What A Day - Congress This Mess

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Attorney General Bill Barr said what is obvious to everyone, that the Justice Department hasn’t found any election of widespread voter fraud that would change the result of the election. As Trump winds down his presidency, he’s reportedly looking into pre-emptive pardons for Ivanka, Eric, Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and his face-melting lawyer Rudy Giuliani. A bipartisan group of senators pitched a compromise relief bill yesterday, which would extend some federal unemployment assistance and fund state and local governments, but would stop short of offering direct payments. An estimated 12 million Americans will lose COVID-relief benefits the day after Christmas if Congress can’t come to a deal. And in headlines: Uber buys Postmates, LA nearly shuts down COVID-testing site for gender-swapped reboot of “She’s All That,” and the story of the loneliest elephant in the world.

it's wednesday december 2nd i'm akilah hughes and i'm gideon resnick and this is what a day the official podcast sponsor of joe biden's orthopedic boot yeah get well soon joe resist the temptation to get out of that boot early to go run or go snowboarding yeah we need you to wear the boot for your broken foot so you can be the boot for our broken country that's right build back booter. Boot back better, sir. On today's show, we check in on the state of the economy and what Congress is and isn't doing about it. Then some headlines.

But first, the latest. It has to stop. This is elections. This is the backbone of democracy. And all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. Oof. That was Georgia Voting Systems Manager Gabriel Sterling speaking yesterday at a press conference about violent threats against election officials in the state, which continues to be a target for Trump's election conspiracy theories.

Yeah, but in other news, or kind of more of the same news, Trump's back at it again with the baseless claims of voter fraud, and it seems like he's losing support with his own party by the day, case in point that clip just now. So Akilah, what's the latest blow to this half-baked plan? Yeah, so Trump is asking, et tu Bill Barr? After an interview the Attorney General did with the Associated Press yesterday, in which Barr said that the Justice Department hasn't found any evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change, you know, the results of the election. Several thoughts occur, but I guess my first is, why did the DOJ realize this after literally everyone else? Like, aren't they supposed to know more than us? But also, you know, if Trump supporters now think

that Barr is part of this so-called deep state conspiracy and Trump hired Bill Barr, does this mean that Trump is in on the deep state? You know, is this the first conspiracy that goes all the way to the top and just keeps going? Yeah. I mean, he knows it the best, so he's got to root it out. I guess that's the logic. So we can add the DOJ to the list of people and organizations that can't back up these baseless voter fraud claims. But I'm sure this just means Trump's going to abandon this strategy and accept the reality of his historic unpopularity, right? Yeah. Well, you know, based on his crack team of crack lawyers, no, not quite.

So just after the bar comments, Rudy Giuliani emailed a statement on Trump campaign letterhead claiming, once again without evidence, that he has gathered, quote, ample evidence of illegal voting in six states that the DOJ has not examined. Maybe he's talking about the news about Missouri Republican Senator evidence that he has gathered, quote, ample evidence of illegal voting in six states that the DOJ has not examined. Maybe he's talking about the news about Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who used his sister's residence in the Ozarks as his own address to vote. But even still, Trump won Missouri and it's only one vote. Honestly, it seems like Rudy is just staying the course of this delusion so he can stay in Trump's good graces. The New York Times

reports that as recently as last week, the man with dark sweat spoke to Trump about receiving a preemptive pardon before Trump exits the White House. For what crime? You know, it's unclear. But this past summer, the feds were investigating Rudolph for his business dealings in Ukraine and that whole ousting of an American ambassador thing that those impeachment hearings were about 400 years ago in January. So maybe that's it. Could be. In any case, pardons before charges are brought are incredibly rare, but they only apply to past actions. So Rudy got to wrap up his corruption or he may still be on the hook for whatever grift he tries next. Yeah, your time is running out, Rudolph. Plus, there was reporting

that Trump also discussed pre pardons for Ivanka, Eric, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner. I think a child is missing there. And new court documents that were unsealed yesterday show the DOJ investigated a potential White House pardon bribery scheme. Again, I just, okay, sure. But on the topic of grifting, let's get back to this voter fraud investigation. It seems like Trump is raising a lot of money on that whole farce. Totally. So far, Trump has raised more than $170 million to investigate the results of the election, according to reporting in the Washington Post. And for half of that, I would have just told him he lost. Like, not a big deal.

While some of the money will go towards his failing legal fight, most of it is expected to go into the Save America leadership pack that Trump set up in early November for political activities after he leaves office. FYI, the Save America pack is in no way related to Pod Save America or Vote Save America. You know, just save America vaguely. That would be nuts. Honestly, I don't want him to try. According to the fine print in Trump's desperate fundraising email, 75% of an individual donation goes to that pack, and the rest goes to the dog and pony show provided by the disgraced

former New York City mayor. It seems like it's in Trump and Giuliani's best interest to stay in the news and therefore the courts so they can make as much money as they can before January 20th. Yeah, that seems to be the case. So it does look like this grift is good for Trump and maybe Giuliani, but it seems like it's finally making Republicans sweat right now. So what do we think? Is this ultimately going to hurt Republicans? I mean, I hope so. You know, more and more elected Republicans seem concerned that Trump's

endless attacks on election integrity could negatively impact the Georgia Senate runoffs. He spent most of the week retweeting Republican voters that asked what good voting Republican does if it just helps free thinkers like longtime voter suppression enthusiast Georgia Governor Brian Kemp or lifelong conservative Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's Secretary of State, not go along with Trump stealing the election after it happened scheme. In any case, Trump is heading to the Peach State this weekend to honestly, I don't know, I mean, spread COVID and sow distrust among Loeffler and Purdue's voting base, maybe. Personally, though, I love it. You know, I'm glad the Republican Party is eating itself. Hopefully no one actually gets hurt from Trump's insane lies,

like the voting system's manager warned in the clip from the top of the show. But if this is how the Republican Party ends, good riddance. Yeah, see you later. On to our next topic, Congress and its failure to pass any more economic relief for the 4,000th time. Major shit is beyond fucked deja vu, but this moment is different in a few ways. The pandemic is, by most metrics, the worst it's different in a few ways. The pandemic is by most metrics, the worst it's ever been in the US. The holidays are here bringing an end to some of the earlier relief programs. And this is likely the last time any deal has to go through Trump. Given all the

stops and starts, there was a bipartisan pitch put out there yesterday. So Gideon, take us through what we learned in that. Yeah, so this group of senators included Democrat Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine. And what they pitched is basically this, a $908 billion plan that is supposed to be kind of a Goldilocks scenario in which there would be federal unemployment assistance at $300 a week for four months, less than the $600 that was there earlier in the year, but more than nothing. There would also be about $160 billion in state and local government funding. That's something Democrats have been seeking for quite a while.

And then something The Washington Post describes as a temporary moratorium on some COVID lawsuits against businesses, a.k.a. those liability protections that Republicans have been super jazzed about. So some Democrats said they weren't happy about particular elements of the bill, but at this dire stage thought something needed to get done. Others, like our recent guest, Representative Rashida Tlaib, were upset that direct payments to Americans were left out. And then, of course, there were some Republicans who don't want to spend anything. So maybe a more fitting story for the situation would be if the porridge and Goldilocks all ended up on the floor.

Yeah, you know, it's not just right if it's cold and on the floor. Nope. One constant impediment throughout much of these relief bill talks has been, you guessed it, Mitch McConnell. So how did he respond? He rolled out his own plan, which seems like he doesn't like the other one that was discussed. It was considerably smaller,

and reporting suggests that it would mostly use unused money from the CARES Act. So doing the CARES Act again? Repurposing old stuff, I guess that is the best they can muster. It noticeably also didn't include federal unemployment or any funding for state and local governments. So those two points are non-starters for Democrats. That once again throws us into a bit of a logjam. But the one small difference in how the past 24 hours went is that there's reporting that Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski pushed back on the McConnell proposal, telling him it was, quote, offensive to focus on messaging bills, i.e. ones that wouldn't really accomplish anything. McConnell responded that Trump would sign his bill, even while Murkowski and some of

the other Republican senators were more aggressively pushing for that much bigger package. So we'll see if that actually changes things here. Looking ahead, there are two important dates coming up on this timeline. One is December 11th. That's when Congress has to pass a spending bill to keep the government open before they jet off for the rest of the year, likely accomplishing next to nothing for Americans. But there's some conversation about putting elements of the COVID relief in that bill. Then the other date is January 20th of next year when Biden is inaugurated. Biden said while introducing his economic team yesterday that regardless of what the bill ends up being before the end of Trump's term, they're going to need to pass more when Biden takes office. Yeah, definitely. I would say

double it, triple it, whatever. Do what's got to be done. And we mentioned that this is a scary, scary moment we're facing as a country with record COVID hospitalizations and brand new lockdowns. So let's talk about what's actually at stake here for people. Yeah, not even taking into account possible further lockdowns that could be coming up. Just to be totally clear on this, essentially every economist is in agreement that if nothing happens from Congress, things are going to get even more drastic here. So last month, there was a report from the public policy research group, the Century Foundation, that estimated that 12 million Americans would lose COVID relief benefits literally the day after Christmas. And that is the human cost of this inaction. That includes individuals in the pandemic unemployment assistance program, which is for gig workers,

freelance workers, and more, and people who already had to get additional unemployment assistance after exhausting their earlier benefits. Then shortly thereafter, at the end of the year, forbearance on student loans is done, which means at the start of next year, people have to begin paying those again. And also, the national eviction moratorium expires at the end of the year, too. So those are just some of the problems we're facing. And the thing that is so massively frustrating whenever we talk about this is that none of that is really going to affect people in Congress. They don't have to worry about it in their daily lives. And on top of that, they have a solution that they did once in March, and it worked. It is truly not that

difficult. But that is the latest for now. It's Wednesday WOD Squad, and today we're talking about Spotify's wrapped list, which came out today. This is a part of the year we always look forward to and also deeply fear. Some highlights from the way people listen around the world. Bad Bunny was the most streamed artist overall. Blinding Lights by The Weeknd was the most streamed song. And the most popular decade besides our current one was the 1980s. So Giddy, my question for you. What was on your Spotify raps that you're willing to share with the WOD audience?

Ooh, extremely important caveat because there are some things I'm going to leave to me and my God alone. But some of the stuff that was on there, I had Blinding Lights. I might have had Blinding Lights as number one, in fact. So I'm a bit of a normie in that sense. I also had Dua Lipa Physical, number two. That's a big one. That's a big one. That's a big one. I love that whole album.

I thought that the artists were really messed up for me. And I don't know if that's because I have a weird account issue that's going on with my logins, where I have something on my phone that's different than what's on my computer. Yeah, right. Tech problem. Yeah, right. Coming up with excuses right now. Perhaps, perhaps.

Making it up on the fly. But my number one artist was Kanye, which like, somebody that I feel like comes up in lots of playlists and lots of context, but not someone that, especially this year, that I was like, let me seek this out because there's no new music. And also Kanye is Kanye now. I don't know. Yeah, you know, we don't need to give him any more money. So, you know, I apologize on behalf of Gideon's playlist.

It clearly, you know, Spotify is actually trying to frame you, and I don't know what that's about. We have no qualms with Spotify, why they act unlike this. Yeah, I don't know whatever I did to them, but whatever it is, I apologize. This has to change. But Akilah, your playlist, marginally, if not significantly better. Tell me about it. Yeah, honestly, it was nothing but hits. You know, my top genre was pop, which I think is more like just a catch-all phrase. Yes. I feel like my music was all over the place. My top decade was the 2000s.

Same. Specifically the song Feel Good Ink, which weird choice for the year 2020. No one felt good, felt bad ink. Yeah, bad ink all year. All over. You know, my top artist, no surprise here, Beyonce, Gisele Knowles.

You gotta give it up. It was honestly, it's weird that it's her because I think one of the top songs was the Savage remix with Megan, but Megan wasn't on my top list, which is a little surprising. Yeah, I don't understand the relationship between the top songs and the top artists. Again, I'm calling conspiracy here. Yeah, I don't understand the relationship between the top songs and the top artists.

Again, I'm calling conspiracy here. Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair, but I do have Beyonce on every other playlist, so it is possible that I made up for that lack. Yeah, I feel like it was mostly R&B tracks. My top listened to song was not a song from this year. It was Babysitter by DaBaby, which is a song I do love.

It's a great song. It is just not from this year, so I guess I'm, like, trapped in 2019 mentally. And I'm like, yeah, you know, anytime now we can move into 2020 and listen to new music. Right. But, yeah, that's pretty much it. And then Sufjan, new album. I only listened all the way through Once, but several other playlists have his old stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think listening through the album once is enough to like put it into the top

five, which is why I'm saying this algorithm, frankly, a little bit janky. Sorry to say. That's a good point. You know what? Next year, let us do the algorithm Spotify. We have a better sense of it. And it's really just based on plays. It makes sense.

It's not an electoral college approach. It is the popular vote. Exactly. Well, just like that, we've checked our Tims. They are hot like blinding lights. And I hope you stay safe. We will be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines.

Headlines. One of the country's main stock exchanges is pushing for companies to make their executive boards less white and less male. NASDAQ wants to require the over 3,000 companies on its exchange to have at least one woman and one person who identifies as LGBTQ or another underrepresented minority on their board of directors. If the proposal is approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission, all NASDAQ traded companies will have to disclose the makeup of their board by race, gender, and sexual orientation or be booted off the exchange. Diversifying leadership isn't just the right thing to do. It's also been proven to increase earnings. So for corporations, it will pay off on the financial balance sheet, as well as the balance sheet of history. This is the first time a major stock exchange is demanding

more disclosure than current law requires. But it's not the first time companies are facing a push for diversity. California just passed a law requiring companies headquartered in the state to achieve a minimum number of minority directors. Cyber Monday might be over, but Uber is still out here splurging. They officially acquired Postmates yesterday, a competitor to their Uber Eats app, for an estimated $2.65 billion. If you've become close with Postmates over the past year and feel like you're losing a friend, don't worry. The Postmates app will remain live, only now Uber will run it behind the scenes and both apps will share the same pool of drivers. In a statement yesterday, Uber literally said, quote, the combination of platforms provides more choice.

Yes, agreed. We're all pumped to make the vast decision between Uber and Uber Incognito. Uber's business has been and still remains unprofitable, but their food delivery service is the one thing that has made money throughout the pandemic. Analysts think this acquisition might lead Uber to become profitable for the first time in its history. They are going to get bought up by Amazon and it's going to all flow into one car seat with wet fast food on the back of it. Okay. In a way, the real public health crisis would be failing to make great art. The city of Los Angeles was set to cancel over 500 COVID tests yesterday, so a test site could be used to shoot scenes from the gender-swapped She's All That remake starring celebrities from TikTok. LA, that is a wrap on pretending you are even making an effort.

Angelina's who were set to get tested at Union Station found out about the cancellations less than 24 hours before their appointments. The move was also particularly maddening because the city is seeing more cases than at any point during the pandemic, and the train station is one of the only testing sites that's accessible by public transit. Also less important, but all signs point to He's All That eventually being the first movie to put negative numbers on the Tomatometer.

It's true. L.A. Mayor and former guest star on TNT's The Closer, Eric Garcetti, announced early Tuesday morning that the site had been reopened, but not before facing heavy criticism for allowing the shutdown to occur. And this is all happening as the LA chapter of Black Lives Matter holds daily rallies

outside of Garcetti's house to protest his possible appointment to President-elect Biden's cabinet, citing his record on transportation, homelessness, and policing. Oh, man. Well, one elephant just got what we've all wished for during quarantine, to be rescued from isolation by Cher.

The elephant's name is Kavan, and he became known as the world's loneliest elephant after being confined in a Pakistani zoo for the last 35 years and without any company for the last eight. I know. The zoo's notoriously bad treatment of animals led local officials to order it closed this May. Of course, Cher famously won't rest until every elephant gets to hang out with friends, so she's been working for the past four years with a non-profit called Four Paws International to get Kavan into a wildlife sanctuary populated by other elephants. The work paid off on Monday when Kavan arrived at the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary. He reportedly reached out and touched the trunk of the first elephant he saw. And that's the way elephants communicate with each other, to say things like, hey, did I tell you I'm friends with Cher now? Apparently, music helped Kavan de-stress while he was in

captivity. Here's Cher serenading him one-on-one. My heart is grieving. A few people believing. The dream that you wish will come true. Tinder. Well, Congress, it's extremely important that you give share funding to do that for anyone who's quarantined in their apartment. Do me first. I really need to believe in life after lockdown. And me second. Yes. I really don't think in life after lockdown. And me second. Yes.

I really don't think I'm strong enough right now. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, send us your favorite Eric Garcetti moment from the closer and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just everything Cher has tweeted about Kavan like me what a day is also a nightly newsletter check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe I'm Akilah Hughes I'm Gideon Resnick and enjoy your new friends Lonely Elephant

I hope that they like Cher songs I feel like they're probably the only songs you know you'll learn more as time goes on but it's good enough for now I hope that the Spotify end of your playlist for The Elephant is just share songs. It is one hour of music and it was all share. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis.

Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Thank you.