Lovett or Leave It - The Warring 20's

Episode Date: January 11, 2020

And we're back! Trump escalates. Australia burns. And Rita Wilson waits and waits and WAITS. Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes joins to unpack the latest on Iran and the congressional response. Plus comedians Hari Kondabolu and Alice Wetterlund join to look at the fight over the coming impeachment trial, high school reunions, crowded gyms in January, and more. 2020 is here. Let's go.

Good evening, Los Angeles. And we're back. First Love It or Leave It of 2020, three weeks till the Iowa caucuses. It seems impossible that it's finally here. But you know what they say. Time flies when you can fill every transitional moment by staring at a screen that functions as a landscape where apps compete against one another for your attention. additional moment by staring at a screen that functions as a landscape where apps compete against one another for your attention, creating a form of natural selection in which the fittest apps evolve and survive by holding your gaze, no matter the impact it has on your well-being.

Anyway, the point is, Love It or Leave It is coming to Iowa City on January 30th, right before the caucuses. Tickets are on sale now at crooked.com slash events. They are going fast. And in terms of guests, we have some pretty exciting asks out. If I told you some of the people were asking to be on the show, you'd be pumped. Also, The Wilderness Season 2 is here.

It's all about the path to victory in 2020. John talks to voters, strategists, organizers, candidates in the battleground states that will decide the election. Listen to the Wilderness trailer today at crooked.com slash the wilderness and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Please do that. Check it out.

He's been working so hard on it. Yes. It's going to be great. All right. Let's get into it. What a week. I hope everybody is feeling refreshed. Ready to grab 2020 by the ball. Don't you dare. That is Pokemon Go to the polls level bad.

I actually got food poisoning in Mexico on New Year's Eve. It's fine. I'm not going to be vulgar about it. I will only say that I was briefly reminded of an astrological phenomenon known as the quasar. That is for a few of you. The point is, whenever I've gotten food poisoning in my life, I've cheered myself up during the misery with two words. Jumpstart. You get it? No? It's the start of a diet.

That was a moment where I think I truly forgot how broken I am as a person. And I'm realizing that most people don't approach food poisoning as a life improvement opportunity. And I just assumed most people, maybe not something you would think of, but something you could get to pretty easily. But actually, that wasn't A to B for you. That was like A to F. And that's helpful, too.

That's why it's good to do the live shows. I'm learning about other people as you're learning about me and sometimes politics uh the point is i was getting ready to take on this year all right we were gonna come back kick off 2020 be optimistic i was gonna kill it on my goals i've decided you know 2018 was about keto. 2019 was genuine chaos. 2020 was going to be all about intermittent fasting, which is just a very fancy term for skipping breakfast.

And I was all primed. My resolution, all right, be disciplined, be generous, be positive, skip breakfast. And then this happens. Breaking news from the Middle East, where a U.S. drone strike killed one of Iran's most powerful military leaders overnight. The targeted killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani inside Iraq is a dramatic escalation in the confrontation between the U.S. and Iran. And then there was this. And finally, we have to see this.

Remember. So edgy. Soleimani was killed while being picked up at Baghdad International Airport. Everyone in Los Angeles saw the news and was horrified and jealous of the curbside pickup. Hi. If you're listening to this and you're wondering what I'm talking about, due to the vagaries of construction, airport traffic, the fundamental design flaws of Los Angeles International Airport, it's become a very difficult place to leave.

In fact, it's gotten so bad that I believe Mayor Eric Garcetti decided for political reasons to stop personally reading the announcement when you arrive to Los Angeles, and some idiot convinced Billie Eilish to do it. It's the worst thing to have in her career. Also this week, in a statement, Cancer announced that it was Ruth Bader Ginsburg

free. Yes, RBG has beaten the disease for the fourth time. Obviously, I am thrilled, but I'm not getting her a gift this time. I'm starting to think she's doing it for the attention. Singer-songwriter Grimes posted a cryptic

Photoshop selfie of a baby in utero on Instagram, leading to speculation that she and her boyfriend, Elon Musk, are expecting a child. Kid, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're very rich. We will leave it there for now. There's been a lot of misinformation, in part

spread by the Murdoch Empire that the record-breaking bushfires in Australia are largely caused not by the changing climate, but by arson. The arsonist's name? Hubris. I'm genuinely grateful to the enthusiasm with which you are bringing to this show.

Alright? You all can... Also, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced they're taking a step back from the royal family. As part of the announcement they intend to become financially independent. I don't understand how Twitter decides whose side

to be on. I genuinely don't understand when the vote was taken that we're rooting for Harry and Meghan. I don't get it. It's ridiculous. Harry sounds like a rich kid, a legacy sophomore, coming home from Christmas break at Bucknell to announce that after taking two semesters of business analytics and falling in love with the first girl that slips with him,

that he's sick of everyone sucking up to grandma, that he doesn't care about the money, he doesn't want what's in the trust, all he wants is the interest-free loan everyone agreed to at Thanksgiving so that he could start his T-shirt business. A magic mushroom therapy startup is getting closer to FDA approval.

The feds have designated Compass Pathways experimental psilocybin treatment for depression a breakthrough therapy. Man. Okay, Schumer. I just... Too easy. Stop it.

Stop rewarding me for this. Earlier this week, Congressman Paul Gosar was criticized for sharing an image of Obama shaking hands with an Iranian leader, saying, the world is a better place without these guys in power. Problems with the photo? The image was not General Qasem Soleimani. It was Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Hassan Rouhani is still in power. And the image is fake. It's a Photoshop of a photo President Obama took with India's prime minister. Gosar defended himself by explaining that he never meant for the image to be taken as factual. And I think that's a very cool standard, especially from someone like Paul Gosar,

who has eight nipples like a dog, which you can see in an image of him 69ing with Jeffrey Epstein. This was par for the course from Republicans this week who seem giddy not to be defending Trump's impeachable offenses and to have an opportunity to attack Democrats simply for questioning the wisdom of this decision

to escalate tensions with Iran. Here's Doug Collins. Nancy Pelosi does it again, and her Democrats fall right in line. One, they're in love with terrorists. We see that. They mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families who are the ones who suffered under Soleimani. That's a problem. Disgusting. But it wasn't just the fringe. Here's GOP minority leader Kevin McCarthy. I never thought there would be a moment in time that the Speaker of the House of Representatives would actually be defending Soleimani. And here's Nikki Haley, who does not for one second

deserve to be considered any better than the worst Trump goons. The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and our Democrat presidential candidates. She was so pumped by her appearance there that she did tweet out the link with the quote. So it's dark times. You know, there have been a lot of development. That's my conclusion. They are despicable.

There have been a lot of developments this week, and I know it can be hard to follow what's been happening, so here to help us understand the latest, you know him from his equally important roles co-hosting Pond Save the World and crafting the Iran deal. Please welcome back former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes for a segment we call, Where We're Going, We Actually Do Need Rhodes. Hi, Ben.

Hey, John. So, cool week. Welcome back. Great week. The administration's spin of the assassination of Soleimani has been buttressed by a number of lies, whether it's claiming that the Iran deal paid for the missiles being fired at Americans, or the unsubstantiated claim that there was an imminent threat

against our embassy. Why does it matter that the Trump administration is telling so many lies about Iran? Because lies actually have real consequences in the real world on real people. You know, there was a huge debate about the Iran deal when it happened. And one of the things that's been really frustrating to watch is we had this multi-month debate just to get enough Democrats in Congress to prevent Congress from killing the Iran deal. We didn't get a majority. And you contrast that with Bush getting nearly two-thirds

of the Senate to vote for the Iraq war. It was harder to get a deal to prevent a war with Iran than it was to take the country into war with Iraq. And all the things the Republicans said in that debate usually rooted back to some lie, like we're giving Iran $150 billion, not true. So Trump gets elected president, and he says, I have to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal because of all these things I've said about it that are terrible. And his own administration, including some people who had opposed the Iran deal now that they're in power, say, don't do that, that would be a mistake, right?

But he's so wedded to his lies, he's so invested in a worldview about Obama and about the Iran deal, that he still has to do this. He still has to pull out of this nuclear deal. And just so people understand the sequence of events, he pulls out of the Iran nuclear deal. The Iranians resume their nuclear program. They start to commit all kinds of provocations.

They fire weapons through their proxies at Saudi oil facilities. They restart shooting rockets at the U.S. presence in Iraq that they'd stopped doing on the Iran deal. And lo and behold, we get to this point where then Trump responds by killing this general. Then the Iranians fire these missiles. Then Iran is on high trigger alert. And so therefore therefore they see a plane, it triggers their defense system, and a bunch of people on a plane get killed, right? So I think the way that people need to think about this is that these lies that Trump tells to sustain his version of what he's doing have consequences for real people in the real world. It's not just

pageantry, it's not just cable television, it's not just something to have on in the real world. It's not just pageantry. It's not just cable television. It's not just something to have on in the backdrop. We're now seeing it. It's life or death. So let's talk about some of the efforts to constrain Trump here. We're recording Thursday night. Today, the House passed a war powers resolution.

Three Republicans and Justin Amash voted for the resolution. Eight Democrats voted against it. What is the goal of a non-binding resolution like this? I understand why Republicans would do Trump's bidding. Also, why would eight Democrats defect? Well, one of the things I encountered in the White House is that for some Democrats, there's this kind of every year is 2002. You know, you'll recall after 9-11 is when I feel old, because for some people that was 20 years ago.

But the Republicans... What happened to those 20 years, guys? For Republicans, those were years that they really bludgeoned Democrats. These talking points you just showed were crafted in 2002. If you didn't line up behind them, you were weak, you were soft on terrorism. They used that to great electoral effect in 2002 and 2004. For some Democrats, they're just stuck in that moment. They kind of forget that the whole reason Barack Obama got elected president is because he opposed the war in Iraq. So I think

that they're so worried about being called weak that they make this kind of defection. Now it's eight. That's a lot less percentage-wise than where we were, you know, in the time of the Iraq War. So we've moved the ball. A resolution like this is important if it passes. For Democrats, number one, to kind of establish the basis that Trump does not have the constitutional authority to take us to war. He doesn't care about the Constitution. He could give a shit. But I do still think it's important for them to register that. But it also, more importantly, is a basis for them to not fund any war with Iran. That is actually where Congress can have an impact, because they do have to pay for this. And so this resolution, talking to some people who worked on it, is a step towards laying a predicate that if there is a war, that they won't fund it. So there's an effort to try to restore some control over war powers via, there's a proposal

by Congressman Ro Khanna and Senator Bernie Sanders to prevent additional funding from going to military involvement in Iran or with Iran without congressional approval. What do you think is the best sort of long-term means of constraining some presidential authority on questions like this? Well, ultimately, if you have a president like Trump that doesn't care about the fact that he has no constitutional basis for what he's doing, which is the case with Iran. I mean, to just give people a sense of this, we killed the general of another country in a third country, Iraq, for a lie. Clearly, there is no imminent threat or else we would have heard about this. And they claimed three different reasons for why it was legal that ranged from the imminent threat to the 2002 authorization to go to war in Iraq. So just think about that.

We're going to war with a different country, Iran, on the basis of something that was passed almost 20 years ago to go to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, who was the mortal enemy of Iran and fought a war against them for a decade. That is the kind of netherworld that we're in here. And so I think part of it is to establish that context, but again, a war with Iran would be a huge, costly endeavor, and where Congress could really impact our capacity to do that

is on whether they're funding it. I think there's a broader point that Bernie's been making, that Roe has been making, and I've talked to Roe about this a lot, which is that Congress has to reassert itself, that power has just migrated into the hands of the presidency for decades now. That's not how it was intended to be by the Constitution. It's supposed to be a shared power between Congress and the president. The president's not supposed to be able to take us to war without some authorization from Congress. And so it's both asserting congressional

authority and hopefully giving Congress the predicate, again, to not fund these things. Yeah, I mean, it seems like there is, you know, look, we're all confronting what happens when you put these powers in the hands of someone like Trump. But there has been a sort of bipartisan long-term trend of giving more and more power to the executive. I mean, here's a clip of Sarah Huckabee Sanders making this argument. Noted expert. Yeah. You know, I can't think of anything dumber than allowing Congress to take over our foreign policy. They can't seem to manage to get much of anything done. I think the last thing we want to do is push powers into Congress's hands and take them away from the

president. So Justin Amash, independent, former Republican, pushed out of the party for thinking, made the point that, you know, Sarah Huckabee Sanders can't think of anything dumber than the Constitution. But the other side of the coin of presidential power is the sort of cowing of anybody who would argue against it. Noted serious adult-sized person Marco Rubio said this during Iran's response. Hashtag Iran, just for people searching, I guess. Now openly calling for Americans to turn in each other, the time will come to debate U.S. policy. Tonight, Americans and allied troops

have come under direct attack by a nation state, and Americans must come together to support and protect them and respond appropriately. It really does feel like 2002 because of course, who decides what's appropriate? It's up to Congress to step aside and not debate it. So presumably he means it's up to

Donald Trump, someone he doesn't believe and continues to not believe is responsible enough to have the nuclear codes to make the decision without any kind of debate. Literally saying the time will come to debate U.S. policy, but it's not now in the midst of a complex. What's your response to that? Every war that we've been in that's a catastrophe has started because of this argument. So in Vietnam, it was, if you don't support this constant escalation in Vietnam, you know, you are not

willing to stand up to the Soviets. You're not willing to stand up to communists. You're not willing to defend freedom. In Iraq, if you don't think we should go to war in Iraq, you support every bad thing Saddam Hussein is doing and you're supporting Saddam Hussein. As I've been living the dystopia of the last week and hearing them make these comments about Soleimani, you might remember my office in the White House. It was kind of built for little people like you and me.

It was a very small space. It had a ceiling that was dropped down so that the wires that were underneath the Oval Office could secure the communications. It was a tight space. There was a person that sat right outside my office, where Tommy sat, actually. So Tommy sat there for a while, or stood. Tommy liked to stand at his desk. I like to sit.

But the person who sat there had served in Iraq and was almost killed in a rocket attack that certainly involved Qasem Soleimani. Certainly, he helped provide the rockets that these proxies fired at the embassy where my colleague served and was almost killed. She worked her ass off for the Iran deal. She knew who Qasem Soleimani was. I know who Qasem Soleimani was. I don't think some of these people knew people who were harmed by Qasem Soleimani, but we also knew that a lot more people would die in war with Iran. And then frankly, the way to weaken people like Qasem Soleimani in Iran was not through U.S. military action, which is what strengthens people like Qasem Soleimani in Iran was not through US military action, which is what strengthens people like Qasem Soleimani,

because all they know how to do is fight and kill. It's through diplomacy. It's through something like the Iran deal. There were people who knew people, people who'd been harmed by these Iranian proxies, who worked their ass off in the Obama administration because they didn't want to have more war, and because they knew that this is how

you sideline people like that, right right so when I hear these garbage arguments thrown at us by these people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about because they want to get us in another war with Iran it's beyond have we not learned anything because one of the reasons why these people that I worked with didn't want another war in Iran is because they've seen what happens when we start wars in the Middle East when they were serving in Iraq. The choice could not be clearer here. And then you also see a guy like Trump going out and saying it's some big victory that in the last week Iran announced they're restarting their nuclear program.

The Iranian people united around a hard line against the United States. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, certainly put Iraq up to that vote to evict us from Iraq. It still has proxies willing to strike us across the region, and he's, like, spiking the ball in the end zone. I mean, this is really dangerous stuff that they're playing with,

and they have no justification for it in fact. So all they have are lies about Obama or these kind of crazy crazy scurrilous charges about Democrats. And I think this is why it's an act of profound irresponsibility to vote for this man and to have this man in the White House. The stakes are life and death. They're not how you feel when you turn on cable television. Real people's lives are affected by this. are affected by this. So.

I want to touch on one more aspect of this. You know, there was a briefing and, you know, Marco Rubio said it was very compelling. All right. And then

Mike Lee went to the cameras, a Republican senator from Utah, and he said this. The briefing lasted only 75 minutes whereupon our briefers left. This, however, is not the biggest problem I have with the briefing, which I would add was probably the worst briefing I've seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I've served in the United States Senate. I find this insulting and demeaning,

not personally, but to the office that each of the 100 senators in this building happens to hold. It's un-American. It's unconstitutional. And it's wrong. So he was pissed. And I actually just want to show you, you know, they applaud him, but, you know, he finally notices. He does look like a guy who, like, doesn't like the customer service he got at Subway or something. And just starts, like, yelling at people in the line, you know. Can you believe these fucking people? They didn't like the customer service he got at Subway or something and just starts yelling at people in the line.

Can you believe these fucking people? They didn't have the peppers. Treating me like this. I come here every single Saturday with my boy. For no reason, I just wanted to show Nancy Pelosi when she was asked about what Senator Lee said because it's great. Can we ask you about the Iran briefing?

Well, we can't talk about it. How would you characterize it? Did you think it was sufficient? Well, we're going to have our own introduction. Some people are calling it the worst briefing they've ever gotten. There's sick competition for that honor

from this administration. Just quick. Nancy's quick. Just quick. Nancy's quick. So, you know, they sent Mike Pence out to do the version of damage control that Mike Pence can do. Let's roll that clip. Why not, in a classified setting, can our briefers from this administration

share what it was, this threat that you talk about, in a classified setting? Well, some of that has to do with what's called sources and methods, Savannah, that if we were to share all of the intelligence, and in fact, some of the most compelling evidence that Qasem Soleimani was preparing an imminent attack against American forces and American personnel also represents some of the most sensitive intelligence that we have. It could compromise those sources and methods. So look, I have tremendous respect. So obviously, Mike Pence is what happens when you separate Ronald Reagan from his demon. Whoever that was for, thank you for appreciating that. But, you know, we're here again, an

administration with zero credibility is claiming it as secret intelligence to justify its actions. You're somebody who was in these kinds of briefings, who was exposed to the kind of classified material that you would then decide what to bring to Congress. They have not been willing to even share this intelligence with the Gang of Eight. When you were in the White House, the Gang of Eight, now people, that is, these are the bipartisan leaders of the Congress of both houses and the leaders of the intelligence committees. Was there anything you didn't feel that you could trust Republicans in that Gang of Eight with? Or was it a completely trustworthy bipartisan relationship? No, and Savannah's question was right. It's a classified setting, so you can share information about sources and methods. And by the way, it's not like the Iranians don't know that we're

collecting intelligence on them. And the fact is, if you listen to what they've said, they've not even come close to providing any reason or justification for why this was imminent. So this is an administration that lies about everything from the path of hurricanes to... And so, of course, why would they not lie about this? Part of what I saw Trump today, in part of my dystopian week, I had to sit in a television studio. I try not to listen to Trump. I try to kind of read it because it gets me too much, triggers me too much. But I was stuck there because I had this situation where I'm talking and they're like, well, Sean, we have to go to President Trump. And I had it in my ear for, you know, 20 minutes just talking.

And like literally everything he said was a lie. And at one point he said, well, they would have blown up our embassy. You know, like, well, then he said they would have blown up their embassy because of something that happened before, not intelligence. But the point I want to make that is really relevant to everybody here in the election year is that he spoke for 20 minutes. There'll be fact checks in the Washington Post that nobody will read who just watched 20 minutes of disinformation shoved down their throat, right? And so Pence has no answer to that question, but he doesn't care, because all they need to do is stand up and say what their version of the truth is, and it will reach enough people. And they have so little respect for the institution of the Congress. Look, those Republicans are not particularly nice to us, but the idea that we

wouldn't even share with them and tell, I used to have to put together some of those assessments, like an imminent threat is you have a piece of information that suggests that if you don't do X Y will happen so it's not like even something you have to go put together it's not like you need like a week to go figure out the thing to present to them it would be something that you have because presumably you acted on it because you had it so it's as simple as going and saying hey look at what we had we had to do this and the fact that they can't even do that in a classified setting tells you that they're lying.

And I would like actually more Democrats to call this out because I see people get asked, do you think they're lying? Well, we don't think the briefing went well. No, they're lying. They're lying every time they say there was an imminent threat. One last question. In many ways now, the American president, when it comes to foreign policy, acts like a dictator. And that has been a growing problem through administrations of both parties. There was a moment when Barack Obama was deciding whether or not to take action in Syria,

and he decided to go to Congress, and one of the things he said was, I have this inherent authority as president, but it would be better for the country if we got this authority from Congress. But there was a choice made to protect the prerogatives of the president because every president is told by very smart foreign policy advisors that for the interest of national security, don't give any power back,

don't give any flexibility back. You may want this authority in an emergency. You may need it to defend the country. Do you think at some point, it won't just be up to Congress, but it will be up to an American president to say, I cannot act without the authority of Congress. My hands are tied.

This is a power vested in the Constitution in Article II, and therefore the president cannot respond militarily without a congressional authorization. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think what was amazing in the Obama administration is there were two times that we went to Congress to try to constrain ourselves from taking military action. The first was after the chemical weapons attack in Syria.

Obama said, I'm going to go to Congress to try to get this authorization because I don't think I should take the country into another war in another Middle Eastern country without doing that first. And Congress wanted nothing to do with that. And they were not going to give us the votes because they didn't want to vote for war because everybody saw Iraq. That's seen as like a big mistake of the Obama presidency that he did that you know by the the media at least public opinion was probably with us so the incentive structure was weird he was kind of why did you do that the strong thing to do would have just been to go to war without going to congress so part of it is the president has to change, but like we have to change the politics around these issues. The second time we went to Congress was with ISIS, where everybody

knew we were good. We said, give us an authorization for the use of force against ISIS, so we don't have to use the one from after 9-11. And Congress wouldn't even vote to go to war with ISIS. They were so hesitant to cast a vote for a war and so I think a president can do it but the unless the politics are going to change then congress isn't going to change either but the way you should think about this is if the argument is that there might be some situation that is so extreme that I just have to act without congress well you know what if that situation actually happens we'll all know when we see it you. Like, if there's something that you think you might need to do that kills people, that commits acts of violence against people,

that you don't think will be so obvious that you can take that action and then make the case, then you probably shouldn't do it in the first place, right? And so this debate that the Republicans want to declare victory and have it over first of all it's not over this is there'll be I mark my word there'll be more flare-ups of Iran there'll be more actions by Iranian proxies there'll be more efforts by Iran to pursue nuclear deal this is an ongoing part of our lives for the next you know what he did with Soleimani is not the kind of thing that ends in a week-long news cycle as much of our

media wants it to do this is a five-year thing that just kicked off by killing their second most powerful person in their country. But I think it's going to take a president saying, I will not do this without Congress, but it's also going to take our politics changing so that Congress wants to play this role and wants to step into this and doesn't want to just dug and cover.

And that's where, frankly, Mike Lee deserves some credit, even though it's radically inconsistent that he doesn't want it other times. Because you do need this kind of left-right coming together of saying, no, we want to reassert ourselves in this space. Ben Rhodes, thank you very much for being here. When we come back, we'll have Alice Wetterlin

and Harry Kondabalu. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. She's a comedian and host of the podcast Treks in the City, a very funny podcast. Please welcome back Alice Wetterlin. Hi, Alice. Hi, my buddy.

How you doing? Good, I'm doing good. Like your shoe game. Thanks. Yeah, I was gonna wear my Nikes that I got for this show, but I look too much like an office lady running from lunch. That's such a hot one.

It's not, well, I mean, yeah. I'm a 12,. It's not. Well, I mean, yeah. I'm a 12. Okay. All right. I'm a 12, she said, throwing it away. He just released a Netflix special called Warn Your Relatives and will be headlining New York City

at Caroline's on Broadway from January 23rd to the 25th. Please welcome back Hari Kondabalu. Hi, Hari. Hey, John. Good to see you. It's great to. Hi, Hari. Hey, John. Good to see you. It's great to see you, too. Things are so bad.

I'm a comedian. How about that? Yeah. God, what a week. I found out what country I'd be told to go back to this year, though. That's exciting. Yeah, it's good to know. Someplace nice?

Oh, it's Iran. Iran. Oh, I see. I see. Goodbye, Libya and Syria. It's a new year. Yeah! Felt really weird after I did it. All right. You guys want to play a game? The United States has not officially declared war since World War II. And yet, and this may come as a shock to you, in the years since, we've fought several wars anyway.

In fact, since we blurred the line between war and peace, our society has grown more and more accustomed to a state of permanent peace war. And the routine use of America's military might all over the world and the murky justifications for state violence in pursuit of ever-shifting notions of national interest and national security. And despite the lost lives, the toll on families, the cost, despite the harm and instability, it sometimes seems like we never learn anything from the past. In fact, the justifications for hostilities with Iran we are hearing are so similar to the ones that led us to war with Iraq, we don't think our very smart panelists will be able to tell the difference in a game we're calling war huh yeah what is it good for content for a podcast say it again now we're smart that's what i heard from that you are smart he said very smart yeah he did

very smart maybe other people even wrote that. So, wow. It's more than one person that signed off on that. Whenever I get reviewed for stand-up, they always call me smart. Never funny. That's never good. Never funny. That's no good. Never funny. It's better than being called important. Or a 12.

Funny for a 12. Exactly. Now I'm pretending I didn't come up with that we just variety can't stop calling me a 12 I gotta tell you funny for a 12

you could do worse in terms of a special name yeah just keep that in your back pocket no one else can use it I'll keep it I don't wear pockets on the back

cause my butt so here's how it works my very smart panelists. I'm going to read a real quote, and the two of you will guess whether or not it was a sentence justifying the war in Iraq or one justifying a brand new war in Iran. You guys can work together, be enemies, whatever you choose. Friendship?

Friendship. Okay. Number one. Bush UN ambassador and former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton said this. Congratulations to all involved. Long in the making, this was a decisive blow against malign activities worldwide. Hope this is the first step to regime change. John Bolton said this?

Oh, it must have been both. Wait, we can choose both? I bet. Can it be both? I'm just going to just sort of theoretically yes, but I wouldn't count on it in a first question. You see? I just feel like John Bolton's always like he's ready to go.

He was psyched about Granada. That language feels very early. Congratulations to all. I don't know. I'm trying to... You feel like it's so naive it must have been earlier than... There was a time when he would congratulate everybody and it wasn't know. I'm trying to... Like, you feel like it's so naive it must have been earlier than... Yeah, like, there was a time

when he would congratulate everybody. Right. And it wasn't now. Right, right. And he's also, he's no longer there. Is he around? So he's probably a little bitter. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking it through, I'm going to need an answer. So it wouldn't be now. So it would be Iraq. No. God damn it. Wow!

But close. one letter off former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich said what happens is do we design a strategy that actually changes the regime or do we play games this week and then three runs from now they do something horrible and we play games for two weeks and they do something horrible

that's what the record has been that they get away with an amazing number of things, including court findings and 9-11 commission findings, that they directly help the people who attacked us on 9-11 and killed 3,000 people. Nude is verbose. Yeah, geez. But it's nude, so.

Right. So 9-11 commission mentioned the 9-11 commission. He said it recently. No, he definitely did. I think if nude Gingrich popped up recently, we'd know. We'd be like, whoa! When did the 9-11 Commission finally publish that report? Oh, I definitely know, but I'd leave it to an audience member to say.

Hari's puzzling it out. Think it's Iran? No, you think it's Iraq? I think it's Iraq. Iraq. Because it's... Mother... Wait, I didn't get...

They just wanted you to move on. No, it was Iran. It was Iran. That's what we said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right at the end. Can I get a proper sound? Right at the end.

Wow. Thank you. They have to get a bell from another... George W. Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said, I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside that country where people celebrate. Oh, that's definitely, it's a rock. Oh, yeah. Just the idea that this is going to lead to positive, like everyone's going to be so happy, but that sounds like an Iraq thing.

He said it about, this son of a bitch had the audacity to say that about this time. Oh, my God. Mission accomplished again? That is the arrogance. Next. Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times said, I think it was unquestionably worth doing. What we needed to do was go over to that part of the world,

I'm afraid, and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically and take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble. And there was only one way to do it. You think the bubble fantasy, we're just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this, okay? Okay, Iraq.

Super Iraq for sure. Nobody said suck on this recently. You got it. So smart. Sean Hannity said, we're going to go in and we're going to liberate this country in a few weeks and it's going to be over very quickly. I think that's also Iraq.

All right, Iraq. You got it. Yes! He also went on to say, Then we're going to find all of the weapons of mass destruction that all of you guys on the left say don't exist. But that was weirdly about Iran. Strange.

And finally, Sean Hannity said, This is a huge victory for American intelligence, a huge victory said, this is a huge victory for American intelligence, a huge victory for our military, a huge victory for the State Department, and a huge victory and total leadership by the President. Is he sponsored by victory? The word? Let's just say it without putting

any emphasis on the last syllable, so it's like... Okay, alright. Yeah, we've... Ready? One, two, three. Yeah. Final answer. You got it. It was Iran. It was Iran. Yes. Hari and Alice... Figured it out.

You won the game. How long is institutional memory for an American? Like, How long does it... 30 seconds, 4 years, an election cycle? How long... Over the holiday break, I read this book by Ishiguro called The Buried Giant,

and it's all about what happens when a whole country kind of loses its memory and tries to figure out how to live without memory and, um... relevant. When we come back, OK Stop. Don't go anywhere.

This is Love It or Leave It and there's more on the way. And we're back. Now it's time for a game called OK Stop. We roll a clip. Allison Hari can say OK Stop at any point to comment. Mitch McConnell, what can be said about Mitch McConnell?

Oh, you're kidding. You don't like him? I like him. What can be said about Mitch McConnell that hasn't already been screamed by Merrick Garland in an S&M dungeon? Well, this week Mitch took... Wait, is he dumb or sub? Okay, forget it.

This week Mitch took to the Senate floor to announce that impeachment would move forward whether Nancy Pelosi likes it or not. Let's roll the clip. Senate, we'll have to address some of the deepest institutional questions contemplated by our Constitution. We'll have to decide whether we're going to safeguard core governing traditions or let short-term

partisan rage overcome them. Democrats have let Trump derangement syndrome develop into a kind of dangerous partisan fever that our founding fathers were afraid of. Who cares what the founding fathers were afraid of? First of all, it's like they'd be afraid of cars if they were around. Telephones, women voting. What they're afraid of is completely irrelevant right now. Yeah, they'd have a lot of questions for Pete Buttigieg. So that's your friend?

Or your roommate. So it's also striking, he's like, it's just turned into a partisan fever. It's like, stop making it sound so fun. He's turning people Democrat by talking. He's like, it's going to be a crazy fever over there when we finally get those articles. It's going to be a crazy fever over there when we finally get those articles. It's going to be crazy disco fever.

I wonder if he ever went to the club. I think he should be a Democrat also, just by the way he looks. I think, though, you have to see him in his completed outfit in front of the Confederate flag, and then it kind of clicks in. Instead of in an empty room, there's nobody listening to him. They're like, sir, this is a Wendy's.

All right. He's alone. The audacity of this man to protect the institution of the Senate and the traditions, like, for example, voting on Supreme Court nominees or even having a hearing. One tradition is that he's a juror in a trial in the Senate. And so one thing a juror might do in a trial in the spirit of preserving the prerogatives of the institution,

it might be to not contact the White House as opposed to, like, for example, that's something that the Democratic leader in the Senate did under Bill Clinton, tried to make sure he didn't coordinate with the Clinton White House. We know that Mitch McConnell has coordinated closely and admitted to coordinating closely and being biased when it comes to Trump. So just a couple, just a couple examples off the top of my head. So look, Mr. President, I respect our friends across the aisle.

Okay, stop. No, he, no, he's a human troll machine. Everything he says is because he wants to make people mad and make their undies in a bunch, which is, I think, the opposite of respect, if you look it up. Notice how when he said that we have friends across the aisle, he kept his head down and he was smiling. Yeah.

He couldn't get through it. He broke. He broke. He broke as if Jimmy found it. He doesn't have friends across the aisle at the grocery store. Please laugh at that. Appears that one symptom of Trump derangement syndrome is also a bad case of amnesia.

Oh, look at that mic, Todd. What you guys are not hearing is that the applause from the gallery was so thunderous, several pitchers did shatter. A case of amnesia. Can we play that little clip again, just that set-up and punchline? Punchline, quote, unquote. I don't know that we have that ability. Do we play that little clip again? Just that set up and punchline. Punchline quote unquote. I don't know that we have that ability. Do we have playback?

Hey, also, can we enhance? Zoom in on his tie and enhance. Hey, Brian on the ones and twos. Enhance. There's a will in his pocket. All right? And we're going to get, we got to find out who gets toontown.

I just like the fact that like I sympathize with him for this moment alone because he was like, because he has this whole setup and it's a big female, like he's really going for it. It's a high concept kind of speech with this Trump derangement syndrome.

And then he says one symptom of it and he gives the punchline. Nobody goes for it. He waits and he gives the punchline. Nobody goes for it. He waits and he says the punchline again to silence. Such a dad move. Yeah. He should have done a Ricky Gervais thing and said, what? You can't handle it?

But here's where we are, Mr. President. Their turn is over. They've done enough damage. It's the Senate's turn now to render sober judgment as the framers envision. Okay, stop. It is not going to be as the framers envision, right? Because they said that you have to be a jerk.

But, fuck. Also, I love how he's on the defensive. I love Mitch McConnell on the defensive. He's like, it's our turn now. And Nancy Pelosi is like, still no. Sorry. Still is not your turn. And he's like, no, it is now for us

because we're going to do it now, Mr. President. And she's like, still no. He said, so two points. First of all, he said it's our turn now the way white Southerners said it's our turn now the way white southerners said it when Reconstruction ended. That's

funny because it's so terrible. Dark. Deal with it. I'm going to probably leave it in. He was like four when that happened. He remembers. But also, let's also keep in mind what he's saying it's our turn

all of this is a speech about why due to the senate the history of the senate what the founders intended and the desire

to uphold the traditions of this august body and to be faithful patriotic americans therefore we cannot

have witnesses at a trial like I don't know what is more basic and traditional than having witnesses at a trial. Like, that's what a trial is. It's not just people talking. It's witnesses. It's in the Bill of Rights confronting, you know, your accuser and so forth, I think. It's in there somewhere. Somebody got to back me up. Any lawyers?

I'm getting some thumbs up. I know what's in the Bill of Rights. I shouldn't have doubted myself. Mitch is getting in your head. This is all... He is in my head. Mitch McConnell's in there. Is there a limit on how many times you're allowed to be impeached?

So, great question, Hari. No. how many times you're allowed to be impeached? So, great question, Hari. No. So far, all presidents have impeached between zero and one times. Right, right, right. That said, I do actually...

You know, I was actually thinking about it when we saw the news of the, you know, extra-legal assassination of a foreign leader by President Trump for dubious reasons, still not backed up by any intelligence. And I was imagining an alternate universe where the House was just like, get another impeachment article over to the Senate, get another one over there. And it was a brief fantasy, I think partially in the reverie of a food poisoning induced fever. Nonetheless,

I do think it's important that the impeachment inquiry in some fashion stay open. And, you know, right now, we don't know whether or not John Bolton is going to testify in the Senate. If we ultimately do end up in a trial without witnesses, I think we have to not allow the House process to end. And the inquiry in some fashion just needs to remain open in part because, you know, look, Donald Trump responds to incentives. He responds to incentives. I think one of the most reassuring things that's happened in the past week is polling showing how deeply unpopular and reckless the American people view killing Soleimani. I was heartened by that. I mean, very little to be heartened by this week, but if something could

be heartening, it was the fact that the American people saw this as a dangerous thing, and they see Donald Trump wielding deadly force as a dangerous and precarious idea. We know that Donald Trump wants to look tough. We also know he sees being bogged down in foreign conflicts as something that will hurt his popularity. And so we live in this kind of liminal space between a strong man who wants to have great reality TV and someone with a gut instinct that tells him one of the few things in which he's been consistent for a long time on, wars in which we do not extract resources are ones that aren't to America's advantage. Also, also, if we do another impeachment,

then Nancy Pelosi can be like, it's a repeach. And then she'll be like, repeach! And then it's going to be a repeach. And then they'll do another one, and they're like, no, not impeach. And then they keep it open, and then it should be like re-peach and then it's gonna be a re-peach and then they'll do another one and they're like no not

no not a peach and then they keep it open and then guess what it's a three peach that's right it's a three peach and then we keep on peachin'

and it's just like peach peach peach peach all the time millions of peaches 90s song reference keep on peachin' keep on peachin' and then by then

he'll be on his third term boo everybody boo harry harry i'm joking none of us are gonna make it that come on to the point of incentives the white house has said and look the ukrainians got the aid why did they get the aid because he got caught right once he got caught he released the aid you know sometimes i see people saying, oh, you know, when Donald Trump talked about how, oh, he was going to bomb the cultural sites

and set up this conversation, what if he does it? Whether or not Donald Trump is going to participate in the debates, I see people saying, oh, he's never going to debate. And they get themselves all spun up as to whether or not Donald Trump is going to debate. And sometimes I think,

when we get ourselves into hypothetical debates about just how far Trump will go, just how much of a villain Donald Trump is, I do sometimes worry that we're kind of playing his game. And it is absolutely true that the rules of politics, for reasons that are complicated and terrible, don't apply to him the way they apply to Democrats. And certainly there are rules that apply to Democrats that don't apply to Republicans more generally. But don't let that dull your senses. Don't let that cause you to

believe that nothing matters, that the rules never apply. There have been plenty of Trump administration officials that have been forced to resign due to scandal. There have been plenty of times even Donald Trump himself had to reverse himself on whether or not to attack cultural sites. So the machine is in trouble. It is creaking, and it is throwing off all kinds of very important nuts and bolts that we're going to have to sweep up and figure out where they were supposed to be. But the engine's still turning over, and the pistons are still firing. So I think that is at least something to hold on to, at least.

When we come back, the rant wheel. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. 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 week on the wheel, we have high school reunions. We have 20 credible allegations against Trump and why he isn't being impeached over them. We have Harry and Meghan. We have Rita Wilson's hair person. Marco Rubio, Jillian Michaels, Dr. Phil's mansion, and crowded gyms. Let's spin The Wheel. It has landed on Rita Wilson's hair person

Now this Sunday was the Golden Globes A bizarre ritual At some point in the hours leading up to the Golden Globes, Rita Wilson, actress, singer, wife of Tom Hanks, famous actor in his own right, tweeted and Instagrammed that the hair and makeup

person that she had hired to do her hair and makeup for the Golden Globes was over an hour late and, as she noted, this person had been to do her hair and makeup for the Golden Globes was over an hour late. And, as she noted, this person had been hired in September. Now, Tom Hanks was getting a, I don't know what you call it, but it's some sort of lifetime achievement award. Was it the Cecil B. DeMille Award? Thank you.

So that's what that was. But anyway, Rita Wilson sent this out. And I have to say, and I mean this sincerely, I appreciated it so much. And let me tell you why. There are so many very, very famous, very, very wealthy people who go to great lengths to hide that aspect of themselves in their conduct that it's very important that their public-facing persona be a kind of more normal version of themselves. And it is frowned upon, right, that if you're going to go on Twitter and say, I am mad, it has to be over something justified, right?

Like, you are barely allowed to complain about airlines, but you can get away with it because it's kind of okay. But what, like, a tom hanks or rita wilson can't do is they can't complain about a private flight being late you can't complain about rich person stuff on twitter it is frowned upon and because it's frowned upon all these rich people and famous people don't do it and it's fake right because they're hiding their real frustrations and pretending that they don't have them. And why we want them to do that, because we care about their presentation of their brand, right? Everybody would, how dare you say you're angry about this?

We want you to pretend to be something better than this. You know what? Rita Wilson was so fucking furious that she didn't let that stop her. And I applaud her for that. She was genuinely mad. And you know what? She had every right to be because it was a big night, all right?

Because Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, and their four good kids and their one weird kid had to have... It was a big night. It was a big night for Tom and Rita and Colin and the others and Chet.

And Chet is on a journey where he is now doing some form of a patois and he seems to be living it. It's improv everywhere because I also, when seeing him doing the accent,

I will not describe, because I don't believe it's fair to accents of real people, but he also seems to have done it not just on the red carpet, this patois, but also while getting some form of a smoothie on his Instagram. All this is a way of saying that I thought Rita Wilson ultimately looked great. Agree. Thank you so much. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, that's gay news. Let's spin it again.

We're going to switch the order. It has landed on high school reunions. Hari, take it away. My 20-year high school reunion is this year. I was very excited about this. I've been excited about this since I graduated 20 years ago. I have waited for this moment, and no one is organizing the reunion because Facebook killed it,

and social media killed the high school reunion, and it is unfair because I was excited about it because I saw Gross Point Blank, and I saw Romy and Michelle's high school reunion, and they're all supposed to go back to their high schools 20 years later and dance in their gyms. That's what we were promised.

And it's unfair because the high school reunion was made for people like me who want to go back and gloat. Things have worked out. That's right. And it's been ruined.

I'm supposed to go back, oh, what are you, oh, you're a dentist? That's good. Oh, do you have a Netflix dentistry special? Dentist of the year? Oh, were you on Letterman to celebrate? Yeah, that was a thing. Oh, you pull teeth for a living? That's cool. That's basically what

my stand-up is. Wait, is everybody a dentist? Do you go to a dentistry school? There's a couple of kids in my head I don't like who turned into dentists. I found out on Facebook, ironically enough. Also, side note,

if you know the story of Facebook, the claims that Mark Zuckerberg stole it from the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra, I went to high school with Divya Narendra. He graduated my class. Divya, you fucked this up for me! I am so glad this rant happened.

In part because it was only based on this moment that I'm realizing it's also my 20-year anniversary. 20-year reunion would be this year. We're both class of 2000. Smoke-free class. Hey, everybody. Oh, who's this with me? It's Ronan Farrow.

So good. Oh, you all married each other? Cool. Cool. I just love justice so much. Let's spin it again. Oh, great. Perfect. It has landed on 20 credible allegations.

Don't laugh at that. It won't make any sense in the edit. You sound like fucking Jeffrey Dahmer. It has landed on a serious topic, you animals. 20 credible... Take it away, Alice.

Okay, so, it's weird. I woke up this morning, and I had this thought, and it struck me. I was like, so they're not going to be impeaching him for the 25 allegations now of sexual assault and harassment against the president. They're not going to be impeaching him for that. And they're not thinking about impeaching him for that. And that's weird. The Gazette was always on the table. And it never occurred to me before that

it was weird until this morning when I woke up grumpy and hungry and i was like fuck that's weird because they impeach clinton for lying about an affair and we don't really have trump on record on record lying about the fact that he's a rapist he hasn't even denied some of the allegations and we don't even know if he's having an affair in office and if he would lie about it because nobody with a gavel has fucking asked him because we're just all here in the world and then there was a tape that came out and Trump was like they let you do it if you're a star and then everybody goes that checks out and then we all moved on from that, right? Like that's kind of crazy, I think. And so it's just, it really strikes me because like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it sucks, you know, and there's bigger fish to fry. But it does seem that there are always bigger fish to fry than the bodily autonomy of those people who are not

white cisgender men, right? It just seems to me like there's always bigger fish to fry than that. And I'm sick of not talking about it. My job is to be a comedian and to go on stage and tell my truth. And it's funny because my mom raised me to believe that my currency was my self-worth and my ideas, which now seems like a funny prank. Got me, you know? Good troll, mom. But the thing is, it's getting harder, not easier, to talk and to say my truth in front of audiences who are not really all on the same page about whether misogyny is a thing.

So I wish we could just, like, decide, right? Like, could we just decide how much of my body belongs to me? Could that be a thing we just decide? Maybe it's 20%, right? Because the answer is too complicated still. It depends on the state you live in. It depends on how much money you have. It depends on the color of your skin. And it's really confusing. Even the rapists at this point would like some clarity. Like, men are confused about Me Too because they're like, can I get away with it or not? Nobody fucking knows anymore. Like, we are trying to tear down

an institution, but we haven't built a new one yet, so it's really fucking confusing, and I don't know whether or not I'm getting hired for my tits, or for my brain, or for my lack thereof of one or the other, or whether I'm trash or what, depending on who's signing a check, and it would be awesome if we could just fucking decide a ratio

of some kind, so I could fucking plan my day, you know what I mean? And like an outfit. Or two. Let's spin it again. It has landed on crowded gyms. Gyms are crowded in January. And that's because people are trying to uphold their New Year's resolutions.

And one thing I just wanted to remind everybody here is I think there's always this stigma around New Year's resolutions where people say, oh, I never keep my New Year's resolutions. You know, I always make them. What's your resolution? This, we're always going to be, I got to cut the LBs or I'm going to call my grandma or stop murdering people, whatever it is. And everyone always says, I failed on my New Year's resolution yet again. I guess I'll make it again this December. But here's the thing. Gyms are always crowded in January, and people tend to peter out on their New Year's resolutions. Come, say, like March or April, we're kind of back to baseline.

You know, the dairy's back in the fridge. We're having anonymous sex again. Right at someone. Just right at someone just right at someone but I just wish we could say to ourselves you know what if we make a New Year's resolution every December

and we keep it for three months that means we spend about a quarter of our lives trying to do better that's all and I just wish we would be more kind to ourselves about our New Year's resolutions. That's all. That's good. I agree. There's supposed to be intentions now.

Yeah. Oh, they're New Year's intentions? I can't. I can't. That's too L.A. for me. And speaking of being optimistic and viewing our problems as solvable let's end on a high note obviously the news out of Australia

is apocalyptic in every sense of the word and it's a harbinger of the climate havoc to come because we haven't done enough and if you want to help you can donate to the Australian Red Cross the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and you can go to givit.org.au that to givit.org.au. That's

givit.org.au. But whenever these sorts of climate disasters happen, there's always a kind of contingent of people who say, it's too late, we've waited too long, it's unsolvable. But there's some news out this week that actually suggests we still have time. The International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook. These reports are usually pretty pessimistic. But this time they said that with our current terrible carbon policies, our current policies, the world will likely warm three degrees centigrade by 2100. That is disastrous, catastrophic. But it's 1.5 degrees lower than what they previously projected.

it's 1.5 degrees lower than what they previously projected. Similarly, you know, this is a high note, but it's not like it's a note we can reach. Similarly, a paper by the Breakthrough Institute also predicted that business as usual, carbon policies would result

in 3 degrees of warming by 2100. Optimistically, 2.5 degrees of warming is possible without. Optimistically, 2.5 degrees of warming is possible without any changes to current policies. The difference between 2.5 degrees and 4.5 degrees is enormous. 2.5 degrees will wreak unnatural chaos and displacement, extreme fire and flood and drought all over the planet. But these reports also suggest it's not too late. This problem feels vast and daunting. And we all know that in our own own lives we don't get help until we believe we can be helped. If a problem feels unsolvable it might feel better to ignore the problem than bother

trying to fix it when it's hopeless. Like that's true in climate, that is true in a marriage, that is true in the editing of a Star Wars film? Climate change is here. It's in Australia. It's in California. It's everywhere. We can avoid the worst impacts by reducing carbon pollution enough to keep warming

to 1.5 degrees centigrade. That is a goal that will require historic, unprecedented action, historic, unprecedented international cooperation, but we just shouldn't allow ourselves

to be convinced it's impossible. That's what a lot of people want us to think. In fact, today, we now know, based on these studies, that it just might be more possible than we imagined, and that is not necessarily good news, but it's better news than what we've been getting,

and I just wanted to make sure we all kept that in mind as we head into this fucking slog of a year. And if we can find it in our hearts, I mean, really, this awards season, to wear one tuxedo. And not change into separate tuxedos. Because the carbon offsets, just the coal ash from one tuxedo

is enough. How dare you impugn the motivations and contributions of Joaquin Phoenix. Look, all I'm saying is he slept in that tuxedo. Alright? It wasn't a climate thing. He just can't get the guy out of his tuxedo at a certain

point because there's drugs around. It's 2020. Joaquin's re-wearing his tuxedo. We're all doing our part. I want to thank Alice Wetterlin, Hari Kondabala, the improv. It is Saturday. There are 296 days to the election.

Get to work. Thank you guys so much. You're a great crowd. Good night. Love It or Leave It is a product of Crooked Media. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg, our head writer and Michael Bloomberg speechwriter,

Travis Helwig, and writers Jocelyn Kaufman, Alicia Carroll, and Peter Miller. Bill Lance is our editor, and Frank Tadek is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McClan and Jamie Skeel for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And to our digital producers, Nar Malconian and Yael Freed for filming and editing video each week so you can.