Tangle - The Sunday Podcast: Isaac and Ari Talk Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Philly and the Burbs

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

On today's episode, Isaac and Ari talk about Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Philly, the burbs and more. Ari gives two hot takes on Supreme Court with Isaac's live reaction. Plus we do a fun segment with a definitely/maybe on some questionable/probable politics outcomes. And as always, the Airing of Grievances.You can watch the recap of the Harris v Trump debate with Isaac's commentary on our YouTube Channel!Check out Episode 6 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 Dewey Thomas. 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.

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+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. 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.

Got a mortgage? Chances are you're thinking about your payments right now. Need help? Ask your bank about relief measures that may be available to you. Learn more at canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. Coming up, we talk Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Philly, the Burbs. We go all in. Ari gives two hot takes on the Supreme Court and gets my live reaction. And then I steal a segment from the podfather, Bill Simmons, and we do a definitely maybe on some questionable, probable politics outcomes. Then I complain about tipping people. You guys are going to enjoy this one. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place you 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 managing editor Ari Weitzman and my favorite microphone in the podcast biz. Ari, how you doing? John, our executive producer, who is a nerd for sound and the best way. I'm in this very echoey room in the basement of my apartment building with my backup flashing trippy microphone because there's an issue with the back of the cord for my mic. So we've got some energy going to start. We've got the lights flowing at a different location.

Juices are up. Yeah, you look like a club and you sound like you're in an echo chamber. So I'm sure John will have a lot of fun with this. All right. We got a lot to cover today. And I think we're going to be

a little bit Pennsylvania heavy. Which is fitting. I just... Ari's thrown on sunglasses to match his absurd microphone. I just, Ari's thrown on sunglasses to match his absurd microphone. I just got off Essie Cupp's show Battleground, which I mistakenly told people was going to be live and they could tune in at one o'clock today.

Actually, it was pre-taped, but it's going to go up on all the Fox 29 channels tomorrow on Friday. So if you're listening to this on Sunday, you should be able to find it on YouTube and maybe you got to catch it on Friday afternoon. It was a really interesting interview. It was short. It was brief five minute hit on TV. And the way these talk shows work is a little like insider info, but oftentimes for shows like this that are kind of talking head shows like Essie's show, you can get the questions ahead of time or you get some topics ahead of time. They sort of prep you on what you're going to be asked about. So most of this stuff was just right in my

wheelhouse. But it was pretty interesting because they wanted to bring me on since I'm a Bucks County boy and a Bucks County reporter. And that's kind of part of my ethos and background. And I got to do just, you know, state of the race research, talk to some people, see where things were. And there's a lot of really interesting stuff happening in Pennsylvania right now. And, you know, for those of you who maybe don't know, Pennsylvania is basically the key to the election. I think, you know, whichever candidate wins PA, their odds of winning the election go up substantially. So it's, in my view, inarguably the most important election or most important state in the election in 2024. And Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, is a bellwether county in this bellwether state. And it's not

bellwether in the sense that it is flipping every year. It has been blue for a few election cycles now. Barack Obama won it. Hillary Clinton won it, actually. And then Joe Biden won it. Before that, it was traditionally a Republican county, but it's kind of changed a bit over time. And the margins in those races were extremely thin, like less than 5%, we're talking. And, you know, Essie asked, what are you going to be watching on election night? Which is a good question. And I think the answer is basically the margins.

Because if Kamala Harris wins Bucks County by a whisker, you know, like a 1% or less, or maybe a 1.5%, that's not voting well for her probably across the state. She wins it by 3, 4%, 5%, 6%. Then that's a really good sign that she's going to be strong in Pennsylvania and will probably win the state. And if she loses it, I think it's like a five alarm fire. If Trump manages to win Bucks, he'll be the first Republican to do that since pre-Obama years.

And it'll be a really strong kind of canary in the coal mine signal that Pennsylvania is going his way and thus the election is going his way, which is a super interesting thing to consider going into election night, but also just kind of wild that one county can hold so much weight in a race like this. And as I was doing this research today, I came across this story that fascinated me, which was about how these evangelical Christians in Bucks County are maybe turning on Trump for the first time. There's some cracks in the armor there, which is really interesting. And it's hard to know with these stories, whether it's how seriously to take them, how broadly representative they are. But it's the first time

I've seen a story like this in Pennsylvania that's localized, where they're talking to pastors and bishops and community leaders. And there seems to be like a real groundswell of movement to jump ship and move to Kamala Harris. And the things these guys are talking about are a combination of the kind of character, kindness, joy campaign she's running and finding that really attractive and religious. And then also that Trump is waffling on abortion, basically, which he is. He's trying to moderate his stance to appeal to suburban women who are less religious. I don't know if this story is going to matter in the long run, but I thought it was pretty interesting, the timing of it. And it definitely was an eyebrow raiser for me.

Yeah. So this is interesting to hear about because like you said, the interview was taped as we're recording it a little while ago as we're recording this podcast, but I haven't gotten a chance to hear it yet. So I'm hearing about 3D for the first time and the Bucks County angle. One of the things that comes up for me is wondering if that creates this opportunity to read a little bit more into these little signals than maybe we ought to. Like you said, Bucks County has been a bellwether county in the past, but that kind of stopped in the Obama years. Republican hasn't won it since. kind of stopped in the Obama years. Republican hasn't won it since.

So maybe looking at the way some communities in this lean, blue, purplish county are acting, maybe that's a little bit of an overreaction. I think it's possible that, you know, that Trump could win Pennsylvania without winning any of the surrounding counties. But it's really- Surrounding Philly. Surrounding Philly, sorry.

Yeah, excuse me. The Philadelphia suburb counties. But I got to say, both candidates, I think, are doing something really smart that Hillary did not do and that Biden did a little bit, but not great,

which is they're trying really hard to eat into the other's margins. You know, Kamala Harris is going into deep red Georgia and she's not going to towns where she's going to win the counties there. She's going to deep red towns in Georgia where she wants to lessen Trump's lead. She's trying to eat into his vote across the state,

not just run up the score in Atlanta suburbs. And they're doing that. They're both doing that here in Pennsylvania. And so I think that's important. Another thing that came up in this interview with SC Cup was that Montgomery County, she asked about, has seen this huge surge in Democratic registration. And it's been the largest bump in registration that either party has had in

any of these big four counties that are right around Philadelphia. And she asked why, which is a good question. And I thought the answer was pretty simple. And it's kind of twofold. One is that really fascinating thing about Montgomery County is they have a huge number of unaffiliated voters, over 100,000. So first of all, there's just a group of people that are not registered to a party that are ripe to be kind of picked.

And then two is just Kamala Harris. Literally. I mean, it's that Joe Biden dropped out and there was this huge surge of enthusiasm about Kamala Harris. I literally, I mean, it's that Joe Biden dropped out and there was this huge surge of enthusiasm about Kamala Harris. And that has helped the Democratic Party activate organizers on the ground who are often the ones behind these big registration bumps. And it's been really helpful for her so far. And I don't know if that's going to last. We're sitting here in September and all the usual caveats apply, but it's definitely important. And I think't know if that's going to last. We're sitting here in September and all the usual caveats apply. But it's definitely important.

And I think it's a good kind of micro example of how Democrats' decision to abandon Biden has helped them. That being said, she has that news. She's got, you know, good fundraising news. There are a few good polls have come out. The New York Times Santa College poll that came out on Thursday as we recorded this was plus four. And there's a few quality polls all showing her in the lead. But she has one big problem that I think is not an insignificant problem,

which is that the Teamsters Union has decided not to endorse her. And this is kind of a treasured Democratic endorsement. I mean, any union, major union endorsement is treasured by Democrats or has been for several decades. And they didn't make the endorsement. And it's, I mean, it's really a coup for Trump in a lot of ways. I mean, not a lot of people expected this. They promised, the Teamsters promised that they were going to run the most transparent process for a presidential endorsement that they ever have. Their president, Sean O'Brien, kept saying that. And today he did something that is, I think, unusual, which is he released the internal poll results of the Teamsters asking their members who they should endorse for president. And something really fascinating came out of it, which I'm going to read to you right now. a few months ago, and Joe Biden was in the race,

the margins were 44% for Joe Biden, 36% for Donald Trump, and 5.6% for RFK. So it was a clean Biden win by about eight points with RFK in the race. They just released their latest poll with Harris and Trump. And there's two of them. One's a phone research poll and the other one's electronic member poll. And the electronic member poll shows Donald Trump with 59% support

and Kamala Harris with 34% support, which is a massive swing. I mean, you'd be expecting some swing, but that's really considerable. It's enormous. It's gigantic. And it explains why they haven't made an endorsement because if they were to endorse Harris,

which is the thing I think you'd expect them to do, they'd sort of be bucking the evidence they have that their members support that. I don't know what to make of it, but it's not good for Harris. And I think it's maybe, it's weird to say this, I think it's maybe the first really bad piece of news she's gotten on the kind of fundamentals of the race since she got in, which is like, if she has softening union support in states like Pennsylvania, she's in big, big trouble. And again, I don't want to overstate it, but it struck me that I hadn't seen a story like this. All the endorsement stuff,

all the campaign fundraising, the polls, the debate, all these things have really broken in her way since she announced. And this one kind of stopped me where I was like, wow, this is like the first tangible bad news for her about something that she really needs to win. And it matters not just in Philly, but in Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs and all of Pennsylvania. And I know we're going to talk a little bit about Pittsburgh. And it's just, yeah, I think it's really meaningful. And I haven't seen many people on the left kind of grappling with it or talking about it. Well, just to grapple and talk about it a little bit here,

I wonder if you've been thinking about what the reason is for that. Is this just because Biden made such an effort to have a presence with unions and he's gone and they're going to go to the person who's been their second most? Is it that a lot of people who work for unions kind of have conservative tilts and Biden was just doing a lot of work to walk them together? What do you think is happening? I would say there's a few things happening.

One is that the union members probably believe that Harris is more progressive on environmental issues, which I think is right. They probably don't see as strong of a record from her on union support, which I think is probably right. And they don't know her the way they know Biden. I mean, you know,

it's easy to make fun of him, but the kind of like, we know Joe campaign stuff, it's pretty effective. And I can tell you, you know, as a reporter who grew up in Pennsylvania and you obviously grew up in PA as well, Biden does a really good job as a retail politician in this state.

He does a good job campaigning in this state. He does a good job front and centering the Pennsylvania issues that matter. So it's not shocking to me. The swing is really surprising. The methodology for the poll was different. I think one was a straw poll of their members and the other one was electronic and one was a phone. And so the data is a little messy, but I think the signal is basically that there's some dissatisfaction with Harris. And I think it's very clear that the Teamsters union presidents are trying to respond to that in what they think is a responsible way, which is like, if we endorse Trump, we'd be bucking our members a bit. The only caveat I want to throw out there to all of this, which I think is a fair and important one, is that local Teamsters unions in swing states are now rushing to endorse Harris.

I don't know how effective that is. I don't know what it will mean, but they're not rushing to endorse Trump. And this wave of local and regional Teamster union branches in these battleground states came out and started endorsing her after they found out the national Teamsters union wasn't. Again, no idea what the disconnect is between those two groups. I don't know enough about the interworkings of the organization. It's fascinating to me that they would have some misalignment there. But yeah, these regional councils, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Western Pennsylvania, they endorsed Harris hours after Sean O'Brien announced that the union would withhold its endorsement. So you can make of that what you

will. She's got some support, but it's definitely not as hard as I think she wishes it was. Yeah, that is interesting. I wonder if that's going to be a developing story or if they're, I think one of the things we talked about last week was that there's only so, even in the world of the 24-hour news cycle, there's only so many things that you can talk about at a time and both campaigns are going to be fighting to get their issue in the news cycle. And I think it's only going to be like one or two or three at a time. And we're looking to see which one's going to be on at the top of the wheel by the time November rolls around. And I wonder if this is even going to enter the cycle, to be honest, like that's,

it's a really interesting insight. I think you're right that it hasn't come up. But I wonder if it will. Do you think it will? I think that there's going to be enough, there's going to be enough coverage of the other big issues. That's something like the Teamsters Union

is going to get drowned out. I think the more liberal left-leaning press is going to focus on the local endorsements and the endorsements from groups like the United Auto Workers Union, and they'll just basically publish one piece about this and then kind of move past it. I just no, I mean, like I just Googled it, you know, and immediately it's Fox News has, you know, like three stories up about it already. CNN has one. So we're just going to have to see it, I guess,

kind of entering the cycle now. But even if it doesn't enter the cycle, it's still going to have an effect. The Washington Post, I Googled Teamsters filtered for news. The top two results are two Fox News articles about how the Teamsters union is not endorsing Harris. Then there's one from CNN. There's one from The Hill. There's one from Washington Post talking about the local Teamsters unions endorsing her. And then the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette doing the same. And then Politico doing the same,

saying West Coast Teamsters break with National Chapter and endorse Harris. So just looking at these news cycles, it seems like a lot of people are focusing on the local endorsement, which is not totally surprising and a little bit of showing you how the sausage is made with some news orgs that have a little bit of an ideological tilt. This story, of course, is quite relevant for things that are happening across Pennsylvania, not just in Bucks County, but the entire state. We had a very Pittsburgh-heavy themed week this week,

which I know you appreciated. And we covered the U.S. Steel and the Nippon acquisition. There is apparently been some movement on that since we published our piece, which is that Nippon has refiled its bid. And some people are interpreting that as a sign they think they might get the next one through. You made an interesting observation that I actually stole and used in my interview today with SE Cup. Oh, nice. Yeah, which I didn't know until you told me,

which is about the polling on fracking in Pennsylvania and the kind of more complex story it tells than the one maybe you'd expect given how candidates talk about fracking here. I'd be curious to hear you talk a little bit about it, because I think a lot of people have the impression that Pennsylvania voters are kind of unabashedly pro-fracking in the same sort of drill baby drill way we hear people talk about, you know, energy production with crude oil. And it seems like there's some data to suggest that that's not quite the case. Yeah, there is. And there isn't a ton of data about this. It's something that I've looked at a bit. I'll lead with the lead here, which is that during the 2020 campaign, CBS and YouGov put out a poll that found that a slight majority

of all Pennsylvania voters were opposed to fracking by 52 to 48%. YouGov has been doing independent polling since then that has shown that decline, that support declined very, very modestly, but still maintaining that minority of voters who are opposed to fracking more than favoring it. And overwhelmingly, over three quarters of voters in Pennsylvania favor some form of regulation to fracking. It's not hard

to think of why, because if you're a person who lives in an area where fracking is occurring, these are some of the side effects that you get with fracking. One, increased seismic activity, which is weird. It's also not that big of a deal, but it is surprising and confusing, and it in some cases can be a big deal. localized gas leaks, localized earthquakes, disruption to well water, things that are really difficult for people living off of city water and city utilities in general. Another thing that it causes is air contamination. Fracking is much cleaner as a way of getting and accessing natural gas or any fossil fuel, as opposed to the alternatives like drilling for oil and mining coal. Definitely the burning of natural gas is cleaner, but there's always going to be some off-gassing in that process, and that's going to affect the air quality in those regions.

That's going to be true no matter what kind of energy you're sourcing, or if you're mining lithium for batteries. It doesn't matter what, whatever the energy source is, whatever the fuel storage source is, the place where we're getting those materials, that place is going to be affected more. And Pennsylvania is one of those places. Another thing that it does,

it brings in out of state people into the state who are kind of making a quick buck, which is fine. Like I've definitely been a person who's moved around and done contract work. I have nothing against that. But the issue that people who live in these areas have is that these are people who are less invested in their communities. And that always causes some disruption. Whether it's like Springfield, Ohio, or Butler, Pennsylvania, those issues are really, really different, but some of those effects are similar.

And when people outside of Pennsylvania think about fracking, they just think industry and PA equals PA support. We can't win Pennsylvania without this. And my big headline thing is that Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania specifically, to an extent, Central Pennsylvania, where most of the fracking is taking place because this isn't something that's affecting Eastern PA as much, is that national politicians and national media don't know that region and they're telling a story that their viewers and their readers understand but it's not the story that exists and essentially this kind of was bunched up with our u.s steel story with biden and harris and trump coming out against the nippon steel acquisition of u.s steel because they Steel because they have that same simple equation in their mind.

Pittsburgh business equals steel equals protect Pittsburgh business. But they're thinking about a city that hasn't existed in a while. Pittsburgh has not been that town since the 60s, arguably since the 40s. And if you're worried about fracking in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvanians are worried about it too. If you think that you're going to win Pennsylvania by selling a pro fracking, absolutely, let's do this message.

That might not be the winning message you think it is. And if you're trying to protect southwestern Pennsylvania industries like steel, if you're trying to protect southwestern Pennsylvania industries like steel, you missed the boat. That already, U.S. Steel sort of already failed as a company. And that's a longer story, but it's also one I'm happy to get into a little bit. Because this region, it's very different than it was in the 40s and 60s. Did you know that the population of Allegheny County is smaller than it was in 1960? Of Allegheny County is smaller?

Yeah. Wow, that is fascinating. Actually, I didn't know that. By a significant amount. And Allegheny County is the county where Pittsburgh is. In 1970, according to the census, that's when Allegheny County's population peaked at that one point. Sorry, it was 1960, it peaked at 1.63 million. Today, the population of Allegheny County is about 1.23 million. So the industry, the steel industry that was there already downsized. When you think of the employers in this region, U.S. Steel is, I think, eighth. The employers that have the larger workforces ahead of U.S. Steel are UPMC, which is University of Pittsburgh Medical Center,

the government, the U.S. government, the state government, West Penn Health Systems, which is another healthcare provider, University of Pittsburgh in general, Mellon Financial Corp, which is a bank, PNC Financial Services, which is another bank, the county itself, and then USU. And then after that, you have Giant Eagle, like a regional grocery store, and then Highmark, which is another healthcare company. So what we hear is there's some government, a lot of government jobs, but mostly healthcare and a lot of education and services because that pivot has already been made and it continues to be made i'm curious i guess you know on the ground if this is so obvious right like if the death of the steel industry industry seems apparent and the changing factors and socioeconomic framework we should be thinking

about Pittsburgh in is all pretty real and visible. How are the politicians missing it or why are they campaigning in a way that you feel like is disconnected? I just think it's hard to keep up with every small market or mid-market city's evolutions. I don't necessarily think it's an incompetent thing. I think it's just there's only so many places you can focus. When you think of Pennsylvania, you probably think of as like voting block. You think of Philly and you think of the rest of the state. And I don't think politicians and campaigns really have the time to nuance themselves in different ways. Like, how much do I really know about how Detroit's evolved in the last 20 years?

Not a lot. Like, I have a story in my mind, but I'm a pretty informed person. I can't tell you how Detroit's changed in the last 25 years. Same thing with like Dearborn. I know a little bit, not a lot. Wisconsin, I don't know like what Madison's done in the last 30 years. I have an idea of what Madison means, but that's not something that I really know about.

So you have a city like Pittsburgh, which had a big cultural imprint in the 60s when steel was sort of coming down from its peak, but it was near its peak. The Steelers were huge. Pittsburgh was huge in the national mindset of this defense first sports town with a gritty football team with like gritty skyline and cinder and smoke. And that kind of, you know, the culture embraced that. So it hasn't updated. It's like Pittsburgh hasn smoke and that kind of you know the culture embraced that so it hasn't updated it's like pittsburgh hasn't updated its image of itself it wants to sell that blue collar mentality

and again i don't think that's really a bad thing that's kind of part of the culture i was raised on it's like the value of hard work and just effort and get it done and that's pittsburgh's like export in a way is that culture. So I don't blame people for having that understanding of the city because that's the way the city sort of communicates. If you watch Sunday Night Football and the Steelers are playing, you'll hear people say, this has always been a defense-first town, always been a run the football.

It doesn't matter that in 2017 Pittsburgh had one of the best offenses ever. It doesn't matter that there's been times when the Steelers have been like that. It doesn't matter that the city has changed, but there's one operating steel mill left in the city, like Integrity Mill, because we haven't had a reason to change that.

I think it's not necessarily bad until we get into these situations where we start selling ideas that are actually going to end up having more harm than good. Like block the sale, US Steel is doing fine. US Steel is a bad company. They've been slow to embrace innovation. The changes to the way that steel has been processed, they've always been behind the ball in how they're doing it. Why isn't it on steel coming into the first place? They have innovated the process that they use to make steel way

ahead of the US Steel has. So they have the know-how, they have the ability, and they have the capital in order to come up and actually make these mills somewhat profitable, or the remaining ones in Gary, Indiana, and Pittsburghittsburgh usdl doesn't like they've never been a company that does that andrew carnegie's the guy that you think of when you think of like industrialists in pittsburgh he sold carnegie works in 1901 a us deal it's never really been that like innovative company it's always been just a monopolistic, just run on our past success kind of company. And it's been coasting down for a hundred years. I don't blame people for not knowing that story.

And that's, you know, even that story is a bit of an oversimplification, but when you, you know, and again, I don't know if it's that bad of a thing until we get to these, these kinds of episodes where when you think of the town, when you think of the industry incorrectly, you start making decisions based on bad data. And I hope that this is an opportunity, especially with the spotlight in Pennsylvania for politicians to kind of update their mindset about Pittsburgh. Yeah, more tangentially related to this story i guess the other thing we didn't really get into that all this sort of makes me consider in the context of you know pittsburgh u.s steel not being this company that it's sometimes portrayed to be or innovative or whatever is basically that china is just eating everybody's lunch on steel production.

And the upside, one of the upsides of the deal is that it sort of creates this unified front. It brings the number two world leader, Japan, next to and includes and encompasses this old US steel company that has so much kind of institutional branding and also the workforce and the factories and all these things. And that's like a powerful one-two punch together to maybe take back some of that market share. And we didn't really talk much about that in our piece, but I think it's another kind of interesting layer here. 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.

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 6 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.

We'll be right back after this quick break. I know we're biased and we love talking about Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania and could stay on it all day. But there are a couple other things I want to get to today. The other big thing that was in the news this week was the John Roberts piece and the Supreme Court and how some of their rulings went down. And before we got on the podcast today, Ari assured me that he has two smoking hot Supreme Court takes. And he said he wanted to get my real-time reaction to them. So I don't know what they are. I'm going to insist that you be as to the point as you can get. And I'll give you my honest, unvarnished opinion.

Because I think the less you make your argument for the take in telling me what the take is, the easier it'll be to clap back at me if I don't agree with you. Okay. So these are maybe, one of them's a three out of five on the hot take scale. The next one's a four out of five, maybe. But this was a bit of a bait and switch.

So I'm going to start with my three out of five. Hot take. This recent leak about John Roberts showed that the Supreme Court is less politically motivated than we thought. Interesting. I think

I know where you're going with that I think you do which is you know you make the argument that there was clearly a lot of dissent and disagreement across the bench from both sides about how each of these cases were being handled. And it turns out maybe one person was shepherding the opinions and some specific outcomes in a way that made the entire court or the entire conservative bloc seem a little bit more partisan than they are. But that actually, the reporting, if you pay attention to the details, actually shows a court that's much more divided and not necessarily along ideological lines about how to handle stuff like this.

I think that's a pretty good argument. And I think I'll add another layer to it, which is that part of what this leak showed is that the Chief Justice, John Roberts, was really trying to be forward-thinking as much as possible and trying to put out a ruling that was going to be considering future cases about presidential immunity, especially this last case, Trump vs. the United States, regarding presidential immunity for the length of actions on January 6th that may or may not have been outside of his purview as the official office of president. In this case, the conservative justices, according to these

leaks, were really, really averse to wanting to weigh in on the details. You could say that that is because they're trying to protect Trump, but I take this all at face value, which is that they were just really aware of their own leanings and not necessarily, not terrified, not petrified, but like a little bit nervous, afraid about weighing in on the details at all, knowing their biases. So they wanted as much as possible to just say, we aren't going to talk about Trump himself. We're going to make a ruling that's divorced from that. And in so doing, with that argument, I think Roberts is amenable to that.

And I think he wanted to take that ball and run with it and say, we don't have to talk about the he said, she said. We don't have to talk about the details of what Trump did or didn't do. We can just push this. We don't have to play politics at all. And in that framework, you think, okay, that kind of sounds reasonable,

but what's the output of that? This case gets delayed. They send a question back to lower courts. There's no hearing on it until after the election, if Trump wins, he gets to throw the case out. It very much ends up in the output favoring Trump. So it's a political decision in terms of the outcome. But I don't think, I don't see the

process as being motivated by political action. I think it shows us the opposite. I think it shows us that they're trying as hard not to get the game and in so doing, they're kind of putting themselves in the game. Yeah, it's really interesting. The other thing I would throw out there too is just that, is the Clarence Thomas piece, which like, you know, I mean, Alito gets a lot of heat, but I think Thomas is probably considered

the most partisan of all the justices. And he wanted to wait on the Trump immunity case, according to this reporting, which, I mean, that was fascinating to me. And, you know, a lot of people viewed what the court did as advantageous for Trump, including me. And I think they got the ruling wrong. I've written and talked about that extensively. But even the timing element of it in a vacuum, I think it's pretty hard to make an argument that waiting on that would have been advantageous for Trump.

And yet, based on this reporting, the only two people we know that supported taking the case up were Gorsuch and Roberts, which is surprising to me based on my view about their biases. my view about their biases. I will say, and then we'll move to your next take. I love this hot take because interestingly, weirdly, it's not how I felt initially on first read of the story, but I think I'm pretty convinced by the argument

and trying to steal man it. And yeah, just like, it's a pretty good argument. And two is that this has been one of the drums i've been beating uh over and over again except for confirming your prior so that helps yeah so you're confirming my priors because this is something i've talked about it's like i think this court has been way less predictable and way less ideological than a lot of people understand

they have definitely broken in favor of conservatives on a lot of people understand. They have definitely broken in favor of conservatives on a lot of the big blockbuster cases. It's often been 6-3 in those cases. But it's not nearly as predictable as you think. And there's just this whole other, I guess this whole other layer of cases that the courts take on where the ideological alignment is all mixed up. And I don't really view this as being a radical, out-of-control court. I think it's a conservative, decidedly conservative court with a strong majority. And so we see the kinds of rulings we see, but, you know,

Kataji Brown Jackson has been much less predictable than I think we expected. She's sort of leaning into some of her originalist credo and, uh, and Amy Coney Barrett has been less predictable and Brett Kavanaugh seems to be coming back to the middle. And there's just all these little developments on the court that I think are really interesting. So I'm in. I like that hot take. And I'm ready for the four out of five. Okay.

Because I think you may have set it up to be maybe a little more spicy than I thought it was going to be with that last line. I think a person who's becoming one of the more predictable justices in this court is Brett Kavanaugh. Interesting. Well, how did you, in what sense? Two things. In 2021, after the Biden election, Kavanaugh,

we heard some stories about him moderatingating a little bit. He had a very contentious hearing, and he never really wanted to be a far-right justice is what we heard. In 2021, Kavanaugh ruled with the majority 97% of the time. More and more frequently on these blockbuster cases, I cannot think of one in the last term that we covered, or that I'm aware of, where Kavanaugh did not vote with Roberts. And it's suggesting to me that there's a really simple kind of rule in Kavanaugh's head, which is vote however you can to become the next chief justice. I think he's trying to just model his behavior after Roberts. And I think he's trying to model his decision-making after Roberts,

which is stay out of the fray as a rule anywhere that you can. We know that he's going to be a little bit more moderate on abortion comparatively to the other centrist conservative judges, as well as environmental issues. He showed that. That's not that complicated. Now that he's shown his record, we can kind of anticipate it. He's going to be a little bit more to the right

when it comes to cases on presidential authority and the theory of government and interpretation of the Constitution. And in general, he's going to try to just be centrist. He's going to take his leanings and just move them to the Constitution. And in general, he's going to try to just be centrist. He's going to take his leanings and just move them to the center. Follow Roberts as much as he can and try to angle for that picture. So when you say he's being predictable, you're not

using predictable as like a synonym for conservative. You're saying he's predictable in the sense that he's following a path and a voting pattern that would suggest he's somebody who wants to one day lead the court. Right. If you're not using this paradigm of conservative justice, liberal justice, there's three and three who follow that and get that. But if you use a different rule for Kavanaugh, it's still pretty easy to predict what he's going to do.

What do the other stats look like for different justices? Is 97% actually... I mean, obviously, the legal justices are voting in the minority more often, but for conservative justices, is that abnormal? Yeah, good question. So I only have the stat for 2021 pulled up in front of me, but that's the one you're referring to, so I can answer that. Cavaliers was 97, second was Barrett with 95, then Gorsuch with 94, Roberts at 87, Alito with 84, Thomas 84, then Kagan 81, Breyer, again 2021, 77. And so the mayor at 74%. And what were some of the Supreme Court cases? That's pretty interesting. That is a good barometer of centrism, I guess. I would not have expected that, to be frank. I definitely would have thought that he was a little more or a little less predictable I guess we could say I think the first

take is hotter than the second one to be honest because I because I think him being predictable I mean him being predictable in the way you're saying I think is is an interesting observation the reason I say it's less hot of a take is because I feel like a genuine hot take is you know has the potential to offend some people whereas I think saying that Kavanaugh has been uh you know moderate and is basically following in John Roberts' footsteps is maybe not something that a lot of people would object to.

It's just something nobody has really thought to point out, at least as far as I can tell. Yeah, well, I don't know if I have really kind of offensive opinions about the justices on this court other than like you know Thomas has acted like a bit of an ass at times I think you know he's put himself

certainly in the line of fire with the appearance of corruption and I think he's probably crossed the line but I'm not as prepared to talk about that I just remember some of the uh the criticisms about him accepting trips with um billing and errors and uh his wife um making it so he'd be in cases where he should maybe be accusing himself but like i don't you know i don't think he's like a terrible person yeah i don't think so either. All right.

Well, this is a good, a couple of hot takes on the court is a good segue into what's going to be our final segment on the pod today before we get into grievances. And this is just good old fashioned, straight up plagiarism. Just theft. I'm stealing, just complete theft. I'm stealing this idea because I love it. And imitation is a form of flattery. From the pod father, Bill Simmons, the man himself who reshaped the podcasting world.

Bill Simmons, much hated among like sports fans who think they're really smart. I think he's the man. I love his podcast. He always has awesome guests on. He's a take machine. He just, he, you know what? He, he can be, he's probably wrong a lot. He might even be wrong a majority of the time. I don't really care because the guy's just got takes. He just, he has original observations. He puts himself out there and he says what he actually thinks. And, uh, I love the NBA and I love football.

And those are the two things that he talks a lot about. And I think he's a brilliant NBA commentator and an analyst. And I think on football, he's whatever. But it's fun. He makes it interesting. And I was listening to his podcast this week. And he had a recurring guest on his show on this guy. I think it was Cousin Sal.

And he did a bit with Cousin Sal called Definitely Maybe, which I really liked. And it's basically him proposing things to Cousin Sal that are probable, likely things as questions and letting him say whether he thinks they're definitely going to happen or they're maybe going to happen. Or it just takes where he says,

so-and-so is the worst wide receiver in the NFL, and he says definitely or maybe. And I thought this was a really good idea. And so I came up with some definitely maybe politics questions, and I want to run them by you and see where you land on them. How's that sound? Cool. Do you want me to fire some back or are you just going to probe me here?

Sure. I told you I was going to do this. And if you line some up, I'd love to be on the other end of them. I think it'll be fun. All right. We'll see how many we can fit in here in 15 or 20 minutes. All right. First one for you.

I'll start. Definitely or maybe Kamala Harris wins Wisconsin and Michigan. I just hate absolutes, so this is a tough game for me to play because I really want to say, you know, the odds are greater than 90%, but if I have to go out on a limb, you know the odds are greater than 90 but if i have to go out on a limb um i think i think i just i'd roll more towards maybe i think it'd be kind of foolish to say she definitely went to these two states even if you see and you believe the more middle of the road too optimistic for har Harris polling numbers that show like a greater than three

point or greater than two point polling in both states. It's still kind of equating to an 80 to 90% chance of victory in both. And if you think like of 85% chance of winning two states at the same time, that's about 70% to get both of that. So like just on the odds, I think you got to say maybe. Though I think it's like- I appreciate that.

I think the race is close. I think, or at least it is in Wisconsin. I think she's probably opening up a little bit of a lead in Michigan now. But I would say definitely. I think she holds that part of the blue wall. I think their ground game is really good and I don't see her losing Wisconsin or Michigan.

I think she could lose PA but I think she's going to win Wisconsin and Michigan. That's just my personal read of the situation. I think she will too but I'm not saying she definitely will. I think that's a bit of a job. I feel pretty good about it. And I say that thinking that the election is a toss-up

because I think Trump could very easily win Pennsylvania and Georgia. But yeah, I just think she holds that part of the blue wall. All right, number two. Definitely or maybe there will be an October surprise defined as a breaking news development that has the potential to change the race a la James Comey, Hunter Biden, Access Hollywood. Definitely. Come on. I think the only dribble that I have is with the article, A, an October surprise. I think they'll probably be like a litter of them. And I think we're going to spend more of our time asking, is this the one?

Than wondering if it's going to come. I don't know what it's going to be. I'm kind of afraid about it because we have already had one of the presidential candidates bit shot at twice. and that's barely a thing

we're talking about anymore. So I don't know how we clear the bar. Maybe we don't. Maybe we don't clear the bar from what's happened in this race already, but we're going to have things like hell all from Kamala Harris' staffer, Tim Walz's family members with their cousins from Nebraska saying what they don't like about Tim. And his military service is a fraud. Donald Trump's son didn't pay his taxes. And we'll get stuff like that.

And we're going to be like, oh, sure, that makes sense. But is this it? And then it's going to keep leveling up a little bit. I don't think it's going to end. We're going to get story after story. All right. I'll throw think it's going to end. We're going to get story after story. All right. I'll throw my hot take out there. I think no.

I think this is my hot take. My zag on everybody's zig is I think October is going to be a relatively quiet election campaign month. That's my hot take. I think that both candidates

are going to play it relatively safe and we're not going to have a ton of stuff that breaks through. Harris is going to maintain a little bit of an edge and a momentum and the Trump camp's not going to believe it. And they're both just going to kind of do their own things. We probably won't get another debate. God willing, no more political violence or attempted assassinations and no big blockbuster story like anything that approaches Hunter Biden laptop access Hollywood Comey announcement. So yeah, I was kind of part of, I set it up a little bit there because I asked this one since I think this is pretty consensus that this will happen. And I love that you took definitely on it. But I'm going the opposite direction.

And yeah, we'll be fun to revisit. We'll be right back after this quick break. doing? That's salt, not sugar. Let's get you another coffee. Feeling distracted? You're not alone. Many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with mortgage payments on their minds. If you're struggling with your payments, speak to your bank. The earlier they understand your situation, the more options and relief measures could be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. 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+. 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. only in theaters November 15th. All right. Definitely or maybe, Republicans have a Senate majority in 2025? It's kind of the same feeling I'm having with the Harris question, honestly,

because the numbers are pointing to yes, but I think maybe. I think that there is a way that if the polling for Harris doesn't level out, if it stays where it is, if it bumps a little bit, which it may, like there's a very real contingency where we're seeing already a 50 basis point cut in the federal interest rate. And we just saw that today as we're reporting or yesterday. in the federal interest rate and we just saw that today as we're recording or yesterday we could have a good jobs report in october we could then have a strong market we could have the economy off the board which is one of trump's biggest stories if he keeps fumbling the way that they're talking about immigration which is a story that he wins on and he's just telling these like outlandish like

sort of conspiracy ish misinformation stories about immigrants eating cats um he could lose his second biggest issue just through like a little bit of bad luck or good luck as the case may be for the u.s economy, and then a little bit of incompetent campaigning could put Harris in a position where she could just keep winning on abortion and keep winning on, hey, this is a guy who didn't concede the last election. I think we're going to hear a ton of that in the last few weeks of the election. And if that becomes the story, then I see a path where the Republicans don't get a Senate majority if the momentum continues. That can for sure happen. I don't expect it to happen, but I think maybe.

Wow. Love it. I'm definitely, I think they basically have it locked up. We have not agreed on one yet. This is great. We got to do this segment more often. Yeah, I think Montana is... That's actually, I have one for you there. That was going to be my next question for you is definitely maybe Jon Tester loses Montana. I think definitely, yeah. I think the race is slipping away. And I think he's done an impressive job given all the fundamentals and the way Montana is.

And, you know, the voters he's trying to win over. But, yeah, I think it's I think he's pretty much screwed. So, cool. I can knock two out at once there. All right. two out at once there. All right. Definitely, maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers

win a playoff game this year. Definitely. I don't feel good. I want to believe. I want to believe so bad. You want to believe. want to believe so bad but I think they'll make it

they'll make it when's the last time the Steelers won a playoff game? that's unfair it's been a few years at least well here's the thing they did just as well last year as the eagles did and they're doing better than them already so i think the relative

to expectations the steelers are a super bowl contender if that's the bar i guess that's one way to frame all of this um all right i'm a hard maybe on the steelers winning a playoff game if not doubtfulful mostly because they don't have a quarterback okay flip it on you no no no real quick definitely maybe the Commanders win a playoff game maybe

they won't but that's okay this is a rebuild year for us you guys are on like year 10 of the Mike Tomlin experience so when we rebuild just the floor never gets that low. That's true. Only fun in Pittsburgh.

I would trade places for sure. There's no doubt about that. But we have Jane and Daniel, so the future's bright. All right. Definitely or maybe Donald Trump will claim the 2024 election was stolen if he loses. Maybe. I can't see myself saying definitely on this because on one hand, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

And it's kind of Trumpio too. It's something that he cast questions about the 2022 midterms, didn't flat out deny them, but certainly 2020 we remember. But I think there is a little bit of a different circumstance of 2020,

which was the COVID of it all. We had the expectation. Right. So he was trying to hold on to something and exercise the authority. Right. So that's the second thing. But the COVID situation created this very predictable outcome where we knew that because of the way states count ballots, we'd be getting this wave of absentee ballots or mailing ballots

that wouldn't be counted until after the in-person ballot were, and then we'd have these tranches coming at weird times. We had articles about that happening months ahead of time. So it was a thing that we expected. And we kind of expected the president had the opportunity, not that he was going to, but based on some of the way that he was talking about the election ahead of time, we saw that he had this path to creating some confusion, saying that there was fraud and trying to hang on. And I don't think that neither of those aspects of the situation are true this year.

We'll have a good deal of mail-in voting. There are states that haven't fixed the way they count those ballots, but not to the scale that we have. And Trump doesn't have the authority over the armed forces. So there's not that sort of paranoia in the back of people's minds about what's going to happen and what could he potentially do as with the authority of the office. So I think he'll complain.

I don't know if he's going to say, this didn't happen, this was rigged, it was stolen. I think he'll say it's unfair. I could say definitely those things, but I don't think I could say he would definitely come out and say this was a stolen election and the results are fraudulent. I saw somebody tweet today,

and this is what prompted this. I wish I could remember, and somehow I lost it. But a reporter I follow, a writer of some kind I followed, said their hot take was that Kamala Harris was going to win the election handedly and Trump would basically say some nice things about her and go quietly.

That is hot take. Yeah, I thought it was really smoking, piping hot. Again, I think we disagree, which again is fascinating. definitely but i'll i'll explain why a little bit in a little bit of a cowardly way which is i just think saying maybe or doubting that he will and then he does it's like people would just be like of course he did like how could you have thought that he was going to do anything else he's already saying they won't, they can't win the election unless they rig it or whatever. He still has not accepted the results of 2020. And, you know, they're pumping up all this stuff about illegal immigrants voting and voter

rolls and passing the SAVE Act and doing all this stuff. And yeah, I just, there is part of me that thinks the dynamics are different. And I actually could envision a world where he loses and just like, you know, post some stuff on Truth Social about it being unfair and then kind of lets it go and just moves on to whatever the last phase of his life is going to be, which I think is probably like King May Crypto Party. Crypto, yeah. But yeah, I think he's definitely going to say it's stolen if he loses. And I hate to believe that, but everything he's done makes me think that he's probably going to reject the results if he doesn't win. So I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.

And that concludes our first ever, definitely, maybe unless you have some you want to throw at me. That was the last one I have for you today. I just try to pepper those in as we went. I think that's a good one to end with. I'm digesting these thoughts now, thinking about it. All right. Well, you'll get another run at this.

Maybe we'll have to do this segment again to keep fleshing out some disagreement among each other. All right. With that, we'll wrap it up, as always, with 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. All right. Ari has dibs first on the grievances this week. So, Ari, you can kick us off. All right. Ari has dibs first on the grievances

this week. So, Ari, you can kick us off. All right. Here's my grievance. I'm an idiot. I'm aggrieved about it. That's a good one.

Wow. Of grievance, I agree with. Well, let's hear more. So, I'm just going to let that go. But last night,

I was like before bed, just sitting around at home with my wife, like watching old episodes of Silicon Valley. Great show. And got a bowl of cereal. So I went to our pantry, pulling out a box of cereal and was like, it was kind of in the back.

So it was behind something. And as I'm pulling it out i'm not careful enough and i sort of knock a bottle over a large bottle like a gallon and i hear a sound that you don't want to hear when it after it hits the floor which is the sort of look look at the bottle emptying rather quickly and it's dark because we're getting ready for bed so i'm like doing this in very low light and I don't know what it was and I don't know where it is and I have seconds to act. So I start like scrambling.

I see that it fell in the recycling bin. So that's good as far as things go. And then the smell hits me, which was a gallon of pure white vinegar. Oh. So it is starting to smell pretty fast. My wife from the other room asks, do you want help? And all I can say is, and I just start scrambling.

And so she interprets that as yes, smartly. So I start to like move the recycling bin out of the pantry, put like a towel down to try to absorb what was there. I see all the things that are on the ground have been splattered by vinegar. So a toolbox, a bag filled with bags, a couple cleaning supplies a month. Like it's starting to get bad quick and we're in triage mode. bags, a couple cleaning supplies a month. It's starting to get bad quick and we're in triage mode. So we

start to try to mop stuff up and then I realize the recycling bin has little holes in it for draining. The vinegar is just pouring out. By this time, I've taken the vinegar and I've sort of put the bottle upright so it's not pouring out. By this time, I've taken the vinegar and I've sort of like

put the bottle upright so it's not pouring out anymore, but it's still leaking onto the kitchen floor. So the next 20 to 25 minutes of our life, lives are just spent in silence, slowly mopping up just pure white vinegar

in our kitchen. And me, every five minutes or so saying i'm so sorry and she just gets it's all right it's all right it's an accident i'm like yeah but it just felt so dumb the nice thing about it being vinegar is that one it is like it does have like cleaning properties so it didn't help that's what i was gonna say your floor is probably shining yeah the inside of a rented apartment pantry floor is as clean as you would ever want it to be. And we eventually got everything cleaned up.

But when you're trying to relax and you're trying to maybe think about wrapping up and finishing a piece that you're writing on a deadline, that's one of the last ways that you want to transition your night. God, I wish that I wasn't so stupid. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean

when you're in relaxation mode or bedtime mode and you spill something and it's just the most crushing. I've dropped a full glass or something and broken it at 9.30 before bed where I'm just like, all right, I'm now going to have to vacuum and sweep and like wipe stuff down to make sure there aren't shards of glass everywhere for the next 15 or 20 minutes. And it's a really crushing. I'm pretty sure I've like left broken things somewhere and just been like, I'm just going to do this in the morning. I don't fault those who make that choice.

It's a tough thing to do, but I feel like you just got to pick up the mess at that time. I understand why you don't, but I think you just do it. Yeah, you're probably right. That's a good one. Spilt vinegar. Tough. All right.

tough alright mine is this is like the least populist thing you'll ever hear me say on this podcast least populist? least populist I don't know you're the same guy who

was like complaining about his exclusive club not being exclusive enough when we first started doing this well I can be I can support populism and also be an elitist at the same time about this exclusive club not being exclusive enough when we first started doing this. Well, I can be, I can support populism and also be an elitist at the same time. Okay.

It's just, you know, conflicting values, not mutually exclusive. Hypocrisy, sure. Yeah, I get it. I'm going to be, I'm, I dude, I'm done with the live tipping.

I'm done with the live tipping. I'm done with the live tipping thing in restaurants where they bring the thing out, the credit card reader out, and they watch the button you press and you put your credit. I'm sorry. I just like, I have a rule. I've, I've many rules in life that I try and abide by. One of my go-to rules that, and I tell this to people, is like, just tip 20%. Unless it's like an absolutely horrific service and you can tell that the service was bad, not because like your waiter or whoever is serving you is having a bad day, but because they're like generally interested in being an asshole or something, just tip 20%. Even if the food sucks, not their fault. Even if the service is a little slow, they're probably like, you know, short on

people who are working the shift. I've worked in restaurants. I've been there. It's awful. And I just like, I tip well. It's something I do. I'm pro tipping. I hate this thing, man. This like, it's so awkward. They come out, they bring the little card reader, they sit there. And all these restaurants are doing this new thing now where they're auto tipping. The box is on 25% or 26 and a half or something. And then you have to punch off it. You have to like click the one next to it to just tip 20. Or you have to like, you know, some people who are perfectly good people tip 15 or 18%. That's fine. Like I said, one of my rules in life is tip 20. But like, if you want to tip 18%, you shouldn't have to click custom tip and then go in and write an 18% and just be this asshole like in the middle of this weird dinner interaction.

So, you know, like I'm done. I'm done. I'm just like, bring me a paper check. I'll put my card in the little thing. I'll fold it up. I'll put it under the table. It'll look really cool. I can fight over the check with like my friend

who I'm at the dinner with. It's like a nice little social thing. You come take the card. When you take the card, it cues this thing at the table that we know there's like five minutes left of conversation and food and hanging out. And then it comes back and we sign it. And then that happens. And then it's like, all right, we are like, either of us could decide it's time to go now and leave. She's like the whole experience of getting a check and leaving a restaurant,

it defines the end of a dinner or meal experience and the social interaction of it. And instead, what all these places are doing is bringing out this auto 25% tip box where they watch what you're punching, the people you're eating with see what you're doing. And it's just incredibly awkward and I hate it. And I'm done, basically. Okay. Yeah. So two things there, I think, like two slightly different things in one. And I think our international listeners are probably listening with a little bit of curiosity because one of them is the idea of taking the card back at all, which is a really American thing. Like in Europe and Canada, they've always brought the card reader out to you because they're really paranoid about taking your credit card away from

you from a place where you can't see it. Yeah. Just another reason we're the best country in the world. I mean, just totally right. A hundred percent. Yeah. yeah we we kick ass and i love the whole uh like ritual of it too but i think like with that i'm i'm like okay yeah maybe this is a thing that's going to start going away a little bit more they're going to bring the reader out i can i can make my peace with that but i think that auto tip box is a thing that i can be cantankerous with you on. I also tip 20%. And when they bring that, uh, the card reader out and has the auto tip applied, I'm like, nope, doing this. And I feel tempted because I'm kind of the way that I am to go, nope, maybe I'll do less now. I don't, but I have to thought about it. Yeah, I know what you mean.

I see the auto thing at 25%. I'm just like, I want to tank this now because of what you've done. But once again, I know it's not their fault. I mean, I presume the waiter's not the person setting that technology. It's probably some restaurant owner or manager. But yeah, I'm done.

I don't know what I'm going to do next time it happens. I might just say, could I have a paper check, please? Would that be too much to ask? What do you think a waiter would do? Would I be the first person to ever do that? Probably not. Somebody's done that before. I think it'd be psychopathic to say,

hey, who sets these auto tips at the table? But I do want to ask the question. Maybe we'll have somebody who's listening be able to write in to staff at retaggle.com and tell us the answer. The next time somebody brings that thing out, I'm just going to say, no, no, no, no. I want the paper check in the foldy thing.

Paper, not plastic. Yeah, thing. Paper, not plastic. Yeah, exactly. Paper, not plastic. All right, cool. I'm glad this is a safe space. All right, we got to get out of here. Good talking. And we'll see you guys next week.

Take care. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our script is edited 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.