Pod Save America - “Happy Birthday to Coup.”

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Donald Trump plans a press conference to celebrate the anniversary of the insurrection he inspired, Democrats make another attempt at changing the filibuster to pass voting rights, UC San Francisco Department of Medicine Chair Bob Wachter joins to give an update on the Omicron surge, and a recap 2021’s final dumbest moments.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun restrictions in states, overturning Roe v. Wade, and severely threatening our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Donald Trump plans a press conference to celebrate the anniversary of the insurrection he inspired. Democrats make another attempt at changing the filibuster to pass voting rights uc san francisco department of medicine chair bob walker joins to give an update on the omicron surge and we recap 2021's final dumbest moments but first start your 2022 off right wow it's 2022 guys happy new year happy new year it's a weird one it's a weird one it's a weird one. It's a weird one. It's a weird one. Same stuff. Same stuff. New Year.

Yeah, rolling into it. Well, start your 2022 off right by listening to Cricket's daily news podcast, What A Day. Join hosts Gideon Resnick, Josie Duffy Rice, Travelle Anderson, and Priyanka Arabindi each morning as they break down the biggest news of the day and share important stories you won't want to miss out on in only 20 minutes. New episodes of What A Day drop every weekday at 5 a.m. Eastern. And if you're finding it hard to keep up on COVID headlines, I don't know why you're finding it hard to keep up on COVID headlines. They're everywhere.

But to get real information about COVID headlines and great analysis, we've got you covered on America Dissected Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a physician, epidemiologist, and former Detroit Health commissioner, offers his perspective on the latest COVID updates and talks to the doctors, scientists, culture makers, and policy leaders who are working at the edges of science and policy to protect us. Catch new episodes of America Dissected every Tuesday. Tragically just lost his co-host, Elizabeth Holmes, who is going to be unavailable. Guilty.

For a little bit. Guilty. Oh, this happened while you were in your interview. I was like, when did this happen? Because the last I saw was that they were, the second I saw that they weren't sure about three charges, like, oh, they're sending our way. Not guilty on those three. Right. Guilty on the other four.

Couldn't have it to a nicer person. One drop of blood. Can I just say that when we got the, last night, our andy sent us an email saying hey i just before we discuss what's going to be on the show tomorrow here's just the biggest stories that happened over the holidays and she might as well have just driven a flaming bag of shit to each of our houses and put it on the front door metaphorically it was yeah metaphor it was like it was like wow we are fucking back here we are tommy did text me this morning and said i don't know that i can talk about build back better and joe mansion on the first pod of the new year and i

was trying to prime the pump and i said yeah i got you covered let's not do it look there's no update there guys we'll get back into it at some point we're not going to talk about it still annoying all right let's get to the other news one year ago this week we saw president trump's plan to overturn the 2020 election end with an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of extremists who tried to stop Congress from certifying the results. At least seven people died, dozens more were injured, and a year later, we're still grappling with the fallout. A bipartisan committee in the House that's investigating the attack will start holding public hearings in a few weeks. Democrats announced on

Monday that they will try to change the Senate's filibuster rules to pass the Freedom to Vote Act. And Trump announced he'll be holding a press conference where he says he'll talk about how, quote, the real insurrection took place on November 3rd. And it was the protest of the rigged election that took place on January 6th. Great stuff. Here's how one six committee co-chair Liz Cheney responded on Face the Nation Sunday. Look, I think that if what he has been saying since he left office is any indication, former President Trump is likely again this week to make the same false claims about the election that he knows to be false and the same false claims about the election that he knows caused violence on January 6th.

You've raised in the past the possibility of criminal culpability for the president. Is that the consensus view of the committee? The committee has firsthand testimony that President Trump was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching on television as the Capitol was assaulted, as the violence occurred. We know that that is clearly a supreme dereliction of duty. One of the things that the committee is looking at from the perspective of our legislative purpose is whether we need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty. It was Trump in the dining room with the remote.

You know, just eating a rock hard fucking a hockey puck of a burger watching democracy fall apart diet coke well done steak yeah it's that little dining room right off the oval right like it's literally it's attached it's a little hallway of course that's what he was doing of course that's what i'm surprised he didn't have a tv in the oval office but i guess optically that looks bad i mean so let's start with the committee here which is still deciding whether they subpoena republican members of congress like jim jordan former vice president mike pence who many trump supporters said that they wanted to hang that day uh and trump himself uh the democratic co-chair benny thompson also refused to rule out making criminal referrals

to the justice department if warranted what do you guys think of the subpoenas and the criminal referrals? Good idea? Bad idea? Tommy? Yeah, we're bringing swagger back to this subpoena process. We're bringing swagger back to this podcast. Okay, we've got Eric Adams here. I mean, they're very separate questions. Subpoena, criminal referral.

I'll take criminal referral first. I mean, the most obvious point in the world is that whether or not they should make a criminal referral depends on what they find. If they find clear illegal conduct, they can refer it over to DOJ. That doesn't mean that DOJ will bring charges. It just means there might be political pressure on them to bring charges. The committee's reportedly looking into whether the fundraising around the Stop the Steal effort constituted wire fraud. Again, back to ourizabeth holmes that just got her in some trouble and uh whether there was obstruction of congress and whether there's a criminal charge there we have no idea what they'll find um liz cheney is

clearly suggesting that meadows is in contempt of congress but she keeps hanging forward when it comes to trump she keeps saying this dereliction of duty line. She won't say something that is illegal. I wonder what she means by that, like what the statute is on dereliction of duty. Because what they seem to be getting at is that Trump could have done something to stop the violence and potentially chose not to. And as part of a conspiracy to obstruct the proceedings of congress which is what would make it against the law got it yeah i mean look if they are uh not uh cooperating you should subpoena them and if you find evidence of broken laws you should tell the department of justice smoke them all you got them we got this power for a little bit while a little while longer exactly

every time a subpoena it's in front of a republican judge you're like we're thinking maybe after the olympics we can we can work on this but yeah yeah, I mean, the subpoenas, I agree. The subpoenas are an easy one. Subpoena all of them. Yeah. I wonder what the calculus is there suggesting that Trump committed a crime by not doing something I imagine is a kind of creative legal argument. And I think they are looking for kind of, they're putting together

a kind of a record of what happened and whether or not that rises to level of crime. Some crimes will be very clear. Some will be debatable. Some won't be crimes. He's directly coordinating. If you say you get your ass in that building and you stop this count and you burn the, like, yes, sure. That, that is obstruction of Congress, but it does feel like, uh, we all should step back like during the muller investigation and realize that we're probably not going to find that kind of smoking gun and this is going to be a political diamond in a political case we did learn that ivanka went into the dining room a couple times and tried to get dad to stop well which made me wonder like do

you think it was like hey dad a couple things you know like jared wants to get dinner friday eric is there's a talk on the capital trapped in the bathroom again you might want to get you might want to also do something about that let's also keep in mind that don jr is texting mark meadows to pass on the message and ivanka just goes right into the little uh into the feedlot i made a joke about that on the last pod with dan that i bet ivanka had a direct line to him and sure enough she did don't you do no i mean look i think on the subpoena question right they have to decide just to subpoena donald trump or not i don't see the downside right because either he says yes which seems unlikely and then

you hear trump dissemble in front of congress for a while under oath under oath or he refuses which is most likely and then what happens trump refuses you go to court maybe gets tied up in court for a while under oath under oath or he refuses which is most likely and then what happens trump refuses you go to court maybe it gets tied up in court for a while but if trump like quote unquote wins that and it just delays and delays and delays by refusing the subpoena and and you know like who cares yeah you might as well try yeah it's not a question what happens oh no the conservative press are going to say it's overreach what are we doing the shit hits the fan when if there is a criminal referral to the justice department and then then joe biden's justice department has to make a decision whether to bring charges against a former president that's when you'll see the uh that'll be interesting and that'll be a thing and the same logic look there

will be a lot of if we were to end up in that situation there will be so much the the the air will be thick with the stench of bullshit and it'll be very hard to figure out a lot of red hand alerts there a lot of a lot of so much a lot of nonsense but the same argument did it but the same argument will be will i think be right which is if he broke the law he should be indicted because he's just a fucking person and everything else will just be the same kind of bullshit he's not and he's not president anymore that was the whole thing that he used to protect himself during the Mueller investigation. He was president, all this is a gift of privilege.

He's not president anymore. But the most important thing is, would that we lived in that world where that's what we're going to be debating. You know, totally. We are like, do not wait for the justice system to save us from these people. It will not happen. Don't order a bunch of Liz of or don't hope it don't expect it to happen don't order a bunch of

liz cheney bobblehead dolls to replace your bob muller bobblehead dolls you can't take you can't take that sweater that says cuomo sexual and have the cuomo part replaced with cheney that's a good idea like when people change a tattoo from a girlfriend they broke up with it's some good resistance i do think like tommy was saying it's useful to step back and ask, what is the most useful, realistic goal for this committee? Right. Because I think that we, at least the three of us, have sort of lowered expectations about what it can achieve based on the Mueller investigation and the two impeachment hearings. But we have the committee. It's happening. So what's a useful goal? And I think it is persuading the public or some members of the public that the people who tried to overturn the election and incite an insurrection shouldn't hold office again, particularly Donald Trump. And as you do

that, I think one thing we've learned from the previous investigations is even if you tell the story in a compelling and dramatic way, that works for the people who are watching these hearings unfold on TV, which I have to tell you is just all of us political junkies. But the thing that breaks through and that the media will cover is sort of new revelations, bombshells, or even like new details, right? They don't even have to be bombshells, like this Ivanka Trump thing. So I do think as you're the committee, you have to figure out like, we need to get new information out there to keep getting this covered and not just like great speeches in Congress. Right, and also, by the way, we're all just watching replays

because we watched this insurrection happen in real time. There's nothing could possibly be more dramatic, no hearing, no revelation, no anything than what we all witnessed and watched on television. And the fact that he waited hours and hours before going out and saying something and trying to calm his white nationalist mob tells us everything we need to know, or at least should. But hopefully we can, you know, hang some details on that story.

Yeah. And we're going to talk about how this relates to the fight for voter protections that are potentially about to be once again attempted in this Congress. But I do think even before you get to that, there was a poll that came out that said 68% of Democrats say January 6th had a major impact on their worldview. Only 35% of independents and 24% of Republicans agree. And I do think we just all have to be honest that we have not succeeded in persuading people that democracy is under attack, that January 6th represented some kind of existential threat to society. There is, I think, an internal engaged progressive conversation that takes a lot of this as fact and understood and shared. It just isn't. It just

isn't. Yeah. I think it is understood. I think the question is, how much is it top of mind for people? I think there's a difference. Are people persuaded that it was bad and that Trump was responsible, or did they just forget because the world moves on and we forget what happened a week ago? We'll get into some of the polling numbers, but I don't know that it's clear which is true. And it doesn't really matter. Is it important to you right now? We're not going to hold these hearings the day before the election. Right. And so as we think about what it means to fight for voting rights, as it thinks what it means to debate, to figure out what a message will be against Trump. I think

we should just recognize that our collective understanding that democracy is under siege, which I think is absolutely true, is not something on the top of mind for a lot of people. These hearings are a way that you can bring it back to people's minds in a way that maybe is sustainable. The big question is for how long? For how long? Of course. I mean, look, people have a two-week memory. That is the world that we are in.

Generous. Generous. So it's tough. How much attention do you guys think the Trump press conference should get on Thursday? Big press conference. I mean, I think it should be covered. It should not be live streamed. What he says will matter in terms of what gets covered. I expect it will be the same old lies

and bullshit. I mean, he basically previewed what we all expect him to say in the statement announcing that he's going to do this press conference. So I think the story should be the fact that he's doing this, not necessarily the lies he regurgitates. And I think hopefully that means that, you know, the AP won't throw out a bulletin that's like Trump says election stolen, right? I mean, we don't need any of that shit. We need to learn from the mistake of the live stream podium and the mindlessly regurgitating the words of a well-known liar and the endless tortured use of false statement versus like, like we should, hopefully this is covered extensively because i think people should see this and it's juxtaposed with the very solemn very sad moments in the capitol and the

testimony from the cops who got the shit kicked out of them and the lawmakers who were scared for their lives right i mean that that to me is the story trump being on television has rarely reminded people that they like him yes just kind of for sure that's my cover people actually need a reminder of how awful he is yeah because you look at comical got him off twitter you look you look at some of these polls so they're doing early head-to-head polls with biden and biden and trump and trump is creeping back up because i think a lot he's not on twitter i think a lot of people forget just how much of a fucking buffoon he is i think the biggest his supporters but most people i feel like the one of the most important deltas in politics right now is the space between the majority that says Trump should not run and the polls that show Trump neck and neck.

Yes. Yes. That space is whether or not we're going to have a democracy right there. The CBS poll that we're going to talk. Well, let's get into it now. There's a bunch of polls out over the weekend about January 6th attacks from The Washington Post, CBS, ABC, and Politico. I want to talk about what results stood out to you guys. I jumped the gun.

That's okay. Hey, I'm sorry. We're there. I jumped the gun. We're there. It happened. We landed on the next question. We're good.

62% in the CBS poll, 62% of Americans said the question was, what should Trump do now? And 62% said he should not run for president again. And yet some of these had to have polls have him very close to Joe Biden, if not tied, if not leading by a point or two. So you're right. That is a very important- There are people saying he should not run and he has no vote. Yeah. Which, you know, tells you about Biden. Great news for the White House. Yeah. I will say that in that CBS poll and that same question when they asked what should Trump do now, 4% said he should fight to retake the presidency right now by force if necessary.

Cool. Which was, of course, the headline that was everywhere. And then people were saying, well, that 4% translates into millions of Americans who would fight by force. I'm like, let's not take a fucking subset of that small sample size, 4% of a thousand respondent poll and say that translates to millions of americans who are gonna like look we're in a lot of trouble right now but let's let's be careful what we say here and let's also be clear these are not disaffected world war one veterans all right these are some fucking unhealthy white baby boomers that's who this army is uh speaking of which though there was an ap headline uh and and speaking of both

that fact and the fact that we're worried about how the trump press conference will be covered this was a headline ashley babbitt a martyr her past tells a more complex story complex that was a weird story wild she's very complex yeah i didn't love that either anyway um any what other what other numbers stood out to you guys in all these polls? I mean, on the democracy question that you were raising, Levitt, this jumped out at me. So 54% in the Washington Post poll said they have pride in democracy itself. That's down from 90% two decades ago. But among 18 to 29-year-olds, 54% of them have a negative perception of U.S. democracy as it exists today. So I think that just sort of speaks to the complexity of this conversation about protecting democracy when you

have a whole subset of young people who just feel like, well, the system doesn't work anyway, so who cares? I will also say I enjoyed your white baby boomer joke, but in some of these polls, the most extreme Trump supporters and the ones who are talking about justifying the use of violence were some of the younger Republicans, which is actually, I think, pretty funny. Trump supporters and the ones who are talking about justifying the use of violence for some of the younger Republicans, which is actually, I think, that's borne out anecdotally, like TP USA conferences when people ask Charlie Kirk when we can start shooting. It's not great. I'll tell you that much. On Trump, I thought in addition to 62 percent saying he should not seek the presidency again, I thought that both The Washington Post and ABC polls showed that about 60% of Americans think Trump bears a great deal or good amount of blame

for January 6th, which is essentially unchanged from these polls a year ago when the insurrection had just happened, which I thought was very interesting. Yep. Also, you know, a lot of these numbers broke along partisan lines that you might expect. I looked at some of the historical numbers from Gallup about voters accepting the results of the election. And in 2016, Gallup found that 84 percent accepted Trump is legitimate. Fifteen percent did not. In 2000, 83 percent accepted Bush is legitimate, a legitimately questionable election outcome, by the way. So historically, it does seem like, or at least recently, there has been 15% plus percent of the population. It's just like, no way, that guy's not my president. And Trump seems to have maybe doubled that number through

the constant messaging and the constant lies. It's notable. Yeah. And the numbers, I think, that are a little scary on the issue of violence. CBS, I guess, pulled the approval for the violent mob. The violent mob and the Serbian K.O. What's their approval? They had 13% approval in 2021 and 17% approval now. So, again, not much of a change there. Yeah, it seemed noisy. And then the Washington Post poll was kind of scary.

It said, found that 40% of Republicans and independents say violence against the government is sometimes justified 23 of dems said that all of this was the highest percentage in decades i just thought that was like typical american revolutionary war rhetorical dna i don't know i mean theoretical to really be sanguine i mean i like sort of compare these same people to the ones who said like uh set of the vaccine mandates. No, I will quit my job and, you know, light myself on fire. And then you see the numbers of like, you know, Delta employees who quit and it's like 200 people. Right.

You know, and like 65 plus Americans who took the vaccine and it's like 90 percent. A lot of big talk, not a lot of Paul Revere's out there. Yeah, I do think also in all this, there's some it's so hard to break down. First of all, people are all pundits when they get a call. They're not only pundits now. I feel like the old problem created by cable news in part was that everyone had become a pundit. Now, in the Internet age, everyone is also a troll. And so they get a call and they're asked these questions and they answer in a way that is helpful to their side and kind of puts a thumb in the eye to their opponents. kind of puts a thumb in the eye to their opponents. When people say they don't think democracy works, do they mean it's just not delivering? Do they mean that they don't believe Republicans have the right to retain power? Do they mean that they don't think the system allows for a free and fair election? We don't know what they mean. And I think those differences matter. There's a lot of angles at some of the frustrations and numbers. I mean,

in the CBS poll, over two thirds thought January 6th was a sign of increasing political violence and that democracy is threatened. So there is a broad baseline of concern. Quite a sign. I mean, it was. What gave you the... Back to our conversation about the 1-6 Committee, 60% approved the 1-6 Committee, including 40% of Republicans. I found that fairly surprising. And when we talk about subpoenas and criminal referrals, they should use the power and the public approval that they have i also think that's why it's it's kind of good that liz cheney is the face of this committee having a republican

like i you know again it's great people see a people see a republican at cheney no less out there leading this committee with you know republicans and democrats you don't have to love live chaney liz cheney i wouldn't fucking vote for her but like i don't like her but she's a good messenger let's see what happens though when the like soranai turns at this committee i'm sure which has not been targeted at all i mean we'll see uh so democrats are going to try to prevent future attacks in the democratic process by making another push for the freedom to vote act in the next few weeks on monday morning chuck Chuck Schumer announced that, quote, the Senate will debate and consider changes to Senate filibuster rules on or before January 17th,

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to protect the foundation of our democracy, free and fair elections. A few days before Christmas, President Biden also reiterated his support for making an exception to the filibuster for voting rights. Can I say something? I'm glad you called it reiterated. There was a lot of people who do not remember that he did this before. It was really weird. And these are all people who pay attention to the news for a living.

It was months earlier, right? Yeah, it was November. It was a town hall in November. Now, it was not like an announcement. He sort of just kind of like trembled it out in the middle of an answer, which is I'm sure not what the White House wants. It fell in some soup.

But he said it. He said it in November. I don't know why anyone thought that was new. Good for him. I'm glad. So what do you guys think? Is this just a get caught trying strategy by Chuck or do you think he's got a real plan to change the filibuster? I, for one, think he has a real plan to change the filibuster.

He has a plan to change the filibuster. I, for one thing, he has a real plan to change the filibuster. I hope there's a, I mean, there were a lot of really great stories written about Harry Reid after his death. And one of the themes was like, he always had a plan. He knew when to fight. He knew when fighting for the sake of fighting, even when you were going to lose, was a good idea. He knew when to cut a deal. I don't have that same confidence in the current leadership. And I think, like, I don't want to veer into a Green Lantern theory territory where you think every

problem can be solved if you just fight harder or try more. But I do think that like Schumer let expectations get all out of whack on the size and scope of Build Back Better. And it is cut to our detriment because people are, well, nothing's happened, but also people are incredibly frustrated with the bill getting trimmed down to something that would have been enormous. And I like, I guess I want to get caught trying. I want to see Democrats fight on this issue, but first you got to do the work behind the scenes. Because if, if we set in this new initiative over the next two weeks, and then Joe Manchin does another Fox news hit and torpedoes it all the activists you're supposed to be fighting for are going to be demoralized i'm really torn on this one because for months and months and months for an entire year we've

been saying okay joe manchin and kirsten sinema don't want to change the filibuster rule but joe biden and chuck schumer and every other democrat should fight as hard as they can anyway and and put this up for a vote and make this a big public issue and get caught trying. And now they are. And you're right, Tommy, that there's a question. Are we raising expectations for something that's not going to happen because Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have not changed their mind? And so is all this public pressure going to matter to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema? Maybe it doesn't, but probably good that you're trying to fight anyway.

Or do you just tell people, hey, they're not going to change their mind, so I'm not going to try. I mean, Manchin said he won't do it if it's not bipartisan, right? So I don't know. I don't know. I'd argue it both ways. So this is a very tough situation because it's very clear what the right thing to do is. And there are two people who will not allow us to do the right thing,

and they're supposedly on our side. But get caught trying. If it means anything, it means showing that you're trying is good politics, and hey, it just might work. The problem I have with hey, it just might work is we just did a round of this. Put the bill forward that they're not committed to passing.

Pressure mounts, question mark, question mark, question mark, success. Well, we didn't get the success. We just got demoralized and it didn't happen. And the pressure of the votes here, it's time, it's time, it's time, didn't really come to anything. We have a year. The election is less than a year away. We need to earn people's votes. We need to protect the right to vote. And we need to do everything we can to defense against efforts to overturn the election. I do not know what getting caught trying on this, doing another month of this, and having them stand in the way of us actually protecting the right to vote or passing any kinds of reforms to the Electoral Count Act and having nothing to show for it at the end, I don't know

how it does anything to advance those three goals, especially when, as we've just talked about, there's a lot of polling that shows for independence, this is not as salient an issue as it should be. So I don't know what the right thing is. I do hope that maybe there's some backroom conversations about the kinds of reforms to the filibuster that Manchin has expressed some kind of openness to in the past. Maybe this leads to a compromise. Maybe leads to i don't know there's another path here which is that what's what the plan is is that mansion and cinema are on board with the return of the talking filibuster or you need to have 41 senators on the floor constantly in order to maintain the filibuster which i think would be even better than talking filibuster um so yeah maybe maybe there's one of those. Maybe we get one of those reforms, and then there's like a big

fight. And then you sort of bring it back to, it's not Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema's fault, but it's these 40 Republicans who are standing on the floor filibustering all day and night to stop voting rights. And in the public's mind, now they know that it's Republicans who are blocking this. And so it's more of a persuasion play than anything else. Better than nothing? Maybe. I don't know. But where we were at the beginning of the Biden administration 10 years ago was we said, hey, look, there are all these points. There's all these moments that are going to come. They're going to show how bad the filibuster is. Here they come. And we have just barreled right through every single one of them. And cinema and mansion

have not really moved. But there was never a question of who the audience is for that, right? To show how bad the filibuster is. To the public? Because really all that matters is showing Joe Manchin and Kirsten's cinema.

We do this, I don't want to have this conversation again. We build back better. We always get back to, it is about convincing two people, not necessarily the public. Yeah, these guys got to be doing the work behind the scenes. It's all that matters.

Because Joe Manchin's political incentives are to tell the party to fuck off and do it publicly, as publicly as possible. Do it on Fox News, probably. And that works for him. It's good for him. Maybe he's excited to be able to kill it. He's probably into it. He would love to tell a bunch of annoying liberal Democrats that he doesn't agree with them. That's his kink. would love to tell a bunch of annoying liberal democrats that he doesn't agree with them that's

that's his kink well and and the real triangulation for mansion here is he can be like i support the freedom to vote act i'm the one who wrote it right right like i love this piece of legislation it doesn't sound like cinema is going to be even more difficult than mansion on this one because she's like you know i just her her whole thing is if we change uh voting laws on a partisan basis then if republicans take over and get rid of the filibuster they'll change voting rights laws right back to the other way they'll do they'll do something worse so but i'm interested to see what chuck's got up his sleeve uh when we come back love it interviews the ucsf department of medicine chair bob wachter about the omicron search of Medicine Chair Bob Wachter about the Omicron surge.

The U.S. hit a daily average of more than 400,000 COVID cases, which is a record. Thankfully, we have not seen nearly the same increase in hospitalizations or deaths, confirming, hopefully, the theory that while it is causing breakthrough infections, Omicron is leading to more mild illness, especially among the vaccinated and boosted. Here to help us understand where we're at, he's the chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Robert Wachter. Thanks for being here. Thank you, John. It's a great pleasure. Listen, there's no easy way for me to say this. I have to say what I'm about to say, and you won't like it and I won't like it. Dr. Wachter, give me the news.

I've got a bad case of hating COVID. I'm so sorry. The news is terrible, but I think it's the storm before the calm. I think there's a pretty good chance that this variant, which stinks in many ways, is going to turn out to be a lucky break. And the lucky break may be because it is so transmissible, but less severe than what we've seen before it. It turns out to give an extra dose of immunity to those who have been vaccinated, many of them, and give some immunity to those who haven't been vaccinated. And then we end up having a pretty bad month or so, but we end up in a pretty good place in February. So one thing you tweeted earlier today is that you saw some evidence that San Francisco might

be hitting what you called an immunity wall. Can you talk about what that means and why that's giving you some reason for cautious optimism? Yeah, I work at a big academic medical center at the University of California, San Francisco. So we have seen a massive uptick in the number of cases in the Bay Area, including a lot of breakthrough cases

and people who have been vaccinated. And we've seen a moderate increase in hospitalized cases, but very few new cases in the intensive care unit. And that seems to be plateauing over the last three or four days. Too early to call a trend, but it feels like it's real. And the percentage of people testing positive for COVID has also peaked and has actually started

coming down a little bit. So that's after two or three weeks. So that's all reassuring. And the question is, how and why would that be happening? And I look at San Francisco as the poster child for how to do the pandemic right. The number of deaths that we've had since this thing started over two years is about 650. started over two years is about 650. If the nation had had our per capita death rate, there would be about 500,000 people alive today that have died. And so what San Francisco has done right in large part now is vaccination. So 81% of the people in San Francisco, including the little kids who can't

be vaccinated, 81% have gotten at least two shots. And so we are where what it looks like to have a highly vaccinated population. And I think what we're probably seeing is that the relatively few unvaccinated people are mostly young and healthy, and they're all going to get COVID if they're not being careful, but they're probably, they're mostly going to have mild cases. The people at risk for a bad outcome, older people, people with medical illnesses, almost all are vaccinated and they're getting a fair number of cases of COVID, but very few of them are getting sick and going to the hospital. So I think we may be what it looks like when you have a population that is highly immune coming into this Omicron variant. You get a lot of cases, a lot of breakthrough cases, but not that many very

sick people and not that many deaths. One of several confusing pieces of communication that happened over the holidays was there was one announcement that said Omicron is all the cases, and then they corrected it and said, actually, we don't know that. It may have been only 20% of the cases. Now it's 60% of the cases. What are you seeing in terms of how much of this spike is just Delta hitting the unvaccinated and some vaccinated? How much of it is Omicron? Do you see Omicron kind of keeping Delta at bay and causing less hospitalizations? Like what are you seeing in the data now? Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, we don't test for variants in that many people. So

we have to kind of guess from where we do test and then also guess from the patterns that we're seeing. And I think that what we're seeing in San Francisco, and I think what we're seeing around the country, is telling us that Omicron is becoming the dominant player. And I don't know anybody who does not predict that it will become the major player by January. It's just growing so quickly. Yeah, the CDC got the estimate wrong, but they got it off by a week or so.

And by the time you finished reading it, it was probably right. It's going up so incredibly quickly. And the signal that this is almost all Omicron is this massive dissociation between cases and hospitalizations. If we had had the number of cases that we're seeing in San Francisco, if this was Delta, we would have two or three or four times the

number of people in hospitals. Recognize that the number of cases that we're registering now on the public databases are a marked underestimate of the number of true cases, because very few people who are getting home testing, if that's how they're diagnosing themselves, are calling in and recording their cases. So cases are probably two or three times what we're seeing even on the measured numbers, and we're just not seeing the number of hospitalizations that we would have expected. So I think we're on our way to Omicron being the virus, being the COVID virus that we were battling in 2022. So it's interesting to hear you say that because that's actually something that was on my mind.

I just feel actually in a new way that there are unregistered cases, unregistered positives, right? Like that was certainly true throughout the pandemic. But now I know of so many people who have gotten one of the rapid tests, it came back positive, they're sick. They're not going to get another confirming test. They're just staying home for a couple of days, as are the other people in their family who may never get a test but weren't feeling well. Right.

I think that's right. Yeah, there's been a disconnect between the number of people that tested positive and the number of people that actually had COVID. But it was sort of a predictable number. And it feels very different now. There were not the rapid tests and people didn't understand how to use them. There certainly is a shortage now, but there's a fair number of them around. And yeah, I think if I got really sick and had symptoms consistent with COVID and I tested

myself with a rapid two days in a row, I'd probably call it a day and say, I have COVID and I'd be right. And so those numbers aren't getting registered in any state or regional or national database. So the rise of Omicron, the possibility now more and more confirmed that it is more mild and not just because it's hitting a vaccinated population is, I think, scrambling a bit some of the risk calculus that people have done. And so I want to attack this in two different ways. I want to start by looking at the people that have basically used this as an excuse to say there should be no restrictions and that restrictions don't work. You talked about this when you compared California to Texas and Florida, that basically they look at the numbers, see California got hit pretty bad,

Florida, Texas, they got hit pretty bad. What is the evidence that these restrictions make any difference? Can you talk a little bit about how, once you actually go into the data, that's a pretty specious argument? Yeah, there have been times earlier in the pandemic where I have been frankly surprised that Florida and Texas weren't doing all that much worse than California. They were doing worse all the way along,

but not as much as you would expect given the laxity of the rules and the political malpractice that I think was being committed in those two states. And California, I think, has generally been quite good. What's happened in the last six or eight months as vaccination has become more of the main tool that we use to prevent this virus is the numbers have diverged even more. So I hear periodically people still have this mantra of

texas and florida to just about as well as california this is not true anymore uh the death rates in those in the per capita death rates in florida and texas are between 30 and 50 percent higher than the per capita death rate in california and if you took california's per capita death rate in California. And if you took California's per capita death rate and applied it to Florida and applied it to Texas, you would have about 20,000 fewer deaths in each state, you'd have 40,000 total fewer deaths. So that to me is a big deal. I mean, that to me is if the difference was a couple

of percent, you might say, well, was it worth the restrictions? But the differences are massive. And I think really speak to California having handled this well with the appropriate sort of treating people as adults. You know, this is what we got to do. It's hard. None of us want to do it, but it's the right thing to do, pushing vaccination.

And I think the proof is many thousands of lives that have been saved. So you've been pretty even-handed around some of the criticism that the CDC faced when they announced that they wanted to bring the quarantine time from 10 to five days, even without a test. Can you talk a little bit about why that didn't, that you had concerns about it, but you weren't as, I think, activated as some others for that change? Yeah, I have sympathy for the CDC, I think, activated as some others for that change. Yeah, I have sympathy for the CDC because I think they've got a really tough job and the people running the place are competent now.

And here's the problem. If you stick with a 10-day isolation period for COVID for everybody, there are going to be a lot of people who no longer are infectious by day six or seven, and you are forcing them to stay indoors for three or four extra days. Now, that may not matter for some people, but we saw over the holidays what it means for the airlines. We would see in hospitals and clinics all over the country what would happen if you have thousands and thousands of nurses and doctors who are being forced to isolate for 10 days as an arbitrary number.

It turns out that the majority, probably 80 or so percent of people by day six, even if you've had COVID, if you feel fine, and particularly if you're vaccinated, are no longer infectious. And the ones that are still infectious probably are shedding a pretty low level of virus. So if they were wearing a good mask, and by that I mean an N95 or the equivalent, they really wouldn't be at a major risk to the community. This is also happening at a time where probably one out of 15 or one out of 20 people

walking around the streets, even in a place like San Francisco, have COVID and feel fine. So they're infectious so the major public health threat is probably not the person on day six who had covid it's probably just the person you run into at the starbucks particularly if nobody's wearing a mask and we have this massive shortage of tests and i am critical of the government we should have figured that out and gotten our testing together so i think at at the CDC, they probably added all that up

and said, if we tell people they're good to go on day six, if they feel perfectly fine, and if they wear a good mask, they should have emphasized that more. The number of people that are gonna get infected by those folks, those COVID people going out into real life is relatively small. And we will be able to have a larger workforce

able to staff our hospitals and airlines and so on. I think they're probably gonna go back on that. I think they heard the criticism, California came out and said, we're not doing that. We are gonna require testing on day five or six in order to free yourself from isolation. So I think that is the better policy, but I am worried if they say you need to test to be free

and nobody can get a test. First of all, you're gonna have a lot of pissed off people. And second of all, I worry that we're gonna have too many people who are stuck in isolation, who are not infectious, but who just can't get access to a test. So it's a pretty sticky wicket to try to navigate. I do think the right policy is to have enough tests

and for people to test themselves out of isolation starting on day five. Right. I mean, the part that made sense to me was the shortages that hospitals are having because a lot of their staff are having to stay home. Is that something that you're experiencing in the San Francisco system? Are you seeing staffing shortages causing a reduction in the quality of care being provided? No, not yet. But again, we're lucky here because so many people are vaccinated and the number of people who are out because of COVID is real. It's much higher than it's ever been, including among vaccinated people. But it's not at the point that we are unable to staff our ER or our ICU or have to close down the operating rooms.

I do worry, the Cleveland Clinic reported yesterday that they've got 4,000 doctors and nurses who are out out of about 70,000 people that work there. You start getting to numbers like that, you are gonna have to shut some things down. Now, it's probably the first thing you shut down is truly elective procedures and surgery so it's not life-threatening in the short term but we could easily find ourselves in a in a pickle where the hospitals aren't so much overwhelmed with patients

with who are sick with covid but you have enough patients who are sick with covid on top of the winter which is all always busy in hospitals on top of the winter, which is always busy in hospitals, on top of 5% or 10% of your staff who are not there, you find yourself in a real problem. And I think we do want to figure that out before it happens. And I think one part of figuring that out is getting people out of isolation the day that they are no longer infectious. You don't want to do it before they're no longer infectious, but you don't want them all to be sitting home for 10 days when 80% of them are probably good to go by day six or seven. Well, this was the part that was sort of frustrating to me

because it's like, just say what's going on here, that it can be five days for a lot of people. If you had the test, you could test people out. We don't have the tests, but we don't think people are going to listen to us anymore anyway. So we're trying to kind of do a little social engineering, a little kind of making the best of a bad situation. But of course, they can't say that. So they announced this as a kind of decision that's not really evidence-based. It seems more practical than it does seem like science.

Yeah, I was bugged by it too. And I think the thing that really bugged me was, I think they should have just told the truth. And, you know, we have a limited number of tests. And if you can't get a test and you feel perfectly fine, we think the risk of you going out into civilization is quite low. You should wear a really good mask for the next five days and be super careful around vulnerable people. That would have been okay. The message they put out was the tests don't work very well on day five. that's just wrong that's just not right they work perfectly fine they're great for that they don't work super well with omicron on day one there is a little bit of a risk that people will

test negative on their first day positive the next day but they were already infectious that night and i've seen that play out but there's no evidence that they don't do they don't work for that purpose which is to tell you whether you're infectious as you get to the tail end of your infectious period, A5, 6, 7. And that message, I thought, was not only wrong, but potentially harmful because people need to use and trust the tests if they use them in the right way. How do you see the fact that the disease is more mild and hitting more vaccinated and kind of immune populations, changing what safety protocols, restrictions should look like generally?

Well, for now, I think that we should all be really careful. And I know that that seems odd because people might say, well, it's really milder. First of all, I think we only have a month or so of a pretty bad time and then we're gonna then the sun's gonna come out and i think we're gonna be in pretty good shape so if i and i don't buy this idea that that everybody's gonna get omicron so what the hell i think that's a mistake i haven't gotten it so far i plan on trying my darn is not to get up for the next month i still don't want it because even if it's a mild case there still are going to be some people that get long COVID. There's still going to be people who infect other people.

So I think it's a good idea. This is a good time actually to try to be really careful and hunker down. Use an N95 because this thing is much more infectious than the prior virus. So we need to up our own game in terms of staying protected. It's important to look at the milder thing and parse it a little bit. It seems like it's substantially milder in people who are vaccinated. And that's great news because the majority of Americans are vaccinated and in certain cities like mine, four out of five people are vaccinated. So that's terrific news. If you take people who are unvaccinated, the best data says that it is milder, but maybe by 20 or 30%, not 70%. And if twice as many people get it or three times as

many people get it, and it's only 20% milder, that math still is not very good. You're going to see a lot of unvaccinated people who are going to get really sick, particularly if they hear this, it's milder thing and let their guard down, assuming they've held their guard up at all. So I think the next month could be pretty nasty and pretty awful, particularly for unvaccinated people. Where we end up in potentially a good place is let's say it's February. And I think that's the likeliest call. You end up with people who are fully vaccinated, who probably did fine. Some of them will have gotten a breakthrough case, which will act like a booster that will up their immunity.

The unvaccinated people who made a very bad decision, if they didn't die of Omicron, they probably have gotten it and they got their immunity in an aerosolized fashion through the virus. And you end up in a place where the entire population has some measure of immunity. The virus they're being exposed to, assuming Omicron becomes the dominant virus, is on average milder, particularly in people who have immunity,

and even the unvaccinated by then probably are gonna have immunity. And by then we're gonna have a decent, although not perfect, supply of this Pfizer medicine, Paxlovid, that lowers your chance of getting really sick if you're at high risk by 90%. When you add all that up together, it's hard for me to come up with a scenario

where things don't look pretty good in February unless, of course, there's some new variant curve ball. And there's absolutely no way of predicting the probability of that. So what is your advice to people who have immunocompromised loved ones now? And do you think it's time for those people to be able to get a fourth shot? The Pfizer drug, which is now fully approved, a doctor can prescribe it to a patient

if they believe that the benefits outweigh the risks. And so there are plenty of people who are being prescribed fourth shots, including many people in my system. If I was immunocompromised and I had not had a response to the first three shots, I would figure out a way of getting a fourth shot. I have no guarantee it's going to work, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do and perfectly scientifically grounded to try it. And there are some people for whom the second booster is what finally does the trick. And do you think that the U.S. is going to follow Israel and allow broader second rounds of boosters for medical professionals, people over 60, maybe the general population? Do you think that's what's coming next? Yeah, I think so. I think the evidence from Israel and elsewhere is that

with Omicron, the length of the effect of shot number three or the two shots plus your booster, it does begin to wane after four to six months. Had it been Delta, that probably wasn't going to be the case. We've been saying for months now that just because you needed a booster after six months doesn't mean you're going to need another booster after six months. Because the reason the booster works is that your immune system needed some time to mature. So I think there was a reasonable chance it was just Delta, that your booster would have been, you know, good to go for another year. Maybe you didn't need a yearly shot with your flu shot. It looks like Omicron's ability to evade or partially evade immunity has led to some significant waning in immunity with people who've gotten boosters. And so it's sort of an open question. How much waning is it? How much risk is there? And it's going to be influenced

by how mild Omicron is in people who have gotten fully boosted it'll kind of be a tricky societal sort of ethical question and moral question in a way you know if your if your efficacy of your booster has waned so you're at risk of of an infection but it's still working well enough. So you're at very, very low risk of a severe case of an infection. You know, should you get this extra shot? You know, the issue there is how often people get long COVID if they get a breakthrough infection after their third shot. Do we have enough vaccine to go around? I think it's a little bit of a toss up right now. Israel tends to be first out of the gates with this sort of thing. And I think we'll watch their experience and see what happens when israel first started doing

boosters there was some narrative that they don't need to do that because people are just going to get mild cases not severe cases the vaccines would never design to prevent all cases but the data is now clear that the boosters have actually saved a lot of lives it wasn't just mild cases you were preventing it was severe cases and if it turns out the same thing is true after four to six months after your third shot, then I think the evidence then would say you should probably get a fourth one. And the shots, you know, one of the things we've learned over the year is that the side effects, which everybody worried about, are really extraordinarily mild with this thing. which everybody worried about, are really extraordinarily mild with this thing.

And as far as we can tell, there's essentially no risk of getting an extra shot. So I think it's a little bit up in the air. I wouldn't get it today, but for high-risk people, as we look forward and we look at the Israeli data, it's not at all impossible that we'll all be getting a fourth shot eventually. Last question. Supposedly doing a live show in San Francisco the first week of March at the Castro Theater. You think that's happening? You think we're going to do that indoor show at the Castro Theater? I hope so, because it's about a half a mile from my house, and I look forward to seeing you. I would bet that March will happen. I mean, we are already seeing in the Bay Area what looks like, if you squint and look at the chart carefully enough and maybe with a little bit of optimism we're seeing something that looks like a plateauing of cases I don't think it's going to keep going up

and up the evidence from South Africa is it went up fast and came down fast the evidence from London went up fast started coming down fast and particularly in a place that's as vaccinated as San Francisco if I had to put my nickel down I hope not I hope I'll get a free free ticket but if I had to put my nickel down, I hope not. I hope I'll get a free ticket. But if I had to put my nickel down, I would think you're going to be there in March. If we're there in March, I hope to see you.

All right. You're going to have to update people on what's been happening. All right. So we're going to have to, we're going to have to have a, and if, and if it doesn't happen,

I'm not going to want to see you. All right. Cause you've got my hopes up. I'm pretty optimistic about March. I think it's going to be okay. Dr. Robert Wachter. thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. It's a joy.

Thanks for having me. All right. Before we go and head into the first week of 2022, we wanted to recap some of the good, bad, and dumb shit you may have missed over the holiday break in a segment we're calling the 2021 Hangover. We ready? Oh, we're ready. Okay. Number one, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has finally been kicked off Twitter after tweeting about, quote, extremely high vaccine deaths, which was apparently her fifth strike on the platform.

You know what they say, five strikes, you're out on Twitter. Senate candidate J.D. Vance responded by tweeting that, quote, these companies need to be crushed. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary GOP tweeted last week, quote, if the booster shots work, why don't they work? Guys, what hangover symptoms do these news stories give you? Nausea, anxiety? Do you want to read the list for... I don't want to read the whole list

diarrhea how do I know if it's from that that's a thing I think I still have side effects from the booster too much first of all Marjorie Taylor Greene five strikes you're out i don't know about that

real book right goodbye thank you see you later jd vance these companies need to be crushed he's such a free market republican right there i don't this all these kind of stories about people being finally at long last ban from twitter they give me the feeling of you ever go to like like a like a wedding and there's no actual meal but you eat little bits of food like every 20 minutes for like four to five hours and you get home after and you're not full and you're not hungry you just feel kind of gross a little bit empty you know that's how i feel about this i saw tim miller made the point today on i think an msnbc show that he's like he said he was he's uncomfortable with marjorie Taylor

Greene and all these Republicans now on like getter or whatever these like separate social media platforms are and having this like crazy, dangerous conversation that's basically being unmonitored by most of the public and continue to radicalize people out of the public. I saw that too. But like, what are the hall monitors doing? What have they nothing? They haven't been doing anything effectively over the last five, 10 years when this was happening

on Facebook and Twitter. I mean, I just think she's thirsty. Like Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman from Texas made the point that this is what MTG wants. She wants to be the victim.

She wants media attention. She wants to fundraise and get booked at events. And like, this is her grift and it's part of her plan and identity. Like this was the, the end goal. And I think that to me is right i think let her go on getter let

her go on gab there's a great story in the washington post about all the far right maga stop the steel grifters fighting and attacking each other because they know there's a finite pool of suckers that they can basically extract money from and i think she's going for that same pool of people yeah i'm like you know i don't i wonder what the like do we want the the worst human beings in our society to spread lies and misinformation where they can be monitored uh where they can reach people that might be susceptible to it or do they want them cordoned off into an increasingly fetid and evil and radicalized space i don't know what the right thing is both options seem pretty terrible but i i look at like the people who are getting radicalized over time on facebook on

youtube on twitter and it is about starting at a place where it's normal there's conversations there's other kinds of people there's comedians there's people who push you you know you you see a you see a Rogan tweet that leads to a Ben Shapiro tweet that leads to a Dan Bongino tweet. You don't get on these platforms and say, all right, everyone, time to do some evil. Right. But you don't go on Getter to be like, ah, time to join the marketplace of ideas. Like, you're on a journey already. You're pretty far along. The issue in Facebook and YouTube is Normie is getting radicalized, right?

Like, you join Gab, you join Getter. Well, maybe you heard about it from Joe Rogan, who was, was like tweeting about how it's time to join getter but also you can monitor people on getter and gab like and i'm sure it's happening in real time so i think that's like i don't know that that's my concern as much as i don't want normies going through that process that you just talked about but that's really more of a youtube facebook issue i will say before we move on the house judiciary republican tweet fucking drove me nuts. Anti-vax assholes. They like to say, you know, the Glenn Youngkins of the world, the Republicans after the Virginia election was like, oh, Republicans have found a position where they're anti-vaccine mandates, but they're pro-vaccine.

What they did was not pro-vaccine. That tweet saying that boosters don't work is just misinformation. It's pro-stupid. It's just being tweeted. Here's my question. Why did they delete it? Yeah, they deleted it because i think they got a lot of fucking blowback and like that was less responsible than donald trump on boosters right jim jordan retweeted the house judiciary tweet too that they're just going around there telling people boosters don't

work when of course they work against omicron there's almost no people in hospitals that have been that have been boosted for omicron. Very, very, very, very few. You know, I would say what I have anxiety from that, if I'm going to choose my hangover feeling, and it is because right now, based on all public polling, more people want those people in charge of the House Judiciary Committee than they want Democrats. We should all be honest about that right now. If people are like, you know what? I've seen what both sides have to offer, and I'm going with the anti-vax crowd.

Well, and I think that's what but I think that's one of the reasons they deleted it, because, you know, the the smart Republicans are trying to just say, like, let's not do anything stupid and we're going to take the House. That was a that was a guy was a messaging click or two too far. I'm sure. And they realize that. All right. Number two. This is a clip from a TV spot featuring Matt Damon that ran during Sunday's NFL games. Let's listen. And in these moments of truth, these men and women,

these mere mortals, just like you and me, as they peer over the edge, they calm their minds and steel their nerves with four simple words that have been whispered by the intrepid since the time of the romans fortune favors the brave it was an ad for cryptocurrency that was crypto.com crypto platform first of all who wrote that fucking Fucking Peggy Noonan?

What was that? Absurd. Utterly absurd. These are the boys on Punctahuck. These are the kids that took the beaches. What are you doing, Matt Damon? What's going on? It had a Matthew McConaughey Ford ad vibe without the comedy.

Here's what I've learned. Some people really like money. Yeah. In a way that I don't understand. Whatever. You can like money, but like brave? i don't understand whatever you can like money but like brave yes you might want to have that crypto crypto brave i like i'm not a crypto hater i think that there's like applications that are interesting and what comes to ownership and art and whatever

like i'm not like i'm not in love with the u.s dollar fiat like who am i who gives a shit but fucking big fucking gold standard gold bug look at this guy jenny brian over here but according to crypto.com the the website he's doing an ad for uh 0.01 percent of bitcoin holders control 20 of the bitcoin in circulation that is a concentration of wealth that is far worse than the US where the 1% own 33% of the wealth. And so- Because they're brave. Right. So some people might think they're brave. From a different perspective, you could see some pyramid scheme vibes. And you could see why a small group of people would be willing to pay Matt Damon, I'm sure a shit ton of money to try to bring more people into bitcoin

increase the demand jack up the price because they will uh profit enormously so i don't know if matt damon's like a crypto holder or gives a shit but he's smart enough to know when there's a gold rush you sell picks and shovels right and maybe this time it's a nft pickaxe but that's that's what he's doing here sounds like he's also brave yeah also brave i um but that's what he's doing here. Sounds like he's also brave. Yeah, also brave. I don't know about this NFT thing.

I don't know if I'm going to pay for a piece of digital memorabilia. Not really in the market for any of those right now. Some of them are very expensive. I also am pretty skeptical of the idea that what our society needs more of is very scarce, very expensive things that up until this moment have been easily replicable and free right is that a no on the psa logo nft or what let's talk about it let's say hey hey fortune favors the bold my friends let's not let's not be too hasty all right number three here's our final one during cnn's annual new year's eve special

with anderson cooper and andy cohen andy went on a bit of a rant about america's favorite outgoing All right, number three. Here's our final one. During CNN's annual New Year's Eve special with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen, Andy went on a bit of a rant about America's favorite outgoing mayor and gym enthusiast. Let's take a listen. Watching Mayor de Blasio do his victory lap dance after four years of the crappiest term as the mayor of New York, the only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is what a horrible mayor he has been. So sayonara, sucka.

I like that. Sayonara, sucka. He wasn't comedy drunk. He was drunk. I really appreciate that. I also loved when he said, I'm not done. I comedy drunk. He was drunk. I really appreciate that. I also loved when he said, I'm not done. I got some words for Zuckerberg. Quit messing with us.

Did he say that? I didn't see that. He goes, hey, Zuckerberg, quit messing with us. The entire scene. Like, what a great job, by the way. What a fun thing to get to. And then do you also see that the CNN kept putting up tweets that people had tagged them that were from like Ben Dover?

Mike Foxlong? Yeah, like the most obvious joke accounts you could muster. That entire program, fantastic. Incredible. I want it to happen every year. I want them to get drunker and drunker and drunker. I love it. More news should be like that. I like Anderson Cooper celebrating the coming of a new year by trying to create ironic distance from the thing he's currently hosting.

I think that rules. That is so awesome. It's also, it's so funny and interesting when people decide that it's okay in media or just in life to just openly hate on a politician. You know, it's not always. Bill de Blasio has perfected that. Yes, he has. That is his legacy. It happened to Bloomberg in the Democratic primary too.

And like, you know, the guy was a pretty popular mayor for a lot of his term. I think most people like... There was a poll in like 2014 that said most of them looked back on him as a success, but there were no Bloomberg stans coming out to defend him. Like, love it. If you touch the K-hive you get stung you're gonna get stung right like same with pete stands but like no one fights back for de blasio despite having a record of doing some interesting things if you're a de blasio stand

out there let us know yeah let us know yeah tag us what a fun job um final question was there anything you guys read or saw or did over the past few weeks that helped cure your 2021 hangover uh i saw my mom that was great there you go i'm gonna tell your mom i have watched every episode of and just like that it takes me love it it takes me about two hours to get through any single episode because i have to pause due to cringing so many times it is a fetid 15 minutes it is an unholy text i can't stop watching i was bummed last night that i didn't have another this is not a tommy ironically watching emily in paris but he really loves the situation. This is truly me experiencing genuine discomfort

that I cannot shake because of the choices that they have made in this show. And it brings me so much joy to watch it and then text a group thread about and just like that. This was the same text thread where we played the New York Times spelling bee for the entirety of the pandemic. Now it is primarily an and just like that thread. Are they releasing them in real time This was the same text thread where we played the New York Times spelling bee for the entirety of the pandemic.

Now it is primarily an In Just Like That thread. Are they releasing them in real time? It's once a week. I think they only released five or six as of now. But I do want to read to you a description of an episode. This is written purely straight. I'm just going to read you this. This is a description.

Spoiler. These are lots of spoilers for In Just Like That about to hit. I'm just going to read you this. This is a description. Spoiler. These are lots of spoilers for In Just Like That about to hit. Miranda, in the throes of alcoholism, gets a handjob from a non-binary comedian while Carrie pees in bed from hip surgery after the death of her husband. What? That's real?

That's it. That's so... That's an episode. I like that that's their take on modernity. I fucking could not believe what i was watching i loved every minute of it you know what miranda you want to you want to go on a sexual awakening i'm all for it why do all these women act like they've never heard of lesbians before yeah it is wild it is fucking wild and i need more people to watch it and if you're my friend and you hear this

text me about it because i want to talk about it all the time it is an incredible incredible document fantastic how many more are there i i hope i hope i hope it never ends i think if this this was something you did that cured your uh it's a thrilling feeling it's like it's like bungee jumping i come after it's over i'm like i'm i i don't want to do it again but i'm glad it's done and i feel invigorated i finally set a one hour per day time limit on my phone for twitter now did i did i stay to that limit every day no because then it tells you you have five minutes left and it tells you to hit your limit but just the mental thing of like blowing through that time limit has i've only gone over by like you know 10 minutes 15 minutes 20 minutes every day and my life was better for two weeks it was better i downloaded tiktok i fucking love tiktok i was

killing time and i'm like i gotta do something better than delete deleted twitter from my phone deleted instagram from my phone all benefit all good tiktok is so enjoyable it is just as addicting it is just as poisonous but i love it and right now i'm in such a romantic face with it i find it not poisonous in any way it's like mostly funny i guess what i mean is that it's clearly uh um it's not you're right it is much less toxic at least the version of it i'm seeing i think the fact that it's hard we're all seeing a different thing yeah but I find that I'm learning interesting things. They quickly figured out, as I've said, that I like to watch hot guys cooking

and videos about math facts. I mean, it's everything I need. There was a time before 2016 where Twitter, there was a lot of jokes on Twitter. I mean, there was a lot of terrible things on Twitter like there is now. But there were moments where there were jokes and everyone enjoyed the jokes together.

That's like mostly gone. No, now it's just a group of people chasing Matt Iglesias around. Where's he today? Have you seen Matt Iglesias? I would say one of the worst, one of the worst parts of that

is like people actively like police you and try to keep you in your lane. They're like, no, no, you're a politics person. How dare you talk about other shit? Fuck off. I was like, I want to tweet about the NFL. I want to be sarcastic. Share your tasteful nudes, Tommy.

Don't be all stupid. Get them out there. There are. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks to Dr. Wachter for joining us today. Dr. Wachter. Dr. Wachter. That's a fun name.

I love it. We'll talk to you soon. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our

digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media.