Pod Save America - “Slack channel for the last adults.” (LIVE from Chicago!)

Episode Date: October 11, 2017

Corker tells the New York Times that Trump is a dangerous liar, Stephen Miller sabotages the DREAMer deal, and social media platforms wrestle with fake news. Then Tommy and Dan talk about gun violence with the founder of Mothers/Men Against Senseless Killings, Tamar Manasseh, as well as the director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, Jens Ludwig. Plus, Ok Stop! 

Thank you guys. Hello Chicago. Wow. I would say that that is the right level. That's the right level. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.

Thank you, Tommy. I got yelled at for not leaving enough space for applause in the show. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Guys, it is really great to work for Barack Obama. How'd that turn out? Most of us. One of us got there eventually, which is fine.

Better late than never. We have a great show for you tonight. A little later we'll be talking to the founder of Mothers Men Against Senseless Killing, Tamar Manassa. We'll also be talking to the director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, Jens Ludwig. But first, I think we have some news to talk about, guys. Sure. We are going to start, like we did last last night with our friend Bob Corker.

This would be the first time Bob Corker got applause at a Pod Save America event. He is the newest member of the resistance. Antifa Bob, they're calling him. Antifa Bob Corker. I thought, you know, why are we all focusing on Bob Corker burning a trash can when there were so many peaceful protesters? So Bob Corker has no fucks left to give. There was a little Twitter spat between him and Donald Trump. We thought that's where it might end. It did not end there.

Today got more interesting because Corker decided to talk to Jonathan Martin of the New York Times. Here's the headline, which should help you all sleep well tonight. Bob Corker says Trump's recklessness threatens World War III. Very nice. So just a reminder that this man is the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So here's a few other choice lines from the piece related to Corker's view that the president of his own party, whom he endorsed for the job, is a threat to national security. Corker said Trump treats his office like a reality show. True.

He said, he concerns me. He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation. He said, I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it's a situation of trying to contain him. I know he has hurt in several instances. He's hurt us as it relates to negotiations

that were underway by tweeting things out. Yeah, no shit. Seems like our friend Rex and Bob have been having some chats. Yeah, Bob and Rex. Tommy, what does it mean for a conservative senator who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee to make this kind of assessment?

It's not good, John. Thank you, Tommy. So we were texting with Crooked Media's resident rhino, Tim Miller, and he encouraged us to... Cuck. Resident Cuck. Resident Cuck. To allow... I mean, we should encourage and praise people like Bob Corker coming forward

and speaking out against these things. That said, it does worry me that if you think we are at a point where you're saying, without hyperbole, that you think it could lead to a World War III, calling Jonathan Martin at the New York Times for 20 minutes to shoot the shit is probably not the extent to which you should be sounding the alarm. Especially if you think...

I think what Dan mentioned earlier about Rex Tillerson talking to Corker is probably exactly right. I mean, clearly, if you're chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that means you're talking to the Secretary of State all the time. You're doing oversight. Clearly, people at the highest levels of government who are in the White House or in the cabinet are telling him things are not good. This guy is not in control of himself, of the country. We are preventing bad things from happening every day. It's like things we're seeing leaked on background all the time. And he's probably also specifically referring to the constant tweets and taunting of Kim Jong-un, who is the leader of North Korea, who is attempting to find a way to

strike us with a nuclear weapon. So all of this is disconcerting at best. Yeah, I mean, we have been told by people like Corker, by people in the media, there was the whole Committee to Save America, that the presence of figures like John Kelly, the Chief of Staff, General McMaster, the National Security Advisor, Jim Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, should make us feel better because they are able to persuade Trump to keep him in control. It seems like Corker's comments might fly in the face of that. Or there's a lot of really crazy shit they're stopping. Yeah. Which raises the question,

what is crazier? But that is the point, right? It's worse than we think. I think two things can be true, that they do not have control over Donald Trump. They are unable to prevent him from doing damage via Twitter, via his phone calls, via his public statements, while at the same time this sort sort of, whatever, Slack channel of the last adults.

I believe that's the title of the movie. Is sort of working in concert to try to keep Donald Trump from doing even more destruction. I think that is certainly possible. I mean, the thing is, I feel like the Bob Corker comments are instructive as to what it means to be responsible when you're not willing to do enough to meet the expectations of what you just said is going on. Bob Corker has said that Donald Trump is threatening World War III, that he's unstable, but he, A, refuses to say that Donald Trump is categorically unfit, which is some sort of threshold he's afraid to cross, and refused to say that endorsing Donald Trump was wrong. Now, I do not understand how it is possible to say the president I endorsed

may cause World War III and is unstable, but I see no contradiction there. I see no problem there. No, but we've so narrowed our expectations of even people like Bob Corker who we should praise for being willing to say these things because what we actually have expected of them they've failed to do over and over and over and over again until now the point where just telling the truth and saying you and your fellow colleagues view this person as unstable, unfit, a liar, etc., is seen as a great breakthrough.

And remember, the Quirkers said this after Trump attacked him personally and said he was too much of a coward to run for re-election. And that's the key right there. It wasn't when he was saying we should ban all Muslims or attacking transgender people who want to serve in the military, doing all the other shitty things he's done over the last however many months. It was when he hurt Bob's feelings. And again, I'm glad he spoke out, but I don't think you get that many points for a courager. So in addition to all the very scary stuff he said about Trump on national security, Corker also acknowledged that Trump lies all the time, which again, you know, very obvious. He said, I don't know why the president tweets things out that are not true. You know he does

it. Everyone knows he does it. Yes, we do, Bob. And then he said, perhaps what I found was the most troubling thing in the whole piece, he said, look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we're dealing with here. Of course, they understand the volatility that we're dealing with and the tremendous amount they understand the volatility that we're dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road. Yes, a phrase I'd use to describe Donald Trump is middle of the road. But so, like, we now have a clear majority of the Republican caucus in the Senate.

And most of these people are not moderate Republicans. They are conservative Republicans, and they all think that Donald Trump is unfit to serve. They think he's crazy. They think that people need to control him. And Donald Trump's White House staff thinks about this. Like, what are we all to do with this information? We're just going to, like, Corker hangs up with Jay Martin

and says, well, thank you for the interview. That was very nice. I'll talk to you later. But you would hope that the press would then go to every single Republican other than Tom Cotton because he's the one who does not think this. Right. No, no. He wants a cabinet post. Yeah, that's right. Tom Cotton thinks whatever Tom Cotton needs to think.

But it goes to the question of why, right? But it goes to the, raises the question of why, right? If you actually believed that World War III is around the corner because we have a moron with impulse control in the White House, you would think you would do something about it other than whisper around the Senate cloakroom. So there's a couple of reasons, a couple of operating theories for why this is. One is they desperately want to cut taxes for rich people paid for by taking health care away from everyone else. I believe that to be true. But it's, I think the more obvious, because they could also do that with Mike Pence, right? They do not need Donald Trump for that little bit of poor public policy. But

then, but the other reason is fear, right? So as soon as this story was written, a bunch of Republicans went on cable TV to declare themselves saying, I am not one of these people. I actually really think Trump is doing a great job. Because they're afraid, it seems ridiculous, but they are fucking... Lindsey Graham went golfing with him today. Lindsey Graham, who has sounded the alarm bells

about Trump multiple times. Who is obviously one of the people at the forefront of Corker's mind as to who thinks Donald Trump is unfit to be president. Obviously, Lindsey Graham went golfing today and talked about how much Donald Trump beat him on the back nine with a person he thinks is unfit for the most

powerful position on planet fucking Earth. We cannot count on these people! What else do you know about golf? I know a lot about golf, Tommy. I'm a Jew from Long Island. Love it thinks Trump beat Graham at the windmill. Well, so in a world where Republican senators all publicly agreed with Corker and people like Jeff Flake and sometimes John McCain, what could we expect them to do? Because I always think, like, these are conservative Republicans, right?

And so, to the extent that they agree with Donald Trump's conservative agenda, cutting taxes, cutting regulations, like, just because Donald Trump is an unstable lunatic, we can't expect them to suddenly abandon their own conservative principles and suddenly say, yeah, no, I don't want tax cuts for rich people. I don't want deregulations. Like, this is their agenda. But knowing that the President of the United States, who you endorsed, who you supported,

is unstable, and you're worried that he's a threat to the country and the world, what steps could they take? Like, what can we expect of them? Here's a New to the country and the world, what can you do? What steps could they take? Like, what can we expect of them? Here's a near term thing that Bob Corker specifically could do. Yeah. Trump has been threatening to decertify the Iran deal, which means he will say Iran is violating the deal or at least the spirit of the deal.

So I throw it back to Congress and I'll ask Congress and the Europeans to work with me to put sanctions back on Iran or increase pressure on them somehow. Corker was someone who, you know, didn't throw his body in front of the train when the Iran deal was passed, so he's sort of blamed for it. He can now say, fuck you, Donald Trump. What you're doing is making us less safe. I'm not going to support you in that effort and make the politics of this a hell of a lot harder,

which is why Trump's little Twitter temper tantrum is so stupid politically for him. I also think there are a lot of things that could be happening that aren't happening that would be happening if Donald Trump were a Democrat. If you were concerned that the President's behavior was erratic and you led the Foreign Relations Committee, you could immediately call

a series of hearings as to some of the most erratic and strangely conducted decisions, whether it's the Friday night Muslim ban or the transgender troop ban that he did over a tweet, which was then rejected by the Pentagon. The other thing that... Or the tune in next time to see what happens with North Korea tweets.

Right, right. So I think you could, you know, there has been no real, you know, beyond the intelligence committee, beyond the intelligence committees and really only in the Senate. There haven't been really expansive investigations based on what Donald Trump has done as president, some of the strange and erratic decision making. Beyond that, one of the things I think Trump exposes is the fact that there's been a bipartisan failure to rein in the presidency. And in fact, what we've seen over decades, Democrat administration, Republican administration, is a ceding of power from Congress to the White House. And it is a symptom of the kind of brokenness of our politics, the lack of imagination,

that nobody's really talking about this right now when it's one of the most important things that we could be doing. And that actually, if you got Democrats and Republicans in a room together, that they'd all universally agree to, you know, the details are difficult, but without a doubt, we are also paying for the price. Part of the reason it's hard to know what exactly Bob Corker could do is that the president, the imperial presidency, put so much of our foreign policy in the hands of this one person, and people have been ringing the alarm bell about that for a very long time, and it took Donald Trump getting those reins of power to make a lot of people realize that this is incredibly dangerous. Like, if you were really worried that Trump was going to start a war with North Korea,

Congress could start sounding the alarm bells right now demanding that before he uses force, he gets authorization from Congress. They will not do that because they— And Chris Murphy was tweeting about that today. Yes. And I think not enough Democrats have been making that point, right? And then the second thing is Congress has the power of the purse. They could put in all kinds of checks in the next budget, right? Trump cannot do X if he does not come back to Congress and get permission or get the committee to sign off. You could do that for use of force in North Korea. You could do it for implementing some of these things like the transgender

troop ban or things like that. But they have ceded all accountability, which is something that Congress, as a lot of the force now, Congress has been doing for a long time because they do not want to put their hands on the bloody knife. I mean, that's been a problem with Obama, too. As much as they hated Obama and wanted to stop everything he did, they were too cowardly to actually

litigate in Congress some of the harder questions about the authorization for the use of military force in Iraq, in Afghanistan, against al-Qaeda generally, action against Syria. They don't want to touch anything that's hard or that may lead them to not get re-elected. And so here we are with power just completely pulled over the presidency, like Levin said. So the other question I want to get at is why are they so afraid in a traditional political world the president is at uh 35 to 40 approval rating and it's a president of your own party and he's done all these things and you're afraid of him why only bob corker who's not running

for re-election again why can only and john mccain who's probably not gonna run for election again why are only these people saying something about Donald Trump and not everyone else? Are they that afraid that the base sides with Trump over them? Well, it's the state of our polarized politics that most of these people are in states or districts that are solidly Republican. Where their bigger fear for their job security is a primary rather than a general election. And then you have Steve Bannon out there saying he's going to run primary challengers against all the Republican senators who are up for re-election. Fifteen. He wants to, 15 Republican senators he wants to find primary challengers for. The only one he's sparing is Ted Cruz. Yeah. Because he's the best one.

Is that the best one? Is that Lion Ted? Lion Ted Cruz. So far he's got a guy who just got out of jail and the head of Blackwater. So he's doing a recruiting. It's not going that well. But I think there's one key thing. What has held Trump up thus far is his approval among Republicans.

And then we have a poll out this week from Pew which shows that Trump's approval among Republicans has dropped to 68%. That is not a number at which he can win. And if he loses his stranglehold on the 35%, then his ability to actually enact leverage over these Republicans goes down dramatically. The question I'd like to answer is, because I don't know about that poll, what is causing the approval rating among Republicans to finally go down? Seems like it could be any number of things. I think maybe Trump doesn't wear well over time. What's that?

Trump does not wear well over time. Oh, that's true, too. Do you think that's true? Because I always thought that would be true in the election, and it just never kind of, didn't bear out. I think when you go from theory, theoretical, to reality, it has an effect. And the thing you hear in these focus groups about Republicans who like him is, you know, he came to change Washington. He's different.

We've got to give him the time. He says, I know he doesn't say the truth all the time, but he says, he talks how we talk. I don't know how those people were raised, the chaos in the tweeting bothers them. And so Trump has been on a particular run here of chaotic tweeting, and I think that part does not wear well. Some group of people will never leave Trump under any scenario.

They will be the soldiers on the island still fighting World War II 40 years later. But he can lose some of the people who went to him at the end, who had some questions. Like Stephen Miller in a cave. Right, yeah. I mean, I was going to say, I think the chaos bothers them.

I think the one other thing is them not getting anything done, right? Like whether you're Democrat, Republican, independent voters, when they look at Washington and nothing's actually happening in Washington, no matter who the president is, that bothers people. And I think where this Corker thing then comes full circle is they're now trying to get tax reform passed, and Trump can only lose three Republicans in the Senate, and Corker has now said,

if the tax cut raises the deficit by even a dime, I'm not with you on that. Which is the entire plan, right? There's no tax reform, there's no tax reform plan that does not raise the deficit by a dime. Like trillions of dimes. Love it, you had one more point.

Yeah, I was only going to say that even beyond the moving of the poll numbers, a lot of this is a dynamic that was put in place during the general election. Once institutional Republicans lined up behind Donald Trump and said, basically made the decision that despite the fact that he's obviously unfit,

we will pretend he is not and make this the norm, make this what we people expect of us. That became true once Donald Trump was president. And the hard thing is, you know, these are human beings, these Republican senators, most of them. Approximations. As far as we know, the vast majority of them are human beings. approximations. As far as we know, the vast majority of them are human beings.

But there's no great day to be the day where you make an irrevocable decision to draw the evil eye of Donald Trump, Breitbart, Infowars, and all the rest. It's a very, very big decision for a Republican senator from a conservative state to say, I'm no longer an ally of the president. I'm joining Bob Corker. I'm saying he's unfit. It would be easier for all of them to jump together. But you can't get these people to do anything together. And they each one has an incentive to hang back and wait for others to do it. And so we're trapped in this cycle. What's the right day to be the day where you finally swear off donald trump you know what or is this any day he tweets any day right but or isn't this another great day to just not deal with it right and just avoid the problem hope for tax cuts wait for others to speak out no but

that's what's going on every day i'm just hoping for tax that's what they're doing like if tax cut will come and then i can just like if i Trump, I would never let tax cuts die. Or never pass it. As long as it is out there, he's got Paul Ryan in his pocket, and he's in good shape. Unfortunately, that day was October 7th, 2016, when he bragged about sexually assaulting women. And then they all... Well, the thing is, that's a great... Because that day, they thought it was over.

They thought he was going to lose. They all said he was now unacceptable. There's great... Every single one of them has one... They all had one great day. Paul Ryan said the right thing. People said the right things. And then it lasted two weeks.

Yeah, remember our friend Jason Chaffetz, who said, I can no longer support Trump because I cannot look my wife and daughter in the eye at dinner. And now I'm going to say hi to them from Fox News. Honestly, you guys, it's sad wife and daughter in the eye at dinner. And then... Now I'm going to say hi to them from Fox News. Honestly? So what's... You guys, it's sad because Jason Chaffetz has not... doesn't even remember what their faces look like.

He has not looked at them in the face for over a year. Let's talk about immigration. A few weeks after Trump, his buddies Chuck and Nancy, they, over Chinese food, great detail, agreed on the outlines of a deal where they would pass legislation that provides young undocumented Americans a pathway to citizenship without building Trump's wall. The White House has now completely backed away from the deal, and today they released a set of principles saying that they will not protect the Dreamers from deportation unless the following requirements are met.

Construction of the stupid fucking wall, 10,000 more immigration enforcement agents, denial of funding to sanctuary cities, tougher asylum laws for people fleeing violence in other countries, and no path to citizenship for the dreamers. Dan, why did the White House do a complete 180 on this? That's a great question because I don't think, well, it's important to remember that Trump cut that deal without any of his staff having any input. Right. So we did a meeting with Trump, Schumer, 10 white male White House staff, and Nancy Pelosi. Right.

And his staff was arguing for the wall, these other things, and Trump. But he is the master negotiator. He is the master negotiator. Deals are his art form. What's that? Deals are his art form. What's that? Deals are his art form, Dan. Some paint. Some sketch.

Some dance. Do you have any more art forms? Some sculpt. Some do monologues. Some people project onto buildings at night as sort of a piece of performance art. Some people put up big orange flags in Central Park. Go on. Some crave attention. You know what?

I want to thank you for that negative reaction to John's comment. Huge applause. And I want you all to know, for all the ups and downs and the horrible treatment I received from some of the people on this stage, knowing that you're all with me has gotten me through. You know what this is right here? Trump at a rally in Alabama.

By the way, Lovett told a very nice woman we met today that John's dog is in ISIS. That's where we are. Many people are saying it. Leo is the sweetest dog you'll ever meet. There you go again, John. Dan the wall. Yes.

Short answer now? Yeah. Sorry, Dan. Yes. Short answer now? Yeah. Sorry, Dan. Hi. This has happened before. No one on Trump's staff wanted him to do this, and he does not have the attention span to follow through on what's actually said. He has forgotten that ever happened.

He's moved on to 75 fights since then. And so he delegated to his staff, and his staff who oppose the Dreamers, who do not want to do anything to help them, are trying to undermine the deal left and right. Well, so I always thought that too much was made about the deal itself, the personalities,

Chuck, Nancy, Trump, all dealing over dinner and everything like that because the reason that the deal happened is because Republicans, Trump and the Republicans need Democratic votes to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. Govern, if you will. To govern. Yes. Because even though there is a Republican majority in the House or a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican

president, they still cannot find the votes to do these things because they have a wing of their party that will not raise the debt ceiling and not fund the government unless you do all kinds of crazy shit. That part is called the Republican Party. That's called, yeah. So we know that eventually, by the end of the year now, because they kicked this three months, that at the end of the year in December, Trump is going to need, and the Republicans will need, Democratic votes to fund the government. So what leverage do we have here? I mean, it seems like we have a bunch to need, and the Republicans will need, Democratic votes to fund the government. So what leverage do we have here? I mean, it seems like we have a bunch to say, oh, great, those are your principles on immigration.

Yeah, see you later. Yeah, I think that this, I think that there's a solid chance that this is abnormal people doing normal politics, that two things can be true, that Trump made this deal and now Stephen Miller is heading to the Hill to kind of do his best to make it radically conservative and totally different from what Trump said, and Trump has absolutely no conception of the details,

while at the same time, what's really happening is kind of normal politics, which is, inevitably what will pass will be some kind of compromise that involves allowing dreamers to stay in this country without the threat of deportation, removing the legal limbo that hangs over their lives and prevents them from having a future and can remove that, while at the same time has some kind of border enforcement, some kind of

interior enforcement. That feels inevitable. So, you know, it makes sense that Republicans would put out this series of things, including stuff that's absolutely a non-starter, the wall, defunding sanctuary cities and a few other things, while leaving the door open to the kind of things Democrats have supported throughout every debate over immigration reform, greater verification, enhanced border security. That's something Barack Obama supported,

Hillary Clinton supported, every Democrat has supported at one time or another. But don't you think that they are setting themselves up for, like, they're not going to be able to get the wall. Right. So now they're put out there as a promise. But at the end of the day, the Democrats can say, no, we will shut this damn government down if you are going to build a fucking wall. But then the wall comes out of the deal. The wall comes out of the deal, and Trump takes credit for enhanced border security. He can talk about how much of the wall is already built and we're going to get drones on the border and

more guys on the border. You know, you can give, you know, these are, Stephen Miller is a, you know, creepy little menace and we'll get to him and Donald Trump can't follow the issue, but yet still, I mean, and even Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer going out there and saying, this is a non-starter and this, this is just old fashioned politics. I mean, and even Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer going out there and saying this is a non-starter. This is just old-fashioned politics. This is making a deal. There are a couple of other things. I'm not sure we can apply the rules of old-fashioned politics to what's happening right now.

But the other context here is not just Trump. It's Paul Ryan. And this deal is incredibly, providing some legal status to Dreamers, is incredibly unpopular in Paul Ryan's caucus. And he's going to be for, if his job security is at risk every time he has to pass a bill with a majority of Democratic votes. So he may have to do that on a standalone Dreamers bill, on debt ceiling and funding in the government. And this is exactly how Boehner ended up going down. He was forced to eat three deals in a row with Nancy Pelosi doing his job. And so one of the things that's happening here is, yes, Stephen Miller is doing Stephen Miller things, which are terrible, but Paul Ryan has not talked to Nancy Pelosi about the Dreamer deal that Nancy

Pelosi cut with Trump one time since that was done months ago. He's negotiating with his own band of... Wouldn't that speak to why, sorry, wouldn't that speak to why they have to put out this crazy enforcement proposal to kind of move the debate to the right a little to make up for the fact that Trump barely understands the issue

and made a deal with Nancy and Chuck? Well, it could. But I think also the problem here is the person in the White House who we're going to get to who's driving this

wants the deal to die. To Dan's point, I think the politics of this probably matter more to Paul Ryan than Donald Trump because Donald Trump will throw like 50 sandbags down in the desert and say, it's a wall, hey, we're done.

Like there's a fucking inauguration crowd. Maybe we should just send him down to throw paper towels. He probably doesn't know. He'll just say whatever he needs to say. But I think we have to remember who the dreamers are. These are kids who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were babies. Babies who are serving in the military, enrolled in school, have jobs, who are enormously beneficial to their Americans. And even Donald Trump, once he had an egg roll with Pelosi and Schumer, seemed to then

grasp the cruelty of what he was doing because little Santa Monica fascist wasn't barking in his ear with Steve Bannon and the gang. So ultimately I think he's a little more malleable than Paul Ryan who may lose his speakership over this issue. Yeah. No, I just think that, I saw this news today, I'm like, well, Democrats have all the leverage here. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah., they're going to have to fund the government.

And shutting down the government over protecting the Dreamers and fully funding Obamacare is a good fight to have, in my opinion. I think that's totally right. I think that's totally right. But, and I agree with you. And I don't think what I'm saying runs counter to what you're saying. But at the same time, they also have leverage, which is

they're willing to let the Dreamers get fucked. And so, I think ultimately what will happen is some kind of a deal that involves interior enforcement and some shit we don't like that we think is too onerous, and that makes the immigration system worse, but that ultimately lets the Dreamers stay, and I think that that will be a good thing.

So let's talk about the man behind this new policy, C-plus Santa Monica fascist Stephen Miller. Okay, guys. They know now. I'm sorry that I have to do this again. We're going to get a speech now, guys. We're not hissing anymore.

We're not hissing anymore. We can boo, but we're not hissing. I still hear hissing. We know what it is. We're aware of what hissing is. We're switching to boos. Booze, the cash app. Practice a boo. Thank you. Front row is right in your face. I feel like I should be on the side of the hissers now.

I am too. Hiss away. Fuck! So, Stephen Miller had a wonderful profile of him written in the New York Times today. Sounds like he led an exemplary life. I'll just give you guys some highlights.

When running for student government, 16-year-old Stephen Miller gave a speech where he said, Am I the only one who's sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us? I'm going to agree to disagree. I us. Ooh. Yes. I would agree to disagree. I'll turn this car around. He once told one of his friends from middle school, this is something he said while he was in middle school, that they couldn't hang out anymore because the friend was Latino.

Shocker where this immigration policy came from. And then the craziest part. He once, this is true, he once jumped into the final stretch of a girls track meet in order to prove his athletic supremacy over the opposite sex.

Can I make a point about that? It's worth noting he had to skip the early part of the race to win. Now, the best part of that little anecdote is they contact the White House to say, we're going to print this. Do you have any comment about the fact that he jumped in the end of the race to prove he was faster than women? And they said, ah, we got you, New York Times.

This was a girl's team from another school, not his own. That was the White House comment. By the way, could you imagine if someone told the New York Times something you did in middle school and they printed it? Like, Tommy Crank called QBC four hours a weekend, every weekend, for three years. What? I was very bored.

You guys thought Tommy was the earnest one. You guys didn't... Crank calls him best. I have no real questions about the Stephen Miller thing. I kind of just wanted to give you, Lovett, a chance to... Here's what I think. Because I want people to know that I do enable you for all the... Somewhere in America, there's a deeply strange, likely racist, conservative woman who has a type.

this conservative woman who has a type. And that type is vicious, mean-spirited, balding Santa Monica weirdos. And it's very clear that they need to meet because what radiates off the page of the New York Times or every picture of Stephen Miller is the fact that so much of this is driven by the fact that he is lonely and single. It is so thick how it wafts off the newspaper to the point where it's difficult

to see the words beneath it. Maybe Ann Coulter has a cousin. Because I've got to tell you. Oh, that's good. The important thing is we don't get personal here. I want to end by talking about something that we haven't covered yet on this tour, and that is fake news. Google, for the first time, has uncovered evidence that Russian operatives

exploited the company's platforms, including YouTube, in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 election. This discovery, of course, follows the revelations that both Twitter and Facebook were also exploited by Russian operatives. Facebook recently turned their Russian-purchased ads over to the government. These ads were all over the place. They touted Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein. They promoted anti-immigrant sentiment, racial animosity.

Sometimes they even bought ads that took both sides of an issue, like police violence or gun control, just to stir shit up. And at least in Facebook's case, these ads reached about 10 million people in 2016. So a couple questions on this. First, and I know obviously investigators are still looking into this, but how much do we think this mattered in 2016? In a race as close as this one, decided by 80,000 votes for whatever three states, everything matters, right? 10 million is more than 80,000. And so, I mean, it matters in two ways, right?

One, like, is this more decisive than Comey or the votes Jill Stein or Gary Johnson got? Who knows? But it also is, the fact that it happened is incredibly disturbing and should be looked at whether it decided the election or not. Yeah. No, because it's interesting. I've seen that. I've talked about this, this Harvard study that they looked at whether it decided the election or not. Yeah. No, because it's interesting. I've seen that. I've talked about this, this Harvard study

that they looked at like 2 million stories from the election, and they found that, at least on the right, the stories that were shared the most were not even the fake news stories, but stuff from Breitbart, stuff from Infowars, from Gateway Pundit. So these even had a greater effect. But like you said, when you have 10 million views

of these stories i mean i think like you you told me this there was like a list somewhere of like the top shared story i might even oh look at that oh look at that dan is so prepared guys so these are in the last few months of the election these stories all were some of the most viral on facebook first pope francis shocks world endorses trump Trump. Second, WikiLeaks confirms Hillary sent weapons to ISIS. Third, FBI director received millions from Clinton Foundation. Next, ISIS calls for American Muslims to support Hillary. And this is a particularly rich one. Hillary Clinton in 2013, I would like to see people like Trump run for office.

They're honest and can't be bought now Each of these stories received none of them are true by the way, just to be clear Each of them received 2 million engagements on Facebook and each of them received Six times as much as the engagement on Facebook as the New York Times story with the most engagement of that same period of time So people saw these stories like we don't know that these were specific actions from the Russians or with inclusion with the Trump campaign, but people saw this stuff and some number of people believed it. Those are really good fake stories, right? They're really smart. They speak to, they get at something

real about what people were afraid was true or people want to be true. And if you're barely following the news, if you're kind of Just a casual observer of the news like that is those are powerful stories I can I can see why people would believe them and share them it confirms biases But they're just within the realm of the possible or that feel possible and felt within the spirit of what people are talking about That's all so it's like, you know, those being shared, it's hard to really separate out the influence of those kinds of things because it's really adding to, it's a compound effect because this election was like a soup of bullshit. There

were so many different things. There's Trump lying all the time. There's Breitbart. There's Infowars. And then it's people sitting on the toilet rolling through their phone, and it's like, you know, Hillary email server, private house, Hillary gave the FBI director millions of dollars, right? That's what's going on in conservative Facebook feeds, and the same exists on the liberal side, but, you know, anyway. Are you still laughing? Like, the other thing I say about this is, I don't know whether the Trump campaign helped them, but the strategy employed by the Russians needed someone with a sophisticated understanding of how American politics work. Yes, but this is what bothers me and worries me about this. You hear about the Russians spending like $100,000 on Facebook ads,

and even if they're working with Cambridge Analytica, which was the Trump campaign's big data people, that's still like, I'm still not convinced that that is pushing fake news at a scale or that they have some exponentially higher level of sophistication that makes them better at it. And to me, I think what it shows is the problem is if you say something that's just a blatant lie, it gets stuck in someone's head no matter how ridiculous it might seem to us. So if you're pushing around a story that's like Hillary Clinton has a kill list, she killed Vince Foster, that's like an Infowars thing, that shit sticks with you, and it's harder to debunk, especially if you have a distrust of government or politicians generally

or institutions like the media, which is increasingly a problem in our society generally. So this problem to me is going to get worse before it gets better. We've all faced this problem, like Leo Barks during Game of Thrones. That is a fake news story that has now gained traction. I want you all to know... I'm just an angel! Pundit is an angel. Thank you for pointing that out. It's like they've just all been brainwashed, guys.

No, so the question is, we focus a lot on Russia as we should, but how do we prevent the spread of fake news on social networks in the future, whether it's Russia, whether it's another foreign power, or more likely, whether it's groups that are domestic, right? Because this is, how do we prevent the spread of fake news? And how do we stop people from believing fake news, which seems to be at the core of all this like why are we so prone to this well i i think there are a couple things here first we can confuse several of the challenges here can facebook twitter and google stop russian agents from buying ads political ads

on on their platforms yes yes that is that is solvable problem, and they are taking steps to do that. There is a bigger problem, is that no one bought ads for those stories I read. You have two challenges to that. One, the way the algorithms of these platforms work is the more engagement they get, the more they're shown to people, right? And so they're specifically designed to get engagement,

and it reinforces. And then if you like this story, Facebook or Twitter will show you a story like that, right? And so that is an existential challenge with these platforms. And then the third thing is a question of media literacy, right? Like how do we, like fake propaganda has always existed. It's now just supercharged because we have social media putting it in our face all the time. But how do we get American citizens to be able to discern complete, absolute bullshit from objective truth?

Seems like media literacy needs to be taught in our schools at a very early age, but in a big way. You know, whether it needs to be taught in schools, I don't know. Part of this, too, is there's a reason I think this took off more on the right than on the left and and the left has its crazy people saying that the marshal of the supreme court has declared trump unfit and the and the impeachment eagle has been released from the washington dc zoo thereby signaling the start of the trial saying that the eagle is still in the zoo no yeah the impeachment angle the impeachment angle has died. Impeachy. Impeachy. Impeachy.

But anyway. We were at the zoo. We're at the zoo. No, but so Fox News has softened the ground. Breitbart has softened the ground that a whole kind of industry, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, that exist to confirm people's biases, tell them how simple these problems are, how good their side is, and how wrong the other side is. All of this is something that has seeped into the minds of millions and millions and millions of Americans. And by the way, we have a version of that ourselves, of just wanting things to be easy.

And we can blame Facebook and Google, and we can blame larger institutions, but ultimately something that made us vulnerable to this is a brittleness and a shallowness to our politics and to our culture and to the way people consume news as individuals. And a lack of trust in institutions in general. Absolutely, absolutely. But there's a, at some point, some of the blame does need to be laid at the feet of voters and readers who make the choice of what they follow on Facebook, who make a choice about what they read. And also we shouldn't ignore, you know, people make choices about what they choose to believe, right?

That some of this is people believing in fake news, but also it's people choosing fake news to be the thing they want to be true. I agree with that, but I do think we need to... I do want to put a little more onus on the tech platforms and companies to do more. Because I think Google, Facebook, Twitter, they were all founded on this creation myth

that access to information and the ability for people to communicate will have benign consequences. When in reality, people can be pretty shitty. And I think you see that reflected anytime you're a woman who tweets something and some psychopath replies to you 500 times. So I do think, like, I think Twitter could do a hell of a lot better job at cutting down on

harassment generally. I think Facebook could do a better job cracking down the fake news, and I'm glad they have been moved to do that, but the initial response from Mark Zuckerberg was like, I think it's ridiculous to assume that Facebook could somehow influence someone's votes. Allow me to sell you billions of dollars in ads that will convince you to buy whatever we want. And that was just ludicrous. Look, there's a utopian naivete

that underlies a lot of how tech thinks about the future. No, they don't like to think of themselves as media companies. They like to think of themselves as platforms. It is not true. Facebook is one of the largest media companies in the world, and so is Twitter, and guess what? Media companies have editors, and they have standards, and they curate stuff.

That's a responsibility. And they all talk about, and look, they all rightly talk about how difficult it is for them to take on the role of policing what posts get approved and what posts don't. And we should be sympathetic to that challenge. But part of this is so clearly about priorities. The fact that Twitter was able to start introducing 280 characters to some of us, like Tommy. Some would say it was a gift to Tommy. Some would say it was a gift to Tommy.

Some of us are verbose. Some would say Tommy can fit his thoughts in 140 characters. I have a typo on everyone in Maryland. But they're very clearly reluctant to accept

the scale of the problem, that they are always defensive or putting a PR spin on it rather than simply admitting that Twitter, Facebook, that these places have a massive, massive problem. And Mark Zuckerberg traveling around the country eating sandwiches and doing weird live videos where he doesn't know what to do with his fucking hands isn't enough. Okay, before we bring on our guests, here's something that you guys can do.

We are working with Swing Left, which is supporting Democratic candidates in swing districts across the country. You guys have two right here in Illinois. You have Illinois 6, represented by Peter Roskam. And you have Illinois 12, represented by Mike Bust. So you guys can go to swingleft.org slash crookedchicago. And if you donate the money, we'll go to the Democratic Challenger for those candidates.

And you can help them. You can sign up. You can help out. And you can make a difference in 2018. So please do that. When we come back, we will have our guest. Thank you. Please welcome our guest today, Tamar Manasa, the co-founder of MASK, and Jens Ludwig, the director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Hi, guys. Thank you.

Hi, guys. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Hey, everybody. Thank you. Hi, guys. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Hey, everybody. Thank you. Thank you both so much for being here. We wanted to have a conversation about, you know, in the wake of Las Vegas and in all these shootings,

there is, you know, a bunch of people that really feel passionate and moved and want to do something. And then there is sort of the predictable conversation that follows. And one of the favorite talking points recently has been, we can't do anything about gun violence or assault weapons or any of these issues Democrats are talking about because look at Chicago, they have some of the most strict gun laws in the nation, and yet there's an enormous gun violence problem. And so we wanted to try to get to the bottom of what's fact, what's fiction, what people are hearing in the communities, and what action folks would like to see at a federal or a state level. So I was hoping I could start with you, Jens. I mean, your organization is collecting data on what's happening in Chicago every day.

Can you help us understand whether this is a federal problem? Is this a problem with local gun laws? Like, why is there this level of violence and where are the guns coming from? So you're referring to the comment that Sarah Huckabee Sanders made on Monday, saying that she was not going to, this is not the time to talk about the politics of gun control, and yet look at what's going on in the city of Chicago. We know gun control doesn't work. So when you think of careful, data-driven policy analysis, you think of Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

And Donald Trump. So you can understand I'm very reluctant to disagree with her. Yeah. But there's one time I feel like I have to. So, you know, Chicago is the third largest. So I think it's useful to step back and sort of think about what exactly is going on

in the city of Chicago. We're the third largest city in the United States. We're a city of 2.7 million people spread out across something like 257 square miles. We have exactly zero gun stores in the city of Chicago. All of the crime guns that we have in the city of Chicago right now are coming from somewhere else. You know, they're coming from the suburban counties outside of Chicago. They're coming from Vice President Pence's home state of Indiana. Somehow I didn't expect that.

Yeah. Somehow I didn't expect that. And I think that one of the things that is easy to lose sight of here is, you know, in many ways long time ago that, like, what the city of Chicago does with its factories matters a lot for air quality in Gary, Indiana, and vice versa, and so we need national regulation for problems where there's a lot of spillover across jurisdictions, and I think this idea that the city of Chicago, or any individual city or state can regulate their own way out of the problem is really, you know, I'm from Philadelphia. I used to drive back and forth for Thanksgiving to Philadelphia all the time to see my family. You cross four state borders and no one would ever look at what's in your car. This idea that cities and states are islands and can prevent guns from crossing state lines is just a fiction, and there's just a huge loophole in the current system of gun regulations we have in the U.S.

Tamar, you have been working on this issue for a long time, and I think it would be great if you could tell the people here and our listeners to the podcast about your organization and how you got involved in this. Well, I run an organization called MASK, Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killings. It's a couple of MASK moms out there. They're out there. But I got involved. I was telling someone earlier this evening, I'm not an activist. I'm just a mom. That's it. And I only got involved because I am a mom. And I'm a mom who was raising two kids on the south side of Chicago.

And I couldn't lose a kid. I could not even imagine what that's like. So in order to keep me from losing a kid, I had to figure out a way to save them. And I mean, by me being a true mom, I'm a stalker. I am. And so I decided that if I was going to save kids, I would actually have to be out with them and watch them and watch over them. And that's what I did. So we went to a corner, a corner where a woman had just been murdered three days prior to, and we got these hot pink t-shirts and we bought food because everybody loves food, right? And teenagers like to eat a lot.

And so we bought food. We had these pink t-shirts and we just went and sat on this corner. And nobody said, said hey you know give me your gun nobody said pull up your pants nobody said anything we didn't say any of that we waited for them to come to us and for them to open up to us and let us in and only then could we actually really see what was going on and do make any kind of changes that we were ever going to make and so that was three summers ago and since then we haven't had any shootings in that area on that block. Yeah, we're super proud. So I think, you know, when you hear President Trump or Sarah Huckabee Sanders sort of citing

Chicago, I just think, I think there's just obvious racial overtones that we should be honest about, because they're saying, you know, like, they're pointing to African-American and Latino communities and saying there's violence there, and it just makes it all feel so cynical. But I do think, like, one of the problems with this debate is we've allowed cynicism to take hold of it and calcify it a bit. So I'd love to ask both of you, what would you like to see the federal government do, and what would you like people in the audience who want to help?

What could they do to support your efforts or, you know, push for laws at a federal level? Well, on a federal level, it's so funny that we're sitting here having a real conversation about, like, Donald Trump. Like, seriously, we're really going to talk about that? like Donald Trump. Like, seriously, we're really going to talk about that? You know, it's like Yosemite Sam is the president and we're having a serious conversation about this. So when I think about federal government doing anything for us on the south side of Chicago,

I don't necessarily see where local government wants to be too involved in anything that's going to help us, especially in neighborhoods like Englewood and Lawndale and places like that, unless it's three months before election day. That's it. Any other time, not so much. I think what I've learned in my three years of doing what I do is that it has to come, change is going to come from the bottom up. It's not going to be the top down. And so what we have to do as people, we have to know our neighbors. It's really honestly that simple.

You have to know your neighbors. You have to build community. You can't know more people on social media. You're more familiar with people on social media than you are the people who live next door to you. That is a problem for us. That is a problem for us. So once we start creating and cultivating these relationships between neighbors and building community, violence stops. That's what I learned. I learned that when everybody knew everybody, nobody was breaking anybody's houses.

Nobody was shooting at anybody because everybody knew each other. And that's what we have to get back to, that we have to build a stronger sense of community. And that takes care of a lot of the violence. You don't necessarily shoot your neighbors. I mean, I got some neighbors that I want to shoot, but I'm not going to do it. But, yeah, that's how it goes. So I think the change is going to come from us. And then we as the people, we influence the government, the state government, the local

government, the federal government. We do that. But first we have to become the people, a people who will do that. That's what has to happen first. Is there something you'd like to see done on a policy level, either the state or federal level? Yeah, I want to come back to the, to this issue of the flow of guns into the city of Chicago. You know, I think we've gotten to a point where we have nearly 300 million guns in circulation in the United States. And I think it's very easy to look at that and just throw your hands up and give up altogether. and give up altogether. I think, you know, one reason for optimism is when you look at the data on who's using guns in crime, you realize that most of the people who are using guns to shoot other people, to rob other people, get their guns relatively soon before they actually

use the gun against somebody else. And most of the 300 million guns that we have in the United States are in the hands of people like me, middle-aged, middle-class white guys who just have a basement full of guns and never do anything with them. So if you think about the United States as like a ginormous bathtub full of guns, you don't have to worry about the entire bathtub. You just have to worry about essentially the drain, the flow of guns into the hands of, you know, it's mostly like young people who are using the guns against each other. And so if we could, we don't need to get rid of the whole 300 million in order to make a difference. And, you know, I think one of the huge problems that we have now that the federal government has to help cities and states with is the fact that if I, you know, if I go to a gun store, in order to buy a gun, I've got to go through a background check

and fill out a bunch of paperwork. But if I look at the want ads and I, you know, if I drive 10 miles to Indiana, I live on the south side of Chicago, so that in Chicago traffic, that'd be about a two hour drive. And I, I drive down Indiana. I, I get the local paper there. I look in the want ads. I see someone selling guns out of their collection. They can sell me as many guns as they want. I could fill up the trunk of my, of my car with a bunch of Glock nine millimeters, no background check, no paperwork at all. And that is a huge loophole in the current system of federal gun regulation that you could drive a Mack truck through. And we know that that is hugely important for the flow of illegal guns that are coming into Chicago that are being used on the south and west sides of Chicago. And that feels to me like,

from a policy perspective, the number one priority, and it's got to happen at the federal level. How would you go about it? What's the specific change in law you would do there? Is it mandatory background checks? Is it waiting period? Primarily, I think there's some new research that suggests that waiting periods can also be helpful. There are a bunch of people who are using guns in crime who have passing motivation to do it. So if you have a waiting period, that might do some good. But I think the main thing is the background checks. And, you know, I think that it's going to be very hard to do this at the federal level in the foreseeable future.

It goes without saying. But I think one of the things that we've seen some states having good luck with is, I hate to even say the thing I'm about to say, is ballot referendo. You know, what you see in the legislative process is this insanely motivated, but relatively small share of people who belong to organizations like the NRA, who just kill it in the legislative process because they're actually willing to go out on a cold Monday night in the middle of winter and yell at a hearing or whatever it is. But we've seen states like Oregon and Colorado that, you know, wind up voting for the Republican in presidential races. You can see ballot referenda in those states in favor of additional gun regulations that run 10

or 20 percentage points ahead of the Republican vote share in the presidential race which I think is consistent with the idea that large majorities Americans want additional gun regulations they're just not willing to do very much to get there and so what we should be thinking about is ways of kind of neutralizing the insane power of this very motivated minority over the enormous majority that we have. I think more recently, thanks to cell phone video, thanks to activists like Colin Kaepernick, people have become...

I think the broader country, white people, have become much more aware of the problem of police brutality and police violence against largely African Americans that has existed for a long time. Before the show, we were talking upstairs about your relationship with police, and it sounds like it varies sort of precinct by precinct. Do you feel like the police are, the tactics are helping, hurting? Is it case by case? Like, what would you like to see from the police in Chicago? I'd like to see them all give each other a hug. That's what they need. They are, they are a group of very angry people. I'm not saying all of them because, you know, you're not painting anyone with a, you know, broad stroke or anything, but there's not enough sensitivity to the people in the neighborhoods that they actually police. And sitting on a corner for three years, you see a lot from a lawn chair on a corner. And the thing about it, you can, anyone can pretend to be anything for a few days,

maybe even a couple of weeks, but you're not going to be able can pretend to be anything for a few days, maybe even a couple weeks, but you're not going to be able to pretend to be something you're not for an entire summer. It's just not going to happen. So I have seen things that people hear about, and they think it's a lie, because I thought it was a lie. I thought it was crazy when I would hear about, you know, these erroneous, you know, police stops, all this crazy stuff that was going on with the police and people. I thought it was crazy. And I'm like, come on now. The guy, I'm sure he had drugs. I'm sure he had a gun. I'm sure he had a body in a trunk, something. But, you know, like when I got out there and when even not just the young man on the block started

being harassed because we were there, but when our volunteers started being harassed because we were there but when our volunteers started being harassed for being there in the first place I realized we had a much bigger problem than the one we thought we had and what I've seen in the past three years is that people are perfectly capable of policing themselves perfectly capable of it people ask me all the time, how do you get people to not shoot each other in the winter when you're not there? And how do you get people to not shoot each other when you leave at night? I don't live there. I don't live there. I don't convince those people to do anything. They do it because they want a better life for themselves and their children. That's what they want. And so if you

expose them to that and you introduce them to that and you convince them that you can live a better way and you can get a share of this pie and you can live a little tiny sliver of the American dream, they want it. They want it because no one's ever given them that message before. So no, I don't have to tell people don't shoot him, don't shoot her. People die. It's bad. They already know that, so they don't do it because they've been given other options. But I don't know how much longer we're going to be able to sustain that

if you can't give people jobs, if they don't have resources. So we do what we can while we can. One final question before we go. Tamara, what can people here today do to help you and your organization? Is there something they can do to contribute to what you're doing? We need money. We need a lot of money. Can you tell them where to contribute?

We have a website, ontheblock.org. You can find me everywhere, literally anywhere. I'm kind of everywhere. If you Google it, I'm everywhere. We're building community centers and we need all the money we can get. We need volunteers too, smart ones. So yes, that's also what we need. These people are smart. They are, I can tell. They're smart. So like, you know, what you're doing is so brave and impressive. And if this group of people can take some time and some money to help support Tamar and her organization, this community, we'd really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. Tamar and Jens, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're great.

You're great. Thank you so much. I think we have a game to play, Lovett. Yeah, we're going to bring a little Love It or Leave It. Now for a segment we call OK Stop. I love that. Here's how it works. We watch a clip, and as it goes, when it so suits us, we say OK Stop.

Today we're going to watch an interview that Donald Trump gave with a very tough interlocutor, the father of his press secretary, because Donald Trump sat down with Mike Huckabee, Twitter jokester, moral monster. It's a great clip because Donald Trump sometimes says his craziest and most despicable things when he's comfortable. So we'll roll the clip and we'll stop it as we go. Some of the media tried to say that you weren't attentive, but the people on the ground, the ones who were actually in the middle, thought your response was pitch perfect. Is that frustrating to you? Okay, stop.

Your response was pitch perfect. Is that frustrating to you? That's not a question. How did he come up with that? I just want us, you know, look, are we liberal guys? Sure. But we have been tougher on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama than Mike Huckabee or Sean Hannity has ever been on this fucking guy. That's all I wanted to say about that. That wasn't a question. That was a lie

in the form of a statement posed as a question that any objective person could tell you is ridiculous. His response was attacking a bear and tweeting bullshit and golfing. Great from the local officials who actually know, but different from the media? Well, it is, and I will say this. It's fake news. There's nothing else you can say about it. And we weren't treated fairly by the media

because we really did a good job. Okay, stop. They did not do a good job. Today, 90% of people in Puerto Rico have no electricity and 50% have no drinkable water. So they did not do a good job. But John, FEMA did take the step of deleting those statistics from the website. That is true.

They had these beautiful soft towels, very good towels. And there was a crowd of a lot of people. Okay, stop. Paper towels come wrapped in plastic bags. You don't know if they're soft. They were screaming and they were loving everything. And we were, I was having fun. They were having fun. They said, throw them to me. Okay, stop. A couple of things. One, when was the last time that Donald Trump touched a paper towel? One, when was the last time that Donald Trump touched a paper towel?

He is mystified by this quicker picker-up magical machine. Two, they were not having fun. Their homes have been destroyed by a hurricane. But it's like, hey, here comes a paper towel. This is what many people in hurricanes say is what all I need to get back on my feet. It wasn't a fucking Dave and Buster's. It was a shelter. And so I'm doing some of the... Pop a shot.

So the next day they said, oh, it was so disrespectful to the people. It was just a made up thing. And also when they had, when I walked in, the cheering was incredible. You were a rock star. Oh, it was crazy. It was crazy. Okay, stop. That was also not a question. Yes.

If you missed it, he said, you were a rock star. It's the shittiest rock concert in history. It is an ass-kissing with an affliction on the end. It was deafening. They turned down the sound so that you just heard the announcers, Donald Trump.

And, I mean, look. Okay, stop. Just a small thing. But he's complaining about the audio team at his visit to a storm-ravaged community. He's talking about the mic levels. He's like, I'm here to help these people in the middle of a storm. Why didn't they mic the house?

It's fake. In the meantime, I'm here. It's sort of amazing. So I'm here. Okay, stop. It's not about you. How did I ever get here with the horrible, unfair publicity? And I don't mind.

Look, if it's fair, if I do something wrong, treat me badly. But when we're doing good, it should be fair. The media is really the word, I think, one of the greatest of all terms I've come up with is fake, I guess. Okay, stop. of all terms I've come up with is fake, I guess. Okay, stop. What do you even say about that? You do not invent a word for Middle English. Fake.

What should I call this news? What is a word that I could invent? Is it wrong? Is it wrong? Is it make-believe? No, I have it. It's fake. Donnie fucking Shakespeare over there. Fake news.

Is it perhaps over the years, but I've never noticed it. Okay, stop. Perhaps people have said the word fake, but I've never noticed it. Just for all you fact checkers out there. And it's a shame. And they really hurt the country because they take away the spirit of the country. We're doing so well in so many ways.

So I was disappointed with what happened, very disappointed with what happened in Puerto Rico from the standpoint of the media. Okay, stop. That's what disappointed with what happened in Puerto Rico from the standpoint of the media. Okay, stop. That's what he's disappointed about in Puerto Rico. The media. Okay. People of Puerto Rico, they got it. And they really, I mean, you saw the news. That is true if it does not include water or electricity.

In Puerto Rico. For the fact that I went there. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Here's something to do, guys. Go to globalgiving.org and help the people of Puerto Rico because they really need it. And that's okay stuff.

And that's okay stuff. Just wanted to make sure there was some giving. No, there should be. Guys, thank you so much. And before's okay, stop. I just wanted to make sure there was some giving. No, there should be. Guys, thank you so much. And before you go, just one more thing. Go see Headcount outside. This is an organization that we're working with. They can register you to vote tonight on your way out.

They can register your friends to vote. And by the way, if you're already registered to vote, which I hope a lot of you are, what they can do is sign you up for alerts because one of the biggest problems for people who are already registered to vote is they don't know when and where to do it. So they will help you do that.

They'll send you texts to know exactly where and when you should vote. Thank you so much, Chicago. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Chicago.