What A Day - Critical Mass

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

One man is now dead after a weekend of violence in Portland, Oregon, in which pro-Trump demonstrators drove through the city’s downtown taunting Black Lives Matter protestors. Jay Bishop was a member of a group called Patriot Prayer, a far-right group with ties to white supremacists.Massachusetts holds its primaries on Tuesday. Alex Morse is a 31-year-old, Justice Democrats-supported mayor of Holyoke, whose campaign against the incumbent Representative was hit with a false, homophobic smear.And in headlines: Shinzo Abe steps down as Japan’s prime minister, Novak Djokovic starts an all-male tennis player’s union, and Bella Thorne says sorry for her OnlyFans.

It's Monday, August 31st. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Erin Ryan, filling in for Akilah Hughes, who is out on vacation for her birthday. Happy birthday, Akilah. Yeah, happy birthday. And this is what a day where we're reminding everyone that birthdays in 2020 actually don't even count. You can still celebrate, but you will be the same age on January 1st, 2021, that you were January 1st, 2020. The year doesn't count. Yeah, I'm actually going to subtract the year. So I'll be 17. Okay. On today's show, a deeper look at another progressive house challenge in Massachusetts, then some headlines. But first, the latest.

We all know what it's like to be told that there is not a place for you to be featured, yet you are young, gifted, and black. We know what it's like to be told to say there's not a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on. We know what it's like to be the tail and not the head. We know what it's like to be beneath and not above. And that is what we went to work with every day because we knew not that we would be around during award season and that it would make a billion dollars but we knew that we had something special that we wanted to give the world, that we could be full human beings in the roles that we were playing. That was Chadwick Boseman accepting an award for Black Panther from the Screen Actors Guild last year.

Sadly, Boseman died over the weekend from colon cancer. He was only 43 years old. Yeah, it's really terrible to think about all the stuff that he hadn't gotten a chance to do. Like he very clearly was going to be a dominant cultural figure and actor for a really, really long time and also seemed like a genuinely great person. So yeah, I mean, I think a lot about role models and how many good role models there are out there right now. And I feel like right now, our country is led by a very bad role model. And to lose one of the very best is really, really sad. Yeah, it was terrible. And overall, it was a tough weekend. And this next story was a big part of that as well. One man is now dead after a weekend of violence in Portland, Oregon,

in which pro-Trump demonstrators drove through the city's downtown, taunting Black Lives Matter protesters. At 8.45 p.m. on Saturday, Jay Bishop was shot and killed. Bishop was a member of a group called Patriot Prayer, a far-right group with ties to white supremacists that has been involved in several anti-BLM protests in Portland. So Erin, what else do we know for sure about this event? Well, we know that the counter- organized themselves via a Facebook group called Trump 2020 Cruise Rally in Portland. Thanks a lot. Once again, Facebook. We know that about 600 vehicles met at a mall outside of the city and some of them drove toward downtown where Black Lives Matter protests were occurring. BLM protesters attempted to block the caravan in some cases, and pro-Trump demonstrators shot pepper spray and paintballs into the Black Lives Matter crowd and at journalists who were

gathered to cover it. One pro-Trump demonstrator ran over a bike with his truck. After Jay Bishop was shot, two bystanders, one BLM protester and one anti-BLM protester, tried to help, but Bishop died at the scene. Right, so Bishop has been identified, but the shooter hasn't yet, right? Yeah. The Portland Police Department hasn't released any information about that, but the police have declared violence to be, quote, totally unacceptable. But it doesn't really seem like they've applied that standard equally to Black Lives Matter protesters, right-wing counter-protesters, and themselves. In recent weeks in Portland, right-wing counter protesters, and themselves. In recent weeks in Portland, right-wing protesters have fired shots at Black Lives Matter protests, fights

have broken out between the groups, and there's video of a right-wing protester brandishing a gun. Plus, there was that whole thing where the president was sending combat fatigue-clad feds into the city to literally kidnap Black Lives Matter protesters off the streets, invading an American city as though it were enemy territory. Yeah, it just has not been handled well, to say the least. And I don't even want to ask here, but what does Trump have to say about all of this? He's been a calm and measured voice of reason, urging a divided nation to seek commonalities in order to, haha, just kidding. He's shit stirring, like usual, because playing up violence and unrest in American cities is a key part of his reelection campaign, because the president is a key part of his reelection campaign.

Because the president is a deeply sick man and we're living in a hellscape of his design. On Sunday between rounds of golf, he was literally at a golf course, the president fired off a few tweets where he rattled off his greatest hits about how the only way to stop violence in cities is to introduce more law enforcement and that the real bad guys are the people who want the police to stop killing people. Trump also tweeted, rest in peace, Jay, in reference to Bishop, who, let me remind you,

was affiliated with a group with white supremacist ties, a group that some observers say is inciting violence in Portland on purpose. Yeah, I'm starting to think this guy might not be in the best job for him. And this comes as the president has yet to reach out to Jacob Blake and his family in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after a police officer shot Blake seven times in the back. Erin, has Trump even mentioned Jacob Blake at all?

Nope, except for a vague response to a reporter that asked him about it over the weekend. Okay. So what is next here for Portland then? Well, protests in Portland continue. They've been ongoing now for over three months following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. And both the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon have told Trump to stop making things works. But when has that ever worked? Never.

The best Portland can hope for is that the president will get distracted by another bigger problem that he's caused and try to make that one worse, forgetting about Portland in the process. Right. This is far from the only problem that Trump could make worse by getting involved. In fact, he has plans to show up in Kenosha on Tuesday, and the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin has said in no uncertain terms that the president should not make that trip because he will just make things worse. And Governor Evers wrote to him as well, asking him to reconsider.

And Gideon, if you remember, after an anti-Semitic gunman killed 11 at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue two years ago, local officials and religious leaders expressed similar sentiment. Mr. President, please do not come here. You will only make things worse. Trump came anyway, against their wishes. When you're a hammer, I guess everything looks like a nail. Or in Trump's case, when you're a bully, everything looks like a fight. That is a good way to put it. Yeah. We'll keep tracking this story throughout the week, but let's switch gears to talk about one of the last primary elections of the year. On Tuesday, voters in Massachusetts will go to the polls with a bunch of interesting races up and down the ballot, as well as a bunch of inventive ways to say the word

father. So let's get into what we're looking at here. Nailed it. There is still time for a candidate to look straight to the camera and ask how you like them apples. I did not nail it. Okay, a bunch of interesting races, but just to highlight a few here. So in the House, there's a race for the first congressional district in Western Mass, where Alex Morse, the 31-year-old mayor of Holy Oak, is running against incumbent rep Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who has been in office as long as Morse has been alive. In the Senate, Congressman Joe Kennedy is running against incumbent Senator Ed Markey, who has never lost an election, while no one with the name Kennedy has lost in the state

of Massachusetts. So we will see history this week one way or the other. And then one more House race, another long-term incumbent rep, Stephen Lynch, is facing a challenge as well. So lots to watch here in the next few days, but let's talk about the Morris-Neal race for the House. Morris is backed by the Justice Democrats, a group that backs progressive candidates. They've had victories with Jamal Bowman in New York City and Cori Bush in Missouri, both defeating longtime incumbents. So that had people hopeful for Morris. But just a few weeks ago, an allegation came out that shook the race. Let's explain quickly what happened there. Right.

So on August 7th, the school newspaper at the University of Massachusetts Amherst publishes part of a letter written by the Massachusetts College Democrats. The letter says that Morse, who is openly gay and a former lecturer there, is disinvited from future events and claimed that Morse had used, quote, his position of power for romantic or sexual gain, end quote. Morse quickly apologized, quote, to anyone I have made feel uncomfortable, end quote, and acknowledged prior relationships which he said were consensual and said none were with anyone who he taught. So this briefly turned the race on its head, and Morse said that he thought about dropping out. A bunch of the progressive groups that were supporting him went quiet or said that they were reassessing. And the university opened

an investigation, which is reportedly still ongoing. And then there were the stories from the news and investigative site, The Intercept. That's right. So The Intercept thoroughly investigated this entire story. And they found, among other things, that there were messages among some students openly plotting for ways to damage Morse's campaign, trying to get him to say damaging things on dating profiles, and one student actually discussing how doing that could help him get an internship with Congressman Neal. Also, the Massachusetts Democratic Party reportedly acknowledged that they had helped provide legal advice regarding the letter. That and other things led to charges that the party establishment was functionally in cahoots together against a progressive challenger and trafficking in a

homophobic smear to do so. Now, Congressman Neal and his campaign have said that they did not have any role in the process of the letter coming out. And just yesterday, UMass College Democrats expressed regret at the publication of the letter. There have been no accusers who have come forward in the week since. Endorsers have all come back. And Morris has raised more money and gotten more volunteers since the story broke. I spoke with Morris on Friday about the race, and here is some of what he had to say about this story. You know, I have to be honest and say when this initially happened, it was incredibly difficult for me and, you know, everyone around me, friends, family members, our team, our supporters, because when someone is telling you that you've made them uncomfortable, even if you don't recall or think that you have, I wanted to be honest and honor that experience. And so I initially said that I regret that and I apologize and happy to have a conversation about it. And then, you know, imagine my feelings when I come to learn in the days that followed that,

in fact, no student was made to feel uncomfortable. And the very student that purported to be uncomfortable was, in fact, intentionally plotting to entrap me on a dating app or on Instagram and failed to do so. So obviously, a lot more to get into on that with some really great reporting out there. But that's not what this race was about from the start. So what are these candidates saying about policy? Yeah, so Morse, like other progressives, is for Medicare for All and Green New Deal. That's one of the dividing lines in a lot of these primaries. At the age of 21, he beat an incumbent to become mayor of Holyoke and established a needle exchange program there. He's also been focused on overdoses like the one that tragically took his brother's life. But a lot of the argument he's made with respect to unseating Neal has been around power and how members of Congress who

have amassed positions and influence over several terms use that leverage. Neal has leaned in on his time in office and talked about relationships he has with important figures in D.C. in response. But Neal, as we said, is the head of the House Ways and Means Committee, and he has a lot of power when it comes to oversight of the administration. And Morse argues that Neal uses his power for the benefit of corporate donors and criticized him for slow walking on seeking Trump's tax returns. Here's more from Morse on what he's telling voters who are still deciding. At the end of the day, it's about like, do you want a member of Congress that you can inherently trust to fight for the district,

fight for everyday people, fight for working class Americans, not actually use their power for corporations and special interests? And so there was always this initial sort of response, you know, don't we get something out of having the chair of the Ways and Means Committee with that power? Doesn't that add value to our district? And when you actually look at outcomes in this district, the disparities and outcomes, what everyday people are going through, and then when we actually expose Congressman Neal's record that, yes, he has power, but he failed to use it to hold this president accountable and instead has actively used his power to benefit his corporate donors, you know, be it barring the American people

from using the free tax filing service with the IRS after taking money from TurboTax and H&R Block, be it killing a bill that would have limited surprise medical bills after taking $50,000 from Blatstone, killing an amendment that would have allowed the government to negotiate lower drug prescription prices. And so, yes, this guy has power. But what's the point of having power if you're not going to use it for us? And so, you know, our argument and our message that is resonating is we're going to gain power because we're going to work together on these issues. We're not going to lose power and influence. Yeah, so we'll have to see if that message resonates with voters in the district this week. More to come on that race as well as the Markey Kennedy contest for the Senate in the coming days. But that is the latest for now. It is Monday, WOD Squad, and for today's Temp Check,

we are discussing another curious COVID tourism program. Brazil's Fernando de Noronha will open to tourists next week if they can present proof that they had coronavirus and recovered from it. Fernando de Norona is an archipelago 220 miles off of Brazil's coast that is considered to have some of the world's most beautiful beaches. It was first closed to tourists in mid-March. So Erin, your thoughts on this plan and are you going? Okay, first of all, Gideon, definitely not going at all. Part of the reason is because I don't think that everybody who got COVID made bad decisions. Sometimes you're getting COVID was a result of other people's bad decisions. But a lot of people who did get COVID got it as a result of them making bad decisions.

And I think being a person that got COVID because of bad decisions would also be somebody that would be inclined to go to an island of people who also made bad decisions. This is a bad decision island. I will not be going. It is just it's not going to be safe. It's not we don't we don't know enough about like recovery from COVID. We don't know how long antibodies last. We don't know how long antibodies last. We don't know any of it. who want to sell a book, who want a CNN contract, who want to go on a speaking tour.

Yeah, you want to repent? Go to Bad Decision Island for a time commensurate with the amount of time that you gave to Donald Trump's administration. And then maybe we can talk about your book deal. That's something we have to worry about in the future. But just like that,

we have checked our temps. But stay safe, and we will check in with you all again next week. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. with some headlines. Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest serving prime minister, stepped down on Friday citing chronic health complications. He announced that his ulcerative colitis was making him too sick to govern, confirming weeks of widespread speculation around his health. Many credited Abe with bringing stability to Japan, pulling the country out of a recession in 2012,

and further securing ties with major allies, including the U.S. He also had a controversial nationalist agenda, which North Korea, South Korea, and China weren't too happy about. Wow, they all agree on this one thing. During his third term, the popularity of Abe's administration began to sink, especially because of its handling of the pandemic. Now Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, which ironically is conservative, will decide who will replace him. That process could take until the end of next month. Hundreds of migrants rescued by aid boats in the Mediterranean remain stranded as they wait for European countries to let them in. One of those boats was funded by the street artist Banksy. It has since transferred its passengers onto a larger vessel, which is waiting to be accepted into a port. But at one point this weekend, it held over 200 passengers and became too crowded to move safely.

Crew members were close to declaring a state of emergency, but claimed that the European Coast Guard did not respond to their calls for help. A refugee agency at the U.N. criticized the EU for not providing adequate search and rescue programs for aid boats and urged countries to open their doors. On Saturday, the world's top-ranked men's tennis pro Novak Djokovic won the Western and Southern Open in New York, making him the only player to win all nine ATP Masters 1000 titles twice and allowing him to hold on to a perfect 23-0 record this year. Djokovic has a 0-1 record, though, in the sport of not starting questionable unions. He and a fellow pro announced last week that they're establishing

the Professional Tennis Players Association with the intent to give players more leverage and they're not letting women join. Men's pro tennis doesn't have a players union, but it does have the Association of Tennis Professionals, which gives players a voice in negotiations. The ATP sees Djokovic's PTPA as a threat to its existence, and both men's and women's tennis pros said the PTPA could make a stronger argument that it was fighting for players

if it wasn't all dude. Djokovic said in 2016 that women shouldn't get paid as much in pro tennis as men. Four years later, he is putting in the work to achieve that dream. Also, Gideon, he's an anti-vaxxer and he had a COVID party. Somehow. Many bridges too far.

He has three strikes and he's out. Is that how you play tennis? With three strikes, you swing the racket three times and then you don't get to, you can hit a home run. I've never watched it,

never watched a tennis game in my life. Never once. It doesn't show at all. You're really, you got all the basics down. The actress whose name means beautiful Thorn, Bella Thorn, apologized on Saturday for taking business

away from sex workers through her actions on OnlyFans. It's been a little under two weeks since Thorn joined the often X-rated fan site where she said she made $2 million in just six days. So that alone was frustrating for sex workers who rely on the site and can't just fall back on Disney Channel original series money. But Thorne drew even more criticism after she sent a $200 pay-per-view image that led thousands

of OnlyFans users to request refunds, which was quickly followed by a change in OnlyFans policy that capped prices for that type of content at $50. Tips were also capped and OnlyFans allegedly switched from paying people once a week to once a month. In Thorne's apology, she said she had wanted to help normalize sex work. In a way, she did normalize it because she made it chaotic and non-functional, which is the normal state of everything this year. You know what? If Bella Thorne wants to really apologize, she should donate that $2 million she made to the sex workers who she is currently screwing over

and not in a way that is profitable to them. That's true. I agree. Just my two cents. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show,

make sure you subscribe, leave a review, join our new podcasters union that is open to all genders and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just vacation packages to Brazilian islands like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter.

Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Erin Ryan. I'm Gideon Resnick. And please help us build a purgatory island. We will construct it with mud and the tears of bad people. What a Day is a Crooked Media production. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer.

Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.