The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 431 (Best of 5/18/26-5/22/26)

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

The weekly round-up of the best moments from season 439 (5/18/26-5/22/26)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like

Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or a addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down. Gorsha accusing Kelly of sleeping with a merry man.

They hold and Kay Michelle back from fighting Drew. Pinky has financial issues. On the podcast, Reality with the King, I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real House Wise franchise, the drama, the alliances, and the T, everybody's talking about. To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode. of the weekly zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one nonstop infotainment, laugh stravaganza. Uh, yeah. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist.

What is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are? I very recently searched copyright law plus, okay because we're trying to get the copyright law changed in New Zealand. So pretty much every other English speaking country in the world has a carve out in their copyright laws to protect people for satire and parody. Like you guys have got it as part of your First Amendment, I think. UK's got it, Australia's got it. The weird Al carve out. Yeah. The reason we have Weird Al Yankovic. And we don't have it in New Zealand. So there currently is no legal protection for comedians, satirist, commentators,

they can get our ass through the copyright law at the moment. If for making a joke, jokes are illegal in New Zealand. Yeah, they are currently. Welcome to the club, brother. Oh, man. It's kind of a fascinating thing because there's this, the way our parliament works is there's a couple different ways that laws can get mooted to get voted on.

And one of them is we have literally a biscuit tin that MPs can put ideas for new laws in. And every now and then we'll just pluck one of them out and then we'll vote on it. And this got plucked out of the biscuit tin. This is not a real country. I'm like, we're not real, but like that's not real either. It's a real biscuit tin that exists. That's so funny because like in India, in India, if you reach into the parliamentary biscuit tin,

you pull out a sewing kit. So that's what happens. That's the only thing. Nobody's ever kept biscuits in a biscuit tin. Yeah. And sorry, or parliamentary ideas. Yeah.

Cookies. We say biscuits, cookies. Cookies. Let me translate for my American family. So I'm going to, I've put my name down to do an oral submission to Parliament for the first time ever. Yeah. So that'll be interesting if I get asked to do that.

And I probably will. To the tune of Michael Jackson's beat it. I was going to do another Kendrick verse actually. Yeah, there you go. Oh, yeah. Kendrick might come from my ass. I never even thought about that. You're protected. This is what I'm telling you. It's so weird to know that the concept of Weird Al is not allowed in New Zealand. People are like trading Weird Al tapes on the streets of New Zealand. Yeah. He's like illegal there. Contraband. So bad. Is Weird Al known in New Zealand? Is he beloved? Is he just regular Al? I think. Well, he does. I don't know. There's a New Zealand, the energy. to the dude, I think. Oh, yeah. Because we're like quirky and nice, and I think that's weird out.

He's the quirkiest and nicest. I think I knew every word to his. Yeah, definitely. I knew all of the words to the Star Wars American Pie. Am I this here Anakin guy? Yeah, yeah. I knew all the words there before I was like 12, I think. Yeah.

And I'm not even a Star Wars guy. I never have been. One of the kids in my fourth grade class, his talent for the talent show, was he just sat at a table eating things to eat it instead of beating it. That's great. Until he like made himself sick basically. Weird L's going to be a sad one, huh?

Don't, oh, why? Why would you do that? Oh my God. I like you witnessed the invention. A very sad one. I like to you. I didn't even think about that as a possibility. It might not be actually.

might be immortal. There's just still so many songs left. I honestly, like I, I, you know, when I was going through my like 20s and I was like comedy snob, I was like, we get it. And now that I have kids who are obsessed with Weird Al, I'm like, what are you waiting for? You should be dropping an album every three months, man. You're like a Rihanna fan. You're like, where the fuck is the album, Weird Al? Put it in the bad, man. Let's go. Search history that's revealing about who you are. So something for my search history that reveals who I am is,

what's Daria Morgendorfer from MTV's Darya up to? Like in real life or was it Ginny Groff? No, no, no. Okay, it was a woman named Tracy Grandstaff. She was like a writer for a lot of MTV shows in the 90s. And basically like MTV animation was just like really cheap at the time. Yeah. So, like, Mike Judge voiced pretty much every character on Beavis and Butthead.

Not because, like, he wanted to, but just to save money. But they just, like, needed somebody to voice, like, a female character. And they were like, Tracy, you're in the office. Get in there, you know. She does a great job. Yeah. Her performance is, like, so dead man. Well, I think that's just how she talks.

Yeah. But, yeah, so I- She does a great job talking how she talks. Yeah, for sure, for sure. That's kind of my whole thing is like. Oh, yeah. As a voice actor, I have one mode, and that mode is me. Yeah.

But yeah, at first it was just like, I guess, sort of what this, who voiced that character and all that stuff. Yeah, it turns out that in the mid-2000s, she just became like an exec at Comedy Central. And now she's like still a very high-level, like, vice president at Comedy Central. It's so interesting. And like that kind of got me thinking about, like, I, like, I get flown out to, like, talk to a lot of, like, schools and kids and stuff. And they were like, these kids at this one school a little bit ago that asked me, like, oh, have you ever felt like starstruck talking to a celebrity? And like usually the answer is no But like if I was on a call and I heard Daria's voice

I would like kind of die Yeah You're like wait what the fuck? Yeah Would you be like I'm sorry This is gonna sound crazy Are you Daria? Could you say Mondays am I right again?

Because you just sounded like Darya Hey can you say the sentence Mystic Spiral It's interesting County Central had interesting taste Like they would hire talented people, like frequent guest, Andrew T.

wasn't a Comedy Central exec for a little while. Oh, really? The head of Comedy Central was the guy who, Kent Alterman, the guy who directed a semi-pro. Wow. It was like the lead of Comedy Central for like a long time. They were just like, I don't know, are you funny and like creative? All right.

You're an executive now. I mean, that's kind of a, that's a good business model. I know. We're running a comedy company. When they were doing just fucking. killing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this is all about like having a good eye for comedy. So where did you get your MBA? Stampton? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Harvard finance. Got it. Perfect. Yeah. Numbers are hilarious. Yeah. Did you read the lampoon? The what?

Perfect, dude. Great. That was a trick question. Yeah. What is something that you think is... Two sides of the same coin. Two sides of the same coin. You're underrated and overrated. Two coins of the same side. Two coins. So it's a clutch. coins. Okay. I think that it's underrated to have high self-esteem. It's overrated to have low self-esteem. People, I don't, I can't do it with anybody anymore because people, I can't connect with people anymore because everyone has fucking low self-esteem. Everyone I talk to hates their body, hates their whatever, hates where they're at. And I'm like, I can't do with this. You guys need to have some fucking, fucking stand up straight. Puff your chest up.

Puff your check. Dude, do you see the people right in this country? Do you see that they're walking proud and tall and ignorant as hell and ugly as all fuck? Yeah. And I know women like some most interesting, beautiful, talented women that are just like, I don't know. I just don't think I can do this. I just don't have it. I'm like, bitch, are you insane?

Gestures broadly around. Look at this. Look who's on stage right now. Right now. He's tipping over. Yeah, he's tipping over. And you fucking don't like your boobs. Get out of here, bitch.

What are you talking about? I'm just tired of people having low self-esteem. What's your biggest? What's, what's your tip? Because, Marcel, you have an incredible amount of self-assuredness.

What do you, what's the, what's the, you know, be Tony Robbins real quick for me. Is don't wait until you're old as fuck to realize that you wasted your whole life. Worrying about the dumb shit.

Worrying about the stupidest shit. Worrying about, woman I talk to, not me, but every woman I talk to is like, oh my God, I look at old pictures and I'm like, I'll never be that thin again. I'm like, yeah, bitch, so love the body today. Because in 10 years, you're also not going to look like how you look today. I don't understand why you're so hard on yourself right now. And also, if you want to look better, put a little effort. Just make a little, make a little, make that change, you know? And I'm just really frustrated that people really are like spending. I just read Christina Applegates biography. You guys know Christina Applegate. Oh yeah. Comedy. Legend.

TV movie comedy legend. Okay. Hello, Drew's Kelly Bundy. Loved her on the sweetest thing. Anchorman, dead to me. I mean, she's an icon. Don't tell mom the babysitters. Get out of here.

I loved everything. I read her book. The bitch had low self-esteem her whole fucking life. The whole fucking time. We're out here like Kelly Bundy. The whole time she was Christina Apple. The Christina Apple gig. Yeah, the Kelly Bundy.

The like, I mean, to read the bad her self-esteem was. And then to get to where she is now, which she has MS. And it's totally fucked her up. She's on these steroids that have fucked her, these are her words, not mine.

But she's fucked up her face and her body is how she sees. And now she's just upset that she spent her whole life feeling bad and ugly. And now she's, her face has changed because of the steroids. And now she's like, I don't even look like myself. I was so mean to that other version. And now the remaining life that I have,

I don't even look like myself. and I hate the way that I look now, and it's like, bitch, you will never relax if you fucking spend your whole life having low self-esteem. I think there's nonstop symbols coming at. Like, I definitely sympathize with it. I think there's non-stop symbols coming at us that, like, tell us that our discomfort is our fault. And, like, that there's, like, something spiritually wrong with you if you aren't, like, doing great. And so, like, I think people are existing in a system that, like, reinforces the low self-esteem. And also I sympathize with you because it's got to be hard to not very fun to bully people who have low self-esteem.

And they're just like, I know, I fucking suck. But that's the thing is that like if the system is telling you that you ain't shit, but also the system needs you to pay your taxes, the system needs you to provide babies. The system needs you to provide so much for our society. Yeah. Like you have value. You are value even. Yeah, you have value even. You are shit.

You are shit. And I hear what you're saying. Like, I get it that it is, we're living in a tough, tough world and everyone is telling you how, I mean, but I guess that's the other fucked up thing,

especially when I think about Christina Obligate, because I'm like, she was Kelly Bundy. She was the standard. Right. Yeah. I was like, I'm fat,

you know? Like, that's crazy to me. She was the one making us feel bad and she doesn't even feel good. That's so. I think goes to just show. Yeah, yeah,

too, that so much of the stuff that we think is, is, depends on that like external is so actually just dictated by the internal and I think that mastery is so important. Like the system that we exist in is like one of the engines that you can give yourself. Like we're doing these icon episodes, we keep running into these people who are fucking miserable and believe horrible things about themselves. Like one of the engines for extreme success is like manufactured discontent with yourself to just be like. And I never forgot that thing that that totally.

stranger said to me that I might be misinterpreting, but it drove me through life and made me, you know, think that I was a piece of shit so that I woke up every morning and attained, like, amazing success. And it's like, that, like, that's what I mean. It's not, it's not just like, oh, don't read magazines, don't look at social media. It's like, the whole system is meant to be, like, only work if you are like, I need to do more. I need more. And if I don't, buy into that, then I'm fucking up. So self-love is radical. It is.

Self-love is radical. Just remember that. Radical, yeah. Yeah, be radical, man. Be radical, man. Be nautical, man. Get stoked. Dude, that's your life.

Like, I'm begging people not to spend their whole life looking back. Yeah, for sure. They spend their whole life. They wasted so much energy hating themselves. Jack, I'm talking to you. Okay. Now, love myself. I'm the best.

No, I love myself. I'm really good. I'm the best. Because all you do, especially if you have kids, you pass that shit down to your kids, those kids, pets. That's your generational trauma just fucking living forever. And you know,

it's fucked up too because when I was reading, when there's a chapter talking about her grandparents, and it's a fucked up, you know, situation that they had. And it's like, oh, yeah, no wonder they all, you know, it's generational, it's perpetual, it just never ends, but somebody's got.

to break the cycle. And I'm just begging people to stop having low self-esteem. Look at what's out there. Look what's on TV. Like, everything is so terrible and not good. And you're like, you're looking at it going like, I'm not good enough. It's like they're not good enough. They're not.

Hell yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Everyone else isn't good enough. Everyone else isn't good enough. Yeah. Be a really good. No one is good enough.

Just like, motherfucker. What's wrong with you? Sit down. Look at this show. Let's watch the show. What's your favorite show? Let's put it on. Man, this motherfucker got you feeling bad?

Fuck that. Let us take a quick break and we're going to come back and talk about somebody who should, I think, really make everybody feel good about themselves. And that's one Jeff Bezos. Oh. I mean, you look at this. Like, he's supposed to be the Uber Mench, the best. Yeah. The best of us.

That's another one. You should look at him. Look at him. You make people bad about yourself. Look at him. Look at him. We'll be right back. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.

And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, new? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it.

We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. And, well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down?

Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel

and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Giamanka seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad, but secretly he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy, but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way

Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No. I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance.

And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. Yeah, let's check in with the DOJ. You're here for the 5 o'clock free insurrectionist giveaway? Give it away, give it away, give it away now. Giving it all away now. I don't know if I'm a criminal or a winner. So, yeah, we talked about the DOJ's January 6th sweepstakes fund that they're setting up in the name of quote, anti-weaponization.

Cool. Love it, love it, love it. Anyone that was pursued for crimes they committed in the name of Trump or eligible for a payout, you know. Like, what do they think that means? Because they're saying it's unfair that you would go after like former cabinet officials that were a party to trying to overturn election results or some shit. Okay, you weren't doing physically, but there was, there was some quote marks in that

Demento. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. For them, again, it's just as, because. It's hard to try and wrap your mind around it. Like, how could you have a legal argument for this? They fucking don't. This is just nakedly corrupt. Accus everybody else of doing the thing that they're doing, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And then I'm also like, can people who got like, you know, beat up and batted up by DHS agents and stuff? Can they also? Because I felt like political weaponization too. Oh, no, no. They get double J. That's not, that's not weaponization at all. They just got hit with a weapon.

That's very different. So again, it's corrupt. It's a bad scheme. and acting attorney general Todd Blanche has managed a way to tell the Senate about this bullshit with a straight face acting like it's not total nonsense. So here is Todd Blanche giving a few, answering a few questions for the members of the Senate who are asking like, hey, like, so do people who like attack cops get like, are they eligible? And I think you can guess what his answer was.

Here's Chris Van Hollen from Maryland. Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund? Well, as it makes plain, anybody is... Just let me know if they're eligible for the fund. As was made plain yesterday, anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they're a victim weaponization. Mr. Attorney General, let me ask you this. Are there going to be rules that say that if you've assaulted a Capitol Hill police officer or committed a violent crime, you will not be eligible? Why not make that a wrong?

rule. I expect that, well, because I'm not one of the commissioners setting up the rules. I expect that there will be those. You're appointing four of the five members. So he's like, I'm not making it. It was like, you're appointing four of the five members. You're like kind of in charge of the whole thing. Yeah.

Rules are kind of sticky subject around here. You know, do we need them? I think that one thing that this has made me think about is what's stopping all of us from applying for this fund. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's, again, he said anybody is eligible. Yeah.

Anybody is eligible. So, I mean, could the people who the Biden administration arrested for protesting on behalf of the Palestinian people apply for? Look, I guess anybody that's eligible to apply. The U.S. government took a lot of native land. Could I, could I get some of that? Yeah. I mean, I feel like Neil Gorsuch would find a way to actually side with you. That is like his one moral consistent thing.

Oh, yeah. Actually, I shot him out in my book, like specifically like Neil Gorsuch would get a front row seat at any power in the country. Somehow, even though you're blaring a lot of other rights, you've managed to be really consistent on this point. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's one of those things where it's like across the board, like, yeah, probably one of the most conservative men to ever live. But that one thing, he writes like poetry about, like,

why native people should get rid of more stuff. It's like James Cameron. Yeah, yeah. So then there was a follow-up. You know, Chris Van Hollen, rightfully asked like, what about like there's a guy who was pardoned by Trump for the insurrection who's actually went on to molest two children. Sounds like weaponization to me.

What about him? Is he eligible to get money even if he uses that to maybe buy the silence of his victims? Not a great answer here from Todd Blanche. Let me go back to this slush fund because there's also an individual who, after being pardoned by the president, went on to molest two children. And that person actually tried to buy the silence of these children by saying that he would pay them some of the funds that he was hoping to get from your search fund. Can you commit to making the rule so that that person is not eligible? This is such an easy one, Todd. Todd's such an easy one, dude.

Such an easy one. Pay out under this fund? Well, you're obviously lying in your question because there's no way that this person committed to that. The slush fund, as you call it, which is not, didn't exist. But I can commit. Mr. Attorney General, don't ever do that again. I am reporting. What again.

He said. He said on the expectation that he hoped to get some of the funds from a payout. He's been hearing of the slush fund, Senator. And that didn't. Well, you're talking about the slush fund. He's talking about a general payout that Trump was going to an engineer on behalf of insurrections. Also, he's referring to it as the slush fund himself. No, you were talking about it.

by the slush foot, which is not, by the way. Different slush fund. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't get, it, it actually gets worse, you know. Oh, great, love it. Since he's also the acting attorney general, he was asking him like, hey, man, just back on that whole thing about the Epstein files. Just also, do we know, like, if you're, can you just commit that you're not going to

pardon anybody from the Epstein files? And again, stellar answer, if you are here to be an absolute chill. for the president. Can I ask you to commit that the Justice Department will not recommend a pardon for anyone named in the Epstein files?

Can you repeat that question? I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. Can you commit that the Justice Department, you, the acting Attorney General, will not recommend a pardon for people named in the Epstein files? When you say people named, I have no, there's tens of

people names. What could that possibly mean? What is a file? Depends on what the... What is a file? I think he should have stuck with his first route, which was... I'm sorry, I didn't hear the quote. I'm sorry, you're talking like you got fucking marbles in your house.

I can't understand. Let's do one word that you were saying. Let's do one word out of time. It looks like you're out of time, center. Yeah, crazy, crazy. Could you actually repeat that? Run that back? Sorry, I...

He really just said, Epskin, F, Files? The name? Just fucking English right now. Yeah, yeah. Epstein, the financier. He's looking back at like the crowd behind him.

He's like, I can't be the only one. Yeah, it does look like his, in this screen cap, his face is very much just like, are you sporeal? Yeah, yeah, just like, am I right? Yeah.

This is crazy. And then again, the Epstein files come up once again. This time he's being asked a question from Senator Jeff Merckley saying, hey man, like these files, what's going on? Like, what's going on with this investigation? We have all this shit we know, but it feels like there's no action.

And God damn, Blanche acts like he's went full memento on our asses, being like, huh? What? I want to go on to the Epstein investigation. Is it closed? Merck. When you say the Epstein investigation, what are you referring to? Well, the FBI said it was in the last year in July that it had.

had closed the EPSC investigation. So I'm just using their words. Is it open or closed? I don't believe the FBI said that. Well, if you're referring- You're head of the Department of Justice. Is the EFstein investigation open or closed? But I guess I don't understand what Eustine investigation means.

Well, let me put it different. Jeffery Eppstein himself? Yes, he's dead. Any investigation into potential other bad guys will always be open if we have evidence that supports in any way, shape, or form that we can make a case. but we don't know we're not. Yeah.

I like that like reading between the lines, he's basically saying like, that's an investigation. We're not investigating that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so,

and it's, this is what exactly what Trump wanted, right? Pam Bondi was still like half a lawyer and kind of was struggling with just fully just being totally out there with it. He's found an abse, just a creature,

you know? I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about right now. It feels like a Tim Robinson. I'm going to have to read up on this. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Dude, I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking, but it's crazy. Like, this is, this is the stonewalling he's putting up right now.

It's just truly being like, oh, I don't know. Like, he's dead, dude. I don't know what you want me to say. Yeah. Yeah, we actually did do an investigation. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.

He's dead. It was a suicide. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, this is, you know, this is how this administration is going to continue to evolve because this is exactly how Trump is going to protect himself and others of this class, the Epstein class. Flip his own with shit. And just put someone out there who's just so willing to just straight up, truly act completely ignorant about everything just to waste people's time. I mean, I guess what I wonder is like, are they literally just like putting these guys through improv classes or something like that to like, here's a reaction whenever a Democrat asks any question?

You know, like to what level of people being coached? I think it's just, they're being coached by their surrounding environment. and their upbringings where there are no boundaries. They're always able to get away with shit. So you just build this skill and be like, I don't know, dude. Like, you know what this guy's talking about? Yeah. I was drunk and I hit a guy in my car.

No, dude. There's not even evidence. It's 1993. There's no way can improve this, dude. Give me out of here. Like, it's that kind of shit. I just think Trump has this ability to also find other people who are fully

just invertebrates who know how to just slither their way in and out of shit. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, this guy doesn't give a fuck. He has no moral scruples. He'll go up there straight face to a Senate panel and be like, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, it feels like his entire, like, basis of picking people is basically like, are you going to make me look bad on camera?

And it's like, it kind of feels like that guy's just trying to avoid a soundbite that makes anybody look bad. But, like, through doing that, he gets all these weird sound bites where he's just like Epstein investigation, you know? But I think at the end of the day, like, if that blunts the momentum of any investigation, then that's probably number one. It's just too frustrating to just keep asking questions of people who are like, comparatively, right?

Like, Pam Bondi couldn't handle getting grilled. Right. And she was like, the Dow Jones is up five, like, 50th. Like, you're like, holy shit. Like that's when it was sort of untenable for Trump. I think he doesn't care if the guy's just being a total asshole about it because that's, oh, yeah, for sure. It's like he wants that.

I mean, I think like Christine O'm, it's such a great example of like, oh, yeah, you said all this crazy shit and did all this, like, horrible monster stuff, but you didn't get fired until people started being like, hey, this is embarrassing, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He made the guy whose last name is a golden girl. I like him. Right.

Blanche. Yeah, right. Always a fan of her work. Well, speaking of invertebrates that are friends of the Trump administration, Ebola is spreading, and people are recalling the time when the Trump administration cuts to foreign aid and global health organizations happened. And I think Elon Musk. proudly bragged that Doge

accidentally cancelled Ebola prevention. He then said it was promptly restored. But that turned out to be bullshit, as was reported at the time, USAID's teams and contractors that would be deployed to fight an Ebola outbreak were dismantled. And that was something that he was just like,

well, if you see this novelty, he grew up just being able to say, no, I put it back. I put it back. I didn't take it. And then you just fuck off and you continue to wreak havoc on the world. Well, what's like wild to me about that is like there are so many people who like, the amount of people that worked in the Ebola response team was probably, I don't know, blind guess making it up, like at least several hundred people or something like that. Right.

And it's like those people were kind of in that like, you know, internet startup bubble of like, did our company collapse? Should I like apply for a new job or something like that? Right, right. And it's just like, it's to me not only the like, oh, the ability to detect this like, horrible disease thing. It's also the like, oh,

now you've got all these people that have worked there for decades that are just like, should I go back to college? Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was talking about that on yesterday's trending

because we were talking about a nonprofit that like looks at children's entertainment to make sure that they aren't being like advertised to. Overly marketed to. And like that children's content and like it was a story about

a educational game that is like for every math question, the children are exposed to like four ads. I was just like, man, it's wild how any sort of like moral work for something that's like not making money is just people are just like, why the fuck would you do that?

Are you fucking dumb? Yeah. How are you going to get your paper up? How you get to Lambo from there? Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, there's stuff like, I mean, you could look at like the like the, the funding of PBS is a really great example of like,

I mean, speaking to somebody who's like worked on a couple of PBS shows, like, you know, these are people that like don't make great money, but they like do the work because they're so passionate about it. And then, you know,

they do this work because like, especially in rural areas, there are a lot of kids that just don't have access to like, you know, like great schooling and stuff like that. So it has something like Sesame Street that's just teaching kids how to read. Yeah.

Like that feels like that should just be like a net good that costs the amount of like one missile. or whatever. Or it's like, I'm sure that like, this costs a quarter of what that like, insurrection slash fund is

for their entire budget for the year. For sure. And it like legitimately helps people and it's like we're losing that. And instead it's being replaced by like, you know, chat GPT or whatever. Yeah.

And I think also because all of these people are so craven and like these single celled organisms that only think about themselves, they don't understand that so much of the infrastructure of the world is being held up by people who like, are doing the work. Yeah.

like this. And so to them, they're like, prevention of Ebola. Because it's just been invisible or actively like advertised as like, look at this asshole. Yeah, wait, wait. Was Ebola at the insurrection? Was, okay, it was? Oh, I'll fund hell out of that. So is it eligible for a payout? Yeah, under the slush fund, yes, it is. Anything is eligible for a payoff. Yes, everything is. Here's this, here's that clip of Elon bragging about the Ebola prevention cancellation.

So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was the ball of prevention. I think we all went to the ball of prevention. So we restored the involvement prevention and there was no interruption. But we do need to move quickly if we're to achieve a trillion dollars. Yeah, okay, yeah, anyway, to achieve a trillion dollars of cuts. That's epic to me. Nonprofits working in the DRC say that, quote,

basic medical equipment like masks and hand sanitizers plus components, necessary for testing are in short supply due to funding cuts. Turns out they did move aggressively on getting those funding cuts. All right. And now there's something like six Americans that have been exposed to bowl there too. But that won't matter. That won't matter. They'd be like, what were they doing in the Congo?

Should be fine. I mean, six plus the amount of people in this room. That's right. I have a bullet. Yeah, there we go. I wouldn't go to the Congo, not without Amy with her sign. language glove. So she could talk to the other apes.

Yeah, now without her mining laser. Exactly. They could just sheer a limb straight off one of those feral apes that they had in the movie. I was so excited for that movie. When they had the auto turret, I was telling my fourth grade friends. You thought Jurassic Park was good? Wait to hear Amy want rain drop drink. That's a gin martini.

I just love that like, it's so insane that that movie ends with a fucking laser rifle fight. Yeah. Like, yeah. And like, errant, too. They're like, fuck, I think it's a laser saw. Yeah, we got a saw a bunch of apes in half, you know. Oh, my God. Oh, thank God they did, you know.

Yeah. Tim Curry, great in that movie. Yeah. Herkimer of Romania. And then Delaware says, Stop eating my sesame cake. It's a great line. Any other lines?

Keep going. That's what, that's one of the names of Ernie Hudson's crew. Wow. I think there's one guy called Cahega that he always calls. He's like, Cahiga, and the guy shows up. There is. I got other ones. Yeah.

No, I know. You could keep going. You could keep going. Okay. Should we take a quick break? We'll be right back. Yeah. Yeah.

Do that. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas.

We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. but this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this.

We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, Hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad Hey Jonas and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an acapella with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist

and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans. show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Giamonka seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad, but secretly, he became someone else,

a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy. but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No, I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success.

Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. And we're back.

And how are we feeling? Any Star Wars heads in here? We excited about the new baby Yoda. movie. Listen, I'm rocking with Grogu. I watched the Mando series. I've watched all the way through. Yeah. I don't, I haven't just, I don't think I saw

the Obi-Wan series. But I somebody who grew up on Star Wars and like that was my entry point to like sci-fi kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. I'm I am one of those people who like eventually will consume everything that comes out of George Lucas's

brain or Kennedy's brain. I'm not as, like a black. black hole eventually will consume everything. Exactly, dude. And then I'm in that tesseract in the fifth dimension, dude. Interstellar. Is that your time on, dude?

That's right. Hell yeah. I'm not as locked in. I mean, I've seen all of the movies and I saw a row. I think the last thing I actually watched was like Rogue One. But anytime some Muppets get some work, I'm in. You know what I'm saying? Did you watch Mandalorian?

Are they great Muppets? I've only seen a couple of episodes of the Mandalorian. I would call myself the Bandalorian whenever I have stack of cash. There you go. So respect to, you know. Yeah, to people out there with money, you know. To them, forgive me that. Yeah, giving me that name.

I wouldn't call, I wouldn't be the Bandolian if it wasn't for the Mandalorian. Thank you. Thank you. I said these reviews call that its most important cultural contribution is your nickname the Bandoloring. So the big news is that the review embargo for the Mandalorian and Grogu, a.k. Baby Yoda, the movie, which is how. I'm sure people will be ordering tickets at the theater.

Oh, yeah. Give me one for... Baby Yoda. So opened on Rotten Tomatoes at 90%. Has since dropped down to 60%. I do have to wonder, that was like all in one day. I have to wonder if some of the reviews were like recategorized because of backlash because I just want to...

Here's an example of a score that gets counted in the fresh category in the binary rotten tomato system. So C plus, inessential, three good enough TV episodes smushed together. We also got Hollywood reporter called it just good enough to make you wish

it were better. Jesus. Damn. That's fucked, actually. That's one of the fresh ones. You could have said dog shit and I'd have been like, all right, that's unfair,

but being like, it's just good enough to make you wish it were better. Okay. That's fucked up. It's a new tomato, but it tastes bad. Right.

Right. Yeah. It looks red, but the inside of this is full of dog shit. This might look fresh on the outside. But yeah, so this may, like, I don't know. Like, there's plenty of movies that have come out that are, you know, not critical

consensus, amazing, and I enjoy. But it is just, you know, metacritic where you're, the reviews are like weighted with like, okay, this is a two and a half star review, so we'll give it five out of ten. This is a C plus, so we'll give it, you know, six out of ten. Like, Metacritic is at 55. And I do just, once again, it's a thing where, like,

the worst version of a thing just became iconic right away with Rotten Tomatoes. And now the studios are taking advantage of that and just being like, yeah, we, you can make anything fresh if you want to. You just make the pull quote something. than kind of nice sounding. Yeah, right. They burnt the fuck out of the fucking fresh. It used to be real, though, right? The tomato meter.

Yeah, the tomato meter used to be valid. Yeah, yeah. And now it's how you say bullshit. How you say manipulated. I think in some cases, and in some cases it's probably pretty close to what they say. I think, yeah, even based off

the reviews or not, I mean, just, I remember when it was announced, I just remember being like, oh, come on, dude. Like, it just felt like, like, Lucasfilm was doing the thing. We're like, dude, they're loving this TV show. How do we make more fucking money off of this very narrow fact? And that it's like a full feature. And now it looks like the reviews are probably,

they're sounding about like what I'd expect from something that didn't quite necessarily warrant a full on feature film. A full feature film. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the thing that you really want to avoid with a TV show turn, movie is for it to just feel like another episode of the TV show, but on a bigger screen

with like a longer runtime. I mean, that's usually where they land. And it's like that that's, like them saying that this is three TV episodes smushed together. It's pretty damning. Yeah, right. Yeah. I was by saying unless it's anime.

Animates the only one. You could do that if it's a cartoon. Right. Right. Because you already used to. You're like, yeah, yeah. I just need more cartoon. Give me the two-hour cartoon now.

Whereas, yeah, I think the stakes get a little bit higher, especially when it's a Star Wars feature film. You know, and I think that's the thing that- Got big shoes to fill over there. Yeah, the Mandalorian as a show, I think, was able to be, like, acceptable as a TV series when it came out because, like, it just felt like solid enough TV, where it's like, I get it.

You're doing, like, it's like Western-style contained episodes. Guy Mosy's into town has a problem to solve and skedaddles, and he's got, like, a cool sidekick. But yeah, I don't know, man. I just, I hope, do we know it? Justin, I know you saw it. He said he saw a screening of it. Does Grogu fuck shit up?

Because that's the one thing I'm really waiting for. I just want to see Baby Yoda just start fucking with the force. When he turned to team Yoda? Yeah, baby Grota has his moments. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, I love the puppeteering. Right.

That's one thing that everybody uniformly is like, I'm like, I personally. Me personally, I think it was just a little. too long. Like towards the latter half of the movie, I was like, uh, it was, I could really feel the slowing down and the lack of a,

like a galaxy. I wanted to have like galactic consequences and it feels like a TV show with small stakes. That's right. Small stakes. Right. Right. Right.

I thought it was weird when the Mandalorian kept saying, what else? What else? Just tapping his fingers like this on the, the cockpit. Uh, what else? Goose over there giving the

Wrap It Up sign. Yeah. Grover's just shrugging like, what the fuck you want me to say, bro? I don't know. I'm a fucking baby. I'm a baby. I'm baby.

Yeah. Everybody says, puppeteering good. Not enough stakes. I think if you're going to make a movie version of your TV show, you just got to bring them to modern day like the Brady Bunch did.

That's the best example of anything that anyone had. So it's not, no longer a long time ago. Yeah. In 1998. The Mandeloreen and Grosgou touched down in Los Angeles, California. Got to raise the stakes somehow, yeah.

They probably live in like Mount Washington because they're a little kid, you know what I'm saying? That's a good neighborhood to raise a kid. Yeah. Like, it's not the most walkable, but we're okay together. If you just go right down the hill, you can kind of get to Los Felas, Atwater Village. Yeah. Maitoian Park on the other side. Yeah, that'd be nice.

All right. Finally, we do have to talk about the Daily Wire. Yeah. Guys, we hate to fucking see this, you know. Oh, man. Just media brand out there doing its best to stay afloat. Yeah. Getting. Tough times out here.

Millions and millions of dollars from billionaires who want them to spread racism and their own gospel. Pro-rich person gospel. Anyways, earlier this month, the Daily Wire announced a new round of layoffs, which not not that surprising considering the company is seemingly completely falling apart. The website has reportedly become one of the great traffic losers in conservative media. The YouTube channel has lost 80,000 subscribers this year alone. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it looks really daunting when you look up like social blade, which is sort of that YouTube analytic website.

You can just see the line just like fall off a fucking cliff suddenly over the last. year. Some of the videos, they still have over 3 million subscribers, but some of the videos have less than 10,000 views. And a lot of the people clicking on these videos seem to be doing so just to roast how low the view counts are in the comments. One researcher called The Daily Wires Disappearing Audience, the steepest decline of any major political channel in 2026. We just had the story, we just covered the story called the feed is fake on Monday. This is a story where somebody who works, and digital marketing is like everything is being like inflated by social media firms that are just like churning out clips of content and artificially getting them attention. And one thing we do know about the Daily Wire is that like from the start, they have been funded by wealthy conservatives, right? And I do wonder if you're losing your billionaire support at this time, like is what we're seeing them just like losing all the ability to like buy and buy and buy traffic and attention? And like suddenly you're going to appear to lose popularity because you're losing the part

of your support that was artificial in the first place. Yeah. I mean, there's a few things, right? Because they were first became huge because of Facebook news. And the way, then Facebook news, you know how like every like eight years Facebook's like, oh yeah, we were counting that way wrong. All right. Here's the new numbers.

And people were like, fuck, my entire business was built on the idea that someone passively scrolling past your video was of you. They changed like the algorithms for the news for Facebook news. And that led to like that was like sort of the first thing that like began fucking up their sort of like visibility issue. And I think that along. with many other things, just sort of began to be like just chipping away poor business decisions, the political fracturing, and just, and terrible, terrible management, it sounds like.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, some people are pointing to a, quote, mega vibe shift, specifically tied to Ben Shapiro's support for Israel and the war in Iran. That's one way of saying, like, MAGA has become even more anti-Semitic than they started out. Yeah. Right. And, And then suddenly caring about Palestinian people. Right. Yeah. That's not what's happening. It doesn't seem like.

No, no. And I think another point on this, too, right, is they fired Candace Owens, who was one of their biggest earners on that platform. Like, first of all, and also, she still has a documentary still, like, on the channel. So, like, they're still not able to, like, they're like, she still brings eyes to our terrible streaming service. So let's not get rid of that. But when she got ousted because she was way too out. there with her anti-semitism slash foe outrage over Gaza, they basically made one of the pettiest spiteful figures on the internet, put you on their ops list. And that also began

to really fuck up the perception because now you have Candace Owens who, she's like, she reads the room well enough where she's like, okay, so the vibes are a little more like Nazi coded right now. So like, let me sidle up to Nick Fuentes and things like that. And now we can be the people who be like, man, Daily Wire's fucking toast, man. Like, they're fucking dated. Look at them. They're defending Trump. And a lot of America first people, you know, racists, like, have been very quick to be like, that is true.

I don't like, I don't like what the Daily Wires put it down. I do. So all of these things are true and would be how the company fail. Like, you know, this is how companies fail. The mood shifts. They fire some of their biggest draws and, like, get into fuse. But they, the fuck up is actually much bigger and more like a historic, a historic, uh, overstep on their part. Um, what, a key element in their downfall is

Merlin, the, the character of lore, uh, because that that was who their co-CEO Jeremy Boring was obsessed with and was like, I'm going to do a big budget adaptation of the pen dragon cycle fantasy book series. The famous pen dragon cycle. Is it really? No, I don't know who the, I don't even, when they said, I'm like, who? All right.

So they position the show as a more Christian Game of Thrones, even though the main thing that people liked about Game of Thrones was the gratuitous frontal nudity. Yeah. But so I just want to some information about the, the budget on this. So they blew past a 2020. release date, finally came out in March 26th, did not,

was not aware of that personally. And I was kind of eagerly awaiting it because I wanted to make fun of it. Not enough major outlets reviewed the series to generate a rotten tomato score. That's how much attention it got. So this dumb show that nobody watched cost,

it was budgeted at seven figures per episode. So that's over, at least over a million dollars. But you know if they're reporting it, seven figures per episode is like $9,99,99,000, probably. And Boring ended up allegedly spending nearly three times what they'd greenlighted. Jesus.

And eventually, quote, costs became a burden on the company. I mean, that's the only thing, too. It's like they just thought they got too popping because they were such a fucking huge, huge, like figure in the conservative media space that I think they were like, that's it. Because again, it's the Steve Bannon thing of like, Like, you know, politics is downstream of culture. So try and affect culture, try and make the content that is going to nudge people into even more xenophobia and white nationalism, et cetera.

And yeah, they thought they were going to somehow capture hearts and minds with their streaming platform with a multi-million dollar fantasy series. It's just like, who did you think? What did you think was going to happen exactly? Listen, as a Washington Wizards fan, I respect the attempt. Right. But I've also gone down this road before. You could end up wasting millions trying to make wizards work. Also, if you want to do Christian magic, do C.S. Lewis, man, you got the fucking Lion Witch in the wardrobe right there.

All you need is a guy in a fucking Lion costume. You don't even need to pay for effects. That's what the movie adaptation, The Lion Wish in the Wardrobe is just a guy. They just hired the same guy from Wizard of Oz, right? Yeah. That's what I thought of me. All right, that's going to do it for this week's weekly zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like the show.

It means the world demiles. He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to you Monday. Bye. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin.

And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David.

Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert

Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season, on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come off to me, and they want to be an actor or whatever.

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Dennis Leary, Gait and Moderato from Stranger Things, Tena Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes. episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why are we all so obsessed with romance? On the Radio 831 podcast, join us, Sanjana Basker, and Tyler McCall, as we unpack all the trending tropes, fuzzy adaptations, book talk drama, and celebrity love stories with hot takes and

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