Tangle - The Sunday Podcast: Isaac and Ari talk about questions for Kamala, no tax on tips, and Senate polls.

Episode Date: August 18, 2024

On today's episode, Isaac and Ari talk about the questions they would ask Kamala Harris if she would actually sit for an interview, the no tax on tips policy proposal, and some kind of hard to believe Senate polls. And as always, the Airing of Grievances.You can watch the entire Tangle Live event at City Winery NYC on our YouTube Channel!Check out Episode 5 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. Please give us a 5-star rating and leave a comment!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Our 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Working in the trades is intense. It can be stressful and painful. Some guys use drugs and alcohol to cope. But when we ask for help, or we see someone struggling with addiction... Our silence speaks volumes. See how you can help, or get help, at Canada.ca slash ease the burden. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year.

Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. 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+. Coming up, the questions we would ask Kamala Harris if she would only sit for an interview. We talk about tax on tips, the kind of hard to believe Senate polls, and then Ari and I complain for 10 minutes. Good one coming up. 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, and I am here today with Tangle Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, who just tried to go for a run outside in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and now can't breathe. Ari, how are you doing? I thought that we weren't going to bring it up until and if I started coughing. You barely got your first sentence out. I got it out, though. I'm good. I apologize to our listeners in advance, but apparently the AQI today is a moderate 76 in Pittsburgh, where I'm visiting my family. Went for a run. Doing okay.

I'll get there. I'm fine. Thank you for your concern, real or otherwise, Isaac. I wish you could see the faces and the forms that Ari is contorting himself into to try not to cough while he talks. There's a lot on the table today. We've got a lot of stuff to discuss,

a lot going on. Obviously, we're reaching peak campaign season. I'm headed out to the DNC on Monday and will be there all week with our podcast executive producer and YouTube channel executive producer, John Wall. I think kind of one of the top stories that I want to jump in with and just chat about today is Kamala Harris and the press, which I guess is maybe more, there's more of a debate here than maybe I'm interested in having. I've been a little bit shocked at just like,

it's jarring, I would say, to watch some people, you know, colleagues of mine, I guess, for better or worse, in the press who are defending the fact that she has not spoken to a reporter yet or sat down for a big interview or really committed to one in a tangible way. She said she's going to schedule something at the end of August, but we don't really know who or, you know, how or whatever. end of August, but we don't really know who or how or whatever. She's not doing any interviews, which is a smart strategy, maybe, as we're seeing. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. I think she's not totally unique in that. But it got me thinking, and I brought this up with Ari, just kind of a hypothetical, you know, what if Tangle News were to land an interview with Kamala Harris? How would we take advantage of that? What would we ask her? So I asked Ari to come up with three questions that he would ask Kamala Harris if Tangle were fortunate enough to get the vice president to actually sit down and do an interview with the press. to get the vice president to actually sit down and do an interview with the press. And I came up with three of my own. And I thought it'd be interesting

to talk about the questions and then also talk about maybe how I would answer them or Ari would answer them if we were Kamala Harris or how we would coach her to answer them if we were a part of her campaign. Because I think what is gonna happen, almost assuredly, is that she will sit for an interview, probably in the next few weeks. I presume it'll be with one of the major news networks, CBS, NBC, ABC. I think she will get a mix of fawning softball questions

and probably a few really pointed ones. And I think how she answers is going to be really important. probably a few really pointed ones. And I think how she answers is going to be really important. So I thought it'd be fun to maybe predict the future here with what our questions might be, see how they line up to the real ones and talk a bit about how she might answer them. I've got my three lined up here. Do you want to go first or second, Ari?

How are you feeling? Well, first, do you think we should go one after the other? Or do you just want to empty your chamber first? I can try to be the Harris campaign and say what I think they should answer, and then we'll flip. I think we should alternate and see if we came up with any of the same ones. That's my feeling. Yeah, that'd be interesting. Sure.

Do you want to start it off? Sure. Sure. So here is the first one that I had, which I think is maybe, to me, the most pressing question of her campaign and probably the one that she's going to get hit over the head with the most whenever Donald Trump wakes up and realizes that he's not running against Joe Biden anymore. more. My question would be this. You endorsed a total ban on fracking during your 2019 campaign. Then you walked that position back a year later. You pledged to decriminalize border crossings in 2020, but a campaign official recently said that you believe unauthorized migrants crossing the border are illegal. You supported Medicare for all. Now you don't. Can you tell voters where you land on these issues today and why your views keep changing? I think that question has to be answered. It's kind of one of those two part ones that I

always hate when reporters or journalists give because it's a, where do you land on these issues now and why are reviews kept changing, which sort of gives a dealer's choice and often allows politicians to dance around an actual answer. But that is, to me, a question that needs to be asked of her. I don't know how she's going to answer it. I'd be curious to hear how you might answer that question if you were her or on her campaign in a politically smart way. You don't have to tell the truth is what that means, basically. So let's start, I think, with the fact that, like, as a little parenthetical, I think that's kind of a five or six part question because you gave three pieces

of policy and then gave an option for how to respond to each of them. So it's either policy, policy, policy. Why'd you change? What would you think? Or it's a two-parter on each policy question. So what I think I would do if I were part of the Harris campaign is selectively choose the answer on fracking for two reasons. One, you need Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is arguably, if not definitively, the most important state in this election. Without Pennsylvania, Democrats' road to getting 270s almost non-existent. They'll have to pick up some combination of Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada. We get that.

But the second reason why I choose it is that the popularity of fracking in Pennsylvania is kind of mixed. So I'm from Pittsburgh, as we talked about earlier, where our air quality is often not the best. And Pennsylvania, particularly western, southwestern Pennsylvania, has a lot of natural gas resources that are underneath in the shale that are trapped. And you break the shale with hydraulic fracturing, with fracking, get that natural gas out. A lot of people who've come to Pennsylvania as part of the fracking industry are benefiting from those jobs that that industry brings. But a lot of people who are native to Pennsylvania do not like fracking. It's disruptive to local communities. My parents complain about it all the time. There are people who come into the state who are obnoxious. They're sort of like

Pennsylvania carpetbaggers, if you will, and come in and have really big, expensive new trucks and roll coal on small town intersections all the time. A lot of Pennsylvanians do that too. So they're fitting in a little bit. There are a lot of Pennsylvanians for whom fracking is popular, but a lot of the ones that you're trying to get, the swing voters in Pennsylvania, are the ones that have mixed feelings on it. So the Harris campaign, I think, would be smart to say, yes, thank you for bringing this up. We think that fracking is part of an expansive energy portfolio that our country needs in order to be energy independent. We envision a climate future where we can be entirely energy independent, which means we don't have to depend on oil and gas from foreign countries, from the Middle East. We're using intelligently our oil reserves that we have here, and we're

using our reserves of natural gas. Coal's way, way down in the last 15 years, while renewables are way, way up. We don't get that without increases in natural gas. A lot of environmentalists might not like that, but natural gas is much, much better than coal as an alternative. We don't get our clean energy future without natural gas as a bridge technology. Our plan isn't saying that fracking and natural gas has to end today.

What we're saying is that we have to start to phase it out. So places like Pennsylvania, places where natural gas is an important resource, we still need that resource, but we have to recognize that it comes at an expense to the communities where we harness it, and it comes at an expense that we pay later to environment. So we have to keep trying to use these resources intelligently, knowing that there's a price tag for it and there's an expiration date. So that I think is the best answer. What do you think?

I like that answer. I think that answer would play well in Pennsylvania. Very politically savvy of you to pick the part of the question you want to answer. That's very presidential. So you slash Kamala answering that way, I think puts her right on track to the White House. It's a half dodge, half answer. And yeah, I like it. I mean, I think it's

it's maybe the only way to answer the question without kind of offending somebody, you know, the sensible middle in a really deliberate way that's going to turn some voters off. I thought about the answer to this question since I posed it, and I'll just throw this out there. I mean, one of the things that I considered was what if she just said, you know, what if she just said, you know, look, I earnestly believe those things when I said them in 2019 and 2020.

I just spent four years in the White House and I learned a lot about how things get done, what the priorities are of, you know, constituents that I need to serve that are in states like Pennsylvania and what we can get done with Congress

and the Congress that we have and not the Congress that I wish we had. And, you know, I've had some reality checks and I think that I erred in taking those positions. As a presidential candidate, you take dozens and dozens of positions and I'm not going to get all of them right. And so, yeah, my view has changed on these issues.

But, you know, today as we sit here, I do not think that it's feasible to ban fracking. I think that we need to make sure that crossing the border illegally is a crime. And, oh God, what was the last one? You pledged to decriminalize border crossings. Don't worry, it's my question. Oh, and Medicare for all.

Yeah, which- Put a pin in that, because that'll be mine next. Sure, yeah. Well, I'll be interested to hear how you phrase the question. But yeah, she could just say, and I don't support Medicare for all.

So that would be kind of how I approached it if I were her. And if I heard her say that, I think that would resonate with me, which is maybe why it's my suggestion for an answer. Like, I wish a politician just said, like, you know what? I took 20 different positions in 2019, 2020, and you just chose three that I was wrong about. And you're right. Like I was wrong and my position changed.

And that's just kind of that. She's never going to say something like that, but I wish she would. I mean, maybe she'll use the, I could see a world where she says something about, you know, my experience in the White House has changed my perspective a little bit, but it seems unlikely to me. Maybe. And I think that's an answer that would play well,

certainly to the Isaac Saul audience and people that are like you who really value personal growth. But I think it's still kind of a third rail for a politician to come out and say, hey, I was wrong about this. My stance has evolved. Unless it's a really generational, once-in-a-lifetime thing like gay marriage, which is the line that Hillary Clinton and many Democrats took to that, and many Republicans also. But I think saying, hey, I learned those positions were wrong. Now, I learned and I came to realize that this is what we have to do. The very easy response to that is, well, who knows what you're going to learn tomorrow? And we need people with conviction who have clear plans that they can lay them out and you're

continuing to waffle. And all I heard was you were wrong. That's all I heard. So I worry that that kind of answer, even though it's like full, it really addresses the question, which is great, might not play well. Whereas an answer that's like, let me pivot to telling you what my stance is now is probably the response that I would expect. It's like, hey, let me clarify. This is where I stand. And then if somebody wants to pin her down and say, you said this then, like, well, look, this is the plan that I'm rolling out and just not really say, I was wrong, I learned. But maybe I'm wrong now, but I think, you know, I think I'd be, I wouldn't get my hopes up about any candidate saying that. We'll be right back after this quick break. This quick break. Many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances and clear your head,

visit Canada.ca slash ItPaysToKnow. A message from the Government of Canada. 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+. All right, let's hear your first question.

Sure. It's really simple. So in 2017, as a senator, you co-sponsored a bill with Senator Bernie Sanders for a Medicare for All single-payer health plan. In 2019, you backed out of that bill and introduced your own slightly different Medicare for All plan. you backed out of that bill and introduced your own slightly different Medicare for all plan. We haven't heard the Biden administration talk about either of those healthcare plans while you're in office. So where do you stand on Medicare for all? Yeah, tough question. That's not what I would say if I were Kamala Harris, but going to be a tough question for her to answer. I like it. I think that's another one that kind of has to be a tough question for her to answer. I like it. I think that's another one that kind of has to be asked. I think the benefit of asking it that way

is you get a really specific answer about a really specific policy change rather than asking it my way, which is sort of broadly calling the person out for a bunch of flip-flops. I think if I'm her, I say, look around the country in the last four years. We have the highest level of, you know, insured Americans that we've ever had. And we have expansions happening in Medicare all across the country, you know, despite Republican governors

objecting to them, et cetera. And people are enrolling in the ACA at record levels. And I think we can get to a place where we have a really big chunk of the American populace insured with health insurance and covered and getting the insurance and the care that they want without destroying the private healthcare industry. And so, you know, I'm more optimistic about our other path today than I was four or five years ago. And I don't see the need to pursue a Medicare for all bill now, given the state of things. So it's sort of a, here's a backslap to old Grandpa Joe for all the stuff he got done.

And this is my response to the changing contours of health insurance in our country. By the way, small tangent, now I'm done answering the question, but I just was watching on the TV in the lobby of my shared office space, Biden and Harris speaking in Maryland, where Harris is speaking and Joe Biden's next to her, just like staring at her, clapping and supporting her.

And it was bizarre. I mean, really jarring like image to see the paradigm flip between them. He does not look great to me. He just doesn't look great. It was a reminder of why it was right that he dropped out. But I got the sense related to the answer to this question. I got the sense that we're going to hear a little bit more of her sort of thanking Biden, emphasizing the victories, the positive things about his record that he's had. And I think this is a question where she could shoehorn that in and say, we're doing better than I thought, so let's stay on the course,

basically. Yeah, I think that's savvy. It's that middle road response that we've been talking about behind the scenes a bit of how a vice presidential candidate could both run on their predecessor's record while not claiming it. That's something that's really tough to do. But another thing that's savvy about that response, I think, is that it doesn't address either of the bills from her term in the Senate. It just focuses on the record saying, hey, insurance rates are up or rates of insured people are up. We are negotiating Medicare costs. We just saw that story today about a couple of drugs whose prices are going down for Medicare holders.

And we're doing better than we have. So we're going to stay the course. We're going to keep addressing issues within the existing ecosystem because we're making real progress. And under my administration with President Joe Biden, we made real progress. I think that's savvy. I think it also does that nice little sidestep of, okay, but what do you actually think about Medicare for all? Because you did say, hey, that's not something that I'm going to pursue as a policy agenda. So it does answer the question without really getting into the muck of, let's reiterate

and really say what happened in 2017 and 2019. Because this is also a little bit of an aside. We're giving a lot of asides here. But is that my read on Kamala Harris is that she ran for Senate in 2016. At the time, she was a progressive prosecutor. So she tried to, she didn't need to have a lot of opinions about national stances where progressives had opinions. And I think she started to adopt opinions that a progressive senator had as she had come from background as being a progressive prosecutor. But I think those bars are very different.

And I think she introduced herself with positions that she didn't really, in her heart, support. And as she spent more time in the Senate, I think you could argue serving with Joe Biden really brought her to positions where she should have been in the first place and moderated herself. to positions where she should have been in the first place and moderated herself. And I think this is one of those instances where we see a Vice President Harris is actually really different than a Senator Harris that we had in 2016 and 2017. And yeah, it'll be a challenge to see how she spins that message without saying she flip-flopped. But I think your answer does a

good job of just trying to focus on where she is now, which I guess is something we're both doing. Great segue to my second question. Vice President Harris, what's the biggest difference between how you and President Joe Biden will govern? Okay, that's interesting. I had a similar question, but it is very different. That's a tough one. Somebody's got to ask. Yeah. Like what's the difference between President Harris and President Biden? That's like for sure. And I don't know what, I mean, what do you say? I mean, this is like the

hard, this is the really hard part for her. It's just like, what do you say? I mean, you know, she could, she could fire up the base. She could say, you know, I think like, I, you know, I love Joe and he's, he's a mentor and I've learned a lot from him, but I think we spent too much time trying to appease Republicans and I'm going to focus on, you know, fulfilling the parts of our agenda we didn't get done, which like she'll get crushed in conservative media, rightfully so for something like that, because I think a lot of Republicans

think Biden tacked left during his term, but she could do something like that. Or, you know, there could be a real policy difference or something that we don't know. But I would love to hear an answer to that question because she's running without having to deal with his record. And so far, at least, I mean, I think that chicken's going to come home to roost eventually.

But for now, she's running without having to deal with this record. And I just don't know why that is so and why the media is allowing it. I think I have the answer here. I mean, I'm with you on that. I think, you know, we can keep talking about how the media should be holding her feet to the fire more. But I think I know what the answer is here. I think you spent three quick bullet points on, I'm really thankful for Joe Biden, for Joe Biden and his presidency and what he's been able to offer us as a leader. He's overseen a huge economic

recovery. Let's not forget we're in the throes of COVID when he took over. I don't have to deal with that as a president because Joe Biden dealt with that for our country and we're grateful for him. And insert whatever your third thing is here, President Harris, Vice President Harris, that is. And then you pivot to the big thing that you are making the centerpiece of your election, which is abortion. And you say, unfortunately, under President Biden's term, we saw Roe v. Wade repealed, and many states are paring back a woman's access to health care to choose what's best for her own body. That's something that we have to address in a Harris presidency. I'm going to make sure I fight for the rights of women,

for the freedom to choose and govern their own bodies. And we need to keep introducing constitutional amendments at the state level and make sure a woman has a right to choose and just make that the answer. I think that's the best thing to do. It's a really good Kamala Harris impression. To Biden. Yeah, that's all I got. I'm trying not, like we shouldn't do any actual questions. No, no, even just the, just the talking, the talking points

from a Democratic perspective, I think are really strong. Yeah, I love that. That's a good way to handle it. I mean, what that, what your answer there just kind of spurned for me

was, or brought to mind is maybe the best way to say it is just Joe Biden inherited a disaster from Donald Trump and we spent four years cleaning that mess up. And so the difference in how we're going to govern is that I get to inherit a much better situation than Joe Biden did. And I'm going to look forward and pursue more ambitious goals in our agenda than President Biden was able to because of how much work he had to do to clean up Trump's mess, et cetera. So it's like a hammer Trump and talk about your record a little bit positively all at the same time. Yeah, I could see that. Now,

let's go to my second question here, which is, again, really simply, what would you do differently as president to address the root causes of illegal immigration, which was something that you were responsible for while vice president? And just as a quick sidebar, the term like borders are, how much she had control over policy at the border, that's something that's debated. If you go and read the press reports from the time, what is absolutely not debated is that she was put in charge of addressing root causes of illegal immigration. And if you just phrase the question that way, I think you can avoid getting into the whole like, what we actually call this position just say this is true what did you do what would you do differently on the sidebar this is a funny one for me to kind of i guess inherit her embody her

spirit uh yeah you've got a lot of opinions on this i know know. Right. It's like, how do I wish she would answer it versus how she actually will? I think if I'm her, I say we made more progress than people give us credit for. And the border's in crisis and there's a genuine issue that we need to resolve at the border. But if you look at the rates of migrants from some of the countries that I was dealing with, which she could point to Venezuela or some other place in South America where we've seen rates of those migrants come down, she could probably twist this into something that's a little bit difficult to fact check. The hard part, obviously, is that on net, the border encounters have skyrocketed.

But part of that is genuinely because it wasn't just, you know, one country or it wasn't. It's that there's been this whole total global shift where like now there are migrants coming from China who are crossing the southern border. And like the whole dynamic of all this has changed. The reason this comes to mind for me is because I saw this tweet from Chris Murphy, the senator from Connecticut. And in his Twitter thread, he talks about how Kamala was not made border star or whatever.

He gets into this whole argument about, you know, what happened. And then he says, but she was put in charge of addressing the root cause of migration from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, a targeted but important task. And then he says, what did VP Harris do? She created something called the Partnership for Central America. She convinced 56 companies to invest more than $5 billion to bolster Central American economies. Here are Harris's results from 2021 to 2023. Hondurans encountered at the border dropped by 50%, El Salvadorian encounters dropped by even more, 60%. Migration from Guatemala dropped 50%, even Mexican migration, the steadiest flow dropped by 6%. That's a really good talking point. I've in fact checked this data. I'm fairly certain it tracks with like my general understanding, which is that a lot of the border encounters over time in that period

shifted from Central to South America. So we saw the huge spikes from places like Venezuela that caused the migration crisis we're in. So I think that's what she would do. witness. So I think that's what she would do. I think she would say, I actually had more success than people are giving me credit for, and here's what happened. What I wish she would say is, we have a bunch of levers for deterrence that we haven't been using effectively in our administration. And as much as I disagree with former President Trump, I think he did some things right on the border and there are policies that we could take

from him to, you know, help deter people from coming. She'll never in a million years say that, but that's the answer that I wish she would say. Yeah, that's a very good candidate Saul answer for sure. I think that this is tricky. I think I was sort of torn in different directions listening to you give that answer because it's going to be hard to claim victory on any of this. You have to really selectively pick your data points and trumpet them. And it's going to be really tough for her to say, I was not responsible, but also I was responsible for this thing that went well. People just, you know, it sounds disingenuous and it's really hard to get that right. I do think trying to claim some ownership and say, the things that I was

responsible for were these things, like, and this is what's improved. And then say, yeah, and this is what's improved, and then say, yeah, illegal immigration is a problem, border encounters are a problem, but the inflows are down. We're really trying to address root causes of these countries. And then you can say this true thing, which is that currently, Southwest border encounters for the month of June, which is the last month that we have data for them, June 2024, are the lowest that they've been since February of 2021. So we're trending in the right direction. You can say that. Now, on the other hand, every year for the past four years, June has been sort of a low point. And then encounters start to tick up, increase every month until December, generally is the trend. And I think we can expect

this to be more of a salient point by the time we get to the trend. And I think we can expect this to be more of a salient point by the time we get to the debates in October, if we have them. But certainly by September, we'll have July's data. And by that first debate, and we'll probably see an uptick that she'll have to try to spin. And if they don't, like if the encounters somehow keep going down for this next month, it's possible she can make a statement claiming a win. I just don't know how much people are going to be able to and willing to hear that considering what we've seen for the past four years. All right. My third and final question. This is, you just gave me a little bit of flack for a candidate Saul answer. So this is a candidate Saul.

This is an Isaac Saul question, I guess. But I would ask her, where do you agree with Donald Trump on major policy issues today? I don't know why that's a question that doesn't get asked more often, but not sure what she would say. Don't know how she would answer it. I think, I'd be curious your reaction. I think my quick take on it is, I say, I don't have a lot of policy agreements with Donald Trump, but I think he's correctly identified a lot of anger and disenchantment with the political system

in our country because we don't do enough for a lot of people that matter. And he sees that and understands it. And I have different solutions than he does, but that'd be a nice way to tackle it. But yeah, on a real policy answer, I don't know what she says there. It's a really, yeah, I also really appreciate that question. And I wish people would ask it more. It is tough because you're trying to get somebody to commiserate in some way with their opponent who represents a great deal of the country, which are the people that she's campaigning to represent. So I love the question. This is how I think I would try to answer it as a person with Harris's background and experience. Trump is really tapping into something true and real about the way Americans are concerned about crime. Trust me, I was a prosecutor for many years in San Francisco. I was the attorney general in California. We have to address root causes of crime that are plaguing our communities, and we have to be smart on crime. And when being smart on crime means looking at data,

who are by and large the victims of crime? It's minorities and marginalized individuals. And if we want to address that, we have to look at both policing in a smart way, communities that need a police presence, as well as lifting up the floor where economically a lot of marginalized individuals and people of color and immigrants to our country are economically disadvantaged. And those economically disadvantaged people, including many people in rural America, many people in the suburbs, any economically disadvantaged person tends to be the target of more crime than the perpetrator of it. And the best way to try to address crime is by trying to bring up the floor that affects everybody who is economically disadvantaged. What do you think? Too slimy? Too squirmy? I don't think it's too squirmy. I think the crime thing is a good... I mean, it's just like they don't really agree on how to address it.

So it's kind of a fake... Not answering the question. Yeah, I know. Right. Yeah. But I think you proposed maybe the most likely kind genre of answer. Yeah. All right.

Let's hear your last one. All right. So, Vice President Harris, what makes you a better candidate for president than Senator Kamala Harris, who dropped out of the 2020 presidential primary early? Good question. I think it is the fact that I've spent the last four years in the White House and gained the kind of experience that you can't really get by anything other than doing the actual job. And I got to watch a president who knows how to work with the Senate and knows how to get things done and has a reputation for being able to work across the aisle. And I learned a lot from him about, you know, how to bridge those

divides, manage crises overseas, and, you know, hear the breadth of concerns that our constituents have. So just go to the White House experience would be my tack. That's really good. I think as soon as you started answering that question, I was like, damn, well done. Because I think a theme that I'm seeing here in our attempts to game this out is that any attempt to really try to pin down VP Harris on her record and where she's changed and how she ran previously could very naturally transition into the best parts of the Biden-Harris administration's record from the last four years and then talk about what her policies are now. One of the things that you have to do first is sit down for an interview and lay out what your policies are now. You kind of have to do that first and we haven't had that. But once we do have that, if and when, then I think this is probably a good tactic is what we're gaming out here. We'll be right back after this quick break. You made an interesting point about

just like why isn't she doing any interviews and why aren't we getting this as voters, which I wanted to talk about a little bit. It's your point, so I'll let you make it. Yeah, I think we are seeing like the sort of prevent defense, except a version of it that actually works, where if you are a presidential candidate, just based on the last six, eight years, I guess, and you have a lead and we can see it in polling data, you're not incentivized to be in public. So let's work backwards. Right now, Harris got a boost from replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. What we've had since then are softballs and social media clips of her

seeming really charming that are cherry picked that just self-enforce one another. We see her giving pre-canned speeches to very supportive crowds and not sitting down for adversarial interviews under the lights like Donald Trump's been doing for the past couple months. Rewind over the beginning of this year, when it looked like Biden had a slight polling average, even though it was always kind of a close race, Biden was not doing a whole lot in public. Now, obviously, there are concerns about the way that he would appear, and that was something that his camp had to balance. But clearly, the calculus was we have more to lose than we have to gain by getting our candidate in the public eye. Rewind a little bit to the Republican primary. Donald

Trump is the clear frontrunner. He said that he has nothing to gain by participating in the primaries and the debates. He kind of straight up said that. He's like, it's smart of me to not do this. Why would I do this? And people are like, yeah, you're right. That's smart. Because it is smart. It is the right strategy. I think we're seeing that with Harris now is if you have the polling advantage, why would you put anything in the press? You want to make other people have to attack and play offense. You can just sit back, pick the parts that are most vulnerable and then attack them. And that's kind of what Trump did during the Republican primary. Go back to the 2020 election. Kind of the same deal with Biden and Trump. Once they got their leads, we didn't see as much of them. We let the other surrogates do

the talking. We let the other candidates in the respective primaries, well, I mean, the Democratic primary, sort of tear each other down. As we got late in the game, we didn't really have very many actual primaries after South Carolina was basically over. The race was, that's the state that started it for the Democrats in 2020. It was set up in a way that would benefit Biden and he didn't have to do too much. I think it's different in 2016. 2016's maybe the last time we can remember candidates really vying against one another. And I think probably both parties are carrying battle scars from that. Both candidates got absolutely raked with Hillary and all of her, like her

emails and her like political expediency, as well as Trump's like decades of soundbites that could be thrown against him and his constant like gaffes in public. I think a lot, both parties saw what could happen when you run a contentious campaign. So it seems like, you know, we want to get our candidates in the media. We want to be able to learn more about their positions and what they care about. But with all of the access to polling that we have, it is kind of smart of them once they have the lead not to go out there. So I don't know like how you fix that. How, how can you get Senator or now Vice President Harris to sit for a contentious

interview when she's up by a point and a half to two points in Pennsylvania? Like, why would she? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, it's like the whole Biden in the basement thing during 2020 was very real. And the whole Trump avoiding any kind of debate or conflict or anything during the republican primary was really real i guess it's the pressure i mean i i don't know like when you say what do you do to fix it but personally i would love some kind of, you know, exception to the First Amendment where we could just, like, compel every president has to do a once a week interview no matter what. You know, just like a, that's just the compel them to speech. It's part of the job. That would be great.

I would love a system like that. I don't think it's really plausible. I think what we're seeing now with Harris is basically the answer, which is public pressure and even her allies have to say, like, what's, come on. This is just like, we can't let this be the norm

and put the pressure and turn the screws on her. I mean, she's clearly feeling some kind of heat because she is promising to do something in the future. The big issue is just like, we don't, sorry, excuse me. The big issue is just like, we don't know when that future is and who it's going to be with. just like we don't know when that future is and who it's going to be with and if she goes to the dnc and you know has a really good strong energetic weekend and it's you know exceeds people's expectations i mean we see convention bounces like what if she gets a convention bounce then

there's like no way in hell she's going to do an interview. I mean, it's just, there's some very obvious tactical decisions she'll make that I loathe. And I think it's embarrassing for the mainstream press. I genuinely think it's embarrassing how little she seems to care about talking to any big name reporters. I think it's embarrassing for her. I think, you know, we should all demand it of her. She wants to be president. Answer some freaking questions.

I mean, I'm also just, you know, I tell people this all the time is she works for me. Like Kamala Harris, I employ her. And everybody should feel that way about their political candidates and the people who serve in our country and run for office. And so, yeah, she owes it to me. She owes it to us. And it's not like some arrogant entitled thing. That's how our system is supposed to work. We have way too much sort of idolization of these kinds of candidates where we just rationalize what they're doing. And so I really would love to see it. But I guess my long short answer is I actually don't really know how to fix the problem.

There aren't a ton of great solutions. Are you sure you parked over here? Do you see it anywhere? I think it's back this way. Come on. Hey, you're going the wrong way. Feeling distracted? You're not alone.

Whether renting, considering buying a home, or renewing a mortgage, many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances and clear your head, visit Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy

Award winner Kieran Culkin. A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. 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+. I think the old, I don't want to be all single reformist about this, but we just published the piece last Friday about primary reform. And I wonder if just having a system where we have four candidates go on to the general election following the primaries and we structure it in a way where the primaries are shorter and over sooner. We have Harris and another Democrat and maybe a moderate Republican or an independent all vying for the same middle 25% of the country with another Republican candidate who has their strong

base and is trying to get some of those percents as well. And that kind of structure where you have more horses in the race, if you excuse the inartful metaphor, would get people, get our candidates out in public more. I don't know if that's going to happen. I don't know if primary reform, especially at a presidential level, is going to happen anytime soon. And I don't know if we get it and then it solves this problem. But I do think it's clear to me that it is a problem. Because yeah, if there is that big boost after the convention, and she does go sit down for a contentious interview,

and she's riding this high and goes poorly, what's everybody going to say? Oh, the hubris. She was doing so well and then she thought she could just go take on some confrontational interviewer. Wow, what a fool. It's like, weren't we all asking for this? Now I'm getting mad at a hypothetical that I invented,

but it's tough. It's a tough thing to logic out and say pressure's going to work. I don't think it will because of the incentives. policy issues, you know, talking about anything related to her policy issues. She's mostly just riding the wave. She did roll out a new policy position, which was the tax on tips. Yeah, Ari's doing air quotes, was the tax on tips policy position that, you know, she seems to have basically just lifted from Donald Trump almost in its entirety. That doesn't make it good or bad, just the reality of the situation.

There are a lot of questions about this policy. We covered this in the newsletter. I mean, a lot of economists have pointed out various reasons that it might not be a very effective or smart strategy if you want to help service industry workers increase their pay, namely that if you're an employer and you have no tax on tips, you can lower your minimum wage or lower what you're paying your employees and they'll make the same money. And that saves you money as an employer. And then it kind of just eliminates the benefit for them. And then also just having service industry workers who make money from tips versus hourly wages get paid differently based on whether they're getting tips or hourly wages, which doesn't seem to be particularly fair. So a lot of qualms with it. But yeah, you also raised a good point, Ari,

which was just like, I never ever reported tips and I was like oh yeah me either emails we got from people too said the same thing like a bunch of readers were like yeah I don't do that yeah which like I also yeah I worked as a busboy and a dishwasher for years when I was in high school and to college. And I don't ever remember, you know, it's like I'm just sitting there waiting for the waiters to give me their cut of the cash so I can get out of the restaurant and go party or whatever, you know. If I'm on your I-9 and then, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which is definitely a quirk in the whole system. So kind of fails that just like common sense,

how does this actually work in the real life type test. But you also had an analogy that I was kind of interested in hearing more about because I thought it was maybe a little bit of a spicy take. Yeah, it's a bit of a challenging analogy. I think to put a little bit of a bow on what we just said, which will maybe give you some momentum to try to tackle this idea, which is kind of tough. Another reader wrote in and said that they were a full-time,

like decades-long vet of the industry, of the service industry. And they report their tips. They know many people do who are professionals. And they know that a lot of states have laws that say if, as a server or any service industry worker, your tips plus your base salary don't get to the minimum wage, then your employer has to compensate you to the point where they do. And that means that sort of makes reporting tips part of the standard process. So it is something that maybe there's been changes in some states that we don't see. So I was grateful to get that response too. And, you know, then we're talking about institutionalizing tipping more and it's a whole other bag of cats to try to get into that stuff. But yeah, so there's one thread that we're not going to follow for the reporting tips. I'm going to get into this challenging analogy thing, which is about affirmative action.

analogy thing, which is about affirmative action. So I've had many jobs in the past with, it's like a meme around Tangle that like I did a bunch of stuff before. I've also dropped out of several master's programs, as I've talked about on this podcast before. One of them was a PhD in statistics in the School of Education at Rutgers, which I left after a year. It was nominally in the School of Education. One of the things that I learned there was the theory behind trying to attack racial outcomes in education,

where it's very clear that race is a huge correlative factor with educational outcomes, and it's not fair. And the best way to address it, according to a lot of theorists, is to try to attack racial inequality, which is perfectly reasonable when you think about it from a data point of view. Another way to think about it is that because race correlates with educational outcomes, which correlates with economic outcomes, the thing that we're really concerned about at the end of the day is that there's racial inequality economically. It's not fair that just because of your race, you have a higher percentage of not being able to succeed economically. So in order to address that, it's the same deal about trying to create racial equality

and affirmative action. But since the thing that we're really concerned about is economic outcomes, that's the place where we should focus, which means if you just try to help all people who are struggling, everybody who's poor, everybody who's received some sort of hardship that's hindered their ability to get by and succeed. If you help everybody, then you're disproportionately, because of racial inequality, helping more racial minorities who are suffering. And if you keep this approach over time, then you would eventually, that disproportional benefit would eventually decrease and decrease and decrease until you're just addressing the root concern, which is economic inequality. That's the root

issue. And the reason why I went through all of that was to say, I think that's a similar, in my head, that seems similar to this no tax on tips thing. We're singling out a proportion of the working class, which is disproportionately high as these people who receive tips as part of their income. I've been a member of that class at one point myself, like as have you, Isaac, we've been people who've worked hourly wages trying to get tips to get us past minimum wage and, you know, live and die. And I mean, for us, it was easier. It's not quite live and die, but be able to like make ends meet because of what we're able to earn through tips. And that's a real burden. But there's a lot of people who are working these lower income jobs who don't have tips. And if we really want to address lower income people as a sector of the economy, then let's just cut out the middleman and focus on that. Let's come up with tax policies that are more broad-based about income brackets and income levels. And then disproportionately, it'll help people who earn tips. And over time, that disproportionate effect will be less and less and less until it's more fair.

And that's kind of the analogy that I was thinking of. It's like, let's just go to the root cause, which is our concern about how if you're struggling to get by, how we can help everybody who's struggling to get by, not selectively choose a portion of it and help that portion. Yeah, it's a good analogy. And I think it definitely applies here, at least in the sense that there's better policy solutions if you believe that the issue is

something the government should solve, which I think a lot of people do believe that the government should intervene in some way for service workers. And also in terms of, you know, addressing racial inequality, which to me, I mean, that's always been one of my gripes with affirmative action is just the, yeah, the narrowness of it, I guess you could say, and the way that we could solve it without focusing on the narrowness of it. But the no tax on tips thing too, and the way that we could solve it without focusing on the narrowness of it.

But the no tax on tips thing too, I mean, the other thing that kind of put me over the edge into the I'm not sure about this policy is just like what employers will do with this new information and this new system, which to me seems really obvious. It's just like, if I have a bunch of people on paying wages, I will just stop paying them. You know, I'll, I'll make them tip workers. And I really don't want to like be tipping people at target or whatever. You know, I mean, it's just, I think that once that happens, it's bad for the workers, it's bad for the consumers. And it's, there's sort of like a cyclical thing there where the people who are, you know, holding the bag and have all the money are going to end up benefiting the most in the end.

I know that's not like the only outcome that happens, but it seems pretty plausible that that's what people would start doing. And, um, you know, there's a lot of waiters and not just waiters, but other kinds of service workers who, who make hourly wage, who, you know, they work for an hourly wage and they make good money and the tips are a bonus, but they're not the whole thing. And, um, you know, a world where all those people get moved to tip wages without much choice, I don't think is great. So oddly enough, it's like the one policy position everybody seems to agree on where like, yeah this is uh this is the thing that we're we're kind of screwed or this is the thing that is kind of screwed as a policy and uh you know

kamala and trump finally agree on something oh i guess maybe that's the answer to my question from earlier yeah i didn't even think on, but no taxing. That would be a low-hanging fruit response for her. All right. Well, we're coming up on an hour here. Before we get out of here, I do just want to talk about some of the latest polling that we've gotten here.

I saw this tweet from, you know, everybody's favorite pollster, Dave Wasserman, aka Redistrict. If you're not familiar with Dave Wasserman, I mean, educate yourself. I don't know what to tell you. He's the king, in my opinion. He is the guy who's at the center of Cook Political Report and a lot of their polling and analysis. And he's the guy who's famous for calling elections before major networks will because he's really, really good at reading results. And Cook Political, which is where he

works, just did their latest battleground poll. And I'm just going to read off these numbers really quick. And I've got some of the deeper analysis up here on my computer in front of me. I've got some of the deeper analysis up here on my computer in front of me. But in the Arizona Senate race, the Democrat Ruben Gallego is up 51% to 40%. In the Michigan Senate race, Slotkin's up 50% to 42%. The Nevada Senate race, Rosen's up 54% to 36%. In the Pennsylvania Senate race, Bob Casey's up 53% to 40%. In the Wisconsin Senate race, Tammy Casey's up 53 to 40%. In the Wisconsin Senate race, Tammy Baldwin is up 50 to 43%. And in the North Carolina governor race, Stein's up 48 to 40%.

These are swing state races, and all of those people are Democrats. None of those, just to be perfectly clear, zero of those races are close right now. That is, I mean, we have polling errors and there's margins and we're three months out from the election. So, of course, these could change. But I want to be really clear that if these elections happen today, the Democrat in every one of those races is winning, is winning, which is a bizarre dynamic to have right now that I don't feel like is getting any attention really at all. I mean, the presidential race, I said today in our newsletter, I think Kamala Harris is winning just based on numbers, money, enthusiasm. I mean, the data and the kind of intangibles I think are on her side right now.

That could change tomorrow morning, but that's how it is right now as we record this. But this has been pretty consistent. Democrats polling well ahead of the Democratic nominee in these races and way outperforming their Republican counterparts. I don't know necessarily what it means for the country as a whole or what it indicates about where the presidential race is going to land. But I find it rather remarkable that in Arizona, Georgia,

well, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, that the Democrat is winning all of those races really handily in Senate races. So far, based on polling. And like you said, that is something that we've seen consistently. But something that I do. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I mean, to me, it raises a couple of questions. I mean, first of all, how bad are Biden and Harris as candidates, one, that they're pulling this far behind? Or B, maybe these candidates really, this is the exhibit A, candidates matter and Republicans are running really bad candidates

in these Senate races. And these are like the golden generation of Democratic Senator candidates possibly, or that Trump's a really good candidate in the presidential. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or that Trump's a really good candidate and the Republican party is deeply unpopular. And when you take Trump off the ballot, nobody really gives a shit about these other guys. I mean, I don't, I don't know what it means, but it has to mean something that like Kamala Harris is losing in Nevada in some polls that have come out in the last week. And the Democratic candidate, the Democratic candidate is running 18 points. Yeah. 18 points ahead. That's totally bonkers. 54 to 36 is crazy. I don't know how that could be. I don't have a

good explanation for that. So we've talked about this pollster that I've quoted before, John Ralston, who's a Nevada-based poll watcher. Another legend, by the way. Yes. His take on this is, I'm just going to read a quote, a tweet or a tweet from him. I'm going to quote him. Quote, yeah, that's nutty. I don't believe most Nevada polls, but Rosen was running well ahead of Biden and everyone. I think it's reasonable for Cook to say Nevada Senate leans them Rosen up or just above margin of error. And I think press race is a toss up within margin of error. That's my vibe. Okay. Unquote. So just saying like reading between the lines here, which doesn't take too much work is that this number is a little tough to believe. And if you think that Harris is maybe down a point in Nevada while the Senate candidate is up by 18, then maybe it's all right to ask if this latest round of numbers is a little high. I know that Wasserman has an extremely good reputation

but I think it's possible that this round of polling is inflating a bit or at least that something's off in Nevada because it does strain credulity. Yeah, I mean I will say in the Cook Political report so a lot of

this stuff makes the rounds on in the Cook Political report, so they, a lot of, you know, a lot of this stuff makes the rounds on Twitter. And Cook Political is actually like a really premium price subscription that I pay for, but it's very expensive. I don't imagine that most like normal, non-reporter media people don't actually pay for it. And there's typically some really interesting stuff under the hood.

I mean, I'm also very skeptical of the idea that Jackie Rosen, I mean, she's fairly popular, but she's not up 18 points. And that was kind of my inclination. And then I read the Cook Political Report and from the actual write-up of the polls, they say, nevertheless, Rosen continues to lead significantly. Nevertheless, after saying that Trump is still reporting a three-point lead. And they write that in our May survey, Rosen was leading by seven points, but that was against a generic Republican before

Brown had officially won the GOP nomination in June. So we do have a new candidate now. And then Rosen is highly unlikely to win by 18 points like our new poll shows. Remember that the 2022 Nevada Senate race was the closest in the country decided by just under 8,000 votes. But we are beginning to see a trend. Rosen's overperformance is even more surprising given she is the only first term senator in a competitive race and how notoriously transient the Nevada electorate is. So definitely some hedging there by Cook Political just saying, this is what it is, but this is not necessarily what it will be, which I think is the right message for them to send in the kind

of deeper analysis here. So yeah, I don't have a great hypothesis for why this is so. I think it's a sign of Democratic Party strength. If I had to say anything, I would say that. I think just, you know, somebody asked me the other day, do you, you know, you talk a lot about left and right in your newsletter and you categorize people and writers that way. And you talk about yourself in these terms. I'm curious, on net, do you think America is more to the left or more to the right? Which is a really hard question to answer for a million different reasons. But my general response was if I had to, you know, if you create the paradigm, if you set the paradigm of left and right by as they exist today, you know, you plant the tribe flags.

I think we're just left of center, basically. I think that because I think Democrats and Democratic Party platform is just slightly more popular than Republicans. I think a generic Democrat, yeah, at this moment is slightly more popular than Republicans. And so I would say, you know, a hair left of center is basically where the kind of median American is right now. And I think this polling kind of reflects that, that there's a sort of inherent advantage a few weeks out from an election where Senate Democrats are going to be running ahead. So that's what I take away from it. But yeah, it's very peculiar to me that there's such a big break here. Typically, what

happens in the election doesn't look like this. So we haven't had a lot of ticket splitting in the last few elections, and I don't suspect that's going to change here. I could be wrong, but I'll be very curious to see how these polls hold up against the actual results in a few weeks. So, all right, with that, we got to wrap up and get to our grievances for the week. Real quick, just wanted to say a lot of Nevada talk today. So shout out to all our Nevada listeners.

We got into the taxes on tips, got to John Ralston, got into a Rosen Senate campaign in Nevada. Do you have any fun facts or things you want to say about Nevada before we move on? No, only that it took me forever to learn to say it.

I was a Nevada guy for so long and I had to get corrected a million times. If you're a Nevada listener or reader, just send us an email with fun Nevada facts or maybe just like a voice recording of yourself saying the word Nevada over and over again. Yeah, that'd be helpful for me. I know Nevada was born into statehood during the Civil War, 1864, which is why it says Battle Born on its flag. It's also the name of a Killers album because the Killers are from Nevada and they're currently our best American rock band and I'll die on that hill.

Whoa, the Killers are from Nevada? I didn't know that. Yeah. Brandon Flowers moved to Nevada with his parents after being raised Mormon. We're still raised Mormon. I've got a lot of Killers facts, which maybe we'll save for our other podcast,

Killers Talk. We're really getting distracted here, but is there a Utah to Nevada pipeline of ex-Mormons who flee and they're like, I got to get to Vegas ASAP? Well, in the Flowers family, that was for economic opportunity, and they remained Mormon. But I don't know. Maybe that is something. And we'll have to, again, we're talking about apologizing to our readers for pronunciation.

I have to apologize to our readers who are, our listeners who are members of the Church of Latter-day Saints because it is really tough to break the Mormon habit and saying that word. So yeah, send all of your emails to will at retangle.com that's church of latter day saints of Jesus Christ by the way

so you almost got it sorry I'm trying yeah hey we're trying and shout out to the members because they're some of our most engaged and interesting readers I get emails from our readers who are sharing both

religious perspective, but also political perspectives. I find Utah and the world of the Church of Latter-day Saints of Jesus Christ fascinating. And the political orientations of the people therein also super, super interesting. So we love hearing from you and we're trying our best to, you know. And your church name's really long and we're really trying. Yeah, your church name, you guys got it. You got to come up with a short. Please shorten it. Yeah, if you have a shorter thing, that would be great because we love you and respect you.

But we say so many words and we write so many words and we need some shorthand help. All right, with that out of the way, let's jump into our grievances for the week. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. This is going to be a little controversial amongst the two of us. We're just talking about how like members of Jesus Christ and the Church of Latter-day Saints,

I think, I'm sorry, we keep getting that wrong, but how they're very insistent about a term that they want to be referred to as. And LDS is a good shorthand, but as a member- Just to be clear, it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Good. We have it. And if you're a member of any group, your group gets control over how you want to be referred to. That makes a ton of sense. Where I draw the line for groups that get control of words is when it comes to corporations deciding how we have to punctuate stuff.

I sort of really, really tried not to rant in the comments section of our newsletter a couple of days ago when we included a have a nice day story about Lego sets. Because Lego has decided that their brand name is always going to be all caps. And I think that's absurd and I don't respect it. You invented a word, Lego. Good job. Not a lot of places get to invent words that make it into the popular lexicon. Lego and Kleenex should be pleased with themselves, but they're now popular words and they should be held to the same rules and standards as every other word. Lego should be spelled lowercase L-E-G-O. Kleenex should not be capitalized, nor should Frisbee. And I think those are all terms that we all use to mean a thing that is more, like in most cases, than just the brand name itself. And when you are a corporation and you've invented

a brand or a word and it becomes larger than the product you sell, you kind of have to let go of editorial control a little bit. And I didn't make a thing of it. I was saving it for today, but I don't think you should capitalize any of those words, which is also why I keep fighting the fight about how, why you shouldn't capitalize Frisbee and Ultimate Frisbee, which is a place where I know you and I have disagreed before. Yeah, I'm trying on my feet to think of a good example to throw in your face, but I'm struggling to get one immediately. But yeah, you're wrong. I'm not exactly sure why. I'll figure it out soon, though. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. I hate that opinion,

but I respect you for having it. I think it's awesome that we have to. Yeah. I think it's awesome that we have to capitalize Lego. And I'm totally in on that and thought you were wrong then. And I think you're wrong now. So yeah, I'll take it.

That's a good one. I'm going to sit on that. I'm going to think of a company that's invented a word that you capitalize without objecting to it that'll be my project for the rest of the week

uh it is a good one that's very that's a very Ari grievance um my my grievance this week is

uh Achilles tendonitis okay what a go on whoever invented this or just let this happen Achilles tendonitis. Okay. Go on. Whoever invented this or just let this happen. It's Lego. Lego did it.

Yeah. Sorry, don't sue us. I know that you didn't, Lego. You make a good product. Whether it's evolution or the big man, somebody made this body of mine and it should not be possible that

a tendonitis in my Achilles is as debilitating as it is. I have partially torn my left Achilles a couple of years ago, which I did a bunch of rehab for and came back from and was very, very grateful it wasn't an actual real tear because that would have been awful. And it's one of the worst and most difficult injuries to recover from, especially if you're someone like me who runs a lot and plays a lot of running sports. I have this Achilles thing going on right now. It's in my right Achilles. I thought that I had injured it again without realizing it. And then I had a summer league semifinal game on Monday night and I could barely run in the game.

I mean, the first possession of the game, the first pass that I threw, I stepped out. And when my foot hit the ground, it basically just like exploded up my ankle and I it didn't feel good when I warmed up and I shouldn't have played and I tried to anyway and I just immediately threw the frisbee into the ground had a turnover and then I couldn't run and I was

just felt awful the whole game and after the game was over I was like that was a huge mistake I shouldn't have played we lost the game in part because two of our best players had COVID which is still a thing. And that's awful. I was wondering if that's why Scott wasn't there. Scott's in Italy. Yeah. Anyway, nobody cares about that. But I wake up the next day thinking I've, you know,

whether I have an injury or tendonitis, I just destroyed myself for a week. And then I woke up and my Achilles felt fine the next day. I literally couldn't walk on it. I go to bed. I wake up. It's totally fine. I'm like, that's weird. And then I start walking to work two hours later and I have to hobble 20 minutes to work.

And then the middle of the day, it disappears. And then I go to bed and it's fine. And then I wake up the next day and it's fine. And then I take one weird step on the stairs and it's like bursting pain. And I have a debilitating injury that I can't locate, stop, heal, prevent, whatever. So I hate Achilles tendonitis. And now I understand the Greek mythology, I guess. Okay. Three things quick. mythology, I guess. Okay. Three things quick. You say Achilles differently than I do. You keep saying Achilles. Is that the way people say it in the Bucks County area? I don't know. I have a lot of trouble pronunciating. I have a lot of trouble enunciating words. Yeah. I'm a bad pronunciator,

but go on. We all have our flaws. I'm sure I have oneator, but go on. We all have our flaws. I'm sure I have one. I'll find it one day. The second thing was, at least you have this excuse, you know? Like, lost the summer league game. I was using it.

It's my Achilles. I'm sure you were. Yeah, I was screaming a lot. Every time we scored a goal, I just was screaming about how I only had one leg and they still couldn't stop me. That's such like an old guy summer league thing to do. It's like, oh, I'm hurt.

That's why we're losing. But I'm still, I'm doing fine. It's because our guys don't have COVID. That's why we're losing. Congratulations on your asterisk victory. So good for you. You're losing the best way that you can, which is complaining.

The third thing that I want to respond with is, I know he's canceled now, but did you ever watch Louis CK's HBO show, Louis? Yeah. Great show. Great show. Really funny. He had one scene where he went to a doctor or maybe a chiropractor about back pain. And he asked why his back hurts. And the doctor said, because you're using it wrong. Spines were evolved to fit quadrupeds and we're supposed to walk on all fours. And then you decided millions of years ago to stand upright and your spine can't handle that. So over decades, like you're supposed to die when you're 40 and now you're 50. So like your spine just won't work. So, you know, that's your fault for evolving and living with technology that allows your life to go longer. So I don't know, maybe, maybe we're just happy that things are working at all.

Evolution's strange. Great way to end the grievance section. working at all. Evolution's strange. Great way to end the grievance section. If you have a body and it hurts, we're sorry. We feel your pain in a literal way. All right. It's time to go. Good to see you, Ari. We'll see you guys next week. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager.

The music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website at readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com.