What A Day - Exhibit None

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo made a bad “joke” yesterday that led many to believe Trump will continue to ignore the election results… which is making it harder for President-elect Joe Biden to begin the transition process.Trump’s lawsuits to challenge election results have been mostly unsuccessful and lacking in any evidence. We go through a few examples, as well as what comes next in the election certification process.And in headlines: Amazon faces antitrust charges in the EU, who’s making the McDonald’s McPlant, and a deep-dive into the story of Dean Browning’s alleged burner account.

It's Wednesday, November 11th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we are reminding listeners that you can't spell transfer of power without ow. Yeah, this is painful. But the good thing is it's definitely going to end soon. Right. And then Trump can start a media network. We'll do everything we can to destroy. That's right. I'm unplugging everything. No lights. That power strip going in the trash. On today's show, Trump continues to sue from the hip. Then some headlines.

Sir, what do you say to the Americans that are anxious over the fact that President Trump has yet to concede and what that might mean for the country? Well, I just think it's an embarrassment, quite frankly. The only thing that—how can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president's legacy. I think that I know from my discussions with foreign leaders thus far that they are hopeful that the United States' democratic institutions

are viewed once again as being strong and enduring. But I think at the end of the day, you know, it's all going to come to fruition on January 20th. That was President-elect Joe Biden talking about the fact that now, over a week after the election and days since the presidential race was called, President Trump is still refusing to concede over unfounded claims, lies and fictions over voter fraud. The latest addition to the mania of unreality amongst Republicans was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying yesterday that there would be a, quote, smooth transition to a second Trump administration, which could have been a joke, but a bad one. I'm not going to give him that. I've never heard this man land a joke before, so I'm taking it

seriously and I don't like it. But to state the obvious, there are no preparations for a second Trump administration because he lost. But since there are a lot of layers to what is going on right now, we wanted to walk you through all of it as best we can. Yeah, so my current read on it, which could change, is that there are a couple of things that appear to be going on at once. There's the whole PR type nature of this where the president is too cowardly to accept reality. And then other figures in the party are going along with it because they believe their future political fates might be tied to the very voters Trump wants to mislead about what happened. He is pulling the wool over his own voters eyes. In the immediate future, that means trying to use this invented reality to win the upcoming Georgia Senate runoffs. As we mentioned yesterday, the two Republican senators in those races called on the Republican secretary of state to resign due

to, quote, failures in the election administration for which they had no evidence. The only reason would seem to be that Joe Biden currently leads in the state by over 14,000 votes, which could make him the first Democrat to win the state since 1992, and that these two senators didn't outright win their own races, meaning they have to face John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and the voters again in January. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that it seemed as though the Trump campaign had coordinated with these Republican senators, as Trump tweeted that the state would be a, quote, big presidential win shortly after they released their statements. And not only that, but that he and allies put pressure on them with the threat of Trump possibly tweeting something negative about them otherwise. I mean, as if he wouldn't do it in any case. Yeah. But because the race is close

in Georgia, it is in recount territory. But according to the report, neither party seems to think that a recount is going to change the outcome of the race in the state. That's right. Recounts don't typically impact thousands of votes. And Georgia is also not the tipping point state in the presidential race. So it's easy to see how this is a big ploy to keep Republican voters fired up because these candidates clearly don't seem to have much else to say. And then adding to all of this is reporting from the New York Times that Trump has created a new political action committee where he's funneling a big chunk of his recent campaign donations, which adds fuel to the idea that he is looking to hold on to influence in the party after this defeat and use this lie of a stolen election to keep voters engaged.

Yeah, so that's the politics of this. But practically speaking, Trump's denial is making it harder for the transition process to begin for the incoming Biden administration. That's 100% right. We talked about the GSA situation on yesterday's show. But in addition to that, the Washington Post reported that the White House Budget Office has told federal agencies to keep prepping the administration's budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. So that proposal is often introduced in February, which would be after the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

All of this has prompted questions about whether the Biden team will consider legal action. So far, Biden's campus said they are moving forward and played this down somewhat. But they also said that the lack of GSA sign-off specifically has kept them from having State Department organized calls with foreign leaders, kept them from accessing secure facilities and classified information therein, which is what would be happening right now under a normal transition. So we're going to have to see how long this charade carries on for. Is it until the results are fully certified? Until electors cast their votes in December? Until Inauguration Day in January. Honestly, who knows? But on that note, Akilah, let's talk for a moment about some people who are up to their necks in quicksand but are still thrashing about. The Trump administration has continued their campaign of filing lawsuits with little to no evidence of voter fraud across the nation,

and only in states that Trump needed to win the election. We know that most of them have failed, but let's go through state by state to see what they are alleging and how it's working out. Yeah, just when you think nothing will inspire more secondhand embarrassment than the Four Seasons total landscaping fiasco, Trump's team has spent their week filing lawsuits and watching them be swiftly dismissed. In Michigan, you may remember during the marathon of last week that judges threw out the Trump administration's case that hoped to stop the counting of votes until more poll watchers could observe. The judge called their evidence, quote, vague and, quote, hearsay. Well, on Monday, the Trump campaign tried to appeal that ruling but failed to submit the correct paperwork. The judge has given them 21 days to produce said paperwork, but without

evidence, it doesn't really matter how many days they're given. Their appeal aims to stop the certification process, which is basically another last-ditch effort to not count votes. But even if they did provide some evidence, Joe Biden won Michigan by over 146,000 votes. There's no way that they're going to invalidate that many votes. Won't stop Republicans from trying, though. Exactly. And that's the story in all of these blue wall states. Joe Biden won by tens of thousands of votes in all the states that Trump is suing, even in Georgia, where Biden, like we said, is up. Yeah, that's right. And that's kind of why these lawsuits aren't going so well. Without evidence and with such a huge margin, it doesn't even seem like there would be a resolution in the current president's favor. In Pennsylvania, which has become Trump's Waterloo,

the campaign filed lawsuits in the seven counties where the president lost that claimed mail voting created an unfair two-tiered system during the election. The campaign strategy is to say that they simply can't trust these ballots, which were legally cast and counted because mail. So in the state, Trump's team has been auditing votes for fraud. In their audit thus far, they found a man that submitted a ballot for Trump using his dead mother's name. I hope she haunts him. And they also found a postal worker who claimed there was widespread fraud, but then later had to admit to U.S. Postal Service using his dead mother's name. I hope she haunts him. And they also found a postal worker who claimed there was widespread fraud, but then later had to admit to U.S. Postal Service investigators

that his claim was in fact a big ass lie. By the way, tons of top Republicans had been citing this person's lie as a reason to investigate in the first place. Embarrassing. A spokesperson for Pennsylvania's attorney general told the New York Times, quote, no active lawsuit even alleges and no evidence presented so far has shown widespread problems. She also characterized repeating the false claims as, quote, reckless. And much that Trump administration's chagrin, last night, the Pennsylvania secretary of state reported that just 10,000 ballots came in between November 3rd and 6th, which means that even if by some stroke of luck, someone decided to listen to Trump's argument on ballots arriving after election day and completely just throws out those votes, the reality is Biden still takes that state. So as stressful as it is that Trump

refuses to concede, it's not like any of these cases are really rising to the Supreme Court level where they'd have any major say in who becomes the next president. Yeah. So aside from the lawsuits, there's still the normal process taking place here. When can we expect states to start certifying votes and ultimately assigning the electors who will finally end this election? Yes, the certification process is already underway in states across the country and will be completed in the coming days. Then each governor prepares documents that list out who the electors will ultimately be for each state. In 33 states, these electors are of the party that won that state. So it's not like we're going to get a bunch of weird electors that Trump

paid off to switch their votes at the 11th hour. And on December 14th, the electors cast their votes in D.C. On January 6th, the House and Senate convened to count those votes. Whoever gets 270 electoral votes will be announced the next president of the United States by your boy, Mike Pence. Congressional officials are allowed to contest state votes, but can only deliberate for two hours. And if neither candidate gets to 270, then the House decides. So that's the reality of the process. We know it, and maybe one day Trump will accept it, but that's really all she wrote. Right. And in other poorly argued cases, there was another big story from yesterday, which we're keeping an eye on, and that's the Affordable Care Act case at the Supreme Court. Let's quickly touch on how the oral arguments went so far.

Yeah. So to back up for a second, this is the case brought by the Trump administration and Republican attorneys general. It got a lot of attention during the Barrett confirmation hearings since she was critical of previous decisions by the court to uphold the law. The case hinges on whether the revised individual mandate, which has no tax penalty, is constitutional. And if it's not, does that mean the entire ACA should be struck down, which would take health care away from over 20 million Americans, eliminate protections for preexisting conditions and so on in the middle of a pandemic? And yesterday set the record for hospitalizations in a single day.

Court reporters who listen into the arguments always like to read between the lines of the questions the justices are asking to get a hint of where they might stand. And the sense from yesterday was that at least five of the justices, including Kavanaugh and Roberts, are not in favor of striking down the entire ACA over this challenge. But we'll have to see what happens next year when the court releases their final opinion. And that's the latest. It's Wednesday WOD Squad, and for today's Tim Check, we're talking about backcountry food prep. Three men have been banned from Yellowstone National Park for a common slip-up, trying to cook a chicken in one of the park's famous geysers. The geyser chicken incident happened in early August, and it resulted in fines of about $2,000 total for the three men, plus a two-year ban. Temperatures of Yellowstone geysers range from 180 to 198 degrees Fahrenheit.

So, Giddy, we don't endorse geyser cooking here at WOD, but if we did, do you have experience cooking dinner while camping, and what would you cook in the Yellowstone geyser cooking here at WOD, but if we did, do you have experience cooking dinner while camping and what would you cook in the Yellowstone geyser? I don't have much experience cooking dinner while camping, unfortunately. I think if I were to do something here, this is really, really hot temperatures. Maybe I would like throw a couple of dumplings into a pan and just like, like touch the geyser. So that, that would be maybe as far as I go like two seconds of dumpling heating. I also just like don't get it like, like if it's a geyser, does it just shoot out? Like how do you cook something quickly in there? That's a great

question. Also, like my limited understanding of geysers is that there would be like a sulfuric smell in and around this so i'm wondering if this food was consumed before this yeah like was this just a sacrifice was it actually for cooking and eating but same question for you akilah if we are in a situation where we are dangerously cooking with the yellowstone geyser what are you thinking i mean i think that like chances are good I'm going to get caught. Like if you see me in Yellowstone Park, I've never been,

so I'm probably there causing some mischief. So straight up, I would try to do something that only takes like 10 minutes or less to cook. So we're talking pasta, just a whole mess of macaroni shells thrown in there. See if they hopefully don't explode out and hit me in the face.

But yeah, I think that if, look, you can sous vide something in there. See if they hopefully don't explode out and hit me in the face. But yeah, I think that if look, you can sous vide something in there maybe for like a few hours, but the faster thing would be the pasta. Again, a little concerned about the sulfur tasting pasta. It would just be for a prank. But if I'm finishing cooking something to completion, that's what my answer is. Yeah, I think that's good. I think that the emphasis on speed is really important here because something bad is going to happen, whether it's legal consequences or bad food or it hitting us in the face.

Literally any number of things. Also, if the food starts smelling too good, maybe some animals will wander up. You don't want that. You don't want that. So yeah, just like that, we've checked our temps. They're hot like that geyser that was cooking chicken. Stay safe.

Make your dinner maybe in a regular way. And we'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Just two weeks after being grilled by senators at antitrust hearings, Amazon is facing fresh antitrust charges from the EU. Regulators from the European Commission claim that the company broke competition laws by using its influence and data on competitors to outshine third-party sellers on its site. An investigation launched by the commission last July found that Amazon used non-public seller data, things like the number of products ordered and sellers' revenues, to help it decide which

products to launch and at what price. That allowed the company to beat out third-party sellers on its own site. I thought we already knew that this was Amazon's business model, but it's nice to know it was confirmed as shady by the EU as well. The investigation must be formally closed before any punishment is decided, but knowing the EU's tough on tech stance, expect fines to be in the billions. Wow, with a B. Vegetarians at McDonald's will soon have another menu option besides crushed peanut ice cream topping and box they serve the Big Mac in. The ubiquitous American fast food chain announced its new plant-based burger, the McPlant, earlier this week. It's set to launch in key markets next year.

Calling it right now. A hundred years from now, when our atmosphere is all smoke, McPlant's will be the only plants left on Earth. McDonald's says it won't manufacture the plant patty in-house and hasn't officially announced who will. In the fast-moving world of hamburger gossip, there's been some confusion about which company McDonald's will partner with, with the CEO of Beyond Meats claiming that they were the partner on CNBC, but McDonald's so far declining to confirm. Truly a he-McSaid, she-McSaid situation. Beyond Meats stocks plunged on Tuesday in response to investor confusion, along with subpar third-quarter earnings. Yeah, you know, we had the Travis Scott meal.

Now we're going to have the Cory Booker meal. It's just a natural progression there. One group of election analysts was completely blindsided by Biden's win. Their name is QAnon fans and they think magic is real. Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy had believed for months that Trump would win in a landslide and spend his second term literally putting Democrats in Guantanamo Bay. Since Election Day, supporters have had to reckon with Trump's loss on their own as the user named Q has not released any new message board posts. Big George R.R. Martin vibes here. Please just give Q some time while he is in the writers room pitching new things for Democrats to eat and or have sex with. For now, many Q devotees are taking direction from leaders in the Republican Party, aka Dresshirt QAnon, in

challenging the legitimacy of the election results and forecasting a Trump win. QAnon watchers believe that when Biden is president, adherence will be absorbed by other adjacent conspiracies. Flat earthers, you are about to blow the hell up. Please make sure your website is up to date and your theories are still bananas. The FBI has called QAnon a major terrorism threat and its supporters have been linked to kidnapping plots and violent threats. Also, one of them, Marjorie Taylor Greene, won a House seat in Georgia just last week. Yeah, I hope she's not doing so well. Moving on from QAnon, let's look at a conspiracy theory that's actually true.

Yesterday, the entire Internet was enraptured by the story of Dean Browning, a failed congressional candidate from Pennsylvania, who seems to have a burner account on Twitter where he posts conservative takes as a gay black man. Browning unmasked himself by posting a tweet from his own verified account, which said, quote, I'm a gay black guy and I can personally say that Obama did nothing for me. The tweet looked especially suspect next to a photo of Browning, who looks like the spokesman for sunscreen. Browning tried to clear things up by saying he was quoting a message he received from a follower. But by that point, the Internet had already discovered at Dan Purdy 322, a now suspended user who frequently replies to Browning

with pro-Trump tweets. Combine that with the fact that he starts off 90 percent of his posts with I'm a gay black man like he was filling out the census. It seemed pretty clear that this was Browning's fake account. Then the mystery got deeper when Dan Purdy posted a video corroborating Browning's claims. Hey guys, my name is Dan Purdy and I am indeed a gay black man. Oh my god. And finally, in a twist that officially makes yesterday's Twitter drama the best movie to come out in quarantine, people online discovered that the man claiming to be Dan Purdy was actually William Holt, who is a gay black conservative, but is also the nephew and adopted son of legendary singer Patti LaBelle. I need to go lie down. I don't know what to believe anymore, and I'm extremely

vulnerable to QAnon slash Flat Earth slash Elon Musk simulation ideas right now. Don't text me. Yeah, I'm taping up all the windows. I'm over it. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, educate your friends about the shape of our earth and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just recipes for geyser dinners 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 relax, Dan Purdy. You don't have to bring up Obama all the time. It's weird. Yeah.

It's not something that people put into every single sentence. You're also a fake person. 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 Kshaka.