Morning Brew Daily - No One Wants McDonald's Anymore & US Women's Water Polo Sponsored by Flavor Flav?

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Episode 376: Neal and Toby explain Venezuela’s key election results have some big question marks which causes a bigger concern about its economic health. Next up they chat about McDonald’s struggling to get consumers back while sales have declined for the first time in 4 years. Then, Elon Musk shares an AI deepfake video of a Kamala Harris political ad on his X profile, which evidently violates X’s own media policies. Plus, colon and rectum cancer among under-50 year olds are on the rise and leaving researchers scrambling to find a reason why. Meanwhile, Toby shares the trend of breakout Olympic stars outside of their respective sport, such as US rugby player Ilona Maher. Lastly, a roundup of the biggest news from the Olympics.  Checkout https://beehiiv.link/morning-brew-daily and get a 30 day free trial and also 20% off 3 months with code BREW Get your Morning Brew Daily T-Shirt HERE: https://shop.morningbrew.com/products/morning-brew-radio-t-shirt?_pos=1&_sid=6b0bc409d&_ss=r&variant=45353879044316  Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow 00:00 - Medal count   02:30 - Venezuela election  07:30 - McDonald’s slump  13:00 - Deepfake AI Political Ad  19:30 - Colon Cancer screening  22:15 - Toby’s Trends 25:45 - Olympic Stories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marketers, tell us if this sounds familiar. You invest in something that seems incredible like millions of views, but then don't see any revenue. Instead, invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest row ads of all major ad networks. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash MBD. That's LinkedIn.com slash MBD. Terms and conditions apply.

Good morning brew daily show. Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, McDonald's gives a heat check on the American consumer. Spoiler alert, we want cheaper food. Then everything you need to know about the controversial Venezuelan election that just took place. It's Tuesday, July 30th. Let's ride. Well, the Olympics are in full swing, and countries have been racking up the medals, which are made from a piece of the Eiffel Tower, by the way. So who's on top of the leaderboard? Well, it depends on where you look. Some counters have the USA at number one since

we have the most overall medals with 20 followed by France with 16. But the official Olympics website puts Japan at the top since they've won the most gold so far with six. The U.S. has just three gold medals. Hmm. I think

both those ways of counting metals are limited though. I'm a proponent of weighted metal counts where you assign a value to gold, silver, bronze medals, and then use that to determine who's performing the best. And the New York Times actually has a sliding weight calculator where you can do that yourself. If a gold is worth 20 times a silver and a silver is worth 20 times of bronze, the U.S. is in sixth place, France is in first. But if a gold is worth two

times a silver and a silver and a half times of bronze, the U.S. is in first again. So it really depends on what system you want to use. I mean, 20 times from a gold to a silver to a bronze seems way too much of a multiple. I think it's more along lines of two, especially in some of these competitions where the difference between gold and silver can just be five one-hundredths of a second. So you just want whatever method puts Team USA on top?

Yes. I will go to whatever counter and believe whatever counter that the USA has on tap. That is the absolute correct method. I hear an eagle calling in the distance right now. Now a word from our sponsor, Beehive. One thing that I think is very obvious just from our general vibe, Neil. is that we don't know how to code.

Yeah. To me, Python is a big snake, and C plus is what my high school math teacher would write at the top of my exams. But that's okay because even though we've been called to the liberal arts, Beehive makes it easy for us non-technical folks to spin up both a beautiful-looking newsletter and a website. And that's a hidden benefit of Beehive. They not only make it easy to customize, but they also host it and integrate it with your newsletter with zero lines of code.

So I know we don't want our old coworker Tyler Dank to get a big head from founding Beehive, but giving you the ability to spin up a SEO optimized fast website with a custom domain. Well, props to you, Tyler. If you want to thank Tyler for letting you build a slick website without a single line of code, head to Behive.com slash brew. That's B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com slash brew and get a 30-day free trial plus 20% off three months with code brew. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly, big board buck slot machine by aristocrat gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino and San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly.

Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Let's head to Venezuela where there has been some significant political turmoil following its presidential election on Sunday. A day after the election, both candidates, incumbent President Nicholas Maduro and opposition candidate Edmondo Gonzalez claimed victory. Exit polls and unofficial quick counts both predicted a sizable opposition win, but eventually the state-controlled election authority declared a, quote, irreversible victory for the president. That led to congratulations from allies, Russia, China, and Cuba, and question from the U.S. and its allies. It's also left the Venezuelan people staring down six more years under Maduro's autocratic rule. Venezuelans have experienced a decades-long sociopolitical crisis under Maduro, where hyperinflation, falling oil production, and violence has led around 7 million people, a quarter of the population, to emigrate from the country. Neil, Venezuela commands outsized global influence due to its once plentiful oil production,

but this election has poured cold water on chains potentially coming to the country. Totally. I mean, this election has global consequences because Venezuela is a major oil producer. It used to be one of the world's largest. It is sitting on the world's largest oil reserves, but there have been heavy sanctions in the past against Venezuela for Maduro's authoritarian, turned the U.S. placed heavy sanctions in 2019, saying it wouldn't import oil from Venezuela. It had been its largest customer for decades. And then the U.S. said, hey, Maduro, if you want to hold free and fair elections, we're going to ease sanctions. So they did that. And that got the economy going a little more again. And then Maduro started jailing his political opponents,

cracked down on the press, did all of these other authoritarian things ahead of this election, which led to the reimposition of sanctions. So no, everyone's looking at what's going to happen, going forward, whether the U.S. and the international community will place even more economic sanctions on Venezuela. Should Maduro reject the opposition's claims that they have evidence that their candidate won the election? Right. This has put the current U.S. administration in a bit of a dilemma because they had a twofold objective with this supposedly free election. They wanted to stem the flow of Venezuelan refugees that have been coming towards the U.S. but then they also want to introduce Venezuela's oil supply back into the global market,

especially after what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. So they had kind of put all their eggs in this basket of inducing Maduro to hold this free and fair election in return for sanctions relief. But now that approach has kind of been ruined a little bit because you still have Maduro in power. And technically he can say that, look, I did what you said. You wanted me to do. Now lift those sanctions. But it seems unlikely that the U.S. will actually do so, given all the controversy. surrounding this election. And Venezuela in general just shows the pitfalls of being what is known as a

petro state, which is a country that relies on oil revenue for its entire economy. And meanwhile, at that angle, you also have weak democratic institutions that's not allowed to, that you can't leverage to put that money into more productive uses and build your economy more robustly and not rely just on oil. So in 2014, I mean, the price of oil was $100 a barrel and Venezuela was cooking. And then it plunged to just under $30 a barrel in early 2016. And that combined with government mismanagement and the turn toward authoritarianism just sent this economy into a spiral. It was the world's worst peacetime economic crisis. GDP plunged by 70% inflation jumped up to 300,000. That is since moderated to about 300%. But, you know, we're all, uh,

We're all worried when the U.S. has an inflation of 9 percent. So you can see why so many Venezuelans are in poverty right now and are just leaving the country in droves. And then one final thing that political scientists are warning about is that if Maduro manages to weather this political storm and make it into another term, they say it offers sort of a green light to other maybe autocrats around the region. If you look at Nicaragua, if you look at El Salvador, they will be emboldened after seeing that Maduro can. withstand these international sanctions, withstand turmoil in his own country to continue his rule of Venezuela. So there's just lots of different downstream effects from this. It does look like some protests have broken out in the last 24 hours or so. The opposition thinks that they do have more evidence that shows that they did, in fact, win this election.

So it's definitely a developing story and one that will keep an eye on. McDonald's sales are doing their best McDonald's ice cream machine impression and sputtering for the first time since 20. 2020, U.S. same storage sales fell as McDonx grappled with the U.S. consumer reigning in their spending. Things aren't looking much prettier abroad either as conflict in the Middle East and a weak performance in France led to sales declined globally as well. For most of the year, McDonald's was able to keep sales afloat amidst declining foot traffic by supersizing their prices. But eventually their customers, particularly low wage earners, got fed up with the value that they were getting from the golden arches. McDonald's listened though and has emphasized its new meal bundles where you can grab a sandwich, small fries, small fries, a soft drink, and a four-piece chicken McNugget, all for five bucks. The bundle was initially slated for a four-week test earlier this summer, but 93% of locations voted to keep the deal available, so it's here to stay for longer.

Neil, the message from consumers is clear. McDonald's got too expensive, make it cheaper, and we'll eat it more. Yeah, but this value meal, this $5 value meal is pretty much like cleaning up before you host a party by throwing all the crap in your bedroom and then shutting the door so no one can see it. It is not, it is a band-aid. It is not a long-term solution. And even the CEO recognizes this. He said that the purchasing power of lower income consumers was bad in the first half of the year. And those pressures have only deepened and broadened.

And he recognizes that this limited term $5 value meal is just kind of. a artificial way to get people back in the door, but what they really have to do, and he recognizes this, is bring back that value consistently across all of the menu items, and they're taking a few steps to do that. He says, it's going to be a years-long thing to get people thinking of value and McDonald's and cheap and McDonald's in the same way that they had maybe in the past few years, but not recently as these, you know, as these prices have gone up due to inflation. So what is the long-term fix if you don't want to just throw your stuff behind your

bathroom door before the party? it's chicken, honestly, because we've talked about this over the last year. McDonald's has this new emphasis on chicken. Chicken is now on par with beef sales at its restaurants. They're also testing out a new burger called The Big Arch, which features two patties, cheese, crispy topping, tangy sauce. So they're trying to innovate a little bit around their existing product line. One thing I do think that we have to mention, though,

is that whenever you're comparing a quarter to last year's quarter, you have to think back to what was happening last year. And what was happening last year was the grimace shake trend was popping off, which I can't believe it's been a year since that when all those TikTok videos went viral of people drinking the purple sugary drink and doing a TikTok trend around it. So that boosted sales around that time. So McDonald's got a 10.3% sales booth, mostly attributed to that viral trend. So you do have to cut it a little bit of slack.

And I think that you see investors were cutting it some slack because the stock actually rose was up 3% at one point on Monday. It has fallen 12% overall this year, missing out on a much juicier market rally. But I think that we have to cut it some slack because it was up against gross. You always cut McDonald's some slack. But the reason McDonald's earnings is so important why we're talking about it is because it is such a massive company. And it provides a bellwether, a symbol of how the American consumer is doing. And in general, it seems like people are pulling back. Finally, they're balking at high prices. They're telling companies, you can't keep raising prices and we'll keep buying. I would say during 2022 and

2023, Americans still shelled out, even though companies raised prices and companies bragged about that. Pepsi was like, we're raising prices on everything and people are still paying. This is amazing. And McDonald's did the same thing. But if you go down the line, earnings season just started over the past week, including McDonald's, you've seen CEO come out and say the American consumer is slowing down a bit. UPS said people were not shipping as many packages. Its stock had its worst day ever. The world chief executive of Whirlpool said that consumers were weary and demand was softening. So you're starting to see pullback from consumers and that is definitely something that Fed Chair Jerome Powell is paying

attention to as the Fed kicks off its meeting and is wondering whether they'll cut interest rates now or in September. Then again, we just talked about the GDP numbers. American consumers fueled GDP growth in the past quarter. Some companies like Coca-Cola are, are saying they're not seeing so much weakened demand. So it is kind of an interesting thing where many companies are saying they're seeing a weak in consumer. Some are saying everyone's just doing just fine. And so in the GDP numbers, bear that out. You're too deep in the economic data.

Just bring back the grimace shake. That's all you need. If you've been on Twitter or X recently, you might have seen a campaign video of Vice President Kamala Harris saying things like she is a diversity hire. She doesn't know the first thing about running the country and that President Biden is senile. This video is a deep fake, since much of it was created by AI. Harris didn't say any of those things. Instead, it was an AI program designed to replicate her voice, but it gained a ton of traction

after X's owner Elon Musk retweeted it Friday night to his 192 million followers, and it's been reposted 242,000 times since. Election watchers say this was the exact kind of deep fake video they've warned could destabilize democracies since generative AI burst on. to the scene a few years ago. For Elon Musk, it also raises the question, does this video violate X's policies about AI altered media? I'll let you decide. The platform's rule states that synthetic, manipulated, or out of context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm is not allowed or must be labeled. Satire is allowed as long as it doesn't, quote,

cause significant confusion about the authenticity of the media. Toby, defakes are becoming a prominent feature of elections. They're being promoted by the world's rich. person, and there are a few guardrails to regulate them. Yeah, if you go down X's policies, it does seem like they apply to everyone except for Elon Musk himself. The original poster of the video did mark it as parity, but he only got 22,000 views initially. Elon comes along with his megaphone, post it without marking it as parody, and now it's been viewed over 128 million times. It is pretty much everyone's worst nightmare when Elon bought the platform of saying, what if he does try to interfere with elections?

What if he does use this giant megaphone he has bought for his own purposes? And this combines so many different, so many of those fears into one particular news item because it also involves AI deepfakes as well. So you can tell why a lot of people are up in arms about this, why a lot of people are talking about it, because it does seem like it's the confluence of everyone's worst fears in this election cycle. I mean, when watching the video, you know, the first couple seconds, you're like, what's going on here?

and then you realize that it is an AI deep fake video. Also, at the same time, there are real quotes from her actually saying things. Chose how good this technology is, first of all, because it does sound a lot like her. But you can understand why there may be confusion. And I was just like, oh, this is a deep fake video, but I watched it. And it was like, I could see how people could be confused, especially without a label, which is why, in the absence of federal regulation of deep fakes, you have all these platforms, social media platforms, taking it upon themselves to regulate.

these types of videos. Meta, Facebook, Instagram, say that manipulated medias must be labeled as such, and you have to provide context to your post, and then Google, which owns YouTube, has a policy that requires users posting these kinds of videos to disclose and also provide a label, I mean, and also X has this. It depends on enforcement. So without regulation at the federal level or the government doing anything, it's up to these platforms to police. I think an issue, too, with this video is that if you listen to it, then you can come along to that conclusion. But most people don't view videos with sound on and it just has the captions there. So you wouldn't know that it was deep faked at that point. So that's just another layer to this. I also think that

we have to remember that this is not the first time that AI altered media has played a role in this election cycle. Remember, we spoke about when someone used AI to mimic President Joe Biden's voice urging New Hampshire voters to not come out and vote in the primary. So this is just a rabbit hole that we are going to continue to go down. And actually, California governor Gavin Newsom called Elon Musk post out and said that he is going to sign a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure that posts like this in it that appear to be an ad should be illegal. So we're definitely going to see some more mobilizing around some of these efforts to codify the law and figure out what to do with these, especially when the richest man in the world who owns one of the biggest social media

sites in the world is posting videos like this. Up next, I think we may have just found your new favorite Olympian. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill three burner gas grill, or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details.

Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m.m.S. College PC. We need to talk about screening for colon cancer. I know, I know. Your mind immediately went to a colonoscopy, but news out yesterday brings hope there might be a new method that's a lot less, well, gross. In a landmark decision, the FDA approved a blood test by garden health that can screen for colon cancer. Called Shield, it's the first blood test approved by regulators that offers a primary screening option for colorectal cancer, the second highest cause of cancer deaths in the

U.S. The bad news about this blood test, it is not a replacement for a colonoscopy. Those are still going to be around. The good news, it could be an accessible first step that spurs more screenings for a type of cancer that is largely preventable if you can find it early enough. But many people don't get screened after they turned 45, which is the recommended to start colorectal screening. In fact, fewer than 60% of people who are eligible have had their recommended screening, and a big reason why is that the screening options available feel inconvenient, awkward, and invasive. Public health leaders are hopeful this blood test could boost screening rates at a time when colorectal cancer is rising at an alarming rate among younger people.

Right. It has been increasing by about 2% per year since the mid-90s. It has moved colorectal cancer up to being the top cause of cancer death in men under the age of 50s. 50 second leading cause, cancer deaths, and women under the age of 50. And I think part of the reason why this is just such an issue for young people is that you don't test for it. You don't think about, it doesn't even cross your mind to get a colonoscopy before 50 because it's not when it's recommended to do so. So if you can introduce a blood test that is much less invasive, much less gross, as you put

it, it might induce these younger people who have been seeing high rate to this cancer to go in and just get checked because if it can happen, if it's covered by their insurance, If it's covered by Medicare, it might make it just a lot more appealing to people and help get in front of this, the colorectal cancer wave that's been affecting a lot of young people. Yeah. To be clear, the federal health authorities recommend that you should get screened after the age of 45. And that used to be 55. And that is an attribute to this rise that we're seeing since the mid-1990s. the people getting colon cancer younger than 55 has risen 1 to 2% every single year. They're still unsure why this is happening. Genetic mutations, exposure to toxic chemicals, changes in diet and just general way we live

our lives. So they're still trying to figure it out. It is getting younger while people who are getting this cancer over the age of 65 has declined. So we're seeing some very interesting trends here. But this blood test is 83% effective. So people who went to get a colonoscopy and they were found to have colon cancer, 83% of those people tested positive with this blood test. And I think since it's not a replacement, the idea is you get the blood test. It's very easy.

And then if you get a yes or a positive result, then you get a colonoscopy. And you may be more motivated to do so because of that positive test. But yeah, we just, the options available now are just terrible. I mean, colonoscopy, you have to, you know, flush out your system the day before, get anesthesia for the day. So if you're working or have a family, it's just like something you don't want to do. And then another method is every three years you have to send a stool sample in. And it's just there's no great options right now. Maybe they'll figure those out.

Hopefully this blood test can spur more screenings because this is preventable. 70% of them can be prevented if you find it early enough. So this is a sign of hope for people to maybe fix this rising issue. There are so many Olympic storylines to follow every year from Dreamt, teams to pommel horse guys, but one athlete has made a name for herself both on the rough and tumble rugby field and on the even rougher streets of social media stardom, Elona Marr. And it's USA Rugby's newest star that I want to talk about on today's edition of Toby's trends where I take a deep dive into the internet and emerge with a trend you should

keep your eye on. Marr is an early breakout personality from this year's Olympics. She has more than 1.4 million Instagram followers and 1.6 million on TikTok figures that lap bigger names like Katie Ledecki or Noah Liles. And she's built that following through a blend of content that started as a behind-the-scenes look at life at the Olympic Village back in Tokyo, but has grown by also sharing important messages about body positivity and just being plain funny. She has filmed Love Island parodies about hot new bombshells entering the villa and then turned around and explained how BMI doesn't define her or her abilities. It also helps that she absolutely runs through people's faces on the rugby field

and has the USA position to medal for the first time ever in rugby. Neil, it's been hard not to see either an on-field highlight or an off-the-field video from Alona Marr. So far, this Olympics, she is a star. She is everywhere, and she understands how to build a brand. I mean, she may not be the most superstar athlete in the world. Rugby is certain women's rugby is certainly not the most popular sport at the Olympics or the popular sport in America, but she knows how to leverage social media to the best of anyone

I've seen at the Olympics. She has all these sponsorship deals with Secret L'Oreal and New Era. She launched a skincare line with a college swimmer. So she just understands innately how social media works and she's built a massive following that whatever happens with her athletic career, she's going to be doing great after because she has just introduced her to the world and the world loves her. I love the behind the scenes look she also provides into the life of an Olympic athlete. She filmed one video showing how she fuels up in the Olympic dining hall. And a lot of it is you think that these athletes are eating super clean. They're eating just unseasoned broccoli and chicken. But she's like, no, I got a crepe here. I got some bread. I got a

croissant. You need carbs. You need carbs to function as an Olympic athlete. So don't be afraid to fuel yourself as an athlete. And she also has the ultimate retort to online commenters. because she has a lot of haters that come in her comment section. Oh, you commented on my BMI, you called me overweight. Well, I'm at the Olympics and you're not. So she's used that to great effect. And as you should, like if you're an Olympic athlete, why not pull the Olympic card at annoying internet commenters?

And if you wanted to tune into her and the rest of the women's rugby team, they're taking on New Zealand later today in the semifinals. It's a tough task. New Zealand is the defending gold medalist, but we'll see what we can do. I'm really going to be watching that. Okay, that is a great segue into our final segment, which is recapping the best of the Olympics yesterday. And in men's gymnastics, a new American folk hero was born. They'll be telling tales of him,

along with the likes of Paul Bunyan, Annie Oakley, and Mr. Incredible. His name is Stephen Naderossack, and he performed the final pommel horse routine to help the Americans men's team clinch the bronze medal ending a 16-year drought without hardware. The reason this guy went so viral yesterday was because, first of all, he wears glasses and looks like he belongs in the math Olympiad instead of the sports one. Second, he is a pommel horse specialist. So as all of his teammates were jumping and tumbling and flipping through the other rotations, he was just chilling there for two hours, not doing anything and looking super zen. But when the occasion called for his pommel horse talents, he rose to it.

Like Clark Kent coming out of the phone booth, Stephen took off his glasses, got on that weird contraption, and posted the highest score of any American in any event in the team. team final, clinching the bronze for the Americans. Toby, this was the moment of the Olympics so far for me because I've never seen a group of people be so happy the way they rooted for one another and hyped each other up and celebrated like they had just conquered life. I've never seen anything like it. It was pure joy. This guy is electric factory. You set it up to perfection because the camera kept flashing to him just sitting very stoic, locked in. They actually had a pommel horse countdown clock on the clock every time that they would flash to him because everyone

questioned this decision because the way that the Olympics team competition works is that you have three people can participate in each event and so why would you bring one person who can only do one thing but they said that he was he's truly just head and shoulders above everyone else he won the world championship in the pommel horse he's won multiple nca championships at penn state so this dude's just a pommel horse specialist. And you can see when he goes to his final dismount, he's literally upside down. He's already smiling because he know he crushed it. Everyone goes nuts.

I'm literally getting goosebumps just thinking about it again because he just had that much joy, that much passion for it. And I love when a risk like that pays off. And you could see what it meant to his teammates, what it means to American gymnastics. Next in our tour around the Olympics, you might be wondering why you keep seeing Flavor Flav pop up with a Team USA jersey and a swim cap, while the founding member of Public Enemy is the sponsor and official hype man

of the American women's water polo team. This is a really great story. So in May, the star of the team, Maggie Stephens, posted on her Instagram that her overlooked and underfunded squad was looking for some financial backing. Somehow, this made its way to the desk of Flavreflav, who replied on the post that as a girl dead and a supporter of women's sports,

he'd sponsor the entire team. So now Mr. Flav is at the Olympics as the ambassador and benefactor for women's water polo cheering them on as they try to win their fourth straight gold medal. I love this. I think every Olympic team or every Olympic athlete should be paired up with the most random celebrity you could think of. So I want like Michael Sarah pulling for USA fencing or give me Halliberry going nuts for outdoor cycling or something like that. This is just a match made in heaven because there is pure joy there. He really does support them. He's been walking around the Olympics wearing a swim cap as well of his clock, his waterproof clock.

So I love this. It's very fun. Let's get more eyeballs on women's water pole because they're a juggerna. They are so good. Let's check on the water quality of the San River, which was supposed to host the swimming portion of the triathlon, but it hasn't been clean enough yet to swim in so far. And there are still traces of poop.

Organizers postpone the men's triathlon today over concerns about the water quality. They'll try to get it in tomorrow following the women's race, but both are subject to more tests and the status is unclear. I'm nervous. I'm nervous, but the athletes themselves are not as nervous. They say that they swim in worse water quality throughout the year on their just normal triathlon schedule. And they do stuff to prevent against E. coli infection by eating yogurt, taking probiotics, using mouthwatch. This is not their first rodeo in some dubious water conditions.

So I hope they can figure it out because if they remove the swim from the triathlon, I'm going to be very, very sad. You will be. Okay, let's wrap it up there. Thanks so much for listening and starting your day with us. Have a wonderful Tuesday. For any questions, comments, feedback on hinged rants, dad jokes, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at morning brew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Eugenua Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup is our pommel horse specialist. Devin Emery is our chief content officer

and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. Hey, Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes. Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice. Hi, Mom.

Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS store, your items arrive on time or your money back. Guaranteed at no extra cost. Exclusively at the UPS Store U.S. retail locations. Visit the UPS store.com slash air shipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply.

Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS store and we'll get your gratitude there on time.