoors for longer than six hours. By 2100, flooding could turn more than 2.5 million Miami residents into refugees with no place to store their cocaine and white leather couches scientists report an additional 1 degree Celsius of aliens can expect Can expect a 200 to 400 percent increase in the area burned by wildfires in the western U.S. each year. To avoid this fate, we must make sweeping, unprecedented changes to our energy grid,

our infrastructure, and switch to paper straws, apparently. It won't be easy, but should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday. But as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. We'll get used to the paper straws. Today we celebrate our

Independence Day. And that's what it would be like if it was aliens. We come back. The rant will. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back.

Now it's time for the rant wheel. And you know how it works. We spin the wheel wherever it lands. We rant about the topic. This week on the wheel, we have Bittersweet Symphony, Detective Pikachu, Infrastructure Costs, Live Action Aladdin, Mount Everest Congestion, crying watching airplane movies, the Harriet Tubman $20 bill, and hiding the USS John McCain, a rant I accidentally did

during OK Stop. Let's spin the wheel. Oh, hell yeah. It has landed on Detective Pikachu. I can't wait to hear what you have to say. Oh, I'm fired up, everybody. I'm pissed, and I haven't seen this film. I'm not gonna lie to you. I haven't watched a single minute of this shit show, Detective Pikachu, but I'll say this, I don't buy it.

I don't like it, I don't like that it exists. This whole thing, and I stand by this, Detective Pikachu is just another bullshit way for me and my community to be sympathetic to the police. And I don't like it. They're trying to scam me into liking police officers the same way that they do

every time they murder some teenager, some black kid. You always go on Facebook and there's a bunch of police dance videos. Like, you know, it's like the Miami department is suddenly learning to do the nay-nay. I don't need that shit. And this is the same thing. They're trying to make police officers cute and soft. And Pikachu isn't, he's not police. He's not supposed to be a fucking detective.

He's supposed to be weird and only say his own name. That's it. But now they made him sexy and Ryan Reynolds is involved and he's staring in the camera for some reason. I don't That's it. But now they made him sexy and Ryan Reynolds is involved and he's staring in the camera for some reason. I don't care for it. Fuck the police and fuck Detective Pikachu. Oh yeah. Counterpoint! I have seen Detective Pikachu.

And I'll tell you something else. That film was written by Dan Hernandez and Benji Samet, two of my best friends in the whole world. And I didn't tell you when you suggested this rant, and I didn't even give a hint to you that it was the case because I wanted to hear what you had to say, and I'm glad I did. I'm glad I got to see what you were going to say

about a sweet, strange movie called Detective Pikachu that reminds us that there's a hero in everyone. And it doesn't matter what shape you come in, whether it's tiny electric bird squirrel or fire-breathing char-dragon, that we live in a world where anything is possible. And I don't even believe he's technically associated with the police because he's a little animal

who wears a detective hat, not a badge. And it's a delightful romp, and I recommend everyone buy it on iTunes because I think they get a chunk of that, and I don't know what happens if you watch it on a delightful romp, and I recommend everyone buy it on iTunes, because I think they get a chunk of that, and I don't know what happens if you watch it on a plane, but that's fine too, I guess. My favorite part of it, I also watched it, and this is a spoiler, spoiler, spoiler,

plug your ears, spoiler if you haven't seen it. My favorite part is the end, because it's like, hey kids, if you have a dead parent, maybe they're not. It's so fucked up and it's weird and fucked up at the end the actual when you step back and think about it you're like this movie is darker and weirder when you pause and imagine what actually happened in this universe they torture a police witness it's really really fucked. See? I wasn't wrong. I knew this motherfucker was corrupt. You can see it. Who's that taking

with detectives? He's a weirdo. I don't like him. I'm sorry your friends wrote that shit. I'm so angry. Let's spin it again. It has landed on live-action Aladdin. How do you not fall in love with a story called Aladdin? action Aladdin. How do you not fall in love with a story called Aladdin? It's a beautiful,

weird, misogynist, very retrograde story with really beautiful songs that get me every fucking time. They really didn't change the genie enough to justify having it go from dead Robin Williams to living Will Smith. And honestly, they drain the queerness right out of that thing. I, you know, when I first started seeing, look, there have been, much has been written, much has been written about the fact that Disney employed gay

tropes in their villains, whether it's Iago, or not Iago, Jafar, I know, Ursula, sorry, sorry. Urs Ursula although I gotta say that parrot Godfrey played it kind of gay too Jafar even the genie Robin Williams genie was flamboyant Ursula the Sikh witch was really just a drag queen Scar Jeremy Irons just gated up all over Pride Rock. And I know that people are like, oh, you know, it's bad that gay people represent villains in these films. I gotta tell you, I miss it. I miss it. Because I do not feel seen in these films. And maybe

it's just the villains, but the villains in those Disney movies are the only people that seem to know what the fuck is going on. And it was nice that in every Disney movie there's one gay person who's like, they're dumb, they're dumb, they're dumb, they're dumb, they're dumb. And that was cool. That was cool. You know, maybe, look, I knew I was never gonna be Simba, but I could be Scar, you know?

I'll never be the Sultan. I'll never be, oh, I was gonna say, who's the lead in Aladdin? I'll never be the sultan I'll never be I was going to say who's the lead in Aladdin I'll never be Aladdin I'll never get Jasmine but I could have a fast talking parrot on my shoulder and a snake that controls the sultan's mind

we can dream and reach for things because we see ourselves on screen anyway the point is because we see ourselves on screen. Anyway, the point is, I'll see every single one of these remakes and it's all working completely well on me. Let's spin it again. It has landed on infrastructure costs. Josh, this was your suggestion.

I'm very excited for this rant. So first of all, I appreciate the opportunity to plug something else. I like the shameless plug. Hit it. I have a feature in the current issue of New York Magazine about why we can't build anything nice in the United States. And basically, this is a thing where other countries are just way better than us when they build subways and other big complex infrastructure. We sort of end up paying three times as much per unit of stuff as they would pay in France or Italy or Spain or things like that.

So like here in L.A., you're getting a nine mile extension. The Purple Line is going to cost a billion dollars a mile. Paris is currently building an extremely similar extension of Line 14 of their subway. It's costing half as much. Costs are even higher in New York than they are here in L.A. And people say, you know, well, you know, our crumbling roads and bridges and we need to invest. A reason that the investments don't work that well is just, you know, we need to put in three times as much money as they do in these other places just to get the same amount of stuff. And so it's a good, it's a reason not to spend. And when we do spend,

we don't get very much. So everyone should read the piece. What are, what did you find are some of the reasons that our infrastructure costs are so much higher? Because this is something that I think is people are wringing their hands about. It's in New York, right? We just spent a quarter of a fucking trillion dollars to get the queue to go from 50th to 60th. Yes. So what, what, what are some of the answers? So the unfortunate thing is that there's not one thing we do wrong. It's dozens of things. And a lot of them are really boring. We're bad at the way we do utility relocation, and they show up and they don't know where the pipes are and they tear things out in the wrong order.

There are 50 other things like that. The politicians who run these agencies, they know this is a problem. They want to fix it. It's not that they're unaware, it's that the problems are... There are lots of them and each of them involves having some dumb political fight. Like one thing in New York is that we're building another level underground central and the tracks go out into Queens and they merge with existing railroad tracks. And so when they do stuff in that rail yard, they need people from Amtrak and they need people from the MTA and they need people from the private contracting companies. And like sometimes Amtrak just doesn't show up. They don't have enough

employees in New York. They don't have enough people. They cancel the track outages, and that sounds like an annoying bureaucratic thing. The MTA says that Amtrak doing that has cost them $340 million in the process of building out this project. And so you have all these New York politicians who are like, why won't Donald Trump pay for our additional tunnel under the Hudson River that's supposed to cost $24 billion goddamn dollars, which would cost $8 billion if you tried to do it in Europe. And instead, those people should probably be calling Amtrak and be like, what the fuck, send your flagger to the construction site so that we can build this thing for less than $11 billion. Last question about this.

Is there any kind of like fucking kick-ass administrator, technocrat, bureaucrat person who has found a recipe anywhere in the country to start wrangling people and figure out a place where there's a model for how to fix this? No. Some cities are better than others. No, I'm serious. Nowhere in the US is good at this. There are examples around the world that are... Madrid somehow builds these subways where they're like, we built a new subway station and it was $14 million to build this station. Now, the stations they're building in LA right now

cost $120 million each. The ones in New York cost $400 million each. And so even in other countries in Europe, they send people to Madrid, and they're like, how do you do this? And it's sort of like he's a wizard. No one can quite figure out how the fuck this guy... And they have union protections,

and they have worker protections. They do. In Europe, it's Europe. They have stronger protections often than we do. Yeah, no, I mean, some of it is labor costs in the US. It's more about staffing levels, it looks like, than it is about pay levels. It's that more people drive the tunnel boring machine here than drive it in Madrid, and it's not clear why. And so some of that stuff should be fixed.

One problem in New York is there's only three contractors that will work with the MTA. And so they don't really get into competitive bids. And so the contractors, instead of having an incentive to negotiate hard with the unions, the contractors, their fee is a percentage of the project cost. So if there's too much labor cost, then that just means the contractor makes a bigger fee. So there's nobody there who's really trying to push the cost down. I find it fascinating. I do think it is one of, you know, when we look back on this period, this may be one of the signal and most important challenges we didn't talk about because all the you know politics aside our inability to build things now like we used to is going to be something we pay for for a hundred years building like roads subways that's space for an economy that's what

it means you build a road somewhere an economy can grow around it so anyway i'm fascinated by it i don't care i'll keep following up. There's real consequences for this. So Barcelona and Madrid, which is roughly the same distance as San Francisco to Los Angeles, was able to build a high-speed rail to, I believe, a tenth of the population overall between the two metropolises.

And we can't build it in California. Newsom had said he had to cancel it basically because it was unaffordable and there was no way to do it successfully. Meanwhile, they did it in Spain. And I swear to God, if they can do it successfully. Meanwhile, they did it in Spain. And I swear to God, if they can do something in Spain, we can do it in California.

Anyway. All right, let's spin it again. Someone check my math on the population numbers. I think that's right. I don't care. It's a podcast. It has landed on Bittersweet Symphony, suggested by Tani.

Yeah, I'm mad, you guys. Do you guys know about this Bittersweet Symphony, suggested by Tani. Yeah, I'm mad, you guys. Do you guys know about this Bittersweet Symphony verdict by The Verve? So that band, The Verve, wrote a great song. They used a sample from a Stones song. It's like this great rock and roll injustice. The Rolling Stones, these mean millionaire douchebags, stole money from this 90s alt-rock band. And so now all that's been reversed.

And Richard Ashcroft gave this big speech about how generous Mick and Keith were. I'm not so much mad about the cases. I'm mad that our political environment is so all-consuming right now that me, a true, dumb, boring music nerd, missed this entire news for like a month like knowing about obscure white guy rock and roll is kind of my shit thank you very much like i only know facts that impress like white dudes over 55 like i can clear a room but there will be one dude in glasses just being like putting down his copy of the economistist and being like, I'm listening. So I'm just, I'm mad.

I saw this and I was like, wait a minute. They settled this long dispute. So the whole thing was that they sampled this piece of the Andrew Oldham version, the instrumental version of The Last Time. And then, and so I posted about it on Twitter, but I was just like, how did I miss this? Like, this is my whole thing, is knowing bullshit like this

that no one my age or my color cares about, but like, this is kind of my brand, you guys. I posted it on Twitter, and then another black woman was like, well, you know, the Stones didn't even really write this anyway. Like, they borrowed it from the Staples Singers. And I had forgotten that bit of information.

And I'm sorry, like, blue-eyed soul musicians stealing shit from black people is like double, triple my shit. So the fact that, frankly, love it, I blame you and shows like this for consuming my brain and my time with factual information that we all need. Like, why do I know Comey's name? Why do I know Manafort's name? Why am I not instead boring you with anecdotes like, did you know that David Bowie used to perform at parties as a terrible mime? Isn't that fun?

See? Isn't that a fun thing to know? Did you guys know that Ike Turner, piece of shit that he was, technically invented guitar distortion because he was a dumbass and dropped his amp and broke it and then was like, I'm just gonna shove some paper in it

and play through it anyway. And then we recorded the first ever distorted guitar. We would have no Kurt Cobain if it wasn't for Ike Turner. See, this is where now everyone under 55's eyes are glazing over. There's one guy who's interested. But I want to know this shit. I don't want Anthony Scaramucci following me on Twitter.

Love it. Why does he follow me on Twitter? Mooch, if you're listening, why do you follow me on Twitter? What have I ever said that you wanted to hear? Now that I'm listening to myself, maybe it was some of those details about classic rock. It's funny.

I knew that there was this dispute between The Verve and Rolling Stones. I did not know that it was over something that had been stolen from African American artists years before. Yeah, Keith Richards even admitted it in 2003.

But I really appreciate it for this reason. There is nothing that speaks to what our court system can do than two groups of wealthy white people fighting over something

they stole from black people in the 50s. Like that is, that's a story as old as time. Also sounds like Ike Turner was a pretty cool guy. Wait, wait, wait. No other takeaways there.

Thank you, Tawny, for reminding us that Ike Turner gets a bad rap. Tawny leading the move for re-evaluation of Ike Turner. Ike fucking Turner. Ike Turner. This is fucking Turner. Ike Turner. This is not what I did. This is not what I meant to do. That guy. Focus on the mime.

No mistake. What a talent. It was a mime. Tani Newsome on Love It or Leave It. Ike Turner, what a talent. And that's our show. I want to thank Tawny Newsome, Langston Furman,

Josh Farrow, Nancy Pelosi as always. And thanks to Madeline, superstar intern from Love It or Leave It. Her last day. Have a great night. Respect it or not say. Respecting all those eyes. Love and Oliver.

It's Love and Oliver. Straight, straight, tight. Love and Oliver. It's Love and Oliver. Respecting all those eyes.