Tangle - The Sunday Podcast: Isaac and Ari respond to the Zionism piece

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

Isaac and Ari place some bets on the State of the Union, which took place Thursday evening after the podcast was recorded. They also got into some of the interesting results from battleground states on Super Tuesday, Isaac responded to some feedback on Israel and Gaza, Ari can’t prevent new slang from slipping into his vocabulary, and Isaac tries to locate an odor.You can also check out our latest YouTube video where we tried to build the most electable president ever here and our interview with Bill O’Reilly here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. The response to our first-ever Tangle Live event was better than we could have imagined and we're excited to announce we're running it back on Wednesday, April 17th in New York City! We'll be gathering the Tangle community at The Loft at City Winery for a conversation between special guests about the 2024 election moderated by founder Isaac Saul with an audience Q&A afterwards. Choose Seated General Admission tickets or VIP Tickets that include a post show meet- and- greet, Tangle merch, and the best seats in the house. Grab your tickets fast as this show is sure to sell out!Buy your tickets hereOur podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, here with Tangle's managing editor, Ari Weitzman, and today we're going to do a little prop betting, going to gamble

right here on the Tangle podcast, talk about some of these Trumpian candidates who emerged from Super Tuesday and what their impact on the race might be. We've got some news about the House passing a budget, and then we're going to talk most of the show about some responses to the podcast we published last week, the Zionist case for a ceasefire generated an insane response just in volume that we're going to discuss. I think that's going to be a pretty jam-packed episode there. But I think we'll be able to move through pretty efficiently. So how are you feeling so far about the responses you've been getting? appreciate. You know, there was some stuff that I take issue with. Obviously, I think there's a lot of people who are not very good at presenting their arguments in a way that makes it easy to

hear them. Like they just kind of start by insulting me and then make good points that I don't want to hear because I've been insulted. But overwhelmingly, I thought the responses were actually pretty fair and, you know, stuff worth addressing,. But I think it's really complicated. And I think some people made some arguments that sort of flesh that out a little bit. So I'm excited to get into that. Before we do, we're recording this on Thursday. The State of the Union address is happening tonight. And I thought it'd be fun to maybe pull out a little bit of gambling. I guess you could say placing some bets on how the State of the Union address is going to go for Biden based on some of the things people are talking about and expecting. Since we're recording this on Thursday, the State of the Union is going to happen tonight. And then this podcast will go up

on Sunday. So we'll have predictions that go live on Sunday that everybody will have immediate results to so they can figure out whether we were on the money or not, which I thought would be kind of fun. So will you entertain me here for a minute and play along i'll engage this with you yeah sports betting was legalized in vermont a couple months ago so it's been oh really it's been something that i've been able to participate in for the last little bit responsibly of course always bet responsibly yeah we're gonna have to put in one of those uh so many disclaimers yeah all the disclaimers i am a recreational sports gambler, as I think you know. I bet on the NFL.

I think you share. Yeah, you know what? I'm comfortable sharing that. Most people should not gamble. I do not gamble a lot. I bet, you know, $20 on a football game here or there. But I'm a sports junkie. And when you're watching a sports game

that you think you have a good read on and you place a little $20 bet on who might win, it gets really exciting, really quick, gives you a horse in the race. I think it's pretty fun, but I also understand that there's a lot of people who probably need to be really careful. So I'm not endorsing gambling, but I do do it and I gamble responsibly. I'm not endorsing it, but I engage in it and I think it's fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my rule for myself is I put a small amount from a couple stocks that sold way higher than they should have into an account years ago and i just haven't added anything so it's just been that same amount of money ever since well it's gone up it's gone down it's gone

up like but it's just you know it's already out of my mind so whatever happens to it happens i'll tell a very quick gambling story my my most uh memorable story. Better be the one I think it is. Oh, no, it's not that. It's not the one about Frank and the gold bars. I think that one's been discussed. Maybe not on this podcast, but I've mentioned it in Tangle. I did make a bet with somebody who is hard. It's a person who's hard to explain. Someone I know in my personal life who believed after Joe Biden got elected that he was not going to be inaugurated on inauguration day. And he bet me $15,000 in gold bars that he would not be inaugurated because he was believing a lot of the conspiracy theories that I was reporting on and debunking in Tangle that Biden didn't actually win the election. And despite trying to convince

him not to make this bet with me, he insisted. He thought I was being very demeaning. And then I made the bet and then I won and then he actually paid up. So I do have $15,000 of gold hidden in a place I won't mention. But that wasn't the best. That's not the story? That's not the story. The story is that a couple of years ago, FanDuel was doing this. I'll tell this really quickly. They're doing this promotion. You basically put in, if you deposited $2,000 in the FanDuel, they gave you a $2,000 credit. thousand dollars in the FanDuel, they gave you a two thousand dollar credit and then you could gamble both the credit and the deposit. And one of my friends, a few of my friends had made the two thousand dollar deposit and then withdrawn the two thousand dollars back and then just had the two thousand dollar gambling credit. And I was like, oh, my God, this is, you know, it was like

a hack, like FanDuel, like didn't set it up properly. So there was like this hour long period where all these people on the internet figured it out and they were doing it. So I tried to go do my, get my free $2,000 bet. And on the page where you place your bet, you had to toggle this thing that you're like using your free bet from FanDuel and I didn't toggle it. So I made the bet, but I accidentally gambled my actual $2,000 on one bet, which was that Travis Kelsey would catch a touchdown in the playoff game between the Chiefs and the Bills. And so I like panic, like I do not have $2,000 to lose, but I also have this other $2,000 free credit. And so I have to bet that too. So then I bet on the chiefs beating the bills in this playoff game. And so now I'm $4,000 in the hole and I am just like a complete ball of anxiety.

I'm a total wreck. I'm watching the game with all my friends who are watching with their like free bets going on. And the game goes to overtime and Travis Kelsey has not caught a touchdown and the Chiefs are losing in overtime. And then Patrick Mahomes drives down the field and throws a game-winning touchdown to Travis Kelsey. And so I hit the Kelsey bet and the Chiefs winning bet. And I basically win like $8,000.

And so I go, I'm like absolute cloud nine freaking out. I'm totally going nuts. I like go home and I bust into my apartment to tell Phoebe this story about how I just won $4,000 gambling. And she's like, you put $2,000 into a gambling and just loses her shit on me completely. And it's just so upset that I would be so irresponsible with our money. And yeah, so that's my gambling story. But I had my friends on FaceTime. I was like, I'm going to go tell Phoebe and everybody was all pumped for me. And then I ran in and yeah, she was not pumped for me. It turned out. So classic Isaac story, honestly, 25% self defacing, but 75% I did this awesome thing.

Yeah, well, I did. So I was very proud of that. All right. So here's some State of the Union bets. Last year, President Joe Biden spoke for an hour and two minutes. It was actually an hour, one minute and 50 seconds in his State of the Union address. Do you think he goes over that or under that at this year's State of the Union? And we're giving even money to ourselves on over-under here. Yeah, I think, yeah. So I like betting unders just because I think lines tend to move towards overs because people are excited to bet on overs. It's more exciting to watch things go up than hope something doesn't hit a threshold. So I think I like betting against

that trend as a general rule. And in this case, I think I would smash the under for sure. I don't have a reason to go against that trend. I have reasons to support it. I think Biden's going to want to get in and out. And I think we've seen in press conferences that he's had, when he's on message and he's succinct, he looks great. And then when he goes off script and he riffs a bit, like for the famous gaffe, when he confused the presidents of Egypt and Mexico, I think you don't get those sort of opportunities for states of the union. You give the address and then you leave so i'm i'm on the under what do you think i i think your reasoning is sound

and i think your assumptions are sound and i think for all those reasons he's gonna go over i i think i think i think he wants to prove that he's not like this feeble dude who can only do 45 minutes on the mic. And he could just come out and do like an hour 45 banger where it's just like Trump style soju. He's just riffing and talking nonstop. I think that's unlikely, but I think he's going to go over an hour. I think he'll go longer than he went last year as a total political move, just because he's very cognizant of how people are feeling and thinking about him right now. And this is like a way to kind of undercut the age thing. I don't know whether that's smart or not, but that's my instinct is that they know. And so they probably gave him a script that's like an hour and a speech that's like an

hour and 10 hour and 15 minutes long. That's where I think I see your point, but I feel like they're going to give him a speech that's 40 or 45 minutes long and he'll stretch it to 55. I can't wait to see. This is a good one. All right. Mentions Donald Trump in the State of the Union speech, yes or no? Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. I think he's running against Trump. By name? Yes. I get where you're going to go next. I think Trump loves when his name appears in any sort of address or written piece. When he's in the news, he's happy. Biden likes to run as somebody who's more of a uniter.

He tends to not talk about Trump. He tends to refer to him obliquely. But I think he's going to be in campaign mode, and I think he's going to be running against him. So I think he'll drop the name. God, this is tough. I think that he is not going to. I think that he's a man of tradition and norms. I think it would be unusual for someone even in campaign season to call out their political opponent by name. There's been a lot of reporting that he's allegedly going to start going for the jugular with Trump and be more aggressive. And I think that's, I mean, I guess this is why this is such

a good question because it really is kind of a coin flip. But all right, we're split on the first two. I'm saying no, I think I think there's I don't want to say there's no chance, but I think there's less than a 50 percent chance for sure. I would be pretty surprised if he mentions Trump by name. I think he'll say something to the effect of, you know, we have leaders in Congress or, you know, we have people in the Republican Party who want to let Putin run wild on Europe or whatever. It'll be about NATO or something, you know, or maybe he's like calls out Trump to take the border deal that the Senate negotiators came to. But yeah, I'm saying no on

that. Okay. So, so far we're split, but this time i feel like you should go first for the next two since i went first on the last two the next one we have written here is over under mentions of russia two and a half so what do you think i think over but it's tight if he's gonna say if he's gonna bring up russia which i think he's definitely gonna do because he's gonna bring up russia which i think he's definitely gonna do because he's gonna bring up ukraine he's gonna you know make a plea for funding ukraine i think he's gonna for sure bring up putin and i think in the process of that he'll have to say something like, you know, Russia's running out of whatever. I'm looking up his 2023 State of the Union as I say this, and there's zero mentions of Russia. But he says Putin's name four times in the 2023 State of the Union.

That makes me feel bad about my bet, but I'm not backing out. So I was actually, before you even share that, that makes me feel good because I was already on the under here, I thought. So we're going to be going three for three, splitting our opinions. The reason why is I think I'll lean into this idea of him as a uniter with the exception of the Trump reference. I think he's going to mention Ukraine more. I think he'll maybe mention Taiwan, and he might mention Putin and Xi, but I don't think he's going to say Russia and or China as much. The way where I feel like you win this bet is by him doing a little riff by saying, we need to support our allies in Ukraine. They're pushing against this despot and Putin who's leading Russia. He thinks he owns Russia,

that Russia can do whatever he wants. He'll just spin and get like three or four Russians in a sentence. That's where I'd be nervous. But I think I'm going to stick on the under. I could see him coming up with one, maybe two Russia's, but yeah, that makes sense to stick on the under. I could see him coming up with one, maybe two rushes, but yeah, that makes sense to me, the Putin references. I could see that repeating. I feel bad about my bet, but that's sort of what I'm betting on is like some kind of rhetorical flourish there

where he just sort of, he drops a few rushes right in a row. All right, you want to read this next one? Yeah, the next one's a little involved, but we can say it pretty simply. So, four options for most mentions in this speech. So, the odds on favorite that we're getting is the word democracy, and these are all just going to be terms. So, democracy is the favorite, the 5 out of 6, or minus 120 in betting odds. The next most likely is January 6th, which is on 7 over 2, so plus 350. Then MAGA, which is next up with 4 out of 1, so plus 400. Then Putin at plus 500. plus 400, then Putin at plus 500. So to say it again, really simply, what do you think will be mentioned the most? Democracy is the front runner, but less money on the return for that, if we were doing this hypothetically. J6, which is the next most likely, MAGA, then Putin. Do you think any

of those are off? Or I guess you would say that based on where you think the smart bet would be. Where did you get these odds from? I pulled it from maybe a less than reputable site. But I don't know. It's called gambling911.com. Their tagline is celebrating 25 years online. I love that. That is nice.

Okay. I mean, of these four, I think democracy is a slam dunk. I would definitely put all my money there. Do you want to, I just looked this up. How many times do you think he said democracy in the 2023 state of the union? I mean, this is like over 10. You're very close. It was nine. Exactly. But he said he had like 15 iterations saying like democratic values or whatever. But the word explicitly democracy, he used nine times. Putin, democracy is definitely the one that would win. I would say he might say abortion or economy more times in the State of the Union. I would say like those I would put on maybe, maybe not abortion, but the economy, I would say on even odds-ish with democracies. He's got to talk a lot about the, I mean, he's going to try and sell binomics. In the 2023 State of the Union, he said the economy six times and he had like 12 different iterations. He said like economics or my economic plan a total of 12 times. So pretty

similar ratio. I would say economy would be the only one up there with democracy in terms of likelihood that he's going to... I get that. I think that's a decent theory. I mean, for me, I think democracy is even undervalued here. If I'm being given minus 120 or five out of six on this, I think that's close to even money and I take it. It's close enough. I think that's the best bet. I would definitely go with that. I don't think anything's undervalued. But I do, I think I disagree a little bit about economy. Your reasoning, again, makes sense. I think there's more good news with the economy this year than there was by this time last year, for sure. But I also think the

polling's kind of obvious for him. And if he's at all in campaign mode, you know that people aren't responding to him talking about the economy very well. So you just don't do it as much. I think it's just that simple. Yeah, that's fair. All right. Well, State of the Union's happening tonight. By the time people listen to this, they'll be able to go. Yeah, they will. They'll be able to go see what actually took place. We'll revisit this next week and see how we split and definitely need to revisit what the most used word was in the state of the union. That'll be right back after this quick commercial break. I think the timing of this is interesting.

We just had Super Tuesday. It's clear that we're officially down to Biden and Trump now. Finally, we can stop pretending Nikki Haley had a chance. Dean Phillips even canned his campaign, the Marianne Williamson suspended and then unsuspended her campaign, which I don't think I've ever seen in politics before. That was incredible. I, Marianne Williamson seems like a really nice person. I don't know anything that might not be sure there could be like tons of stories about her being, you know, really mean. And I feel like maybe I vaguely remember she was like, did something weird with her staff or something. I interviewed her. I thought she was really kind and she was super generous with her time

and off camera when she wasn't politicking, she was like inquisitive and curious and asked me a bunch of questions about myself and did the kinds of things people do that make you feel seen and make people seem really kind. I do not think she's a good presidential candidate. I think she should stop running for president. And I could not believe, we didn't really talk about this, but yeah, she unsuspended her campaign with just like the most bizarre video where she was just like, I'm back. And there was no reason for her to come back. And then now it's just, it's over again. I don't even know if she's resuspended or not, but, you know, her and Dean Phillips

didn't win like a single delegate. That one random guy in America's American Samoa won one or six or whatever. Anyway, what we got this week was some clarity about the presidential election. And I think some interesting stuff to chew on for some of the down ballot races. And you suggested maybe we talk about this, which I thought was right, which is that there's a few candidates who have popped up, specifically two, I think, that are worth talking about, that I think could have a pretty outsized impact on the presidential election, which is Carrie Lake in Arizona, who's now head-to-head against Ruben Gallego, the Democrat, and Mark Robinson

in North Carolina, who's this pastor that everybody is going to hear so much about in the coming months because he is just the wellspring of opposition research for Democrats. I mean, you know, most politicians, once they get to a point where they're running for governor, like Mark Robinson is, they've been around long enough that like, it's easy for people to dig stuff up, but this guy's a pastor. So it's like his public speaking record is almost even more extensive than a politician's because he's just giving sermons every week for like the last 10 years and posting stuff publicly on his Facebook page. And, um, he seems like he's a little bit nutty, I have to say. I don't want to, you know, I honestly have not dug very deep into what his actual political, I would

say, solutions are. And he very well may have some good ideas from a policy perspective, but he said some insane stuff that is going to be really damaging to him in a general election. And I think Democrats are going to use this as leverage pretty well to flip some voters in Arizona and North Carolina. I think there's a decent chance it's going to work. Well, let's talk about Robinson first before we get to Kerry Lake in Arizona. So, Mark Robinson, that candidate in North Carolina, 100% agree, he's going to be somebody we hear a lot more about between now and November. And since North Carolina is one of those big swing states in this election, we are really going to hear more than we would if he were in West Virginia or Florida or Washington or wherever.

So the fact that we know from the midterms and in 2020 that linking these really firebrand candidates to Trump can have an impact on turnout, like we saw in Pennsylvania with Doug Mastriano, who ran for governor in Pennsylvania. He was somebody who was at the Capitol on January 6th. He was somebody who wanted to almost eliminate the Department of Education in the state of Pennsylvania, and who was very staunchly against abortion, drove a lot of Democratic turnout, and was one of the reasons. We can debate how much of an effect he had, but and was one of the reasons, we can debate how much of an effect he had, but was certainly one of the reasons why that state went so blue that year. That's going

to be the analogy in North Carolina, and you're going to hear a lot about Robinson. One of the things that he said was that he absolutely wants to go back to a time when women couldn't vote, Absolutely wants to go back to a time when women couldn't vote, which was insane that that's still up. I feel weird saying this next phrase, but to be fair and in his defense, what he was saying was, I would like to go back to that time period because that's when Republicans were making statements that were moving the conversation because the Republicans were the party at that time that was coming out in favor of women's suffrage. So that's a bit of a finer point, which he made in one of the worst possible ways. I also don't think it matters at all what the Republican Party was doing 170 years ago. Like, who cares? And if your point is that we want the Republican Party to be progressive again, is that the point he's making? That's a weird way to make it. And it's also a sound clip that's going to be hammered over and over again in connection to several others that are similarly bad. Yeah. I mean, I believe he was responding to a question

where somebody asked something like, which time period would you rather go back to? Oh, right, making America great again, great like we were in the 1870s. Yeah, yeah. But he said it in a way, I have to say, like, you're right about the context, but the way he says it in the video,

there was sort of like, I would love to go back to a time when women couldn't vote. Because, like, it's just like, oh, like, did you? I watched it and I was like, I don't know. That seemed like maybe he just independent of everything feels this way. independent of everything feels this way. But again, regardless of what the truth is there, that will be in commercials that are going to get blanketed across North Carolina on television. So that's A. B, he's very religious. He's a pastor. So he's an abortion restrictionist. He's like super pro-life. And I don't know that North Carolina as a state is there anymore. I'll be very curious what the polling says in the next few months on this issue now that we're kind of in this post-Roe world. strength going into this election is on the abortion issue. They are running on a more moderate platform than a lot of conservatives are. And they're more aligned with the American public

who, you know, want abortion, tend to want abortion to be accessible and rare, like the classic Clinton position. And, you know, that to me is going to be a huge, huge problem for Republicans in this election. And the one-two punch of this guy having a video where he says we should go back to a time when women couldn't vote and also being extremely staunchly pro-life, it is very bad for him. I suspect he's probably going to lose this election. The question is going to be whether people punch a ticket for Biden. You know, if they just like see this kind of stuff and are so pissed, they just hit that vote for a Democratic, you know, full slate or they kind of split their ticket and maybe they vote Trump or they vote third party and they vote for this guy or vote for the Democrat running against this guy. I don't know exactly how that's going to

go, but I definitely think he's going to be a weight on the Republican party in North Carolina, including Trump. And there's a third punch here too, as well, which is he's promoted some anti-Semitic conspiracy theories saying that Jewish people are trying to steal money from black people and he is running against the Jewish candidate. That's going to be weird. Yeah, that's going to be, uh, yeah. What's the guy? I know it's Stein. What's his first name? Josh Stein. Yeah. He's got a classically Jewish name too, which, first name? Josh Stein. Yeah. He's got a classically Jewish name too, which, you know, that's gonna, the dichotomy will be pretty clear there. There's so many opportunities for Robinson to say something problematic. And then the other one is Kerry Lake, who now I think is worth talking

about. Yeah. Arizona is, I think, a swing state. It's been really tight in past presidential elections. It's going to be really tight in this one. Before Kyrsten Sinema dropped out, this was a really messy election. And now, in this head-to-head with Gallego and Lake, I think there was a poll recently that showed Ruben Gallego was leading her by like 10 points or something. It didn't seem close. And again, this is in a state that I think Republicans could very easily flip and Trump could very easily flip. Carrie Lake is, however you feel about her, she is a fascinating person. Her story is really interesting. She was like, grew up Catholic, was a registered Democrat, switched to being an independent, then switched back to a Republican.

And up until like 2015 was saying that, was sort of identifying as a Buddhist. And then in 2022 started saying she was an evangelical Christian and now is like championing this kind of far right or right. It doesn't have to be far right. She's championing like the new Trumpism, the right wing Trumpism in America. And, you know, this is a woman who, when she left the democratic party, she said she left over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. She was like a Kerry Obama voter who criticized them and Obama for dragging us into those wars or for staying in those wars. And it's just a very, she has a very bizarre history. I think she's super hard to pin down as a person and a candidate. Her views seem to change

constantly. Regardless of where her political positions are, I think what is not deniable is that she has attracted a ton of support from really far-right extremists who are all about her campaign. And she's running in Arizona on a platform where she's saying, you know, And she's running in Arizona on a platform where she's saying, you know, abortion's the ultimate sin. She's very supportive of the fact Roe v. Wade fell. She's backtracked a little bit on some of those positions. But, you know, I think most recently she's been saying she opposes Arizona's total abortion ban. It's very, very weird to me to try and understand, very difficult for me, I should say, to try and understand where she lands

politically right now and what her platform is that she's going to run, except that the 2020 election was stolen, which she still seems to believe. But she does not look like she's in a good position to win this race right now, which is, again, really bad news for Trump and Republicans if they want to win the 2024 election. something I kind of want to put a pin in. Remind me to come back to that if I don't remember. It's the long shadow of Kyrsten Sinema on this election I think is bigger than people realize. But sticking with Lake here for a second, you got to tip your cap to the staying power in the right-wing media sphere of a person who's claimed to fame so far as losing one election. She's never held office. She's been a local news anchor for her career for the most part. And she has made her bones on disputing the 2020 election and then disputing her own 2022 loss.

That's kind of all she's done. And if you know anything about Carrie Lake, that's probably what you know. Like you said, she's not one-dimensional. She's more complex than that. she's not one-dimensional. She's more complex than that. But in terms of her image, what her brand is, that's pretty much the brand. There's more to it. She has stances on abortion. She has different complicated stances economically and with foreign policy. But if you are thinking about who you're going to vote for in the fall and you flatten the reasoning for your votes down to two or three issues, election denialism is going to be one of them. And I know that we have talked before about how there are real cases of voter fraud and there's claims of election fraud, but we haven't found any real actual election fraud that has spoiled any election in the past

couple of years. And she's insisting that we have. So I think it's fair to say this is something that will drag her down. And it's fair to say that it's something that's going to be affecting the race in Arizona. Basically every election denier, quote unquote, whatever you want to call him. Every person who ran on the idea that the 2020 election was stolen in the 2022 midterms got crushed. And the fact that she's still on this, I mean, maybe, you know, it's like the debate I had with Bill O'Reilly about Trump, like maybe this is a sincerely held belief. And if she believes it, she believes it. But my sneaking suspicion is that she believes this is like a good thing politically for her to harp on. And I think it's such a bad read of the room. And I think the polling reflects that. I think the results reflect that. You know,

Trump could win the election without Arizona and North Carolina, you know, if he cracks Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin, whatever, obviously. But if Biden wins Arizona and North Carolina, I think there's a pretty good, especially if he wins North Carolina, I think there's a pretty good chance that he's going to win the 2024 election. And it matters. It really matters who these other candidates are that are going to be in these races because they're all going to get tied to the top of the ticket. And, you know, this is like, this is the stuff that Mitch McConnell has been warning the party about. He's been hammering this, that they can't keep putting these people up and thinking they're going to pick up seats. And they just do it. They just keep doing it. And, you know, it's not helping them.

And maybe it's just where the party is. And maybe it's where they're, you know, the Republican base is voters. But I think there is a top down effect here where Trump and the people Trump is empowering are endorsing a certain specific kind of candidate that tries to do the Trump thing, but can't do it as good as Trump and can't reach the middle the same way Trump can reach people in the middle. And they just lose and they they're just, yeah. And it keeps happening over and over again. Um, and you know, I think these are two examples of, I would put good money on the fact that neither Lake nor Robinson win their, their races. I think that's smart. Yeah. And I don't know how, I don't know how, how badly they drag down the top of the ticket or impact the general, but I think, you know, Republicans could have recruited a moderate

conservative to run in Arizona and won easily in the Senate race. They could have done the same. They would have won the general election. The general. Totally. Yeah. And, you know, same with the gubernatorial race in North Carolina. I think there's plenty, there's enough Republicans in North Carolina to win that race with somebody who's not Mark Robinson, but they have Mark Robinson. So that's what they're dealing with now. And that's kind of the problem that they're running into in these lean red or purple states is that the candidates that are winning the primaries are the ones that aren't best suited to win general elections. It's a classic dilemma we've talked about in the newsletter before, that sometimes the best way to win the primary is not the best way to win

the general election. And for Carrie Lake, if it is a sincerely held belief, I don't know. I don't really know if it matters, but I think it's something that could be lucrative for her brand, but it's not something that's going to sell in Arizona. It didn't sell in 2022, and it seems like it's selling worse now. All right. I want to get into some of this feedback to the piece on the ceasefire. So I'm going to pivot here a little bit. For people who didn't listen to last week's podcast, some of this might come a little bit out of left field, but I think we'll try and contextualize it as much as possible. Might be worth going to listen to that right now anyway. We published this piece in the newsletter. We made it public. We put an article up. I read a version of it on the podcast, basically making the case for a ceasefire in Gaza from a quote

unquote Zionist perspective. as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Doing these feedback pieces is always interesting because it sort of makes it seem like I'm the most hated man in America when we go through and I publish all these responses. the reality is I would say from reading through all these answers and you and I went through literally every single email that came in and every email that people wrote to us about this

piece got read by one of us at the same time I would say it's probably pretty safe to say that that the majority of them were positive. Most people who wrote in came with a level of gratitude and thanks, and maybe a quarter of them were really critical. That's just ballparking what I saw. I want to share some of the more critical responses and respond to a couple of them. We're going to do this again in the newsletter. By the time you guys hear this, this newsletter will be published. It'll be members only. You'll have to subscribe if you're not yet a subscriber to read the whole thing. I encourage you to do that.

But I do want to just share some of these pieces of feedback and also respond to a few of them. As one last little bit of throat clearing and background, we pick these pieces based on what's representative of the pile. So I try to pull out stuff that I see repeatedly. And I also try and pull out ones that I think are really unique or sort of fresh responses in a way that I didn't get or see from anywhere else. So it's sort of a combo of those things. Any other setting of the table we should do? I think that I'll say there are times when people may have made an argument better, but the things that get in are usually when they've made them a little bit more

civilly. So like you said at the top of the show, there will be times when you'll be getting an email from somebody where they come out really, really hot immediately and they start with some personal insult. They'll have a point, but it gets buried in the presentation. So the best way to get an argument highlighted in these pieces, and generally the best way to get an argument heard, is to remember that you're talking to a person on the other side and try to give them your point in a way that they can hear it. And I think that's true for the pieces we publish especially because we are sharing these pieces for an audience and we want the readership to hear arguments that they're going to be able to hear as well. So a lot of the times that somebody was sent in with a good point, but they wrapped it in

not offensive, but aggressive language, we don't really want to highlight those for the readership because it's going to be counterproductive to the point you're making. So even if it's something we can get through on our end to eventually dig through and find the point after like sort of diffusing the bomb that it's wrapped in, we don't want to ask readers to do that. So that's why you're going to see things that are kind of civil. And if you want to get pieces in that are going to be highlighted in these feedback pieces, be civil as well. Clark from Texas wrote in with something that I think was probably the most common thing that got responded to. And it was a sentence that I wrote pretty much smack dab in the middle of the piece. The sentence I wrote said,

the Gazan people did not choose this. They're being subjected to it by the middle of the piece. The sentence I wrote said, the Gazan people did not choose this. They are being subjected to it by the choices of the Israeli government. Clark said, it is true that the Israeli government has inflicted horrible damage to the Gazan people. However, it is the quote unquote leaders of the Gazan people who in the final analysis instigated this conflict. Your statement sounds like you believe the Israeli government is ultimately at fault. I respectfully disagree. I got a comment like this

in very, very different terms from many different people, but all were effectively making the point that Clark made here. I wish I could have this sentence back. I say this in the piece from Friday. Every time, most people have the experience where you have an argument or you're exchanging words with somebody in a not friendly way. And then two hours later, you're like, oh, I wish I said that to them. This point just comes to you out of the dark that is a total haymaker and you feel like, dang,

like, I really wish I thought to say that. I felt that way when I read this feedback and when I saw all the different feedback coming in about this. And it's really simple because I'm happy to concede the point, which is that I would just say the Gazan people did not choose this. They're being subjected to it by the choices of the Israeli government and Hamas. And that's it. And the reason I concede that point would change is that I agree that Hamas is responsible for mismanaging Gaza, for neglecting their own people, for ruling in authoritarian and despotic ways that has been terrible for the Gazan people. despotic ways that has been terrible for the Gazan people. And I agree that they did their attack on October 7th expressly knowing that Israel was going to respond and wanting them to respond in a way similar to how they have. Maybe they didn't want all this, but they definitely

wanted a response or else they wouldn't have done it. They didn't do it thinking they were going to win a war. They did it because they wanted to inflict harm and they wanted to cause chaos, to terrorize. So one core element of my position and the argument that I'm making is that this is all relevant and was a good reason to blame Hamas in the days after the attack. I totally agree with that. But the argument loses its potency the longer Israel's incursion goes on and the less productive that incursion seems. So maybe in the first few days, that's a really strong point. To me, five months later, with the amount of death and destruction we've seen, it's clear who has the power and the control and their hand on the steering wheel, and it's Israel. So they have a choice to make about what to do next. And I totally agree that the Gazan people are being subjected to the choices

of the Israeli government and Hamas. And I wish I had included that little qualifier at the end of the sentence. But just, you know, keep in mind, again, that the Gazan people have not chosen Hamas in the way a lot of people say they have. There was an election. I know there was an election. It was almost 20 years ago. Most of the people who live in Gaza today were not old enough to vote in that election, or they weren't even born yet, okay? And Hamas won that election by a razor's edge in a very divided country and basically had to conduct a violent takeover in order to grasp the power they wanted, and they haven't held an election since.

On top of all of that, you know, and I'm going to say this in the piece on Friday, the logic that the Gazan people are responsible for the decisions Hamas makes is exactly the same logic that people like Osama bin Laden used to justify 9-11 in the United States. It's that the American government is doing these awful things all across the world. And so we're going to punish the American people. Nobody would buy that. Everyone who voted for George Bush is not culpable in the Iraq war. Everybody in the United States understands that.

Similarly, the people who voted for Hamas in Gaza are not responsible for everything Hamas does. That doesn't mean they don't have agency. It doesn't mean they don't have any responsibility. It doesn't mean that it isn't abhorrent to see them celebrating, you know, Israeli women being dragged through the streets on October 7th. I agree with all of that. But it's a similar logic, and it's a really slippery slope.

So that's my response and my position there. I think we've also gotten a couple emails from people saying they are culpable because they haven't overthrown Hermas, and that's pretty similar, I think, to your point about Bin Laden. I don't think that can be your barometer for responsibility. There are people who are kind of between a rock and a hard place to begin with, and you're saying, well, the Gazans didn't overthrow their government, so whatever happens to them they've earned, I think is pretty,

I don't think that stands up to scrutiny. And I do want to talk a little bit about the original point about this sentence, because I think it might be useful to talk about the way editing can change things as we write. So the sentence that was originally written was something closer to, quote, the Gaza people did not choose this. They are being subjected to it. Full stop. The reason why that was changed is that we want to make sure we are introducing active language when possible. Having active language makes you think, it makes you say what the causes and effects are, who the subjects are, who the actors are, and who's doing what. And if you say they're

being subjected to it, it's an incomplete thought. You aren't finishing the thought. And adding the actor as being the Israeli government might be the most primary one, but it is, like you said, something that does leave out the timeline. So I do think that your response makes sense, but I want to clarify where this position comes from. And I think it's a good thing that introducing active language produces this sort of back and forth like you have with the reader here, because it makes you argue over who is at fault. If we don't do that, then this conversation never happens. If we don't say they're being subjected to it by whom, then we just leave the thought incomplete and we don't get to have a dialogue about responsibility.

And I think that's where we have a lot of growth is when we actually have those discussions. And I think that's part of the reason why it's important to try to make sure we're asking ourselves questions about active language, avoiding passivity when we're writing. Okay. I'm not going to respond to this piece of feedback, but I just want to read it because I thought it was well-communicated airing of differences, and it came from somebody living in Israel. Ross, who is a reader from Israel, wrote in and said, I'm emotionally drained by this war and what it has wrought upon society. I am an Israeli, and by what it has wrought upon the Palestinians. In fact, I don't have the emotional energy to give

you a full response. Still, I felt it important to point out to you some of the weaknesses that I find in your argument. I will try to respond rationally and in measured terms. Number one, there are many reports that behind the scenes, Sunni Arab regimes are in fact rooting for Israel to destroy Hamas. If Israel does not route Hamas, the Abraham Accords could actually be weakened, which many suggest was a major goal of Hamas. These accords are grounded in Israel's position as a counter to Iranian hegemony. If Israel does not demonstrate its ability to defeat Iran's brutal proxies, this could undermine all of the regional cooperation and progress that these accords have fostered. It is not at all clear that a ceasefire serves regional peace unless you think that capitulation to Iran's

vicious and extremist regime is the equivalent of peace. Number two, you state that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are still firing rockets into Israel and cited December 27th article that was updated on January 2nd. In fact, the number of rockets fired out of Gaza into Israel decreases every day that the war continues. 1,279 rockets were fired from Gaza on October 21st to November 3rd. 258 were fired December 16th to 29th, 160 December 30th to January 12th, and 21 from February 10th to 23rd. Even on December 27th and January 2nd, the article you cite doesn't serve your point, and it certainly doesn't two months later. In fact, the war seems to be diminishing rocket fire in a dramatic way. Number three, you mentioned that a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine will require at In fact, the war seems to be diminishing rocket fire in a dramatic way.

Number three, you mentioned that a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine will require at minimum what it took for the Japanese and the Americans to make peace. Japanese-U.S. post-World War II relations happened on the backdrop of two atomic bombs. Does that example really serve your point? One could easily argue that the Japanese-American precedent would indicate that a crushing defeat to Hamas might be necessary as a prerequisite to rebuilding and peace. To be sure, I am not, for a minute, suggesting that Israel do anything even close to what the U.S. did to Japan, but you can't bring up this example and use it here when its lessons so easily lead one to a conclusion that contradict your thesis. Isaac, I don't have answers or a clear way forward, but you have not convinced me that you do either. With sincere, deep prayers

for better times, Ross. A good email, I'd say. And, you know, again, I don't think totally undermines, from my view, doesn't do enough to kind of undermine my position that a first step here is a ceasefire. I think maybe the best argument is the degradation of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. If like you're making the case that you want Israel to be safer and that's it, Israelis to be safer, there's fewer rockets being fired. A great point about, you know, U.S.-Japanese relations, A great point about, you know, U.S.-Japanese relations. There are other examples. I mean, I think maybe a better one probably is like, you know, Ireland and England. And I mean, there's hundreds of examples throughout history, but I respect the criticism here.

I thought it was very well communicated. I want to just let it stand on its own and balance some of my arguments and own writing, and I don't feel the need to try and undermine all of it. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. quick commercial break. There was a bit of feedback from a reader named Dina in Philadelphia who did something that I thought was very Tangle-esque. She forced me to respond in the newsletter, which I'm going to do, and I want to respond here because I think what she did was really clever. She said, you were freaking out about Israel's expected response even before Israel responded. You were calling for a ceasefire with the same claim you repeated here, that Israel had

done enough damage and degraded Hamas's capabilities enough before Israel even knew the extent of Hamas's tunnel infrastructure, which turned out to be many times greater than anticipated. Do you see where I'm going with this? You started with a conclusion based on emotion coming from a good place, a deep wellspring of compassion and empathy for the suffering of our fellow humans, and I commend you for it. But if you start with a conclusion and reason your way backward, your argument will often end up riddled with flaws and logical fallacies. So I'm going to challenge you. My challenge is for you to test your assumptions by making an argument for the opposite. Can you make the case for why a permanent ceasefire would actually make Israelis and Palestinians less safe and further destabilize the region? Can you find a problem with why Israel should be skeptical of international opinion?

Can you find two strong reasons that you would find convincing to suspect the casualty numbers aren't quite what they seem? Can you find several reasons, again, that you would find convincing why the comparison to Ukraine is deeply, deeply flawed? Can you find a different actor, other than Israel and even Hamas, to blame for the inability of the Palestinians to find refuge and humanitarian relief? An actor that has not been getting any attention for its negligence and even recalcitrance. Can you also test your assumption that a decisive victory over a radical foe does not lead to the death of the idea that animated that foe. These are all great questions. I'm going to respond quickly to some and maybe more at length than others. And Ari, I'd be interested if you have any thoughts here. The ones I want to respond quickly to, can you find strong reasons that you would find convincing

you suspect the casualty numbers aren't quite what they seem? Of course. First of all, they're being reported by Hamas, who obviously benefits politically the higher the numbers go up. They are not in any way segregated based on, you know, who's done the killing or who's being killed. So Hamas is firing Palestinian Islamic Jihad or firing rockets from inside Gaza that are often landing randomly throughout the region.

And I'm sure that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have killed Gazans. In fact, we know they have. Maybe they've killed hundreds, maybe they've killed thousands. We don't actually know the answer to that question. And there's an obvious question of how many combatants or civilians are being killed. I think there's plenty of reasons to say that just saying 30,000 people have died in Gaza, have been killed in Gaza, does not tell us enough to make certain moral distinctions. I have some responses to all that, but you're asking me to make the counter-argument to my points that I've already made. That would be a couple of them. Why should Israel be skeptical of international opinion? Because Israel is treated differently

than every other country on the planet. That I concede. I will scream that from the rooftops. I think the way that the United Nations and other global government agencies treats Israel is disturbing because I don't think Israel is uniquely immoral or bad as a country. And I think they get treated in ways that sort of perpetuate the idea that they are, you know, from a moral Western democratic values lens. values, lens, what China does is in many ways much worse than what Israel does. Same with Russia, whatever. The country's all through Western Africa, but we don't hear about them in the same way we hear about Israel. So yes, I can find a problem with that. Can you find several reasons, again, that you would find convincing while the comparison to Ukraine is deeply, deeply flawed? Yeah, for sure. Ukrainians are evacuating. They're leaving the country. So most of the people who are staying behind are in the fight. Ukraine is a huge landmass. So the war is happening in concentrated areas and there are safe places

for people to go. Hamas is, you know, infamously using civilian infrastructure to fight out of. The Ukrainian army is not doing that, so fewer civilians are going to die. Yes, for sure. Can you find a different actor other than Israel and even Hamas to blame for the inability of the Palestinians to find refuge and humanitarian relief? Yes, I can. Egypt seems to be the one that you're scratching at. I've written and referenced them before. I think there's sort of two sides to it, in my opinion. One is, of course, Egypt should take in refugees and open humanitarian quarters and do all these things.

Also, Egypt has a really good reason for not doing that, which is that they believe in the Palestinian liberation movement and the Palestinian cause, and they're worried that if Palestinians leave Gaza, Israel will prevent them from ever coming back, which, by the way, I think is a legitimate fear for them to have. So, I think Egypt could do more. I think the fact that Egypt doesn't let Palestinians in is in part because of that. I think it's also because Egypt has, in many effective ways, sort of killed Islamic extremism in its own country, and it worries about what happens if they let in people from Gaza, where a lot of Islamic extremism has thrived. So I think that's part of it. But yeah, absolutely. Test assumption that a decisive victory over a radical foe does not lead to the death of the idea that animated that foe. That's a harder one. I guess I could test it. I struggle to think of a political movement that was wiped

out militarily only. I think most powerful political movements that have ended or are in ruinous condition have gotten there not just with military, but with political victories along the way and sort of political first-minded thinking. Again, overcoming Islamic extremism in a country like Egypt is a great example. So I'm happy to test that assumption. I'd be curious what your answer is that you're scratching out there. And then the big one, can you make the case for why a permanent ceasefire would actually make Israelis and Palestinians less safe and further destabilize the region? I appreciate this exercise a lot. I think that if I were to make the case for why a permanent ceasefire would make Israelis

and Palestinians less safe, I could do it pretty easily. I think, well, first of all, just be clear. I just want to clarify, I did not call for a permanent ceasefire, but I would love to see one. I didn't call for that because I think the dynamics of that are almost a little too complicated to get a deal done, actually. But making this argument on the grounds that I did call for a permanent ceasefire, I think if Israel were to stop now, there is a chance that Hamas regroups, that it regains its numbers, that it can easily recruit because of the destruction in Gaza, and it does what it says

it's going to do. It coordinates more and more attacks over and over. Israel ends up in this really long, low-grade war with Hamas. They're never safe. They can never rest. I think for Palestinians, if Hamas regroups and comes back into power, they're stuck with the same extremist group that has taken millions of dollars in foreign aid, that's built underground tunnels, that's planned attacks rather than provide for its people, all while ruling over Gaza in very barbaric, authoritarian ways, ruling over the Gazan people. They'll be stuck with that group. And I think that very much decreases the chance of a Palestinian state or a peaceful relationship with Israel. And it basically sends the whole Palestinian rights movement back to 2005 with Israel occupying Gaza. And all of that is bad for Palestinians.

And then the chance, you know, there's the other side of the argument, which is that Israel could potentially degrade Hamas so badly and so permanently and so decisively that some new group of leaders actually has to come into Gaza immediately and take control because there won't be any leadership. It's kind of like the head of the snake's cut off. And if Israel succeeded in uprooting Hamas, then that power vacuum is an opportunity for sort of a reset button in the Gaza Strip. And maybe that vacuum gets filled by a more moderate group or some kind of international coalition or a group of Arab leaders or whatever it is, and they can build towards some kind of lasting, facilitated peace settlement. I think that is the best counter case for Israel not stopping. That would be the one that I would make if I were

asked to make that argument as you're asking me to make it. I think I want to jump in quickly. I think it's good that you get the chance to give this response to something that you wrote. You're the author. People want to hear from you more than me, so I'm happy to cede a lot of space here. But one clarification I just think is important to insist on is that we are talking about a ceasefire in the conflict. We aren't talking about peace terms for an armistice or truce for a lasting peace. Like you said, that's going to be a lot more complicated. And I think we can't even get people to agree on this first step. So I think it's going to open up a big can of worms to

say what we think is the path to a more permanent peace and to this stage of conflict. So I just think it's worthwhile to keep that in mind. We're saying there should be a humanitarian pause to fighting as a reason for a ceasefire and giving a corresponding argument for why there's an Israeli or Zionist self-interested reason to more permanent ceasefire, I think it's still a good idea to make sure we're centering the discussion in ways that are more defined. All right. We are coming up on being over time, and I want to leave us a little bit of time so we can get our grievances segment in. I said this at the top. If you're listening to this right now, this Friday edition has come out already. It's on our website. It'll be headlined, Your Responses to the Zionist Case for a Ceasefire. There are many more responses and exchanges like this in writing in that piece. It is for Tangle members only, but you can go read a preview of it and then subscribe if you're interested. So if you want some more on this, I encourage you to go to readtangle.com and do that. And now we will very artfully and tactfully pivot to a totally not serious segment that we will continue to do every week.

The airing of grievances. When my blood pressure gets too high, the man on the tape tells me to say, Serenity now! Do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? I'll go first. Yeah, sure. I think, as we've talked about before, I think I have a little bit of a harder time naturally coming up with things to center as grievances for myself.

But I think I have one. So as you know, I coach a college ultimate Frisbee team. They're a great group of people that I really adore. I think they're great kids and I enjoy spending time with them. I also am kind of a language person. So I'm always interested in the way new slang develops amongst a group of people, i.e. college students who are famous for developing new language. I think it's really fascinating, and I'm pretty open and curious about asking them what their slang means. I attempt to use it just to see what the terms are and if I like it. but I've noticed that I tend to take some of those terms with me. And in my life, I actually use some of their new slang terms. And I feel like that's bad for somebody in their mid-30s. And I don't think that it's a good habit. I agree it's bad. So, can you give me an example of? Yeah. I don't know how common these terms are. I think these are things that are hyper, hyper specific to this group. So, I'm accidentally going to be platforming some of their language,

but you know, I think that some of it's interesting. So, one of the terms they use a lot is the word grease. Can you guess what grease means? Grease. It means like something is kind of... It's a transitive verb. So I would say I greased Isaac. What does that mean? I have no idea, but I like it already. See, it means that I sort of did you dirty. Like I made you feel weird and I insulted you in front of a group. Whoa. Yeah. Like I greased Isaac. Isaac feels bad. That's nice. Do you have any other examples? I'd love to hear another one. Yeah. The word sell. So if you were selling this podcast,

what do you think that means? Like trying to hype it up in a way that it's not really going to live up to? It's almost the opposite. It means you're blowing it. It means that you're sort of giving it away for free. Like you have something valuable and you're selling it instead of actually winning it. So give me an example of how you would use that. So like I said, this is a sports team. So a lot of these things are in sports specific context. So if somebody's having a bad game, you'd say they're selling the game.

Like they're giving it to the other team. They're saying, you know, the game's for sale. Let me know what you want for it. This is another one of your grievances. That shouldn't be a grievance. This is so awesome.

I wish I was, I wish I was hanging out with college kids, learning all this new slang, man. I love this. Come on up, man. They'd love to have you.

You're increasing your grievances a little bit. Uh, close. No, man. They'd love to have you. You're greasing your grievances a little bit. Close. No, close. I think you bricked that. Yeah. But that's another thing. I did brick that. I think that if I say that to people in professional settings, it's kind of weird.

And a lot of times I feel like I want to. I want to try to say, not to grease, but because it's an efficient phrase and I like it a lot. It's so much better than to say not to denigrate you, but I'd rather say not to grease. Like that just feels, it's just a good phrase. It's also interesting because it's like University of Vermont college kids slang. So there's, there's like a, that's a specific group of people. Um, I'm predisposed to like the slang that they might produce, I guess I would say. So you're glazing. You're glazing a bit.

I'm glazing. I think maybe we should change this segment to every week you just teach us some new slang you've learned from the college kids. That would be really nice. I would run out at some point. I have a couple more, but I'll sit on it. Alright, save them. I would run out at some point, but I would, yeah, I have a couple more, but I'll sit on it. All right. Save them. I'll bring them up next time. Um, okay. My,

my grievance is that, uh, a couple weeks ago I walked into like in my apartment in Philadelphia, we have like a little vestibule, like, you know, I don't know what you call it. It's like the, Oh, a mudroom kind of, you walk in, it's like a room where you put your shoes down, but it's closed off, the door shuts. And that's how you get into the house. You go through the mudroom. So I walked into my apartment, I opened the door and I just got hit with this like really gross

kind of damp smell. And I was like, oof, that's rough. I'm like, whatever. Just kind of ignored it as I do. Like most problems that come up the first time I'm like, all right, this isn't, I'm not going to have to deal with this. Um, sort of moved on. Then the next day I woke up in the morning, I opened the door to get my shoes to get ready to come into the tangle office. And I was hit with the smell again. And I was like, God, it smells like really, I started like, I was like smelling individual shoes

and like smelling my coats that were hanging there. And I was like, is there, I was checking pockets. Like, is there something going on? And then day after day, the smell just got worse and worse. And it went from like, oh, there's like a wet piece of clothing in here to like, it smells like there's a dead animal in this room.

And I don't know if you've ever had experiences like this, but there is literally nothing you can do. Like I went to the neighbor's next door. Cause it's on the, it's like the part of our house that sort of touches theirs. And I was like, are you guys getting that smell in here? And the woman was like, yeah, like all, I just just mop the floors like four times a day and that kind of helps it go away, but we can't figure it out. We can't find it. And so I'm like fairly certain

there was just like a dead animal in the wall in between our two homes. Yeah. But there's nothing you can do when that happens. Like you can't go into the wall and like knock it down. We're like burning candles. And then these really nice smelling candles that we love. Now I just associate with this dead animal smell. Like the smells have combined. I'm spraying Febreze in the room.

We're just keeping the door shut. But every time we open it, then like the family room and the house starts to smell like it. So we had to move our clothes and our shoes into the family room. And we're living, we're just living in this world where you like had trying to avoid opening a door that is the only entrance and exit to our house. It's like the only way to get in and out of the house. We have a back porch, but it's all fenced in and it's like Philly. It's like a city back porch. So you can't get to the street from there.

So basically for the last two and a half weeks, I've been living with this ungodly, awful dead animal smell in the house that greeted me every morning and every day at the end of the work day and like trying to quarantine the smell, but weren't really able to do it. And there's just, do you have a dead animal on the wall or whatever the smell was? There's literally not, there's no solution except for like opening the wall up and finding the animal or something. You're completely screwed. So I've been living with that today for the first time.

It felt like the smell was getting better, not worse. It's starting to dissipate and go away, which I think is the only thing you can do. You just kind of wait it out for whatever's going on in there to just sort of take care of itself, which is a horrifyingly gross thing to do. Yes, it has passive language. What do we mean by this, to be taken care of? You're asking for it to just decompose, which means the next phase is going to be flies. I don't know what to tell you.

I'm just waiting it out. Have you tried calling an exterminator? Because repairing drywall is not that hard. There's a pest control person coming, but I don't suspect they're going to be able to do much. You don't think they'll be able to just get in the walls and then give

you the number for a contractor repairs drywall? You have to find it. It's like you open up one part of the wall and it's not in there. You open up the other part of the wall. It's like this whole game you play. You're just, you're down the rabbit hole. And then what if it's in the ceiling? What if it's in the floor? What if it's, you know, it's like you, then you're just tearing up the whole house trying to get to the smell. It's basically impossible. I feel like a good, like a good dog could help. I know that's my solution to everything, but seriously, that's something that dogs are good at.

They've got really good noses, and they can detect very sensitive parts per million of any airborne particle. So maybe that's a – That's true. Get a dog sniffing or sorry, get a pest sniffing dog team with the dry roller bear. That sounds awful though. Like I I'm trying to, I'm being a stereotypical male and trying to solve your problems instead of listening to your, your, your pains. Sorry about that. That does awful. Um, it was awful. So that's my grievance for the week.

And now I've got to get out of here. I've got a, uh, I've got an interview to run to a very good interview. That's going to be coming up on our podcast soon. I'm not going to give any more way, any more away about it, but I'm excited for this one. Uh, so I'll talk to you guys soon. Okay. I guess keep your eyes and ears open and your nose closed until then. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. All right. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall.

The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada,

which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.