What A Day - Guilfoyle Salesman

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

Protestors gathered for a second night in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake, who is reportedly still in intensive care. The three cops that participated in Blake’s shooting have been put on administrative leave, and a state investigation is ongoing. Milwaukee Freedom Fund: https://bit.ly/mkefreedomfundThe Republican Party officially renominated Trump and Pence on the first day of the RNC. The night’s offerings included speeches given live from the same podium in Washington, DC, Kimberly Guilfoyle projecting her voice, and a version of America where the pandemic is basically solved. And in headlines: it’s been 15 years since Hurricane Katrina, Zoom problems on the first day of school, and Jerry Falwell Jr. resigns over a sex scandal.

It's Tuesday, August 25th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What the Day, where we are picturing an alternate reality where we didn't just watch the Republican National Convention. Yeah, instead we watched Tenet in a theater with all of our friends, and it was safe and no one could get sick. We were all high-fiving and licking each other's palms. And that was up to safety code. On today's show, it is night one of the Republican National Convention, then some headlines.

But first, the latest. And we'll start in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where protesters gathered for a second night following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black resident who is reportedly still in the intensive care unit at a local hospital. Protests over the shooting and racist policing have also spread to other places, including Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, and D.C. Gideon, we started to get news about the shooting on Sunday, so catch us up on where things are standing right now. Yeah, so a little bit of the backstory first. As you said, a police officer shot Blake on Sunday. And there was a video that was recorded by a bystander from across the street that captured the graphic incident. And it shows Blake trying to get into his car while a police officer follows him and points a gun at him and ultimately shoots him in the back seven times. And you can't see it

on the video, but Blake's three young children were reportedly in the car as he was shot. The local police haven't released much information at all at this point, saying only that they were responding to a domestic incident. But a lawyer for Blake's family says that Blake was trying to break up an argument between two women when the police arrived and shot him. Hundreds of protesters started to gather almost immediately in downtown Kenosha on Sunday night to protest the shooting. And then police used tear gas and several vehicles were reportedly set on fire. Yesterday, the police set a curfew of 8 p.m. local time and the National Guard was sent in. But protests continued last night, even after curfew, and were ongoing as we go to record. And just a quick reminder that tear gas causes choking and coughing and is being deployed during a respiratory pandemic and potentially causes other health effects. There are now accounts piling up from Portland of tear gas

causing menstrual irregularities. So the police solution to the outrage about a black man being shot seven times on video is to terrorize people upset about it and potentially hurt even more people. But back to where things stand now, an investigation has been opened up. So let's talk about that. Yeah. So as of now, the investigation has been turned over to the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the state attorney general. And so they are going to be gathering information on what happened and then will hand over their evidence to the local district attorney to decide whether to bring criminal charges against the cops. The district attorney also said yesterday that he hopes federal prosecutors will conduct a parallel investigation into the shooting that is in

addition to that. And in the meantime, the three cops that were on the scene have all been placed on administrative leave, though their names have not been released. And one note on additional video evidence that may or may not come in. Police officers in Kenosha do not wear body cameras, and according to the New York Times, the city aims to start using them in 2022, but they've been a matter of debate before now, though most police cars do have dashboard cameras. Several local and state elected officials have spoken out about the shooting, including Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Tony Evers and Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, who said, quote, This was not an accident. This was not bad police work.

This felt like some sort of vendetta being taken out on a member of our community. Speaking of state officials, the governor and lieutenant governor also called for a special session to pass police reform legislation. So what do we know about that? Yeah, so Evers is calling for this session to happen next week. And he wants the state legislature to consider measures that he proposed back in June following the police killings of George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. And so those measures include things like establishing a statewide use of force standard, banning chokeholds, and no knock warrants. So the Republican Speaker of the House in Wisconsin has already dismissed the governor, and state Republicans have tried to undermine Evers at almost every turn throughout this term

so far. And in a statement, the Republican Speaker said he was disturbed over the, quote, officer-involved shooting, but also disturbed by property damage at the protests and said, now is not the time for politics. So, Akilah, that phrase officer involved has struck me as odd and used seemingly all the time. I saw someone tweet yesterday that it would be like saying a shark involved shark bite. So let's delve into this a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an absolving and police curated term and it puts the blame on no one. It's the passive voice that completely misses how the officer was actually involved. So I think we have to retire the phrase. So many gun advocates and

police advocates, and just to be clear, that Venn diagram is a circle, say that guns don't kill people. People kill people. Then they need to keep that same fucking energy and say with their chest, a police officer shot a man seven times in the back in front of his children. We're going to put links in our show notes to resources to where you can donate and how to get involved to support justice and accountability in Wisconsin. I'm really sorry that we have to keep waking up with news like this, and I'm just sorry that this is our reality. But the best thing to shake us out of one trauma is another. So let's talk about the opening day of the RNC. If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations.

Your house just went down 75% in value. All right. So before all the primetime speeches began last night, there was some official business that took place in Charlotte, North Carolina during the day yesterday. The Republican Party, shock surprise, officially renominated President Trump and Vice President Pence. And Trump and Pence also spoke during the nomination proceedings. During those speeches, they touched on judges, a big focus of the Republican Party for years and one of the lasting legacies of the Trump administration. And they started to drum up this theme that happened later in the night, and it's going to keep happening, that the Democratic nominee Joe Biden is too politically radical, which is somewhat ironic coming off a week in which Biden irked some

progressives actually by saying things like, quote, most cops are good, and devoting some airtime to Republicans vouching on his behalf. But let's get into the nighttime event, which took place mostly live at a speaker's podium in Washington, D.C., with some videos interspersed. This election is a battle for the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture, the cosmopolitan elites of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden who blame America first. Do you think America is to blame or do you believe in American greatness? Believe in yourself, in President Trump, in individual and personal responsibility. All right, uncle mercy.

And I really can't take anymore. That was Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top fundraiser for Donald Trump and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., my condolences, shouting her endorsement of the president and painting Biden as a threat to Erica, which is just how she kept saying it. I'm Erica. So sure, I guess that's how we're saying it now. Yeah. And I think that this is a good example because it shows that the whole event was kind of like CPAC, the yearly conservative conference, where, you know, you would have folks from Fox and other sort of conservative media figures talking. And I think that what Guilfoyle was saying sort of typified a lot of what this first night was about, which was Trump and how great he is. And it was interesting to me that going into this week, you know, there were some quotes going around from RNC folks about how this was supposed to be the optimistic convention.

But there was a lot of dark stuff in this speech and throughout the night. You know, it was a lot of if Democrats take control, cities will be overrun, suburbs will be destroyed, and your livelihood will be threatened. And I also think on a separate note, it's pretty remarkable that there is, you know, yet another police shooting that we're discussing in Wisconsin. And yet much of the discussion at the RNC had to do with protesters being violent and dangerous. And politically speaking, on a final note, I do think that this message, of course, appeals to some people, but I don't know who goes from being on the fence about Trump to being for him from hearing this. It kind of seemed to me, at least,

that you already had to be fully bought in. But Akilah, how would you describe what we witnessed overall to someone who didn't watch? I mean, I would say that their flag budget was huge. So that's important to note. But honestly, I just tell them it's exactly what they'd expect, which I think sets the bar a little low for how divorced from reality it actually ended up being. So the RNC so far has just been pushing the sort of fantasy land version of America where the pandemic has been solved and all these mean Democrats just want to shut everything down for no reason because they can't mention the pandemic. And then there's that same lie about how Trump saved an economy that was already steadily gaining momentum after the last

Republican recession. We didn't hear any plans for how to stop the spread of the virus or how things are going to get any better. We didn't hear anything about the 175,000 plus dead people, you know, in this country because of his inaction. You know, there were a lot of Brown character witnesses that described how not racist and accepting America is, while also vilifying immigration, even as they personally benefited from it. So perfect example, there were two Guatemalan American sisters who run some small business that was never really clearly defined, but they received a stimulus loan touting their achievement of the American dream. Like they really did it, but it kind of misses the point that Trump actually gutted that immigration policy that allowed Guatemalans to come here and also ignores the fact that while, you know, their

business, whatever it is, is still standing. A lot of small businesses aren't or may not come back in the next several months without any legitimate plan to address the pandemic in any meaningful way. Also, there was some weird liquid around Dodd Jr.'s eyes when he was yelling about how cool he thinks his dad is, and I have questions that deserve answers. Tears for his father and for America. Most of the COVID conversation, too, was kind of about placing blame on Democrats for past comments at the start of the pandemic. And this whole thing of, you know, people had gotten it wrong. They had shown fealty to Trump, as it were, when they were desperately trying to get resources from the administration when he wasn't giving them to Democratic cities and states, and then acting as though it had been taken seriously by the administration as opposed to those Democrats and that it was largely solved, which makes sense, again, because Trump is pulling in the gutter on the pandemic and

everything related to it. So, you know, in order to insulate him, they had to form an alternate reality. And the only recourse then is fear mongering about Democrats. But it's hard to say if that is moving anyone because the pandemic is still so front and center in most people's lives. Overall, I think what this showed is it's tougher to make the case about what might happen when a lot of people are judging at the moment what is actually happening. Yeah, amen. All right. Well, if you want to watch the RNC, first of all, why? But second, watch it with Crooked. All right. Well, if you want to watch the RNC, first of all, why, but second, watch it with Crooked. All right. We've got this thing called group thread going each night this week. It starts at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, and you can find it at crooked.com

slash convention and subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash crooked media. And that's the latest. It's Tuesday WOD Squad, and for today's Temp Check, we're discussing Cyprus's so-called Golden Passport program, which allows immigrants to get citizenship by investing at least two and a half million dollars into their economy. That program came under fire this week after Al Jazeera reported that dozens of people had secured Cypriot passports despite being linked to crime and corruption. Cyprus has denied the allegations and said the individuals in question were carefully vetted. So Giddy, this leads me to my question, which country are you paying to become a citizen? Well, there's a pretty obvious answer here that I think would make a lot of sense, which is New Zealand. New Zealand, you know, only generates positive headlines unless they're, you know, I mean, that's not true. There's plenty of, I'm sure there's plenty of negative stuff that happens in New Zealand.

But at the current moment, I think being in a place that is farther away from other places and that has a modicum of a handle on the pandemic as compared to the place that we are currently in sounds somewhat appealing. Yeah, I think that that's not a bad plan. I mean, New Zealand definitely seems to be taking the pandemic seriously. And also they got rid of guns after one terrible mass shooting, which I think is, you know, America could never. Yes, yes. It's nice to see a place that has political responses to things that actually happen in the world.

So that seems logical and good. But same question for you, Akilah. Where are you going? I'm going to apply and pay two and a half million dollars to every country just in case I can't like make it there. I feel like things are getting pretty dicey in America. So if I was going to if I was going to choose like it can't just be one. Right. Because you don't know. So, yeah, pretty much want to be a global citizen. I think it's a good concept. Works out. Great concert. And just like that, we have checked our temps. Stay safe and we will check in with you all again tomorrow. Let's wrap up with some headlines.

Headlines. This week marks the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a disaster that left a lasting impact on the people of New Orleans. It left four-fifths of the city underwater, displaced over a million people, and led to over 1,800 deaths. Every level of government, from local to state to federal, was widely criticized for not responding quickly or adequately enough to the disaster. And while the government under George W. Bush was wrestling with whether natural disasters should be a state or federal funding program, rescue efforts were delayed and thousands of lives were on the

line. Many who lived through Katrina are now drawing parallels between the government's handling of that disaster and how the current Trump administration is handling the coronavirus pandemic. Lessons about federal crisis management and social inequality remain unlearned as we deal with this new disaster. Also happening this week, people in Louisiana and Texas are on high alert as Tropical Storm Laura approaches their coasts, and over 300,000 people in the coastal counties have been evacuated. Scientists have now reported the first known case of someone being reinfected with COVID-19. A 33-year-old man from Hong Kong tested positive in March and then four months later tested positive again. He was returning to Hong Kong from Spain when he got his second positive

result, which came from a different strain of coronavirus than the first. During the man's second case, he didn't show any symptoms. Authors of a study about the man said his case showed immunity from coronavirus can be short-lived and suggested that everyone should get the vaccine once it's available, even people who have already had COVID-19.

Seems like a good plan. Guys, everyone gets stressed on the first day of school, even video conferencing platforms. That is right. Zoom reported partial outages on Monday as millions logged on to remote classes. Issues began around 9 a.m. on the East Coast and were resolved within four hours. In other computer learning news, a Florida judge ruled to suspend a state order that required school districts to provide in-person classes.

And that comes after the Florida Education Association sued the state's education commissioner and its governor, wrestling fan Ron DeSantis, saying that the order was unconstitutional and dangerous. The state filed an appeal late yesterday, so DeSantis' rule will remain in place until that is settled. A similar situation is unfolding in Des Moines, Iowa. Public school teachers and administrators there are fighting to keep classes virtual while the state's Department of Education insists they provide an option for in-person learning. And as of now, Des Moines public schools are defying the state's instructions and plan to sue. God isn't the only one who's watching. A business associate of Liberty University president and evangelical for Trump, Jerry Falwell Jr.,

told Reuters he had a long-term sexual relationship with Falwell's wife, Becky, which Jerry also participated in as a spectator. Now, there's nothing newsworthy about consenting adults having a good time, but Jerry's situation is complicated by the fact that he's made intolerance, homophobia, and family values his, uh, holy trinity. Falwell was already on leave from Liberty University after posting vacation pictures that showed him apparently drinking alcohol with pants unzipped and his arm around a young woman whose pants were also unzipped. Right-wing evangelicals call that pose Beelzebub's salute. Last, oh God, late last night, Falwell announced his resignation

from Liberty, which is kind of a happy ending for a man who is clearly desperate to live the life of a rich, wild, uninhibited retiree. I mean, that is the definition of liberty to me, you know? And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Don't yell at us like Kimberly Guilfoyle and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just the words on your brand new passport from Cypress 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 don't do Beelzebub salute. He doesn't like it and neither do I. Do a regular salute and that is to the American flag.