The Young Turks - Part 11 TYT Live: Election Day 2020

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Election Day Part 11: John Iadarola, Ben Mankiewicz, Michael Shure, and Adrienne Lawrence TYT is Progressive Headquarters on Election Day. We’ll be tracking the presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden and key progressive races around the country featuring a rotating panel of guests. Stay tuned for exit polls, state returns, down-ballot races, and more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome back to TYT's election coverage. I'm back in studio after a short break that apparently did nothing to recover my voice. But I'm also joined in studio by Ben Mankowitz. And we're also joined by Adrian Lawrence. Michael Shore, everybody welcome to the coverage.

Good to be here. Thanks for having me. So don't tell me what's happened because I've DVRed this. Good luck with that. It's exciting watching. I think you'll enjoy it to some extent. So I haven't spoken with either of you in some time. Haven't gotten your feelings about how things are going in.

I have an idea about Ben since I was watching the coverage before coming in. But based on what you're seeing so far, what are you thinking about the way this is likely to play itself out for the rest of the night and through the next few days? Who wants to go first? Adrian, you want to go first? Well, gosh, you know, my spirit's adequately broken with sadness, regardless, just seeing how many people are voting for Trump, even though the votes are not fully counted yet, which is a good thing.

But still, it really shows that our nation is pretty broken and that there's a lot of work to do. And I think that that is very disheartening. And so it really doesn't matter to me. Of course it does, but kind of a philosophical notion that it matters who gets elected when there's so many people out there who are okay with turning their head and looking away and ignoring racism, sexism, criminality, as long as it's a person who probably looks like them.

And that's not okay. Michael? Well, you know, I'm just looking at the horse race of this thing. I'm not I'm still sort of in the same space about this. I guess I've been out covering this thing for a while and I did think, you know, it would be nice if this was just an absolute rejection of this president. But the truth is, and I, you know, as a sportsman, if your team wins, it doesn't really, you don't always think about how they won the Super Bowl. You know that they won the Super Bowl. If Joe Biden wins the presidency over the next few days, then it doesn't matter. It means America. rejected Donald Trump and the part of America that we want to reject Donald Trump rejected him. We're not there. And right now it looks, it doesn't look good or bad to me. I do think that Arizona was huge. If Arizona is a state that the Democrats win, and it looks like they have. Some people have called it. Some people, some others haven't. Some news organizations haven't.

But, but what that means is that the Democrats can lose Pennsylvania, win Michigan and Wisconsin and Joe Biden is the president, and I'm assuming a one district electoral vote in Nebraska there. If it, you know, if that happens, let's say they win Pennsylvania, it means they can lose Michigan or Wisconsin, and they don't even need that one electoral vote in Nebraska. And that's assuming North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and I'm talking horse race stuff here, because that's what this is tonight. This is not about, you know, all of the, all of the issues and all of the things we can think about for the next year, whether Biden wins or Trump wins. But if this happens, then we don't think about anything else other than Donald Trump

has to give a concession speech. And that will be what the headline is. Right now, though, we're not there. We're where we were in 2016. We're waiting for these votes. One thing that's really important, which I'm sure you guys have covered tonight, is that Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin count in reverse of how Florida counted today. So all of their absentee ballots are waiting There are a million ballots, over a million ballots in the state of Pennsylvania, where I am now. Those are not going to be counted probably until Friday. They count about $10,000 an hour. That's about how many they count.

So it takes a while and we'll get there. But I'm okay still. I'm still okay. I think it's important for people to remember that if in Michael's scenario, first of all, the crazy thing about America is that if Biden wins the district in Nebraska or the district in Maine or both, and loses Pennsylvania, and then he's up 270 to 268 or 271 to 267. Then first of all, we have to hope that there aren't faithless electors, right? And then that legal challenge, we're a crazy country.

But the other thing is if Joe Biden ends up winning, if he wins Pennsylvania, or let's say he doesn't, but Joe Biden is still and wins in Wisconsin and Michigan and runs up the score in California and Oregon and Washington, he's going to win the popular vote by probably at least five points, points, right? Maybe seven points. And no matter how close the Electoral College is, what people will focus on when all is said and done is that Joe Biden won, if this holds true, by 8 million votes, right? By 5, 6% and 8 million votes. And I think that is critically important to remember because that will end up being the focus, not the insanity of the electoral college, because while it would have made us sweat out a night or a week, in the end, as Michael said, you're

elected the president and he won the popular vote and that's what people will focus on. Well I think yeah I think look if it ends up like 270 268 I think that in theory if we get a month out and it turns out that you know what we're actually going to go with those results then sure I think we can look at the millions of votes to separate the two and that'll that'll create you know a justifiable sense of legitimacy even once you deduct a few million votes from California which don't count for some reason I don't understand why but those don't count but anyway that's assuming we get there because Because look, we do have to worry about faithless electors. We also have to worry about some, I don't know exactly which state legislature would be deciding that no, they're just not going to actually go with the popular vote. They're going to send their own a suite of electors. That's a possibility. Pennsylvania is going to be counting over the next five days.

And as much as I love, Jake, I feel like at a variety of times throughout today's coverage, he has forgotten about the fact that the way Pennsylvania is playing out, we knew exactly that it was going to go this way. We don't know exactly where it's gonna end up, but we knew that it was likely that Donald Trump was not only going to appear to be up on election night, but potentially up by quite a bit. About a week ago, we did a video on the damage report where we used sample numbers, I think that 538 was throwing around, and we showed the massive shift that could happen day of to a couple days later. It could be a swing of 15 or more points. And so we do have to

bear that in mind. But we also know that Donald Trump at some point tonight is gonna waddle out to the podium and declare victory, and they're going to try to stop as many of those votes in being counted as possible. So we have some news from Georgia, where the New York Times needle, for whatever it's worth, and I don't know how they got there, neither is Nate Silver. The Nate Cone, Nate Silver debate, really, that's really the third debate that we never have. I'm a coner. But that needle, which is probably, stupid and that we shouldn't have it. But it has moved from what at one point was over 90% Trump, and then it went 78%, 77%, and it's now 63% Biden. Yeah. With a prediction of a, because Biden is now

up by four-tenths of a point. So with, you know, the counties around and in that encompassed Atlanta and the suburbs, obviously coming in. So, you know, if you were, you know, if you wins Georgia and Arizona, well then the frustration of the early part of the night was just that or early frustration because you were down 13, nothing in the first quarter. But, you know, then you went into the fourth quarter up 2413. That was a football reference, John. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's at least one I'm vaguely familiar with. But then you're a cartoon character. I don't know what you know about this, but the point is you're absolutely right and that's the thing like you this is kind of what happened in 2018 where a lot of

the early stuff everybody thought you know this was our first midterm election after Donald Trump was elected we're going to win in Florida and Georgia we're going to win in South Carolina and they won the house it was a sweep but it didn't happen until later in the night it's not going to be that same kind of a monumental victory but you know you'll remember Democrats being Democrats the day after they were saying well it didn't really feel as good as I I wanted it to feel. Yeah. They won the House of Representatives.

It's a perfect example of how if this does go into the Democrats' favor later on, it's a perfect example of how that is the most important thing, winning the House, playing defense against Donald Trump, winning the White House, and then having a new agenda, even if you don't win the Senate. Yeah, I want to agree with Adrian, though, that look, if six months from now he won and he won by 20 votes or 10 votes or whatever. ever, electoral college votes, you know, he won, sure. But we, man, it really would have meant something after the last four years, after the 2016

campaign, after this year to really have something massive, turnout that we haven't seen in more than a half a century, and just all of America aside from those owning red hats coming out and saying no, like we all, we've reached that line and we've crossed it. I don't know exactly who, for each individual what it was, if it was the kids in cages, if it It was whatever, but we're not going to have that even if Biden wins. And in terms of his ability to do further damage, you know, as the essentially unchecked most powerful person in the world, will have gotten rid of a lot of that. But look, but not having his movement be rejected, you know, knowing that they're still lurking

out there, that they didn't have a problem with the racism. They didn't even have a problem with him doing everything he could to kill them. That is not a, it's not a place I want to be at as a country. I wanted to, I was naive enough even at this point to wake up and think that that would be rejected. And maybe it will in the ultimate sense, but not in the overwhelming sense that would have sent a strong signal around the world that that's not who we are. It still sort of seems like that's kind of who we are, even if Biden wins. Yep, it definitely does seem it's very much who we are. And unfortunately, I think we have to recognize that and actually do something about it because clearly,

nothing's changed. And there are people who are looking to preserve the racism, the sexism, the classism, the criminality, and make sure that they are still entitled to have access to those things, to make sure that people are subjugated and beneath them and to preserve that sense of supremacy. And I'm better than you. And it's very divisive and it's very unfortunate, especially since these people are part of the 99% and many of them are struggling. Yet it means more to them to hold on to that than to reach out and grab an opportunity to do better and have opportunities for themselves, their family, to have better health care, better chances. And but hey, that's what they prefer over anything. And that is very scary.

Yeah, well, you know, to do that, you're going to have to have a better message. better candidates with bigger, bolder ideas than let's bring the country together. That's what I would have done. I get why Joe Biden did it. He was the perfect candidate to do that in this time. But, you know, the anecdotal stories irritate me more than anything in the election season. I saw a bunch of Biden signs in Westchester County or whatever. Don't care.

Not interested, doesn't matter. Now, I was talking to some young people. That's the best kind of editing story, by the way. They didn't care. Like they did not feel that either party had any interest in them. And I just, I think it's fair to say that there are a lot of young people who felt this way. They just turned 18 these kids. So I think that somehow, if that's going to happen, Adrian, if we're going to get people to recognize it,

that message has to be spread in a different manner than Democrats are comfortable doing it. unless they get a person with magic potion, right? Unless they stumble on another Barack Obama, this guy who entered the room and lit it up and was magnetic, right? And gifted politically in so many ways. Short of that, they got to convey this message better and get people, if they want that young turnout, which will overwhelmingly be Democrat, to get behind them. And I think win or lose, that's the soul searching that is necessary and unlikely to happen. Yeah.

Right. That won't happen. I mean, this, you know, the, if you, when they dissect this election, they're going to look at Florida, they're going to look at socialism. They're going to see that, that Cubans, Colombians, and Venezuelans don't just vote Democrats because you think they're going to vote Democratic. They're going to look at some of these industrial states and realize why white union workers really are fine voting for this guy. And then they're going to examine the cult of personality, which we probably won't have. have again for quite a while with Donald Trump, these people that bought into it like it, and want to own the libs. I mean, that's a real thing. We make fun of that whole thing, owning the libs, owning, but it's real. And there are people that just like Donald Trump because of who he beats if he wins. And I think that's important too. But again, to me, it's these things are all don't matter right now. What matters is seeing him lose. And if he loses, then it's a good thing and you worry about that later. You're not going to have a nearly octogenarian candidate as your nominee again. But this is exactly why, you know, I thought that Donald,

you know, the people voted for Joe Biden as they thought that he was the one best capable of beating Donald Trump. We'll know that, I guess, in a few days. But it's why I thought he was always going to be the nominee. And that was the bet they made. And I don't know that Biden was able to sway enough of those people, certainly in some of the states. But the states where it matters most are still yet to tally. Before we go to a break, John, I know we have to, just because Michael said owning the libs, remind people what newly elected member of Congress. Yeah, I was actually going to start that off.

That's not Connor McGregor, but what's his name? So Madison Cawthorne, this is what we'll talk about when we come back from our first break. He's been elected. He's going to be, I believe, the youngest person ever elected to Congress. and his first tweet before he enters the halls of Congress was just cry more lib. So that will be your topic of conversation. We're going to take a short break.

We come back. We're going to try to work out that whole thing. Welcome back, everyone. Okay, so we got a million things to talk about. Let's just briefly mention the fact that that Madison Cawthor thing actually happened. I think we should be pleased that he didn't say suck it, libs. Like that's, he thought, oh, that's not cool. That's not cool, it's too much, I gotta have some decor.

Yeah, I would have preferred that actually. I think, I find it to be less pathetic. I think that the- Wasn't he an overwhelming favorite? Like, wasn't there a set? No, no, no, no, no, he was gonna win. So he just, so he knew he was gonna win, and he was waiting. To tweet it.

It was open in his, in his, like, tweet, ready to go. And it didn't even say libs, it just said lib? Maybe he was talking, maybe he was talking to his friend Libby. Was it one person? And this, like whatever, whatever has become the Republican, American Republican idea of what masculinity is supposed to be like, I find to be the most pathetic thing imaginable. They seem to spend, they could get a lot more done in pushing fascism on America if they spent less time worrying about, am I an alpha and who's crying at any given moment? They really do seem to focus so much of their attention on that. And the thing is, so I tweeted in response to his tweet, when are young Republicans going to wise up to the fact that?

that the GOP has literally nothing to provide for them other than the tears of libs. And a lot of people responded, no, John, they're gonna love this stuff. And I wanna respond, no, I get it. I get that they love it. They have been trained to think that government is just there to hurt their political opponents and make them feel bad, and that's it. And that will last, I think, for a long time. But I have to imagine that at some point, the salty tears of libs aren't going to take care

of your student loan debt, they're not gonna insure your family, they're not gonna buy you a house. Your economic situation is not going to improve. Can they be duped forever to just subsist on the tiers of their foes? Or does that have an expiration date at some point? Like the Madison Cawthorne grift that will now be, you know, it's a Trump thing, obviously, and Don Jr. It'll be duplicated by more people. Is that going to work forever? Is that just a part of American politics now? No, it's not. What is it? Petty is not a solid foundation for for a democracy. And these idiots out here actually think that, hey, I want up to you or I showed

you what it was and flexing and whatnot is going to do something for the nation. And when they finally hit the point that they actually realize that we're supposed to be working together, we're going to have no infrastructure whatsoever and have completely fallen apart as a nation. So if they need to learn the hard way, the crummy part is that we're all going to fall apart in the process. I mentioned this last hour, Adrian, but since you brought up infrastructure, Mark Meadows was on the air tonight, and the question was asked of him if Trump went early tonight. And we know as Trump was doing particularly well, and he was asked what the, what would a second Trump term look like? And the first thing he said was, well, if we'd start with an

infrastructure bill. I mean, it was like, it was like your last four years didn't happen. Did he laugh after he said it? Or that's crazy. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, why'd you roll So one, Ohio has been called for the president. Did you mention that? Yeah, so, okay, so Ohio has been called, but importantly. So is Iowa. So Iowa's been, so that seems pretty guaranteed. So Ohio has been called. But the big story by far is what's happening in Georgia. Georgia as well. I also want to throw out that apparently Fox News has retracted their call for Biden in Arizona. That's a thing, I guess. I guess we'll be watching it. I didn't believe them to begin with.

No, we needed somebody else. There was an, somebody else did, or maybe they were just echoing Fox, that's entirely possible. It doesn't, like I'm looking at it, and it's not, they don't appear to have been more results. Maybe they got word that it was too early, I don't know. I don't know who's in charge of making that decision, but apparently they've retracted it. And again, someone in the chat is asking, Rob Doe is asking, you're going to retract a call. Of course you can't, it doesn't mean anything. Like, all these, all these maps that are like adding up the electoral college votes, those are just

These are just projections, they don't literally mean anything, you can do whatever you want. But it's an odd move at this point, but what's happening in Georgia right now as well that you noticed? Well, again, we've become reliant on these guys we've never met and whose methodology, the overwhelming majority of Americans have no idea. I mean, I love politics, I grew up with it, but I don't know what it is. Now we trust pollsters, we don't understand their methodology, but we figure they're scientific. We know they are.

So, but anyway, the, what was an 85% likelihood, or I think over 90 for a time that Trump would win North Carolina has now been moved to a more likely Biden victory. That the range will be between Trump winning by 1.4 and Biden winning by two. And they have Biden as a likely to win at 66%. You're talking about Georgia here. Georgia, I'm sorry, Georgia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everything I said about North Carolina, forget that replaced Georgia. So that is a gigantic development with the 16 electoral votes at stake.

And then all of a sudden, if Arizona holds, then you can lose, I think you can also lose Michigan. Yeah, I'm not sure. But cancel each other out. They're both 16. Which, by the way, I know that we're waiting, obviously, it's going to take forever in terms of Michigan. But man, it's, if Biden does lose Michigan, like the polls were not close. In Michigan. They were not close at all.

This isn't quite as big a mistake as the 2016 Bernie win, which was in Michigan. But I mean, there were many polls with Biden up eight, nine, ten points even more. And the final thing was seven point four was the aggregate there on 538. Yeah, which is, you know, that is a good jump more than a 2016 polling error for you to be wrong on that. And it's I suppose still possible, I imagine that as the count continues, that probably won't happen. But we've got a lot of things moving in different directions. Adrian, what do you think about some of these trends? Well, the thing that kind of caught my eye was just, number one, the kind of necessary delays

that we need in terms of slowing people down and making them realize that there are a lot of ballots out there that are going to be counted later in the week. And so not to necessarily settle in with these predictions. And then also reading about this Georgia situation with this kind of more shifting toward of a toss up on Biden's favor. It is heartwarming. And then them having issues with the absentee ballot counts, I guess in Georgia's largest county, Fulton County, that there was a burst pipe. So that's going to delay the count. So a lot of these things are giving me some comfort and solace and knowing that things could change over the next few days, but it doesn't make it any less traumatic. Yeah. Yeah. That's really part of it, too,

is the, I mean, is the trauma. And I suspect everybody is feeling this to some extent across the political spectrum, you know. But I mean, the emotional blows of this year have been constant. And, you know, and we've gotten used to some extent to the pandemic and, you know, seeing that, you know, coming up on 230,000 Americans have died. But it's been brutal. The whole thing has been brutal. And then so even these early results.

It really felt like a, I would share one thing real quick. I, when my father died back in 2014, and he got sick, and suddenly something with food, and he, he aspirated. And they took him to the hospital, and all of some blood pressure, and they're like, something's really bad happening, you've got to come. So I flew across the country, and I remember being on the plane and I'm walking. I was, a flight attendant was so great, and we just talked for a couple hours. And that's how I felt tonight.

Like, I went out and walked the dog, and I was like, I remember last time I felt this. This is a sense that I was in the air. My dad was going to die. And, you know, so, and I tried to take deep breaths to sort of get through that. So I mean, and I thought, Jesus, this is 50 billion times worse for people who don't have work, who, you know, who have suffered far more than I have during this pandemic. So anyway, to Adrian's point, it's a long convoluted way of saying, yeah, I think we constantly underestimate the psychological damage that has been done over the course of the last 10 months.

Yeah. Yeah, and in a wider sense the last few years. I was talking on the damage report about some op-ed that I saw that sort of said, you know, obviously all of the damage that's been done legislatively in terms of our fight against the climate crisis, all that, pandemic, all that's true about Trump. But then also just in terms of like, like think about the cost that can never be calculated of what it means that the country and a good portion of the world spent bare minimum, assuming Biden wins, almost half a decade thinking about Donald Trump all the time.

Like that that's what our thoughts and our emotions, our anxieties, our depression was wrapped up around. Insert any other thing that we could have all thought about, any other individual, any other reality star, any waste of time, and it would have been better served. It would have been more productive for humanity. But instead, we spent five years, five years that on a lot of topics we do not have to waste, thinking about one of the worst examples of humanity that we've had in a very long time. What a waste, what a loss. And then to see so many people around the country, and not just around the country, because QAnon is sprouting up in other countries and all that. He's encouraging the development

and expansion of far right parties in other countries as well, that other people have decided to model themselves on him, that they've seen him at his worst, and they've decided that they want to be like that. They want to be like that. What a waste for species. I actually don't think that's his, I don't think that's his worst. I think that's his normal. I'm concerned about what his worst may look like, but I think you're absolutely right in terms of how all consuming this has been in wondering what's the next, you know, trauma, heinous act that he's going to take. How does that make us look abroad? Also, how is it going to unfortunately just really mess up people's lives? And it's just, I don't know, it's exhausting.

I don't think I've ever been as locked in on an administration in my life. But also something to know, as we discussed about Fox News, as Yashar is explaining right now on Twitter, is that Fox News did not retract their Arizona call. Apparently, Carl Roeb was just casting doubt on a Fox panel and that they still maintain that they've called Arizona for Biden. And the Trump camp has called on Fox News to retract it. Okay, well, that makes sense. Okay, so you're saying I should not trust the things that I see from the people I follow on Twitter. Okay, they don't know.

So Jason Miller says it's way too soon to be calling Arizona. I always believe Jason Miller. Yeah, Jason Miller also is implying that it's totally cool for Trump to declare victory tonight before the votes are counted. That's what gets me too is that these guys, so many of these guys working for Trump, they're in kind of. competent. And yet. Yes. Yet, right. Exactly. Adrian. We go, we're in, and we're sympathico here. Like, what? Yet, yet, yet, yet. So many people have told me, and you read about it, too, that they just want to go five straight days without having any idea what the president is up to or what he's doing, right? You just want to be like, hey, the president's at the G8.

I don't know, you know, oh, whatever. I guess he'll be back at some point. He'll probably doing some economic stuff? All right, fine. What's for lunch? Yeah, yeah, and obviously you can go too far down that road, and I am worried about the people who are invested in the outcome of this election that just want to go back to brunch and all that, but it would be nice to not have like the taste of bile in your mouth for months straight. I also just, I gotta say, we're getting way ahead of ourselves. You know, like there's still a really realistic possibility that Donald Trump is reelected. Oh, definitely, definitely. It's America, anything is possible, at least if it's bad.

So okay, so I we still have a good bit of time in this hour, but I want to make sure that we don't miss this. Adrian, we were talking during the break about one of the ballot initiatives that you wanted to focus on. So tell us a little bit about that. So Oregon has become the first state in which they have decriminalized non-commercial possession of all drugs. So that's pretty cool. It means that, you know, marijuana definitely legal in Oregon, but this measure that passed, measure one, it eliminates all criminal penalties for a low level possession of drugs that Oregon continues to ban. So that includes heroin, cocaine, meth, psychedelics, LSD. And that's really a positive

thing in part because that's one of the ways in which Portugal helped reduce their drug problem by decriminalizing it so that people can focus on getting the help that they need. And also too, A lot of these drugs or some of them in part can be used responsibly and were only criminalized for what racist purposes like marijuana, which is still illegal at the federal level. So this is a really good sign in terms of progress and change and I am here for it. Yeah, and you know, you just think about the number of people who've been locked up for years and years, decades, because they had illegal drugs that they planned to use for themselves or give to their friends. Right? Obviously, if you're running a drug ring operation and you're selling and producing meth, if you're, you know, if you're, I can't believe, I, Walt, Walter White. Well, how long has it been? I can't. This is how bad 2020's been. I couldn't remember the lead character from breaking bad. But yeah, and the Oregon legislation doesn't, the Oregon, the referendum 110, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that's not still a crime. But we change an entire system would be, it would be revolutionary. to not be sending mostly men, frequently young men, to prison over the most important years of their life.

There's no telling what that could do positively for the country, as Adrian said, as what happened in Portugal. Yeah, and I don't know if it was mentioned earlier in the show, but I'm glad that Adrian brought this up because of course, we're sort of hyper-focused on most of the presidential race, also some Senate seats and things like that. But the ballot issues are incredibly important. Florida looks like it's almost certainly gone for Trump, but it also at the same time somehow passed a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, almost doubling it. It's going to take six years or five years to do that, but that is significant.

Of course, to be fair, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Ballot initiatives passing in Florida doesn't mean that they'll actually become law. Apparently Republicans get to decide if it actually happens or not. So we possibly have that to look forward to. But I also did want to just briefly take a look at some of the ballot initiatives here in California because there is still a good bit of the vote that we're going to need to get from California, but we've got over 7 million votes. So we've got somewhat of a sample. Some of these, like repealing the ban on affirmative action is losing right now, 4555. Oh, now we're almost up to 9 million votes actually, and that's losing. Right, so which one is it? It's banning affirmative action? So it's, so right now there is a ban on affirmative action. This would be a repeal.

And we're not repealing. Right now, it looks like no, probably not. So we'll still have a ban on affirmative action. Yes. I need you to explain this to me very carefully. I'm sure I voted the right way. Although, I'm not so sure, actually. The great thing about the Caliphon, I don't mean to minimize the importance of that

because it's insane that we banned it in the first place. It was action taken affirmatively. So the ballot in California, like, has all these propositions. So throughout, it was like, question 22, prop 21, question 23, prop 22. And you're like, who designed this? Why not have them line up? Please alphabetize these guys. It was literally one-off through the whole way to go.

Oh, this is question 17. It took a ballot initiative 18. Insane. All right, that's it. which is a little diatribe there. Thanks for indulging me. Okay, so far it's not definitive, but so far it looks like that ban, which I think was passed in the early 90s here in California.

It looks like the ban is probably likely at this point to stand. Joni Ernst has won re-election in the Senate. Great. So that was a, we're not going to win the Senate. I mean, Democrats are not, I mean, I guess it's possible. But, you know, picked up Arizona and picked up Colorado, lost Alabama. So right now, it's 5248, you'd have to get to 50-50 to put and make Kamala Harris essentially set up a room in the United States Senate. Yeah.

She already has one. And she's a senator. And but that requires two more. And, you know, and so you're, you know, you're going to need a win from Bullock. You're going to need, if Biden is coming back in, in, in, you know, he's not coming back in North Carolina. It looks like Cunningham's going to lose to tell us, which is unbelievable. So it's going to be really hard to do. And, you know, Greenfield was a, you know, a good candidate.

And but Joni Ernst is going to win. She ran about even with Trump in Iowa. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so it's really fast. I just want to point out a couple of these because I know a lot of people have been asking me for the past month or so about how they should vote on these. In terms of expanding the vote, giving the vote to felons on parole is, is winning right now 6040, so that's good.

But for some reason, a ballot initiative that would allow those who are going to be, during a general election to also vote in the primary that produces candidates for that general election is losing 4654. I guess that's a bridge too far, people being able to vote in a primary, that they will then vote in the general for. That's too radical. We can't have that. Oh, goodness. You know, for we elect two federal officers in the United States of America. I don't know whether you guys know this. One is the president and the other one is the vice president.

And the notion that each state gets to decide their own manner of how this process happens is crazy. I mean, part of reforming the electoral college, which must be done, and all the smart people who are making arguments against it and why the direct vote is dangerous. And yeah, yeah, yeah, it should come with a complete reformation of policy for those federal offices. To me, that would also include your senators and congressmen because they then affect policy of other. states. But at a bare minimum, president of the United States has to be exactly the same in every state. Big government, yeah, has to come in and regulate that and make that fair. That's the only way to do it. You want to figure out a way to elect dog catchers your own way, all the way up to governor. Have at it, Haas. But it is outrageous that the president and vice

president get elected in different ways in different states. And for that matter, as I said, But same with the Senate and House, I think. By the way, it looks like Florida has been called, at least according to the New York Times, a few minutes ago. By the way, I'm seeing some chat that Biden is speaking. I don't know if we have plans to or the capacity to go to that. But if that's a thing, feel free to have Edwin flag me down for that. He said we believe we're on track to win this election. Okay, yeah, I can sort of see that.

And I like that if he got out first, you know, if that's what's happening. That's true. Because Trump might speak. I think there's a chance actually. He usually is. So really fast, you know, many of you live in states that are unlike California. A lot of you live in countries where they don't have ballot initiatives like this. But we do. And in California, we allow countless millions of dollars to be spent on them. And if you've watched TV in California over the past couple of months, you've probably seen ads around a few of these propositions. And so I've been watching those and noting that the ads are incredibly decisive. honest about what the ballot industry would actually do. And I've been wondering ever since, how are we going to go on some of those? So the ones that I saw the most ads for, there were two. It's Prop 22 and Prop 23.

23 adds requirements for dialysis clinics. You'd have to have doctors there and there are certain requirements if you're going to shut down the office. And they have had so many ads implying that this would be an unbearable burden on these dialysis clinics that have had a lot of problems for a very long time. Years ago, John Oliver had an amazing episode about dialysis clinics. And right now, it's at yes, 37 to add those requirements, no 63. So those ads, which put people who are on dialysis or need dialysis in front of your face every moment. For literally weeks now, it looks like those worked. And the thing got me, it appeared that both sides suggested.

And I don't mean to make these are people very sick and they need dialysis. But just from watching the ads, as a ballot initiative, it struck you that both decisions would kill people. Yeah, they were both presented as killing people. Yeah, they're both presented as killing people. And it's another thing why ballot initiatives, there is a value to them in some cases. There's no question. But this is an important, complicated issue, right? That, I don't know, are elected representatives.

They represent us in the California Assembly that maybe they ought to handle these issues. Right? I mean, that's the idea of it, but the ballot initiatives and it makes, you know, guys like John try to figure this out. He can't possibly do that. So, you know, Adrian, she can figure it out, but not this Yahoo. I don't have a law back. And so there's that. And then 22 was the best example. I don't remember the exact breakdown of the ads for or against, but I believe it was, I think, more than $200 million to define app-based drivers. contractors. So for things like Uber and Lyft and other services like this, all of these like Grubhub and stuff. Grubhub and stuff like that. So all of these ads presented as, if you don't pass this, these extra benefits they're going to give the drivers won't happen. And they want to have the freedom to still be contractors. And all of that, by the way,

all the money was coming from those companies, which seemed odd considering all the people in the ads were drivers. I thought that was so weird. When of course the proposition was actually stopping some reforms that would classify them as actual employees and have the companies actually have an obligation to give them a living wage, give them benefits and things like that. Right now it's a yes, 58, no 43. And so it looks like the hundreds of millions of dollars that they spent to pass this, that will invariably, I would assume based on their behavior, they've estimated that it

will save them far more than hundreds of millions of dollars, it looks like 22 is going to pass. I had a conversation with the two progressives. over the course of about an hour this weekend. Both of them voted yes because their experience with drivers was that drivers wanted this and they didn't want to be told

they have to work eight hours in Pasadena on Tuesday that the freedom was the whole reason they became an Uber driver. It was incredibly persuasive and I went into the polling place. These are serious progressives. And I went into the polling place ready to vote yes on it.

And then I couldn't do it. And I voted no. But yeah, it seemed, it was hard, it was tricky because it did seem to take some freedom of choice in a gig economy that seemed to appeal to drivers. But literally every progressive organization said vote no, including the ACLU. ACLU guided me in almost every one of these, almost every one of these votes. Yeah. And you're not, you're not alone in that. My assistant is also an Uber driver, which is how I met her.

And she had told me that she is really a proponent of continuing to be able to enjoy this gig economy and to continue to drive as she wanted when she wanted. And so I, you know, I get it and I understand it. But at the same time, I just know it's so wrong how these companies are leveraging and exploiting people and paying them low nominal wages. But it sucks because these people are willing to accept that just so that they can scrounge to survive. And it should not be that way. And John, to the millions of dollars that they spent on advertising, it was disgusting opening the app and seeing them, you know, throw it at you and say, hey, vote this way.

And when you just knew it was their way of avoiding circumventing the law, because it's already been ruled upon, but they are fighting so hard to change that. And, you know, these ride share companies, they really do not want to have to do what they should. should do. Yeah. Yeah. And look, I don't have any doubt that there are people who feel the same way as those progressives or the driver you know. I would argue there's a way to do it so that you can work a couple of random hours and be a contractor. But for those who work full time, they should be treated as employees. I feel like we could work that out hypothetically. But what I do know is that Uber and Lyft and Grubhub and Postmates and all of that didn't

spend all this money because they're very worried about people being obligated into working longer shifts. I don't think that's, I don't think it was about freedom for the drivers. I really don't. I think it was in their economic interest and and unfortunately the ads are incredibly dishonest. They have this thing at the end of the ads where they show who is paying for them, which is up there for like two seconds. And it looks like it, it looks like it won. A couple of things I'd like to bring up, Dolphin County, Harrisburg. This is from a guy named Lewis Jacobson tweeted this, but it's been quote tweeted here or it's included in the coverage from 538. Almost all the votes are counted. Biden leads 5345 in 2016. Clinton won at

4946. He suggested that if rural counties end up with margins similar to the ones they posted here, but urban and suburban ones move left, that that's going to be a win for Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, which is obviously gigantic and huge. Trump tweeted, by the way, tweeted We are up big. That's it. That was the whole tweet. This first one of the night. It's inspirational.

Biden said this is all from Katie Gluck, the New York Times, if she's in Wilmington. Biden said Kamala Harris will speak tomorrow. He spoke very briefly, projected optimism, even as many Democrats are deeply anxious about the results so far. He said, in addition to saying we believe we're on track to win this election, he said, we're going to win Pennsylvania. And he got out there, I mean, he did it before Trump. That's, uh, yeah, that's something.

That was good, but I mean, Jank talks about strength, right? That was, you know, he didn't say, well, we don't know, I'm not going to say anything. They were like, no, here's a deal, we're winners, we're going to win. Really fast, I want to give you the full Trump tweet because that wasn't just, we're up big. No, it was more. We're up big, but they are trying to steal the election. There we go. We will never let them do it.

Votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed. Well, they haven't been. Good news. Good news, Don. Nobody's talking about that. You know what? You're going to be so pleased because that hasn't happened. So are you good?

Yeah. Yeah, and of course a lot of his fans in the replying to it that, yeah, that's true. No, no, that's not. Well, no, it's fine. You shouldn't count any votes that were cast after the polls closed. I'm for that. Oh, God. And so again, like, theory, there was a possible.

There was a possibility, we were naive to think there was a possibility that this election could have gone the way we feel we deserved as if deserved is a thing, and that didn't happen. So instead we're in a situation that I'm really, I'm looking at this, and I feel like this was pretty predictable, that in theory we'd be waiting on Pennsylvania and it looks like it's gonna take us a couple of days for us to know. Arizona flipping is pretty good, but there was a good chance that that happens. Texas it turned out didn't flip, it was a long shot. Florida looked like a better chance than Texas, but you know, Florida's Florida. So, and Georgia maybe could go Biden, but that was always going to be difficult. I don't know that a lot about

this map is really looking all that shocking. You know, I think we all wanted something bigger, something better, but, and even Trump, the way he's coming out and saying that he obviously means them counting the vote after the night of shouldn't be allowed. We knew he was going to do that. too. Like, I feel like this is the script is sort of playing out here. It's just, it is, this election is so different from every other election that I've been a part of or that I grew up paying attention to or that my dad was a part of and he and I talked about. But I mean, 72% of the vote is in in Wisconsin. Trump leads by four. 64% is in Pennsylvania. Trump leads by 15. 57's in in in Michigan. Trump leads by 8. 5% is in in Nevada. Trump leads by 50.

So I get it that we, but like under any normal circumstances, you'd be like, well, we've been defeat, right? Yeah, and that could still be the case. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, look, we know that Pennsylvania, the early vote, we're still waiting. Supposedly at midnight, we're going to get a little bit of that, but we're not going to get the vast majority of it until tomorrow or the next day or the next day. I like it's like Pennsylvania is dropping an album, you know, and they're like, oh, we're going to release a track Sunday night. I do hate that.

Another one next Saturday, and then the whole thing will come out on Tuesday just to get people. people super excited. And look, Wisconsin says that Milwaukee is going to be the last to report, but we might not get those results until 3 a.m. or 6 a.m. Wednesday. Seems relevant for how Wisconsin is going to go. Yeah, I just, I'm disappointed in a lot of ways. I am deeply disappointed in America, Americans, our system, what we think about our system, but this is kind of how it It sort of seemed like it was probably going to go. I think I don't know.

I agree with you. Go ahead, sorry. Something I think that is worth kind of maybe focusing on a little bit because I think it's a happy place. And it does signify some change that there's been some historic moments tonight. Maury Turner, 27 year old black queer progressive newcomer. She is now the first Muslim person elected to the Oklahoma State Legislature. Sarah McBride, first trans state senator in U.S. history. in U.S. history, winning that Senate seat in Delaware.

Richie Torres, Mondeer Jones history, becoming the first openly black men elected to Congress who are gay. And then Cory Bush, becoming the first black woman to represent Missouri in Congress. There's some signifying change there, which is pretty cool. We just hope that, you know, who they choose for the White House isn't, you know, just a borderline Klansman. But, you know, that's all we got to hope. That Corey Bush first, how is that possible? I mean, we know how it's possible. We know kidding what America is.

But how is that possible? Yeah, seriously. No. By the way, a relevant result, not a call in any way with 76% of the precincts reporting. And I guess the absentee votes, I don't know if it's all of them. Of course, we just don't know these things, but Christy Smith with a 3.4% lead, 8,000 votes over Mike Garcia. Of course, the seat that the California 25th that the Jenk ran for. I'd like to point out which Jenk will enjoy that the 24th and 26th have been called.

Yeah, I think I called that for her. I don't remember if I don't remember if Jenk did, interesting. By the way, we have reached the point of the night where Trump's first big tweet on election night has now been blocked to some extent by Twitter because it contains election misinformation that could potentially misinformed people. But that's just our system. I bet they get the word out anyway. Yeah, I think I think they got the message. Anyway, so we've reached the end of the hour. I actually do not know

are either or both of you staying on to the next hour? Oh God, no, I'm going to sleep. I'm taking this makeup off. In that case, Adrian, any final thoughts on election night? No, go to bed. Let's, let's circle back on Friday. We'll talk about it. Friday. Friday. Friday. Mimosa. Something nice.

Friday, man. There's no way I'm going to sleep tonight. I am going to take my makeup off. I don't even have any scruff. I had to put this. That took forever. Hair by hair. Elmer's glue. Exfoliate. Remember, exfoliate. Thank you. Good. All right, Adrian. You know, we've never met. It's nice to do a, or we never did a show together in studio. But anyway, nice to, nice to, nice to talk to you thank you and uh yeah i was talking to adrian john what's that i know no no me too no it was great to talk to you know we haven't done a show together in like eight

months but not for lack of trying anyway uh okay so we're gonna take a short break we come back more to get to potentially some more misinformation that will have to be shielded content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.