Lovett or Leave It - Watch for Falling Stones

Episode Date: January 26, 2019

And we're back! Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor join Lovett to cover Trump's surrender on the shutdown and Roger Stone’s indictment. Then Zoe Lister-Jones, Mitra Jouhari, Andrew Ti, and D’Arcy Carden join to talk about Pelosi versus Trump, the nationwide teacher strikes, those MAGA teens, dueling Fyre Festival documentaries, Rudy Giuliani’s emo streak, and more. Season 3! Here we go.

I'm John Lovett. We have a great show. It is Friday afternoon in Los Angeles. Stones are falling. Trumps are caving. First, I am here with Jon Favreau. Hi. I'm here with Tommy Vitor. What's happening? We're going to talk about these late-breaking developments, the end of the shutdown and the end of Roger Stone not being indicted. Then we'll go to the live taping of Love It or Leave It last night

with Darcy Carden, Zoe Lister-Jones, Mitra Juhari, and Andrew T. We covered Pelosi's... Should have gone to that. That's a great lineup. Everybody's very punchy. Those are the funniest people you've ever had. They're great people. And we covered Pelosi's confrontation with Trump,

the nationwide teacher strikes, MAGA teens, dueling fire festival documentaries, and more. This is our season premiere, and you can come see Love It or Leave It on tour. We'll be in D.C. I think they're going to be sold out.

Deal with it. Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, and more, but those are the upcoming ones. And Pod Save America will be in Charleston on February 7th, New Orleans on February 8th, Durham on February 10th. You can come see us there, too. You guys will be there. What a schedule.

Damn right. All right. That's got a good swing. Two big stories. Big. Let's start with the shutdown. Let's be responsible. All right.

Obviously. Save the dessert for later. Yes. Okay. On Friday, in a Rose Garden speech, Donald Trump announced the end of the shutdown through gritted teeth as Mike Pence waved a white flag while kneeling in front of Nancy Pelosi who decided to let them all live. Did that happen?

I miss that. Trump agreed to reopen the government for three weeks with no strings attached, which is exactly where we were before the shutdown began. All the pain, all the misery, all the uncertainty and fear for workers, all the disruptions. Trump went in without a plan. He got out with fucking nothing. He is still threatening to declare a national emergency if he doesn't get his wall in the next few weeks. John, start with you. Is there any way to call this anything other than a total surrender? Is there any possible way to argue that this is not

that? No. I mean, I just I'm trying to think. So Trump said basically that three weeks, either he shuts down the government again, or he declares a national emergency and builds the wall. but he could have done that back in December when this first happened. Like, basically the 35 days we just went through, absolutely nothing changed since December when the shutdown started. Zero. There was zero progress made by Donald Trump on any front ever, anywhere at all. Come on, John. Give me a little both sides.

I need my fix. I'm trying to think of what both sides could be. Both sides me. Here's how you know there's no argument. A reporter asked Mitch McConnell today, so what changed? Yesterday you voted against opening the government. What changed? And McConnell said,

I don't have anything to say. This was Donald Trump's plan that we voted on, so you'll have to ask the president. He is so clear. Tommy made this point on PSA earlier in the week, but it is so clear that Mitch McConnell is just quietly walking behind Donald Trump and just like hoping he learns. Hating his guts. Actually, I hadn't yet read the

like insanely long New York Times Magazine profile of Mitch McConnell, which is really just a celebration of like awful, cynical politicians that do nothing but block things. But basically, one of the subtexts that comes through in the story is that his press guy keeps sending people for the reporter to talk to who can sort of show distance between Mitch and Trump. It's also worth remembering, too, that, you know, to the point of he could have declared a national emergency. It's not like when he declares a national emergency, all of a sudden, like pallets full of bricks start showing up. Nothing happens. There's just a huge, long, messy process.

It's other people's lands, lawsuits. It's an endless thing. Nothing changes. Tommy, so it's worth remembering how this began. You pointed this out earlier. Paul Ryan, basically the Senate unanimously passed what is virtually the same as what they just they just agreed to. Yep. Then Ann Coulter and others got mad at Donald Trump. Then Donald Trump said he wouldn't go along with that plan without his $5.7 billion in funding for the border wall. And then Paul Ryan, in his last or basically his last act as speaker, refused to call a vote on the bipartisan past Senate bill.

Is this shutdown Paul Ryan's finest accomplishment? It's his legacy. It's his magnum opus. It is why we hate him. why we hate him. I mean, Trump obviously did this because they saw in their internal and external polling that Trump's disapproval had gone up five points to 58% over the last few months. So that is clearly why Trump caved. There was no path out of this. They were losing the war, et cetera. What is also true though, is that if you're watching the reaction on Twitter right now, the alt-right MAGA meltdown is absolute. It is complete. Very enjoyable. Give yourself a treat. Ann Coulter is tweeting that he's wimpier than George H.W. Bush,

which for the Trump is, which for her is the meanest thing you could ever say about any Republican. RIP. So what's likely to happen now is... George H.W. Bush went to the war. Yeah. She's an awful person. That's a different conversation.

But so what's likely to happen is even the people that were mad at him about the shutdown, who might come back home and support him again, it's likely he's also going to lose that equivalent number of people on the right wing. So this was foreseeable, preventable, but because of the cowardice of McConnell and Ryan, they didn't just stop him in his tracks and say how bad this idea was. John, do you think it matters? So we have people like, I don't even want to say their names. They're just the most vicious and disgusting entities in right wing politics who have been in Trump's corner the whole time. And they're the people who are pushing for this shutdown, who have kind of been his advisors on it. They're turning against him now. Is this the kind of

thing we'll look back on and think it mattered or will they be back in his good graces soon enough? What do you think? We don't know, but I think it's very possible we could look back on this and think that this mattered. If there were other victories that Trump could win, then maybe no one would remember this. But like he's pretty much down to just this fucking wall. Right. Like he between now and 2020, he's not going to get a single legislative accomplishment because he lost the House of Representatives. Right. So the only thing he could do was force government shutdowns to extract policies that he wants from Congress. That has not worked because Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer

and the Democrats said, we're not going to let it work. So now he can't do that anymore. He's not going to have a lot of love from his base and from the right-wing pundits, at least. Now, because they don't really believe in anything but power and cliques or whatever, you know, they could they don't really believe in anything but power and clicks or whatever, you know, they could come back into the fold in another month or so because all they care about is, you know, owning the libs. But I think he could have lost some support in some quarters

of his base at this point. OK, so Trump gives a meandering speech on the border wall. It's a strange thing. He goes he knows he's fucked. He knows he's caving. So he goes out there and he basically talks, he sort of jumps over that and then gives a deeply strange and long meandering speech about the importance of a border wall, why it matters. This sort of immigration speech is basically what he gave. And in it, he of course threatened to call for a national emergency. Again, we're now in this three week CR. There's about to be a debate about border wall funding versus border security funding. What are you looking for in the next few weeks? I mean, it feels like the debate is going to be entirely predictable and that the Trump people want border wall funding.

And the Democrats say, no, you don't get any kind of wall. We'll maybe give you some sort of smart wall, which means drone feeds and more personnel and security features. And they probably don't meet in the middle. So then he either declares a state of emergency or he does not. But declaring a state of emergency creates real problems for him among Republicans. So there's not a great solution here other than to maybe pretend this never happened. Yeah, I don't think you can predict anything. But I would bet that the one outcome that won't happen is another shutdown at the end of three weeks. Like, I think it will be either in that conference committee between Democrats and Republicans in the House

and Senate. Look, they've all agreed on $1.7 billion, $5 billion, whatever it is, in non-wall border security funding previously. So maybe they upped that number to $2 billion. I don't fucking know. So they have a little more non-wall border security funding, and maybe that's an agreement, and then maybe Trump just doesn't want to deal with this anymore because he wants to move on to the next episode of his television show. And so three weeks from now, he's just like, yeah, I got some money, and we're building the wall anyway.

It's happening. We're invading Venezuela in three weeks. That's what the next episode is. Stay tuned. That's not great. Stay tuned. All right, before we move on, let's just take a moment to talk about

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer because, you know, I think it's all of our natural impulses to worry that the Democrats aren't up to the fight against Trump. I think we've had that feeling for a very long time. One of the stories reported that basically there was a final meeting between Mitch McConnell

and Chuck Schumer in which Mitch McConnell said, can you help me out, buddy? And Chuck was like, no, I cannot. I cannot help you out. And we lost. I guess we lost Manchin on one of these votes or whatever. But Democrats held together. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, they had a far better hand, but they played it really well.

Right. I mean, it's worth pausing to say, like, here's an example where Democratic unity really made a difference. Yeah. Yeah. And look for them. Nancy Pelosi gets all the credit, all of her detractors, you know, not a great day for them. And she hung in there. And so did Chuck Schumer. And so did all the Democrats, except for Joe Manchin yesterday. So fantastic. But, you know, we focus so much on personalities. I think when you step back, this is what happens when Democrats have power. You know, we said two years ago when Donald Trump became president, the most important thing that we can all do is to work our asses off for two years to elect a Democratic House, because if a Democratic House exists, then Donald Trump won't be able to get away with shit anymore, that he won't be able to pass bad bills, that he won't be able to shut down the government like this because if we all stand together, we can prevent him from doing it. And that's what happened.

So all the work that everyone did all these last two years came to fruition today when we watched Donald Trump cave like a fucking... I don't know. I'm out of metaphors. Like a drug tunnel. That's a bad metaphor. Yeah.

Like a drug tunnel you have because walls don't work. That's exactly right. Okay, good. Yeah. Like a drug tunnel you have because walls don't work. That's exactly right. Okay, good. Yeah. I mean, you know what else is nice about this is because Trump has had control of the entire government, this mythology is built up that he's somehow an effective communicator, an effective politician. He's magic. He's Teflon. He's an impulsive idiot. Yeah. This proves it. And the fact that we had the numbers in our favor meant we could block everything he did. All of his little plans, his little meltdown in the Oval where he took, you know, he thought he was just sandbagging Chuck and Nancy with the press corps and was going to have a big moment and show leadership. It didn't work. His fucking negatives skyrocketed. They failed miserably.

Yeah. Since he has won, a lot of pundits have said, oh, does Trump always defy political gravity? Is he Teflon? Does nothing matter anymore? We now have two very big data points that that is bullshit. Number one, the 2018 midterms, and number two, him caving on the shutdown. He is not a special politician. The same pressures that work on any other politician, the same constraints they have, constrain Trump as well. Yeah, I think that's right. And I do think that this was such an important case. I mean, we've been talking about this for a long time, that the policy was wrong, but giving in would have been so dangerous because it would have shown that this kind of governing could work.

But I also think it's worth remembering that it's not just that we won. It's also that Democrats said, we're going to stay together and we're going to stand up for this and we're going to hold, we're going to be disciplined. And discipline's a muscle. And I think it's really important that Democrats in the House, Democrats in the Senate have seen, they saw it here, they saw it during the health care fight. That party unity was incredibly effective and it is our greatest tool, especially because we do only control one house.

Someone should print out all of the fucking both sides, woe is Democrats, takes from the last two weeks and just put them up in the House all over the wall. Just to remind the freshman members, the sophomore members, some of the members in Congress,

the centrists, look at these takes. Look at how fucking wrong they all were. They weren't just wrong. Burn them. Burn the takes. Not only wrong politically, they were morally wrong because these people are more interested in the appearance of reasonableness than what is actually reasonable.

The only reasonable position was not allowing a border wall argument to allow the government to be held hostage. Burn the takes. Burn the takes. Burn the takes to the ground. I want the fires from the burning takes to be seen from fucking space. I just imagined AOC with like a torch outside the window. Just lighting a Washington Post editorial on fire. AOC walking down Broadway, every 2020 candidate falling behind.

Where is she going so that we may lead her? All right. Okay. All right. Now, also today, Trump advisor, Republican operative and Nixon cosplay aficionado Roger Stone was indicted on one count of obstruction, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering. The charges flow from Stone's desperate and genuinely bonkers attempts to conceal his relationship with WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign.

Stone promised he would never testify against President Trump. He then removed his shirt to reveal a new tattoo that he thought said, pardon me, in Chinese characters, but actually just said USA filth creep. So, you know, but you can see why he would want the pardon thing because he's in today's What A Day newsletter. Brian Boiler does a great job of walking through just how Stone served as an intermediary between Trump's campaign and WikiLeaks. Stone informed the Trump campaign in or around June and July 2016 that he knew WikiLeaks possessed documents that would harm Hillary Clinton's campaign. After Russian intelligence stole DNC emails and WikiLeaks published them in late July 2016, a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases. Stone thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material

by WikiLeaks. Before WikiLeaks published John Podesta's stolen emails, Stone wrote to a supporter involved with the Trump campaign. He said, Spoke to my friend in London last night. The payload is still coming. Let's just pause and just recognize that these people talk like fucking

like they just saw too many Fast and the Furious movies. It's out of control. The next day, the next day, a high-ranking Trump campaign official, known to be Steve Bannon, emailed Stone to ask why the emails had not been published. Stone responded that WikiLeaks would release a load every week going

forward, which it did. Why does Roger Stone think only in loads? Most of the indictment, that what we learned in the indictment had been reported in other places, it seems like the one big piece of news in here was that Bannon, or there's also another high-ranking Trump official,

some speculated that might be Rick Gates, one of them or both of them was directed to reach out to Stone. And that's all it says. It doesn't even say, like, by an individual one or by a person. It's just a passive voice. Yeah, yeah. The speculation is that that's Donald Trump.

Yeah, I mean, because we've all been in campaigns. Like, who directs the campaign manager, Steve Bannon, to reach out to someone. Either the candidate or the family, like maybe Don Jr., I guess. Just do Tiffany. So that's what we think is new here. Tommy, can you just talk a little bit about what it means for a presidential campaign to be coordinating with an organization like WikiLeaks in this way? Yeah, I mean, so I think WikiLeaks first came on the radar screen of a lot of people in like 2009 or 10 when they started releasing a really horrifying video of some civilians getting shot from a helicopter in Iraq, I believe.

Then there was a whole series of cables that had been stolen and dumped out. And then over time, I think Julian Assange and WikiLeaks began to be seen as someone who was a proxy for Russian intelligence. and WikiLeaks began to be seen as someone who was a proxy for Russian intelligence. The Russians, the KGB, the GRU, all these folks, they don't necessarily do all their dirty deeds themselves. They launder them through various parts of organized crime or individuals or whatnot. So that's long been the speculation about WikiLeaks and Assange. So that wouldn't have been a secret. A person who read the newspaper for the past few years could have figured that out.

So they would have known that they were working with a really shady guy. So one of the reasons we know that Roger Stone knew that this wasn't kosher, let's say, is the efforts he went to cover it up when it became a subject of an investigation. Because we all deserve it, let's dive into the threats Roger Stone actually issued to an associate he was clearly afraid would spill the beans. He referred to Frank Pentangeli from Godfather Part II. He's the guy that goes in front of the congressional committee and is like, I don't know, Michael Corleone. He's just an olive oil guy. Again, these guys are such wannabe JV gangsters. It's so ridiculous.

It's incredible. Gangster movies, we're trying to be authentic wannabe JV gangsters? It's so ridiculous. Well, it's it's it's incredible. Like gangster movies were trying to be authentic to the experience of gangsters. And then idiot gangsters took the movies as the way they were supposed to act. What do you do? Yes. It's an Uroboros. I don't know if this is a well thought out operation. No. Anyway, here are the delightful messages Roger Stone sent to his associate.

If you testify, you're a fool because of Trump, I could never get away with a certain my Fifth Amendment rights, but you can. I guarantee you, you are the only one who gets indicted for perjury if you're stupid enough to testify. Then, you are so full of expletive. You got nothing. Keep running your mouth and I'll file a bar complaint against your friend.

Ooh. Oh, no. Not a bar complaint. Not a bar complaint against your friend oh no oh not a bar complaint and this is the best one you're a rat a stoolie you backstab your friends run your mouth my lawyers are dying rip you to shreds and he threatened to quote take that dog away from you i am so ready let's get it on prepare to die expletive let's get it on prepare to die it's like we're gonna fuck them and I'm going to murder you.

Isn't there a movie that starts with someone shooting a dog? I think, I haven't seen it yet but I know the movie and I don't want to spoil it for other people

but it does start with that. I know, I know, it's still, it's still, it's still, you know. Harry Potter,

he goes to a fucking castle. I don't want to ruin anything here. It's actually, it's Green Book, right? It's Green Book. It's Green Book. It's Green Book.

Green Book starts with Viggo Mortensen killing a dog. Yeah, it's 102 Dalmatians, the sequel. Wow. It whacks the dog. All right. So I don't think Roger Stone's going to have a really easy time of it. Although I will say it is worth pointing out, he does say he's not guilty. Yeah, well, so.

It's worth mentioning. Can I just mention my two favorite things from today? So Roger Stone comes out of the court. He does a little press conference. He's fucking giddy. He's happy as a pig and shit. These people care about him because he's a stupid scumbag. Oh, quick aside. Everyone keeps describing him as a dirty trickster, a fraudster. He's a fucking racist lying scumbag why do we use these euphemisms it drives me crazy crazy yeah right it's the dark arts they call it yeah the dark arts i'm so sick of the referential public and dark arts like oh wow what a mysterious process you uh goad people to vote based on racial animus like the dark arts of the willie horton and the dark arts of saying john mccain had a black, the dark arts of the Willie Horton ad. The dark arts of saying John McCain had a black child. The dark

arts of Nixon's silent majority. It's the same thing every time. Just be racist. You're a racist. So anyway, he comes out and he does the stupid Nixon two-finger peace sign things. He thinks that's fucking funny. Which Tommy called... He's about to come out and Tommy's like, he's gonna come out and do the fucking Nixon hand. Did you really call that? He did.

That's really impressive. That was cool. That's cool to have gotten that right. It's good because it's, you know, it's, you know, it's like, it's like your theory, you know, your science is good. Yeah. That, that ability is like my, uh, college philosophy major sort of not applicable to most life events, but whatever. Here we are. And then I also love this morning, just waking up to Trump tweeting greatest witch hunt in the history of our country. No collusion, border coyotes, drug dealers dealers and human traffickers are treated better who alerted cnn like it's it's um meltdown it's the the uh being reduced to just shouting distraction words is very funny just like a blue car elephant i don't know no collusion whoa what's over there um well i don't think things are going to go well for roger stone so just before we uh

close out on today's incredible developments, a lot of what Roger Stone had done was reported on previously. And yet it does feel like we're starting to see the shape of what Mueller is circling, right? Both the collection of crimes that took place during the campaign and then the effort to cover those crimes up after the campaign was through. Are we at the beginning of the end here? Are we now past the point of being able of just saying we have absolutely no idea what Mueller is going to turn over and are starting to see the real contours of what he's building? I think we still don't know.

You know, I mean, like what we do know from today, and we've known this before, too, though, that like the Russians wanted to interfere with the campaign to elect donald trump we know that they had this whole campaign it was the hack it was the social media campaign it was all this other shit and we know that the trump campaign was game for it um yeah they were because they were game and remember in june they were down to party in june all the fucking knuckleheads took a meeting with the russians this is a meeting on behalf of the russian government support of trump and we want to give you dirt on hillary clinton in july same period of time and then in july there's the hack and there's the dissemination of emails and then there's the

report that it was russia that did that and then it was after july that someone on the campaign high-ranking official was told to reach out to roger stone by someone who we don't know but maybe trump and then tell Roger Stone, like, when's more coming? When is more stolen goods from the Democrats coming? Because we want to do that. So from within the campaign, we know that now people were trying to coordinate through Roger Stone to get stolen documents from Democrats that they were laundered from Russia through WikiLeaks, you know? So like, we know all this. I think the only question is, From Russia through WikiLeaks, you know, so like we know all this.

I think the only question is, like, will Mueller be able to put all this together in terms of additional indictments and possible criminality on behalf of the president? Or is Mueller just going to say, here's the story of how the Trump campaign essentially betrayed their country? Couldn't find an exact law that they broke, but this is the story of what they did. Yeah, that I don't think we know yet. I think in part we don't know because a lot of these indictments, they are written with vague descriptions of other potential crimes. And it's unclear whether they are just, he's putting it there for context or because there's more to come. Mueller's painting a big, beautiful canvas.

We're looking through cracks in the wall. And you can see little items. You know, you're like, oh, that's an indictment. Oh, that's a sad old racist. But, you know, you can't see the full picture. Who is the, it's a Hieronymus Bosch.

I was thinking, I've been watching Better Call Saul, which is great. And I'm always reminded of thinking Better Call Saul, which the old saying, like, you can't con an honest man. It's that the Russians came

to all of these different people with a bunch of offers that were just too good to be true. And they all fucking took it. Yep. All right. When we come back, we're going to go to our live show with a bunch of offers that were just too good to be true. And they all fucking took it. Yep. All right. When we come back, we're going to go to our live show with Darcy Carden, Zoe Lister-Jones, Mitra Juhari, Andrew T,

where we covered all the rest of the week's news. We had a great time. I came up with a new nickname for Nancy Pelosi that I'm pretty proud of. All right. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Good evening, Los Angeles. And we're back. Look at that beautiful, subtly new logo. We have entered day 34 of the shutdown. Boo is right. 800,000 government employees have been caught downwind of Trump. 420,000 of them are being forced to work without pay.

That includes TSA employees who are relying on mobile food banks and working without pay at airports. The FAA has called safety inspectors back to work without pay to carry on safety inspections. The FDA has stopped some inspections on food, including fruit, meat, seafood, and vegetables. That one's cool because we're all going to hit our goal weights. Listen, sometimes a government shutdown puts you on an all-liquid diet. Summer's around the corner, and this shutdown came along just in time to give you a case of that they didn't inspect this properly.

You know what I'm talking about. Get those shutdown bodies. Disgusting. It's not funny. Shut up. The Department of Housing and Urban Development hasn't been able to renew contracts with buildings that rent to thousands of low-income tenants. The WIC program that provides food assistance to more than 7 million low-income pregnant mothers and children only has funding to last through January.

And worst of all, that monkey paw Mitch McConnell found still has two wishes left. But don't worry. Mike Pence and Jared Kushner have been negotiating a compromise with each other. Which is not how it works. Jared Kushner and Mike Pence sitting at a table together, hammering it out. Thinking through the details. Debating. Having differences. Settling those differences.

Through the power of logic and reason and argument. Not since Thomas Jefferson and John Adams debated at Monticello has there been a more sparkling colloquy between a bigot and a Harvard kid. So here's where we're at. Trump, or as I call him Trump, offered that Kushner deal five billion dollars for a wall in exchange for a promise that he'd stop deporting DREAMers. It went down in flames Thursday. Six Republican senators defected to vote with Democrats to reopen the government without that wall funding. Nancy Pelosi, or as I call her, Speaker for Life, told Trump he could fuck off on the State of the Union as long as the government was closed.

Trump then, or as I call him, what if the car horn on a Porsche Cayenne became a person? No one good has ever driven a Porsche Cayenne. What kind of psycho? I want the douchiness of a Porsche and the douchiness of a Range Rover all at once. I want Porsche pricesouchiness of a Porsche and the douchiness of a Range Rover all at once. I want Porsche prices at Range Rover height.

If anyone ever goes on a date and picks you up in a Porsche Cayenne, you just say, sorry, you keep going. Find another sucker. I don't want to get divorced from you in five years. No one in a Porsche Cayenne has ever had a successful marriage. Porsche Cayenne. So anyway, Trump says he's gonna go to the Capitol anyway, then Nancy tells him to fuck off again. Nancy, or as I call her, what if a Prada bag with a gun in it became a person?

Anyway, Trump blinked, which was cool. All right? Nancy held her ground at work. Then, with his poll numbers plummeting, Trump sent out his team of septuagenarian billionaire Avengers to explain to furloughed workers why it's not so bad. Here's a clip. There are some federal workers who are going to homeless shelters to get food. Well, I know they are, and I don't really quite understand why,

because there's no real reason why they shouldn't be able to get a loan. So obviously Wilbur Ross has no idea how things work. He should not be a cabinet secretary. He should have pea soup in front of him. That is a man who should be very focused on how hot or not hot his pea soup is. He shouldn't be in charge of anything. Look at that guy. And apparently all his money is from stealing. Anyway, here we are. Maybe Republicans are starting to crack, maybe not, but it's so important that Democrats hold the line because

either we prove that holding the government hostage doesn't work or we prove that it does. You know, when Nancy Pelosi said that she wasn't going to let Trump have the State of the Union, people like Kevin McCarthy, they had the audacity to call it a new low. but Nancy, or as I call her, this one's a doozy, the Jewish grandmother who let her dumb nephew be the face of the family business

but secretly worked behind the scenes to build one of the most successful dress manufacturers in the garment district. That's it. Doesn't make any sense. And being a woman in that generation

at the garment district was no laughing matter. You don't know what she had to deal with downtown. It being a woman in that generation at the garment district was no laughing matter. You don't know what she had to deal with downtown. It was a different place there. It wasn't just lofts. It was Jews making dresses. You've all seen Maisel. It's just Mrs. Maisel.

I'm talking about Mrs. Maisel. Anyway, canceling the State of the Union is not the new low. Ripping children from their parents is a new low. Federal workers paid by the taxpayer having to go to fucking food pantries is the new low. The delay of a ceremony or performance doesn't matter, but for the past few weeks there's been all this pressure on Democrats to cave.

All these pundits saying that they should come to the table and make a deal that all these people are suffering. But that's because the people on television, they don't care about actual reasonableness. They care about the performance of reasonableness. They care about things that look serious, not things that are serious. That's why they care more about people acting civil than the inhumane policies. It's why it matters more when a congressperson says we should impeach the motherfucker rather than the obvious fact that he's a motherfucker who ought to be impeached.

It's an obvious fact that any sensible person decrying this on television obviously believes when the cameras are off. You know, Trump thrives in an empty culture that celebrates this kind of performative politics. He helped invent it. And what's really exciting to me is I think Democrats finally aren't

playing that game anymore. Reasonable is not defined by what Republicans can get through the Senate when Fox News isn't looking. That is not reasonable. And bipartisan is not you get a fucking wall to make brown people a scapegoat and we get disaster relief. If we allow them to use the federal government as leverage, they'll do it again and again and again and again. And it is up to us to not let the TV pundits and the people who want to preen about both sides being to blame because they don't want to live in a country where we listen to them. They want to live in a country where we hold the line.

All right. We got to talk about this. We got to talk about the fact that Michael Cohen is ghosting Congress. And I don't know what to tell you. We're going to talk about the whole thing with the MAGA hat kids. Yeah, we're going to talk about it. Let's bring out our panel. We have a great panel tonight.

She's a comedian and writer for shows such as High Maintenance, Miracle Workers, and Pod Save America on HBO. Please welcome back Mitra Juhari. How are you doing? I'm great. How are you? I'm so good. I love a mustard sock with a turquoise jumper and a red mock turtle. I love it. Thank you.

It is so cool. Thank you. I want to live in a world where I can wear that without it being something... You have to decide that you do. Maybe I do. 2019, decide to be hot. Hot is a state of mind. I identify as hot.

I dress the way that I want to dress. In my mind, a hot person can wear colors and that's what I do now. And you should too. So I'm starting with only pink shoes and working my way up toward the face.

Okay. And I hope that the next time I do the show, I see you in a loud shirt. That's my challenge. As if I see you in a loud shirt. That's my challenge. As if I need to be begged. Okay.

She's a writer, producer, actor, and the current co-star in CBS's sitcom Life in Pieces. Please welcome back Zoe Lister-Jones. Hi, Zoe. How are you? I'm good. I'm in black and white, but I still identify as hot. And I agree.

And he's a comedian, host of the podcast Yo! Is This Racist?, whose live show is on 216 in Portland and the self-proclaimed king of dating apps. Please welcome back Andrew T That's me I'm in the house. Do you feel hot? Oh, yeah, I feel like I'm in John Lovett cosplay right now a little bit Listen if you keep your head on straight one day you too can buy pants on sale at Topman

All right, that's the goal. Oh, hell yeah. All right. That's the goal. That's the goal. Let's get into it. What a week. What a week. That's fine. That'll count.

Shut up. Everybody shut up. All right. As you just heard, the government is closed. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put two bills on the Senate floor. The first, Trump's plan to end the shutdown and fund his wall. The second, the Democrats' plan to fund the federal government while they continue negotiations. Both failed, though Trump's failed harder.

Zoe, how are you feeling? You feel like the end's in sight? I mean, I felt a little hopeful by the news today that the Dems got more votes and that we got six Republicans to come to the good side. It's hard to have hope. It's really bleak, man. We were talking about this backstage. It's like such robust evil in practice. I feel proud of, you know, our Prada bag with a handgun. I think she's, I think that the more that she is standing up and unwavering in her opposition, her approval ratings are going up, right? So it's like, I think the more the Dems can hold their ground, the more they're going to be applauded by their constituents.

Yeah, I mean, I think Democrats, they can't cave now. Then no one will like them. They need someone to like them. They need us. So the shutdown has had a lot of effects that maybe not on top of everyone's minds i also think part of what we've been seeing is a lot of people getting reacquainted with just how important government is in their daily lives whether it's flying or taking out a home loan or getting a marriage license or uh eating a vegetable without

you know fear fear though we pretty much have not been able to do that for some time. Anyway, do you think that in this shutdown, people are having a new respect for the role that government plays? What do you think? Totally, I think, like, we're lucky enough that we don't have to pay a lot of mind to it on a daily basis. Like until I was getting emails from Spirit Airlines the best American airline that I was going to have to wait in longer lines I wasn't thinking about like the effect that it would like you know like we're thinking about ourselves so much especially in the awesome perfect flawless coastal cities and we're thinking about ourselves in our daily lives and what we need to get through a day.

And we're not thinking about all of the people who make that possible. And we're not forced to do that regularly. So to have something that puts us in check a little bit and makes us think about the people who are doing those things that we take for granted is cool and jarring. And I mean, I know I have had some rude reality checks.

So that's me. Yeah. It's interesting because I think we all kind of walk around under the assumption that things are going to work out. Right. And even people who work for the federal government, they're choosing to work and go in because they've been told to. But because ultimately they believe that this will be resolved, that things like this don't happen very often, that, oh, this shutdown is an aberration. But that's partly why it's so important. This is one of those stories that doesn't get talked about in part because what's on television is always the food fight. And the truth is what we want to talk about and what we

want to read and what we want to engage in is more often than the food fight than it is about the budgeting inside of government agencies that have important influence on every facet of our lives. But for a very long time, the government has been funded by week to week or month to month or continuing resolutions, which just means we couldn't solve this in a debate. We couldn't figure out the priorities for next year. We couldn't do a budget for the year after. We couldn't think this hard problem through because of partisanship, which is certainly part of it, but mostly because inside the Republican Party,

there's no amount of funding for a government agency that's tolerable. And no bill to fund the government can go through without some awful poison pill condition, whether it's border funding or draconian cuts to food stamps or whatever is on the minds of right wing conservatives in Congress. And so that was my idea. It was all Mitra's idea. She loves that stuff. She loves poison pills. I love DC terms like poison pills and sweeteners. It is kind of like nice in Mary Poppins to be like, just a little bit of sugar and the poison, and we will take the medicine.

Right, that's not how it works. Sweeteners added to poison pills do not make things better. It's still not good. It just means you have a delicious thing before you die. Yeah. And also, sugar is poison. Yeah.

That's the real thing. All right, Hollywood. All right. As for me, I'm from the Midwest, and McDonald's is the only thing my body can process. So I will say, and this is unrelated but Jamie one of the graphic designers at Crooked

he's I would say maybe a hundred pounds he eats McDonald's four to five times a day he like his breakfast is Sour Patch Kids

his lunch is McDonald's there's an afternoon snack of taquitos he sent a message to the whole company to see if anybody wanted to get in on Slurpees

and because there was snack of taquitos. He sent a message to the whole company to see if anybody wanted to get in on Slurpees. And, because there was a deal on Slurpees. You can be small and have guts that are rotting. No, no. That's my message.

That's my platform. I'm running for office. I mean, Marco Rubio's campaign slogan. I'm actually on his digital marketing team, so thank you. But earlier today,

all right, at 2.30 in the afternoon, he just slacks me all the way across the office like an ICBM and says, I have an extra cheeseburger. Do you want it? Just you? Just to me. That's fucked up. That's fucked up. Do you want it? Just you?

Just to me. That's fucked up. That's fucked up. Was that a sext? It was, I mean, better. It was, and I just responded with a sneaker and a tornado, and then I was at his desk. Anyway, McDonald's is great.

And that Clemson dinner was great. On New Year's Eve, I was like, I'm going to eat shit all day. And then I'm going to be perfect for all of next year. So I started the day with a large Domino's pepperoni pizza. And then I went to McDonald's and I got everything that I wanted, which was a lot of stuff. And I was like, I thought that I was healthy and cool. So I was like, this is going to destroy me. And then my body was just like, fine.

No, that's the thing. When you eat a Domino's pizza, they put something in there, okay, which is the equivalent of some kind of food nicotine that nobody knows the chemical compounds.

It's only deep within some sort of safe at ConAgra headquarters. The point is, inside of that safe is a recipe. In that recipe is what they add

to the Domino's pizza, which automatically means if you eat five slices before you go to bed, you will eat three slices when you wake up in the morning. Yes. 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.

Now it's time for OK Stop. This week, Don Jr., also known as the hot one... Shut up. He doesn't identify as hot, but he presents. Yeah, yeah, that's right. He went on Laura Ingram's program to give his take on the Covington Catholic schoolboys and answer the question literally no one wanted to know. When is he running for office?

Let's roll the clip. You had some Catholic schoolboys that were at it. Listen, I don't want to get us all bogged down in how the video looks, but here's the thing. As the beard movement has spread like a virus from the elite corners of Brooklyn and Seattle and Portland and Echo Park and gotten further and further and further away, the beards have gotten worse and worse and worse. the beards have gotten worse and worse and worse and the later you came to the beard and the less suited your politics are to the beard the more you start looking like that magnet thing

where you drag the little like Ted Cruz, John Jr. they look like someone took a magnet to the top of their head and dragged some of the filings around their chin and not an adult. A child did it. He looks like he sleeps in a rustic casket. Yeah, I think it's the projection,

but he does currently have that bass player for Korn, no pupil eyes going on right now, which is terrific. I honestly, I just think he didn't wear a blindfold in Bird Box. Right to life march, okay? They were wearing a MAGA hat. They had to pounce because the media wants that to be true. They want a bunch of nice Catholic kids,

happen to be white, they want them to be the enemy. This is what they've created. Okay, stop. I'm 30 minutes away from where this happened is where I spent birth to 18. They don't just happen to be white. That is, everyone there is white. It's not a coincidence. It's farm. The media has done this to themselves. They have shot themselves in the foot time and

time again because they so desperately want this to be the truth as opposed to saying, you know what? Trump's done a darn good job as president. Come on. Hard turn, Donnie. Oh, what if that was the news? What if someone got on the fucking news and was like, you know what?

Trump's done a darn good job as president. That's it. Hi, I'm Jake Tapper. Today on The Lead, I don't care what my honchos say above in the C-suite, Donald Trump's doing a darn good job. I'm Jake Tapper, here to talk about it. Some yahoos.

Harris was out there today. She's announcing that she's going to run for president. Let's listen. It's going to be about talking with people about the fact that right now we have an administration that has waged a full-on assault on American values and American ideals. Now, Don, when you hear a sitting senator say an assault on American values and American ideals, your dad's called a racist. I've known him for 20 years.

I'm sorry. And I'm Laura Ingraham. And so if you think I don't know what a racist is, you've got another in common. My friends are racist. I'm a racist. Everyone I work with, many of them are racist. So if you're going to come in here and tell me

that I can't tell a racist from a non-racist, you've got to know that I'm Laura fucking Ingram. I gave a Nazi salute at the RNC, and people aren't totally sure I didn't do it on purpose. Do you know how racist you have to be for it to be a genuine open question as to whether you gave a fucking Heil Hitler on national television?

It's a question mark. You've got to be pretty goddamn racist. You saw this with the social media platforms attacking the word family. Because, God forbid, you have family, right? This is this leftist. Stop, stop, stop. What?

Did that happen? People attacking the word family? Because I feel like there was a little bit more of just the open racism that was the problem. I mean, I don't know. If you're wearing the racism hat at a sexism rally yelling at a brown guy, family's like far down the list, right? I hate their families,

I guess, though. So you know what? I just... Fair enough. It's always important to remember that this is a person who goes on television

to do an impression of Donald Trump. To prove to Donald Trump that he's worth loving. Like, that's it. That's the goal. Like, literally. Like, that's why he's there. He doesn't need, he's supposed to be running a sham business.

He's got a sham business to run. My appendix just burst. When you talk about this economy not working for the American working class, I mean, Donald Trump's the first president to speak to the American worker in generations. It's wild. Wild. What does that mean, speak to the American worker? Also, he's destroying all of the American workers at this very moment.

It's like... I like the Republican just like series of assertions kind of technique. It's like, he's not racist. I know him. Just fizzle off. Like, he's talking to the American worker. She also never even said that he wasn't racist. She just said, if you think he's racist, I'm sorry.

That's true. I'm sorry. He is. Like it's a bad thing. And that's okay. Stop. When we come back, we're going to play a game. Don't go anywhere. Love it or leave it, there's more on the way

and we're back I'm sure many of you are aware that teachers recently went on strike in Los Angeles after six days they managed to negotiate a deal with the LA School District. On the same day, LA teachers reached that deal. Denver teachers voted to go on strike with the hope of earning what they deserve.

Another city in the list of teacher strikes we've seen across the country today. We want to pay some homage to them. So in solidarity with the teachers, I too am going on strike. And so we are going to play a game called, it's not the size of the class, it's play a game called It's Not the Size of the Class. It's the class of the people who decide the size of the class.

Terrific. And tonight, we'd like to ask a scab host to step in. Please welcome to the stage, you know her from The Good Place. We love her. I'd love it or leave it. Please welcome back Darcy Carden. Scab, scab, scab, scab, scab, scab. Guys, give it up for Darcy. Hi, kids.

Hi. I'm Ms. Carden, but you can call me Blaze. Okay? Now, just because I'm not your regular host doesn't mean you can get one over on me, okay? I may not have taught a class like this before, but I have taught a Zumba class. That's teaching, still. Okay, so you have the cards.

Meh. Just, you need to run the you need to run the quiz can we just put on a movie or something can i just put on a movie please uh something educational you kids want to learn about space not like the hidden figures bullshit let's do like something real. Apollo 13, baby! Okay, it's not. I don't think you can say that hidden figures isn't real. I don't think that's how it works.

Not real. It's a movie. Okay, and we're not going to watch a movie, all right? We're not just going to sit here and watch a movie. You're supposed to come here and replace me. You're supposed to actually host and run this game. We have a panel here. We have an amazing panel here.

Hey. Hi. Hey, Blaze. I like you. And I'm on strike. Who are you? Maybe you could call on somebody to... Okay, fine. One of these

people? Somebody in the crowd, maybe? Okay, who wants to answer a question? Okay, I got this gal. Hi, here's my question. What's your name? That's not my question. Oh, Brooke.

Oh, Brooke, okay. Brooke, here's my question. Why did my ex-fiance and his girlfriend get a restraining order against me? That's not a question on the quiz. Go ahead and answer. That's not. Okay, you know what?

I will tell you. It's because I care too much, which is actually not a crime. Do you kids mind if I jewel? I won't tell if you don't. That's a jewel. If you wouldn't mind proceeding to the quiz. Here we go. Question one, for real.

Here we go. A lot of people, I am being told, think the L.A. teacher's strike was all about a pay raise. Why is that not the case? A. A pay raise wasn't the only demand. It was for smaller class sizes, a full-time nurse and a librarian in every school, extra counselors, and a 50% reduction in standardized testing.

B, collectively, all 30,000 participating teachers are gearing up for a run in 2020. And that wasn't a joke. And the strike gave them a great opportunity to hop on some planes and go talk to regular folk at baked goods shops in Iowa and stuff. C. They wanted more money, but they also wanted less school. Because everybody hates school. Because school sucks.

School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. School sucks. Can you just get an answer? OK. It's unbelievable. OK. I get an answer?

Ask Brooke for the answer. Oh, great. That's why Brooke is still standing up. Hey, Brooke. I wasn't sure for real. Hey, Brooke. What's the answer, baby? I think it's A.

Great. I guess that's true. Second question. Which of you kids are the popular ones, and should we go get a beer? Okay. Please. You are doing a great job. Thank you.

What is your name again? Can you just go? I'm going to write it down and leave it up here for whoever comes next. What is it again? It's John. Can Brooke sit down now or is she doing all these? Just keep doing the quiz. Despite the value of teachers' unions, why is it so hard

for teachers to fight for their rights and the rights of their students? Teachers didn't become teachers to stand outside and make noise. Teachers are indoor cats. Let's face it. B, states have weakened collective bargaining power, and in 35 states and D.C., it is literally illegal for teachers to strike,

including in blue pro-union states like Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut. Or C. Every public school teacher has become simply overwhelmed by the volume of Netflix originals. Striking's tough when you're only halfway through the first season of Ozark. D. Cowardice.

Next question. That's it. Brooke, baby Brooke. Is it B? Okay. Do you guys want to know a secret? Can you just do the next question? There's something about you I like. Are you drunk?

Are you? Would you like to get that with me? Is something happening here? Something's not not happening. I like your skin. I like the way you don't care about any of this. In some states where teacher strikes are illegal, what has happened over the last few years?

A. Amazon's drones began teaching most children in Central Texas. The new curriculum includes classes like Suffering is an Illusion of Your Water-Based Minds and Buy This Product, Buy Now. You need this minds. And buy this product, buy now. You need this. Buy it, buy it, buy it. We're approved unanimously by the awesome school board due to corruption. B, in New York City,

teachers were actually able to win a huge victory by reclassifying most school classes as off-off-Broadway productions. Despite not selling many tickets, the teachers were paid for their role as educators, and the students came away thinking movies are still way better. Or C, Outlaw Wildcat strikes began happening around the country in 2018 in something called the Red State Revolt.

Arizona, Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky all saw strikes. In West Virginia, a state where Trump won by about 40 points, the public sided with teachers and they won a 5% pay raise. In Oklahoma, teachers went on an illegal strike and won a $6,000 raise. C.

Wow, Brooke's done it again. A plus, Brooke. You're so mean to Brooke. Is she done? You're supposed to know. This is my first day. That's the whole joke. Teachers, they're always bitching.

Like credit card debt and having to buy your own school supplies is so bad! As if these people are the lifeblood of our society and we don't all remember our teachers, the good and the bad. And as if, as a culture, we're decided to place our children in their formative years in these buildings and then neglected those very spaces. As if that kind of decline doesn't ripple throughout our entire society

forever. That sounded like a spoken word poem, didn't it? Whatever, you fucking dorks. I'm bored. I get paid for the whole day no matter what, so I'm out of here. Blaze, out,

baby! I'm gonna go jewel behind the fucking bleach no matter what, so I'm out of here. Blaze out, baby! I'm going to go jewel behind the fucking bleachers. Guys, give it up for Darcy Blaze Carden. And give it up for Brooke, who won the game and a parachute gift card, who won the game under extraordinary circumstances. Wait, John, if you're back, does that mean Favreau and Vitor caved to your demands? Or...

What happened with the strike? I'll never get what I want from the two of them. Oh, stop. You did that. There was nothing in what I said that made it about that, you sickos. You sick people. You sick people. Love It or Leave It Season 3, it's already off the rails.

New games, complicated ideas, characters, innuendo. I have 30 more fast food stories that I have to share before the night's over. When we come back, we're going to talk about 2020 and what it means to be likable.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. As we can all agree, the 2016 election was a model of democracy in action, a battle of ideas and competing visions. the 2016 election was a model of democracy in action, a battle of ideas and competing visions. And of course, the most important question of all, who is authentic and likable with Kouravitas?

Terms with no gendered baggage whatsoever. So it's time for a new segment we're calling How Likeable Is He Really? Here's how it works. We'll play some clips of white male politicians, and our panel will help us make sure they are held to the same standard as everybody else, a terrible standard no one could ever meet. We'll watch the clip, and then we'll provide the kind of analysis they don't usually get. Let's roll clip number one.

What did you learn about the country, and what did you learn about yourself in the course of that campaign? What did that teach you? I actually knew myself pretty well at that point. I'm getting old. With that kind of experience, you come away more optimistic. And by the way, if you get the chance to run for president, do it. It's a great experience. So I'm watching that and what I'm really feeling is someone who feels really inauthentic and kind of fake and arrogant. So loud. Also, what's up with the graying around his temples?

It makes me feel maybe he's too old for the job. I mean... No, I agree. I was thinking the same thing. It's scary how old he is. I've actually never seen an older person in my life. He feels almost sunburnt to me which i also think is it just makes me question his um morals yeah and it's and um i see him in romney there and he's wearing some kind of a ring which feels

very ostentatious uh and not relatable like that tie does look very expensive uh and it's like okay you're supposed to be appealing to regular people, but you look like you were dressed by Paul Manafort's tailor. The whole thing. I mean, he clearly spends all his time thinking about his clothing, which is just, you know, the sort of frivolous thing. We just worry about, you know, whether he's serious. Well, and jumping off that, you know, no cuts on his hands, which tell me he's not working with wood. you know, no cuts on his hands, which tell me he's not working with wood.

And also it's like, all right, you run for president and you lose, and then you run for Senate. It's like, go away. Like, why won't Mitt Romney just go away? All right, clip number two, John Kerry. I'm really very happy to be here for a lot of different reasons. I'm very happy because the guy in the second row was wearing a Red Sox hat and I love what the Red Sox did.

There you go. So that puts all of us in a good mood, folks. Let me tell you. The Astros are looming and we've got to stay together. I really hate when men pretend to care about sports.

And also it's like, you're supposed to be a serious person and you're like laughing all the time and it just makes me feel like this is supposed to be a serious job. You're a serious person and you're laughing all the time. It's weird. And the microphone is cordless which tells me that he's looking

for a risk and also that he doesn't respect women in STEM. I don't know if I agree with your point about sports. I think a big problem with men is they can only concentrate on sports. It's all like sports. They just can't think about policy issues because they're too distracted by their little game.

And I just want to say that he looks really clean, which tells me that he hasn't done anything with his car today. And I just think like let's just be honest like the only thing people really find appealing about john kerry is that he's young and beautiful yeah um and like energetic uh and it's like um it's time for adults now you know what i mean it's like we're just gonna have these kind of like silly people who just like spout off about things when like this is a serious time and we need like mature people. Yeah, we need experience.

Yeah, act mature like my dad. And like I don't hate all men like this. You know, it's like I love men. So it's this crazy thing where like when I see John Kerry trying to to become something i really am reminded about why i don't like him but then if and then i think oh joe biden is better but then when joe biden goes for something all of a sudden i'm like ew there's something really off-putting about when he's trying to become something well it's like my dad's a man my car is a man my my like phone's a man like i like i have friends who are men i have family members who are men like my house is a man like i get it like there are men. I have family members who are men. Like, my house is a man. Like, I get it.

Like, there are men in my life who I really respect, just not this man. You know what I mean? Also, I think he's sick. All right, let's do that. And one more clip. We have Ojeda. I'm Richard Ojeda, and people say that I'm angry.

Well, angry is an understatement. When I come home and I find that I got children in my backyard that have it worse than the kids that I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, I can't accept that. We've been sold out by people like Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and the Washington Insiders. I approve this message because I am angry. Okay, I'll say I genuinely hate his voice and cadence.

I think this just proves that men are too hormonal to control their temper. It's like, it's, it's also like, he's so angry. And it's like, do people want that? Do they want that voice, that shrill, angry voice in their ear for a few years? Like, I know I don't. And like, again, love men. Oh, love men, love men. Also, he is wearing a t-shirt. And for me, I just, I feel, and listen, I think men can wear whatever they want. You know, like, I'm into men in t-shirts. I'm into men in suits. I'm into men in onesies rocking, you know, an animal mask. Definitely into that kind of man.

But, like, this just reads to me as inexperienced. Well, and I'll say, like, slutty. Like, showing a lot of skin. You're showing a lot of skin. I'm like, I don't think I'm a villain for saying that. He's like, showing a lot of skin. He is asking for it. I think we all agree. He's showing a lot of skin. I'm like, I don't think I'm a villain for saying that he's like showing a lot of skin. He is asking for it. I think we all agree.

It's distracting. And look, I think this is an important point because like, we're not here judging him. Like, I obviously don't care what a man wears.

Like, I don't. I don't see t-shirts. I don't, I don't care at all. But here's my thing. If we want to win, like,

it's not about what we think. Like, I know a lot of my, a lot of people in my family especially some of the older people in my family like I know like when they're quiet like they're just not comfortable with a man in that kind of job and it's like can we not just be honest about that can we not be honest about the fact that like this kind of a man not all men but this kind of man like makes people uncomfortable and it's like that's just the world that's just the world and

i'm not saying one day there couldn't be a guy like this who could win like this not like this yeah not like this also i think he might be sick also it looks to me is this like a train track behind him it's out of focus but this is a train track behind him. It's out of focus, but this is a train track. So he's not even laying the track. So this is someone who just does not engage with, you know, people working with their hands, you know, working class, blue collar, inaccessible.

And also like, I think he might be a dad and it's like, will he be able to like, like who's going to be watching those? I don't want, look, obviously I think will he be able to like like who's gonna be watching those i don't look obviously i think dad should be able to work like i'm not well they're you know they're just happier when god lets them raise children i think that's the important thing about men is that god specifically said that they should not work ever. So whatever, do what you want, but God. And he definitely should smile more. All right, and that's, is he likable enough?

Before we go on to the rant wheel, do you think we've learned our lesson from some of the tropes of the previous election? Obviously, we're not going to solve this, but do you think that there's... No. What do you think? No. No. It feels like it's worse, right?

No. Yeah, it's going to be worse. Yeah. Oh, Christ. And I feel like the media is already just drumming up so many of these disgusting questions about likability, and we're like one day into people announcing their candidacy so but look this is a real actual question like what is it going to take for journalists to like actually give a shit about this like it's just like no amount of hypocrisy

seems to matter am i crazy i don't know well no i i honestly think that part of it is like it's like when you're when you're at the part of the debate where people are talking about authenticity and that's not important right and you know there was you know when lady gaga said the same sentence over and over again people were like oh can you believe that can you believe she gave a hundred interviews and didn't say a unique and inspiring thing in every single one like we demand that people repeat themselves and we demand that what we want from a politician is that they be the greatest actor in history because they need to say things they believe like they're saying it for the first time every single time. And that is not a valuable skill for a person.

And so to me, the sexism and racism and elitism buried inside of terms like gravitas, which are much more easily applied by pundits to say Mitt Romney than Cardi B. No, but that's there's a reason and I think the way you get around that is by you don't try to win that debate you try to have a different debate instead of authenticity you talk about honesty instead of likeability you talk about decency

and you talk about consistency and integrity before you talk about these other ephemeral ideas about presentation. That's all. Speaking of authenticity, can I just ask a question?

Did anyone see Ted Cruz use the word chutzpah on the Senate floor today? No. It is my ringtone, but somehow I missed the actual... Oh, God. I blacked out. I mean, presumably the beard falls out a little bit each time every time he talks.

Yeah, I think so. It's like a Pinocchio situation. If you're a beard on a human face, and then the face you're around says the word chutzpah, and then you look up and there's not a Jew there, you're furious. You are a furious beard. And I am amazed that that beard didn't leap off of his face and run to go find

Jerry Nadler or some other person. I don't care. I'll take Joe Lieberman. You know what? If my grandfather were still alive, he would know every Jew in the Senate. He knew every Jew in the Senate. He knew every Jew in the Senate. He knew every Jew. Every Jew in Congress. He would call and be like, we're up to nine, Jonathan. When we come back, the rant wheel.

Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back! Now it's time for the rant wheel. Here's how it works. We spin the wheel wherever it lands. That's what we talk about. This week on the wheel we have emo Rudy Giuliani. We have Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

Ronan Farrow. Marie Kondo. The Super Bowl, the State of the Union, celeb lookalikes, Fyre Festival, and men responding to me. Let's spin the wheel.

It has landed on Fyre Festival, which was suggested by one Zoe Lister-Jones. You know, it's just a sickening thing just from start to finish. The, like, toxic masculinity and the white privilege and all of it. I will just say a big ups to the dude who was willing to suck dick for Evian.

I been there, baby. But when I left it on my couch, when I left the television for my couch, it was such an indictment of influencer culture and social media. And just as an

influencer, I found that. And so it made me think a lot about like how disgusting all of that is but then I went on Twitter this is just an addendum to my rant and there's been a GoFundMe for the Bahamian woman who lost so much of her money and her time and energy in in devoting it to these disgusting trash fire people. And they've raised like $184,000. So it's left me, you know, it's a thinker. It's a thinker. I'm with you.

I do not understand how some of the models and women in those who were paid a ton of money to go down there have not felt pressure or a sense of shame enough to publicly say, I'm donating this money to people that were working. The day laborers, yeah. Unbelievable. Kendall, you listening? She's a fan of the pod, right? Probably. Who isn't?

I just wanted to say, I also had a really bad time. So that's another reason. Fuck the Fyre Festival. I've seen Blink-182 thousands of times. So I felt that I didn't need to make the trip. But I was willing to. And I just think we've learned a pretty good rule of thumb. If you were ever in a position where you were going to commit a sex act to get

bottled water for a music festival that wasn't going to happen, which you knew was not going to happen, a good rule of thumb is, if you don't end up providing the oral sex, don't tell anybody. You don't... Like, here's the thing. Going to

a customs official and getting heavy on water and not blowing them, no one ever needs to know that you would have. Like, you did it, you made it out. Like,

the fact that you were going to do that is very bad. Also, a detail that I found fascinating is that he gargled with mouthwash

before going to the customs official. Like, He's an event planner and he's a pro. that I found fascinating is that he gargled with mouthwash before going to the customs official. He's an event planner and he's a pro. It's true. Listen, I don't question,

if he's on LinkedIn, he's on my team. I'm ready to hire him. Let's spin it again. It has landed on Celeb Lookalikes, which was suggested by Andrew. I meant like the Celeb Lookalike apps, like the PopSugar thing. It feels like schedule once quarterly that the corporations are like,

we're going to make these fools put in their face and make it match to like a fucking piece of artwork or a celebrity or whatever. And obviously, it's a little the the obvious stuff of like right don't put in your face to give tech corporations more shit but also the main thing is um it's always like so racist because there's like eight chinese people in the world evidently so every So every time this comes up, every single time a different one comes up, I will take my entire afternoon and Photoshop a version that's my face and Mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany's

and post that. And every single time, too many of my good friends and family are like, that's so racist. I'm so sorry that happened to you. And I have to be the asshole that's like, I thought it was funny to do this for the hundredth time. I'm sorry everyone keeps falling for it.

I'm a piece of shit. Two quick comments. Yes. One, the Breakfast at Tiffany's tonal switch from the rest of the movie. It's wild. To that racist caricature is wild. Yeah. It really takes you out of it.

He is, though, you know, again, a top 10 Asian actor. So in a lot of ways. So is Emma Stone. We take what we can get. We take. Emma Stone got. She sounded so testy when she got called out at the Golden Globes. It's like, just take the L, girl.

It's fine. Emma Stone, Sandra Oh made a joke about how Emma Stone was one of the great Asian actors and Emma Stone yells from the audience, I'm sorry, in like Canadian. Let's spin it again. And it has landed on men responding to me, suggested by Mitra. I'm tired of engaging. I'm tired of the responses that I get. I don't even mean the negative ones. I just don't want men to respond to me for a while.

I don't need it. Even if I'm wrong, I don't want to be sent the right information. A friend will tell me. I wrote down a list of the, like the ways that men respond to me online. A, which I'll get after this is to tell me that they hate my voice. They think it's annoying and they think I'm trying to sound stupid on purpose is what I get online a lot. No, I sound stupid on accident. They threaten to kill me, haha. Offer to fuck, thanks. Or threaten to fuck, which is a fun subcategory. Correct me or pitch an alternative joke to a joke that I've made.

So none of those are welcome. That's a theme for me of my years. If you respond to me, I will ignore or block. And I implore and invite more women to do the same. It feels great. But also in real life, too. You don't have to respond. Let's spin it again. What, am I going to respond? Let's spin it again, please. What do you think, John?

It has landed on the Super Bowl, but guess what? My Ronan Farrow rant and my Super Bowl rant are the same rant. Because here's the deal. Ronan is in town, and I thought to myself, maybe he'll want to stop by, come on, love it or leave it. I said, hey, you want to stop by, come on, love it or leave it? He passed. And so I, oh, don't.

My life is amazing. Don't pity me. But that's fine. He's allowed to pass. He's busy. He's working on his book and journalism and, you know, being a Me Too avenging angel, whatever. It's fine. It's very important.

I don't know. He scuffed the carpet. It doesn't matter. Pulling the chair in and out, answering calls from sources. You should get a carpet that can withstand that. Well, he had already ground into the hardwood floor beneath the carpet. And I get the carpet down. And it's like, you know, I guess they're important calls, whatever.

But I did call him and say, because you passed, I'm going to talk about this. And it does relate to the Super Bowl. Here's how. Sunday night, we decide we're going to go get some barbecue at a local barbecue restaurant, and we walk in. It's incredibly loud, incredibly loud. The televisions are on really loud.

The patrons are boisterous and all watching television. It's when I discover that there's three minutes left in a football game and that the New England Patriots are playing the Kansas City Chiefs. And it's a very close game between the City Chiefs and the Patriots. We got a real weaving on our hands here. But it's fine because there's only three minutes left.

How long could that be? I genuinely don't know if the Kansas City Chiefs is a joke. So we sit down at the table, and we're watching this clock tick down, and he's asking me questions. I don't have the answers. All I know is three minutes takes a very long time in the fourth quarter of a football game and there was a moment where all of a sudden now i i know the rules we can joke but i do know the rules and all of a

sudden i realized oh my god 31 28 carry the one three points it's not gonna be over we're never gonna have peace in this restaurant because now the food's here it's still loud there's 30 seconds left there's been 30 seconds left for 25 fucking minutes. And I say to Ronan, I was like, Ronan, I have to tell you something now. I know that when we sat down, we decided to stay because it would be quiet soon because there was only three minutes left. But it's time for me to tell you that if the team in the white jerseys kicks that ball through that giant yellow H, they get three points and tie it up.

And then the game continues. And Ronan turned to me and he goes, the game just keeps going? Do they stop for the night and pick it up another day? The sweetest thing. Like, yeah, right. When you think about it, it makes sense. They're tired.

They've been playing a long time. Why wouldn't you just call it a night and pick it up another day? That feels like a man who only knows about cricket and golf as sports. And I assure you, he does not know about those things. Anyway, Ronan, if you listen to this show, you'd know that this is what happens when you pass. Let's spin it again. Do they pick it up another day? All right.

It has landed on emo Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani is on a fucking journey, all right? Half of Rudy Giuliani's job is cleaning up after Rudy Giuliani's previous day's work, which means he's constantly falling behind by one day, every day, forever. He's also apparently very accessible, and he seems to be answering a lot of texts

and answering a lot of phone calls. If you reach out to Rudy Giuliani, he will touch you. He will reach back. And he got on the phone with the New Yorker, with Isaac Chotiner, I believe, and he gave this incredibly introspective interview where he said something like,

sometimes I worry it'll just say on my gravestone that I lied for Donald Trump, but it probably won't. And even if it does, who cares? I'll be dead. We got to get this guy in a black box theater. Here's the point. Rudy Giuliani is genuinely going through something. And I don't think there's a lot of people left in his life that can step in and help him. And I think that's fine.

So much of this country's problems are caused by lonely old men. It's really incredible the vastness of what an old white man with a kind of hollowness at his center and what he'll do to fill it. It's really extraordinary. Get a hobby. Get a goddamn hobby. Paint raccoons. Read a book. My mother took up painting and she painted a fun raccoon and she had a

blast doing it and it's really good. She's not obstructing justice. If you're bored, Rudy, if you're upset about how your life has turned out, you don't need to obstruct justice. Also, there's like three or four more fire documentaries coming out.

Like, he has so much ahead of him to invest in. And you can even watch them more than once. Like, there's no limit to how many times you can watch the documentaries. I think there's an NBC Live musical that's coming down the pipeline. It will legitimately, at this point there's so much publicity, they're going to be able to throw a real Fyre Festival now. If they wanted to, they could just do it, or someone could just do it.

The publicists of Fyre Festival produced the Netflix documentary. I love a scam. It's all a sick fucking scam. And like, will anyone ever hold Ja Rule accountable? Are the only two human beings in our country above the law, Donald Trump and Ja Rule?

Is that the standard? That is, we gotta do that meme of the white hand and the black hand clasping and it just says Ja Rule and Donald Trump. Donald Trump is- Never facing justice. I mean, it makes sense.

This is the fire festival of administrations. All right, let's end on a high note. All I wanted, you know, it is 2019. I feel like we're at the very beginning of what will ultimately be a very long, at times inspiring, at times frustrating 2020 primary. And I think it's worth stopping just for a moment at the start and just reminding ourselves why this is going to ultimately be contentious. Because I think sometimes we jump right to the argument and stop to think about why we're having it. We're all still, I think, battered and unsure and unsteady

because of what happened in 2016 and how hard the last two years have been. And it's hard to be part of a political process in which not only do you feel disempowered, but also unsure of what rules apply and what rules don't anymore, to be constantly surprised by how bad things can get, by how low certain people will behave, by how hard it is to exact consequences for terrible behavior. And all of that, I think, goes into a sense of uncertainty about not just who should be our 2020 candidate, but how we should even go about picking them.

The reason people are going to get angry, the reason people are going to get upset is because this is incredibly important. And we don't know how exactly to pick the right person to face Donald Trump. We don't know who the right person is. No one does. No one knows how to pick the right person

to face Donald Trump. That's what the debate's going to be about. We're going to talk to each other and listen to each other and get behind candidates and then realize we were wrong. And what I hope is only that over the next year or so, we can do our best to be generous with our allies, even the allies we disagree with, because the only thing we do know is that everyone who is going to be part of running those campaigns, voting in those campaigns, volunteering in those campaigns,

knocking on doors on those campaigns does share a goal. And the goal is to find the right person to take on Donald Trump, to feed him and take our country back. And we are all on the same team. And it's going to get contentious and it's going to get hard. But that's because, like it or not, this is going to be one of the most important decisions we've ever made. This is the most important primary in our lives. And that importance and those stakes are going to be one of the most important decisions we've ever made. This is the most important primary in our lives. And that importance and those stakes are going to make it tense. And that's OK. But it just means that as we get into it and as we get frustrated and as we get a little

bit divided, which is inevitably going to happen, that we keep in the back of our minds that the reason we feel so strongly is because we all share the same goal. And we all are going through something very hard together trying to find the way out together and whoever we end up with we need to remember that so that we stay behind them together so that we can get to the other side of this fucking thing that's all and I'm gonna try to remember that a lot and try to be humble and try to be open to people I don't always agree with because none of us have the answers. And the only thing we know is, is we just got to fucking win.

Oh my God. All right. That's our show. I want to thank Andrew T, Zoe Lister-Jones, Mitra Juhari, and Darcy Carden for playing Blaze. Thank you guys all for coming out and have a great night.