What A Day - Let's Joe Crazy

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

The presidential race was called this weekend for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, leading to spontaneous celebrations across the country. Biden and Harris gave their first speeches as President-elect and Vice President-elect on Saturday night, reiterating their message of unity and sketching out a mandate that includes rooting out systemic racism, working towards and economic fairness, and tackling climate change.The country recorded its 10 millionth COVID case over the weekend, which is higher than any other country on earth. Today Biden is set to announce a COVID task force, as part of a weeklong focus on the pandemic and healthcare.And in headlines: the latest on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Mexico to legalize marijuana, and a closer look at the saga of Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

It's Monday, November 9th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we are keeping that Saturday at 12 Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific energy going all week long. That's right. I want to hear all my neighbors yelling for no reason, just, you know, because they're happy. I want people to clap when I'm walking down the sidewalk and not know if it's for me or for life events that have occurred in the world. It's because you walk so good, you know. On today's show, we have a new president. Then some headlines. Okay, so by now you know the presidential race has been called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

I am hype. I'm living. This is the best news in just the worst year. And this comes after the longest week in history with endless early morning vote dumps, state calls, and so many touchscreens of math. I'm sick of math. Put the math away. On Saturday morning, all of the networks called the state of Pennsylvania for Joe Biden, putting him over 270 electoral votes. And that total is expected to grow. That makes Biden the oldest president-elect in history. It also makes Kamala Harris the first black woman, the first South Asian woman, the first biracial woman, the first daughter of immigrants and the first woman period to be on the winning party's ticket. And it makes Donald Trump the first president to lose the popular vote twice and the only one term president since 1992. He is big mad about it.

The news led to spontaneous celebrations across the country and truly the entire world. So, Gideon, where were you when all this stuff went down over the weekend? I was in Brooklyn, which exploded. There were the most amount of people I have ever seen in my life for any singular event and the most concentrated noise I have ever experienced in my entire life. Oh, that sounds awesome. Yeah, I was on the golf course next to Trump. We were both surprised. In all honesty, I was sleeping. I finally next to Trump. We were both surprised. In all honesty, I was sleeping. I finally decided to take a nap. And then my housemate was beating on my door like, wake up, it's over. So yeah, I woke up very startled, but happy to be scared in that way.

But on Saturday night, we heard from Biden and Harris for the first time since the call. So let's talk a little bit about the speeches. Yeah, so the setup here was something we sort of got accustomed to with Biden's campaign during COVID. We had cars parked in a lot. They were honking celebration as he's speaking, honking the universal sign of celebration now. And similar to the buildup for days and actually getting a call on the race from the networks, there were these false starts for days with this big Biden speech. But Saturday, just a few hours after the major networks made their projections, we heard from both of them. Here's Biden. Folks, I'm a proud Democrat. But I will govern as an American president.

I'll work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as those who did. Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now. Right. So this idea of unity was a big part of Biden's speech because it was a big part of his campaign. The initial pitch of his candidacy, which people didn't think would work necessarily, was to be a unifying and stabilizing force in the country in contrast to Trump. He has been very consistent on that. Now he's just reiterating it in a new reality where over 70 million people voted for Trump and where 75 million voted for Biden. Biden also talked about the worsening COVID-19

pandemic and sketched out a mandate that included rooting out systemic racism, working towards economic fairness and tackling climate change. We're going to get into more on the immediate tasks with COVID in just a moment. Yeah, for sure. And let's go through what Harris had to say. Yeah, so her speech was taking on similar themes while also acknowledging the hardship the country has faced this year and her own personal story, which she linked to women who came before her and paved the way for this historic moment. To the woman most responsible for my presence here today, my mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who is always in our hearts. When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn't quite imagine this moment. But she believed so deeply in an America

where a moment like this is possible. And so I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women, who throughout our nation's history have paved the way for this moment tonight. Yeah, so both of these speeches were brief and largely hopeful, despite the very dark situation we're facing as a country.

Akilah, what did you make of the whole night? Yeah, so, I mean, I thought the speeches were excellent. And, yeah, just what a bummer that COVID is so out of control that we didn't get that whole Obama 08 style packed park, you know, but rather just a bunch of trucks and footage of people in masks sitting in their driver's seats. But the fact that all of the bad faith media criticism over the past four years didn't stop them from saying the truth is really what stuck out to me. You know, as you mentioned, they didn't shy away from bringing up systemic racism, something a bunch of racists on the internet have told me is fake. And a lot of upper crusty newspapers said we should pipe down

about if we want to win elections. They didn't dumb down their politics to make people who hate us comfortable. And I hope that now with millions more Americans supporting their message than Trump's, we can just put that bullshit to bed. You know, no more two-parters on cancel culture. Grow up already. And beyond that, the drone footage was exceptional. It reminded me of Lady Gaga's Super Bowl performance, you know, with all the coordinated drones. But yeah, the future is obviously now. Yeah, I don't think the Chase Center in Wilmington has ever been quite so lit. Zero percent.

But in all seriousness, you know, I don't think the enormity of Kamala Harris being the first woman to be vice president had fully hit me. I'm still not sure if it fully has. I grew up in the 90s. It's a time that we often look back at as some sort of special, wonderful time. And as good as I personally remember it, all the while, I believe that power was for white men. Literally, the history books reiterated it. It wasn't uncommon at family get togethers to have two older generations remind me that we'll never have a black president and we'll never have a woman in the White House. You know, my grandmother died in the year 2000 and she died believing that it would never happen. My mom is 61 today and she

told me in 2007 that it would not happen in her lifetime. But on Saturday, she called me in tears, and she told me that she's proud of the kids that boomers raised, that these younger generations are something different. And I'm just really proud of us, and I'm incredibly proud of the WOD squad. You know, you all helped us raise so much money for Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight Action and all of these progressive candidates and down ballot races. So I just want to thank you all for caring and working so hard with us on Adopt-A-State. Thank you for challenging yourself to stay informed when it's so much easier to tune out, especially those of you who are those little blue dots and red or formerly red states. I'm trying not to get, you know, too mushy or, you know, make you cry for the hundredth time this year.

But there's so much happiness and pride I have in what we've been able to do together. So, you know, hold on to this good feeling, but know that it's only the beginning. Gideon, let's talk a little bit about what taking the presidency means for Biden. Yeah, so that good feeling is absolutely going to come in handy for the moments ahead.

So big picture, Biden is facing monumental challenges, as we know, from the jump. To start, there's the public health crisis and economic fallout from the pandemic. The country recorded its 10th million overall COVID case over the weekend, according to estimates. And the seven-day average of new cases is over 100,000, which is absolutely mind-boggling and more than any other country on Earth. Hospitalizations are also high and deaths have begun exceeding 1,000 per day again. In fact, the U.S. saw a new daily record of more than 126,000 cases on Saturday. That's according to Johns Hopkins.

And that's the exact day that the race was formally called for Biden. The trajectory is not looking good. And the danger is that Trump will still be in charge for the next couple of months. It's such a disaster. It's like as happy as I am. It's like, why can we not have the power today so we can maybe start saving some lives? But, you know, this administration is still fucking up at every turn. There's a new outbreak or the last outbreak at the White House is still going strong with cases among several staffers, including Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

But back to Biden for a moment. So he's set to announce a COVID task force today. It's reportedly going to have 12 members. What else do we know? Yeah, so this is reportedly going to be part of this week-long focus on the pandemic and healthcare, and it's going to all serve as building blocks for the eventual administration. So according to Biden's transition team website, he wants to create a pandemic testing board, kind of like the war production board during FDR's administration that would rapidly scale up testing. His plan mentions using the Defense Production Act for personal protective equipment, investing $25

billion in vaccine manufacturing and distribution, and implementing some sort of broader mask mandate. But on that last point, the New York Times reported that there are a number of ways that Biden is trying to increase mask wearing in the country without issuing a national mandate, for which there might not be actual legal authority. One of those ways is to mandate masks on federal property, which could be done via executive order, as well as on, quote, all interstate transportation. And we'll definitely talk more about the COVID plan in the days to come. But on the executive order point, this is going to be important. You know, what else is the Biden team thinking through at the moment? Yeah, so this is the other big challenge for the incoming Biden administration, right? The possibility of a divided government with Mitch

McConnell again running the Senate. You know, we have two upcoming runoffs in Georgia in January that will decide the Senate's full makeup. But the Biden team seems to be thinking through what can get done via executive action in the potential event that there is just blockading from Senate Republicans. I mean, these are folks who dealt with McConnell for eight years. And here's what that looks like so far. Biden plans to reenter the Paris Climate Accord. He plans to reverse the Trump administration decision to exit the World Health Organization, repeal the Muslim ban and reinstate DACA. That's all according to The Washington Post. So a significant amount to get done from the start just with executive actions, bigger lasting legislation like instituting a public option or passing voting rights reforms are much more uncertain right now,

given the overall uncertainty around the makeup of Congress. And meanwhile, we know that Trump hasn't conceded in this race. So let's get into that a little bit more. Yeah, as a shock to only the most naive people on the planet, Trump is still fighting the results and getting slapped with all kinds of misinformation warnings on Twitter. It's hilarious. It's also pretty shitty and terrible and unprecedented, but still a little funny. His apparent plan is to whine and moan about the results

and claim extensive fraud where none exists over and over again. Trump is still in several legal battles, though battles might be a strong word. Last week, we told you about the several cases that have been laughed out of court so far. In the one victory the Trump campaign had in watching the ballots be counted within six feet instead of 20 feet away, I guess they wanted to watch themselves lose up close. I'm not exactly

sure. And we know they're handling it poorly after the now infamous Four Seasons total landscaping snafu with Rudy Giuliani giving a press conference in a parking lot between a sex shop and a funeral crematorium, like something from the intro to Bob's Burgers. We'll obviously have more on this later in the show because, you know, we like to laugh. But maybe the most stark part of this loserdom is that not all Republicans are rushing to back up the naked emperor. Former President George W. Bush said in a statement on Sunday that he had called to congratulate Biden for winning and that the American people can, quote, have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair, Its integrity will be upheld and its outcome is clear. And he wasn't the only one. Republican governors Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, Phil Scott and incoming governor

Spencer Cox all congratulated Biden, as well as Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney in the Senate and several House members. So while Trump continues to make up voting irregularities and he still has the support of people like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, which, ew, you know, it just seems like the MAGA brand is depreciating in value day after day. Yeah, going down in price like a Dodge Neon. And several world leaders have also congratulated Biden and Harris as well. That includes the heads of Canada, France, Israel, Germany, the UK, and India. So what is immediately next here then? Well, even with Trump's desperation to stay in power, transition planning is already underway, with cabinet appointment speculation already starting, which I think is annoying and a waste

of time, frankly. And I guess we'll have to wait to see if Melania even bothers getting the Christmas stuff out this year. But I think that's the latest for now. It's Monday WOD Squad. And for today's temp check, we're talking about the soundtrack of the past couple of days. So a few songs started charting this weekend, pretty unexpectedly. Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA, NSYNC's Bye Bye Bye, and of course, FDT by YG and Nipsey Hussle. The vibes were good after Trump lost and the music was great too. So we were all bumping happy playlists on Saturday,

whether we were in the streets or at our apartments. My question for you, Giddy, what was on your Trump defeat playlist? When I said earlier that I literally could not hear anything but the sounds outside where I lived, I truly mean it. Like we were outside for, you know, the immediate couple of hours after the news broke and the only music was car horns, people shaking tambourines, walking down the street. Uh, like there was a band that walked by at some point with a guy doing like the keyboard thing where you have the,

the mouth attachment as well. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know what the word is for that right now. It's driving me insane. Uh, yeah. I mean,

it was like when the saints go marching in all of these things that like somehow the bands in the neighborhood just like that I didn't know existed all came together to play this stuff on various instruments, like normal kinds of instruments like clarinets and also bagpipes. I'm amazed. And I love that for you all. You know, over here on the West Coast, I think we had a little bit less of like a good idea of where to meet. So it was, you know, if there were bands, they were like in parking lots, places and stuff.

That's good. That's good. OK, so you're kind of building your own playlist in here. What's on it? Oh, I had so many good songs on my playlist. I mean, we start with Gambino. This is America because, man, this is America. Don't catch you slipping. He also had Nice for What by Drake because I don't think we need to be nice to the Republicans who've been racist to me for the past four years. I'm not going to do it.

And then I had some throwbacks to 2008 times like Viva La Vida. You know, you got to get some of those real bangers of the glory days of the Democratic Party. But yeah, it was a very thick list. And of course, Party in the USA, Born in the USA, Born to Run, all those things, all the songs that make you just punch the sky. That's kind of what my vibe was. Every Levi's commercial fireworks going off type of energy.

Yes, running down the street with a stick hitting chain link fences. You know, things like that. I was definitely the youngest I've ever been. Yeah. No, it's great. Yeah. And just like that, we've checked our temps. Stay safe.

Celebrate Biden winning, you know. Maybe make your own playlist. Share it with us. And we'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Bak. It's the latest update in six weeks of fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the region, which is formally recognized as Azerbaijan, but is home to ethnic Armenians. Officials in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh deny that the town has been captured and say intense fighting is still happening there. The town has significant cultural importance to both sides, and if Azerbaijan's claims are true, the country would now have a huge strategic advantage in the

conflict, blocking off a main road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Fierce fighting over the region has been going on since September, despite attempts from the U.S., Russia, and France to reach a ceasefire. Mexico is on its way to joining several other U.S. states and living the green dream, a.k.a. legalizing marijuana. Lawmakers there are working to finalize the rules of legalization by mid-December. Once that's all said and done, the country is projected to have the world's largest market for legal weed. Legalization will have its benefits like cutting down on black market sales and allowing for safer consumption, but advocates in the country are not happy with the government's current proposals. They argue that the plan would favor the rich by only allowing private

companies to grow and sell en masse, which disadvantages rural farmers and small businesses. Consumers would also have to register for a government license, which advocates say could discourage people from legal use. In general, critics say the initiatives have to do more to address the country's illegal market as well. The votes are still being counted, but the takes are coming in fast and furious, with Democrats across the political spectrum trying to understand why they didn't win bigger in congressional elections. Progressives were early targets

last week with Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger suggesting that the defund the police movement put Democrats at a disadvantage. That was followed by a New York Times interview with New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this weekend, where she described what she saw as her party's shortcomings, among them a failure to campaign effectively online and counteract Republican messaging. AOC also said that victories by progressives in swing districts proved that supporting the Green New Deal and Medicare for All isn't a liability, and that she offered to help Democrats who didn't support these issues with their campaigns, but was rebuffed because of what she described as a, quote,

anti-activist sentiment. Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate who barely won in Pennsylvania but was singled out by AOC for running a bad campaign, responded to the interview by blaming losses on the defund movement and opposition to fracking. I love that he didn't learn anything. Many predicted Trump's campaign would end in a loss, but only a small, skilled group of analysts knew that it would end at a landscaping business next to a dildo store on the outskirts of Philadelphia. The story of Four Seasons Total Landscaping is basically 2020 lore at this point, but in case you missed it, it all began on Saturday when Trump tweeted, quote, Lawyers News Conference Four Seasons Philadelphia, 11 a.m. Trump deleted this post quickly and followed it up with a far more chaotic revision, quote, Big Press Conference

Today in Philadelphia at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, 1130 a.m. Theories abound about how Trump's campaign wound up in the industrial parking lot of a landscaping company where a small group of reporters gathered and probably risked getting tetanus only to be interrupted by the news that the election had been called for Joe Biden. Did the campaign think they'd booked the Four Seasons Hotel?

Did Trump tweet before anything had been booked and then the campaign had to sc the Four Seasons Hotel? Did Trump tweet before anything had been booked and then the campaign had to scramble to retroactively make his tweet make sense? The official word from the campaign is that they chose Four Seasons Total Landscaping because of its remoteness, since that would mean a smaller chance of interference from crowds. This explanation is a slap in the face to the owner of Fantasy Island Adult Books and Novelties, who is busting his ass on this block every day trying to sell porn. The event itself featured Trump lawyer and Borat star Rudy Giuliani yelling at the sky, which is a fitting image to end the campaign on.

Not sure what's next for Four Seasons Total Landscaping, but maybe Trump will return the favor and give them a gig at his post-presidential home, preferably in a deep hole with no Wi-Fi or connection to the outside world. That's gotta be it. That's the natural ending. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, keep honking horns and slamming pots and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just beautiful, uplifting, heartwarming signs on the street

that say, fuck Donald Trump 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 bye, Donald Trump. Don't let the door hit you on the way out

or actually let it hit you. Let it hit you a million times. Fine by me. I don't care about the door or your butt. We can get a million times. Fine by me. I don't care about the door or your butt. We can get a new door. 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.