What A Day - Kevin Knows He's Miserable Now

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

The House of Representatives adjourned for a second day without electing a new speaker, after Rep. Kevin McCarthy failed to convince 20 of his Republican colleagues to support his bid. He lost another three rounds of voting Wednesday, leaving no indication when the stalemate will end. California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency amid a potentially catastrophic storm that’s bearing down on the Golden State. It's now the third atmospheric river to hit the state in just two weeks.And in headlines: the FDA finalized a rule change that will make abortion pills more accessible, the organizer of the "Varsity Blues" college admissions cheating scandal was sentenced to federal prison, and Salesforce said it would lay off about 10% of its staff.Show Notes:What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastCrooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Thursday, January 5th. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And I'm Juanita Tolliver, and this is What A Day, the only news podcast that is recorded using the same high-tech motion capture technology as Avatar. Yeah, you don't even want to know how many millions of dollars we burn every single time we make an episode. Just set on fire. All these little sensors on our faces cost money. Can't even see us right now.

We still do it. On today's show, the FDA finalized a new rule that will expand access to abortion pills. Plus, New York City Mayor Eric Adams' war against the rats is getting personal over an alleged infestation at one of his properties. Ew, not one of his own properties. Like, how is he being part of the problem? Yikes. Big yikes. But first, today felt like deja vu in Washington, D.C.

as Representative Kevin McCarthy failed to change any of the minds of the 20 Republicans who continue to refuse to support his bid to become Speaker of the House. McCarthy lost three more rounds of voting yesterday. And as of our recording time at 9.30 p.m. Eastern, the House has just adjourned a second day of unsuccessful votes for Speaker of the House. And all McCarthy has to show for it is 20 votes for Florida Representative Byron Donalds and one present vote. So McCarthy's even deeper in the hole than before. Great. I mean, that was our prediction yesterday. We were like, more and more people keep defecting.

Right. And that's what's happening. I just wonder, like, when's he going to move his shit out of the office? Girl. Because this is not happening at this point. Come on. He shouldn't have even moved in there. But for what we saw yesterday, the decision by never Kevin Republicans to spice things up

by nominating Donald's a black man, it was sickening yet entirely unsurprising because racist tokenism is a signature move for Republicans. I mean, we most recently saw this with Herschel Walker and the Georgia Senate race when Republicans picked any black Republican they could find just to show how racist they weren't. But the cherry on top here is that House Republicans are using Donald's nomination to say they too have made history by nominating the first black man to be speaker of the House. When in reality, we know exactly what this is. Yeah. Moreover, the decision to nominate Representative Donald's came after former President Trump posted on bootleg Twitter that Republicans should vote for Kevin, close the deal, take the victory. In all caps, of course.

Trump also made calls to his loyalists with the same message, but that outreach apparently fell flat as Representative Lauren Boebert said that the former president, quote, needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you don't have the votes and it's time to withdraw. Of course, that makes zero sense because Trump refused to accept the 2020 election results and led an armed insurrection to the Capitol building. But alas. Yeah, clearly she forgot who she was talking to. But what can we expect next from the Republicans on this, you know, two days of failed votes? Are we just sad? Are we doing this until, I don't know, we get a result? When is this going to happen? Girl, probably. We should expect the never-Kevin Republicans to feel fully emboldened by all of this.

They're effectively disrupting Congress, humiliating Kevin McCarthy, and there's no telling how much money they're raising off of this stunt. Ultimately, this standoff is going to continue, and it's a direct head-to-head between McCarthy, who still maintains that he has the most votes, and even said at the beginning of yesterday's session, quote, at the end of the day, we'll get there. Of course, they did not. And the 21 Republicans who are demonstrating exactly how much they can break government in real time. One thing we have to recognize is that these Republicans are not focused on using their

power to govern and lead, but rather to cause McCarthy as much pain and shame as possible. But after last night's nail biting vote, the House will reconvene today at noon to begin voting again. It's reported that McCarthy is actively negotiating with the 21 holdouts in his conference and working to make final decisions on committee assignments, rules for future primary elections, and more. Yeah, okay, I guess seven times a charm for him. Right. I also appreciated that yesterday President Biden reiterated exactly how embarrassing all of this is as he was en route to Kentucky. He said, quote, I just think it's a little embarrassing that it's taking so long and quote, the rest of the world is looking to see if

we can get our act together. And the president's not wrong. On top of that, House members are beginning to run into very real world issues since none of them can be sworn in until a speaker is selected. For example, Representative Mike Gallagher said in a press conference yesterday that he couldn't attend an intelligence briefing because he doesn't have an active security clearance. And that reality will only compound as more time passes and we still don't have a speaker of the House. Yeah, you brought this up yesterday and it is all fun and games for now, but very quickly will cease to be that. So they really need to get their act together and pick someone, anyone, just do it. Let's turn now to something that we covered in headlines from our last show. Yesterday afternoon, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency amid a

potentially catastrophic storm that is barreling down on the Golden State. A separate system already sent heavy rain and strong winds across Northern California over the weekend, causing power outages and triggering evacuation orders amid fear of widespread flooding. I've heard this referred to as an atmospheric river. Can you explain what that means? Yeah, so that term gets thrown around from time to time. It sounds very alarming, but it's actually a very normal phenomenon. Atmospheric rivers are basically long, flowing parts of the atmosphere that transport water vapor.

Most of them are pretty weak. They don't cause damage. They result in regular rainfall and snow that helps the water supply. But the ones that contain the most water vapor and the strongest winds can create really extreme weather like what we saw in California yesterday. And this isn't the first time that this has happened here. This storm is actually the third atmospheric river to hit California in the past two weeks alone. Three in two weeks is wild. So is this why the state of emergency was declared?

Definitely. So Governor Newsom said that he was doing so in order to, quote, support response and recovery efforts. And that is not just for this particular storm. It is for this collection of three that have caused a lot of damage. Right. Northern California has already seen dramatic flooding as a result of the first two storms. There have been school closures and flight cancellations all across the San Francisco Bay Area. And this particular storm is expected to bring powerful wind gusts and over six inches of rainfall to some parts of the Bay Area through today. Officials say that those winds will most

likely bring down branches and trees and are also warning of rapid rises in creeks and rivers across the region. And they've also issued flash flood warnings in several areas that have been impacted by recent wildfires. Down in Southern California, people are bracing for the worst stretch of the storm today, which could also lead to potential flooding, mudslides, and dangerous waves on the coast. Winds in the desert are expected to reach between 60 and 65 miles per hour. Those are really dangerous speeds. That's basically just under what a hurricane would be. Oh, goodness. I really hope people in California and especially Southern California today just stay safe because none of this seems like the typical California weather that I'm used to knowing, like, you know, the

bright sunshine and no rain whatsoever. So how does this stack up with other storms the state has experienced? Yeah. OK, definitely not normal at all here in California. The state is still in its third year of intense drought. 2022 was one of the driest on record, so crazy to be watching this happen. But these storms could actually end up rivaling the El Nino-fueled storms that hit California during the winter of 1997 to 1998. Really terrible storms in the state's history, and we're not even in an El Nino year. Even though this could put a dent in the ongoing drought conditions that California has been facing over the past few years, the state isn't exactly prepared to go from, you know, extremely dry conditions to this extreme storm and extremely wet conditions. Right. But unfortunately, we can

expect to see a lot more of this in the future. Recent studies have shown that climate change will make these kinds of whiplash weather events even more common than they're already becoming. Of course, we'll be keeping a close eye on this storm, and if you're impacted, we hope you're able to stay safe. In the meantime, that is the latest for now. We'll be back with some headlines. Headlines. The Food and Drug Administration this week finalized a rule change that will make abortion pills more accessible. On Tuesday, the agency said pharmacies can dispense mifepristone to patients with a prescription. The change expands access to the drug at brick-and-mortar stores,

as well as online pharmacies that deliver by mail. Before the rule change, patients could only get it through authorized clinics. It also gets rid of a long-standing requirement that such medication must be picked up in person. Meanwhile, the Justice Department also announced late Tuesday that the U.S. Postal Service can continue to deliver abortion medication even in states where access is restricted.

The man who turned our world upside down by revealing that the very rich can buy their way into college, Rick Singer, was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison yesterday for organizing the so-called Varsity Blues admission scheme. Singer pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy, and money laundering charges back in 2019.

He notably helped the children of celebrities like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin fake their way into prestigious schools. Though Singer was dealt the harshest sentence out of everyone connected to the case. In addition to his three-and-a-half-year sentence behind bars, he will face three years of supervised release and will have to pay damages of $10 million,

or approximately the price of, you know, one wing of a university library. Oof. Elon Musk's tireless quest to make Twitter less appealing continued on Tuesday as the company announced that it would permit more political ads on its platform. Back in 2019, under then-CEO Jack Dorsey, Twitter banned political candidates and advocacy groups from running ads on the site to prevent them from targeting users with false or misleading information. But analysts say that Twitter can no longer afford to cut itself off from a potential source of revenue, especially after numerous brands stopped advertising on

the site amid concerns that Musk's love of quote-unquote free speech could result in ads for their hamburgers and skincare products appearing next to the worst post that humanity has to offer. You know, anything for the money, right? I suppose at this point. Speaking of tech companies that are short on cash, business software company Salesforce announced yesterday that it would lay off about 8,000 of its employees. That's about 10% of the company's entire workforce. The company's co-chief executive cited concerns about the economy as one reason for the cuts,

echoing similar sentiments from giants like Meta and Twitter, which both laid off thousands of employees ahead of the holiday season. It's a scary time. Hard times, hard times. And New York City Mayor Eric Adams is getting a crash course in a phenomenon known as rat karma. He was recently hit with two $300 summonses for a possible rat infestation outside of a brownstone that he owns in Bed-Stuy after he cultivated a public persona as a sort of jigsaw killer, but for rodents.

This is actually the fifth time since 2018 that rats have been found at Adams' building. For his part, the mayor is casting doubt on the city health department's findings, which included the presence of a, quote, rat runway. Ew. Picture that. Just absolutely disgusting. I do not want to even attempt. Adams has been able to beat previous violations by spending money to ward off rats.

And he said this week that, quote, I will again challenge these violations and show that rats don't run this city. Sir, if you can't take care of the rats, who can take care of the rats? And he hasn't been able to take care of the rats for years. This is his fifth violation in four years. Like, that's sickening. I think the rats might run the city at this point. Girl.

I think that's just what's happening. We all know who Pizza Rat is, is all I'm going to say. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show show make sure you subscribe leave a review apprehend a rat jigsaw and tell your friends to listen and if you're into reading and not just descriptions of rat runways like me what today is also a nightly newsletter check it out and subscribe at crooked dot com slash subscribe i'm juanita tolliver I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And stay off Twitter, skincare companies. Yeah, listen, run ads with us. Girl, I would love. We love skincare. Hey, Tatcha,

come on over. We're available. Come on. I love that water cream. It's great. Girl. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance. Jazzy Marine and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producer is Lita Martinez. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.