What A Day - N-R-Ain't

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

New York’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association. AG Letitia James alleges that the NRA has engaged in years of corruption.In the absence of a federal testing strategy, seven governors have formed a purchasing agreement in attempts to get faster COVID antigen tests. In California, problems with the state’s data system may be creating inaccurate coronavirus data. And in headlines: Minneapolis won’t vote to dismantle the police department, an exiled Saudi intelligence officer says MBS tried to kill him, and Nintendo reports a huge earnings boost.

It's Friday, August 7th. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Tommy Vitor filling in for Akilah Hughes. And this is what a day where we are always going to remember where we were when we heard the president say Thailand. You really do have to work hard to say Thailand like that, and I'm honestly impressed. You know, more countries should be named after parts of the human body. Hear, hear. On today's show, the current state of testing and the future of the NRA, then some headlines. But first, the latest. New jobless claims topped one million again for the 20th straight week, and later this morning, the Labor Department is going to let us know the official unemployment

rate as of July. It's not expected to be good, as new infections went up last month and some lockdown restrictions that have been lifted were put back in place. The economic crisis is inextricably linked to the health crisis, which the U.S. still doesn't have control of. And we are still struggling to get our arms around testing and tracking. So let's check in on that. Yeah, struggling is right. So testing issues have manifested in a lot of different ways in many states. In California, for instance, recently, there have been technical problems with the electronic system that the state uses to actually gather test result data from labs. And according to the Los Angeles Times, that's led to concerns that cases are being undercounted and not properly reported back to the counties for contact tracing and other response measures.

Reportedly, the data sharing between the state and local counties has gotten so bad that Los Angeles has resorted to asking people who test positive to call the L.A. Public Health Department and just tell them themselves. And then it is very dark. And then another ongoing issue is still just the lagging test result times in many places across the U.S. According to a recent national survey by researchers from a cohort of universities, including Harvard and Northwestern, about 10 percent of people reported waiting over 10 days for results. And the average wait time in July was about four days. Gideon, maybe it was a bad idea that Jared Kushner secretly create a national testing strategy and then for some reason spike his own proposal. Yeah, it seems like one of many bad ideas. But in the meantime, states have had to do the bulk of the work on their own. And this week marked one of the more significant steps in cooperation among them. So seven governors,

three Republicans and four Democrats have agreed to create this joint purchasing agreement. It's essentially meant to put pressure on companies to speed up and distribute these antigen COVID tests that can show results in 30 minutes or less. The idea there being that more sophisticated tests that have to be sent to labs are getting backlogged still, and waiting around for results renders the results themselves kind of useless in some cases. If you think that you're fine, you could spread it before you know if you are actually fine. One of the Republican governors involved in the coalition, Mike DeWine of Ohio, has been telling people to avoid large gatherings in recent days as concerns about the Midwest increase. Then yesterday, DeWine himself actually tested positive, becoming the second governor in

the nation to do so. Yeah, notably, DeWine only learned that he had COVID because he was scheduled to meet with President Trump, got a rapid test from the White House, and then tested positive. So that must be nice. But instead of meeting with Trump, DeWine went home. He's going to be quarantining for a couple of weeks, which, you know, silver lining in that COVID cloud, not hanging out with Trump, I guess. But you know, credit to Governor DeWine for his early and aggressive response to the coronavirus. He's actually been one of the good ones. So we hope he gets better soon. Yeah. And he took a second test later in the day that came back negative. His office said he'll take another test on Saturday to confirm that he doesn't have symptoms yet, so hopefully things work out okay there. But back to the governor group's plan, though. Questions still remain

about whether they'll be able to get all the rapid tests that they need. But this sort of cooperative effort is the kind of thing you might typically see at the federal level and could potentially kick off more efforts to get these rapid antigen tests down the road. Yeah. And on these rapid tests, there's been a bit of a new perspective on using them given how badly things are going in the country, right? Yeah, that's right. So there was this New York Times article that was kind of tracking this change in thinking among some public health experts. And basically, the idea for a long time had been use the best and most accurate tests available because that's the way to really make sure that there's a strong understanding of where the infections are and also to catch asymptomatic cases. Now, with things so wildly out of control in most of the country, some experts are suggesting

that using the rapid response test, even if they are less accurate, is a better fix at stemming the problem, at least initially. But there are a few major hurdles there. One is that most of the tests that have been given emergency authorization by the FDA are lab-reliant tests. And two is that the antigen tests are likely to miss cases that the more sophisticated tests might not. Though, some experts in that article said that if individuals are shedding a ton of the virus, very gross way that they have to refer to it, but that is the scientific way, I guess. They are the ones that are most likely to be more of a danger to others. And if they're shedding that much, most tests, rapid or otherwise, are going to turn up positive.

And three is concerns about the overall supply chain in the United States, which already has been pretty bad for the tests that are currently widely available. So scaling up these rapid ones might be a challenge similar to that. More on testing soon, but let's get into another big story. Yesterday, New York's attorney general filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association, the country's biggest gun rights organization. Let's go through some of the details there. Yeah, Gideon, this is a fun one, I have to say. It comes after an 18 month long investigation. The NRA is registered as a nonprofit in New York, which is why the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, has regulatory authority here. Her office is alleging that the NRA has engaged in years of corruption. The suit also names four former and current NRA leaders,

including longtime CEO and bona fide asshole, Wayne LaPierre. Specifically, the suit alleges that the NRA and its leaders misused charitable funds for personal gain, like taking eight trips to the Bahamas on a company paid for private jet. That sounds fun. They awarded contracts to friends and family members. They provided contracts to former employees to ensure loyalty, and they lied on their taxes. So you know, your classic charity nonprofit operations right there. Right. Washington DC's Attorney General also filed suit against the NRA's charitable arm yesterday. So they're dealing with back to back lawsuits. Right. And then the NRA themselves filed their own lawsuit claiming these actions are politically motivated. That's no surprise really from them. But do we have a sense of whether there's any

actual chance this is going to lead to the end of the NRA? So I think the only thing we really know is that this is likely to be litigated in court for several years. We know that suing to dissolve this organization is the most aggressive action that the AG can take in terms of civil court, and she has not ruled out possible criminal action. So that's a big deal. In terms of precedent, James's office oversaw a similar lawsuit that ended up dissolving Donald Trump's charitable foundation for misusing funds. But the NRA is just a much bigger organization. So we'll see. That being said, the NRA has been hamstrung by infighting and financial mismanagement. They couldn't hold their annual fascist convention slash fundraising conference this year because of COVID. So their

finances are hurting. Another possibility here, though, short of the NRA completely dissolving, is that LaPierre just gets ousted from his job, which is something that a lot of NRA donors support. Right. And President Trump, who has a lot of experience with sort of mismanagement of organizations, had a little bit of advice for the NRA yesterday. Yeah. For some reason, he told the NRA to move to Texas and lead a very good and beautiful life, which makes me think he thinks the NRA is a sentient being that's going to like set up shop in Marfa and become an artist. But, you know, it's kind of a weird comment. Yeah, the NRA should, you know, just let their hair grow long, really kick back, you know, like explore psychedelics, whatever it is that makes them happy.

Agreed. Totally agree. But beyond them setting up shop somewhere else, what do we make of the actual NRA broader political influence right now at this moment? Look, I mean, I think a lot of people believe that over the last several years, the NRA's political influence has been reduced. Gun control advocates have had a lot of recent success passing laws at the state level, for example. Now, the NRA is trying to get out ahead of this lawsuit. They previewed to some right wing news outlets that they plan to spend tens of millions of dollars in the 2020 cycle to elect Republicans. But I mean, I think there's good reason to believe that the actual spending totals will be well shy of the 50 million, five zero that the NRA spent to prop up Trump in 2016.

Right, right. Yeah. So this is definitely something that we're going to have to keep track of. And we'll be watching it as it develops. But that is the latest we have for now. It is Friday, WOD Squad. We made it. And today we're talking about a harmless request from Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Trump's team asked the Commission on Presidential Debates if the debates could start earlier, because more people are voting by mail this year and Trump seems to think he can win them over. Rudy Giuliani, who wrote the request, called the current schedule a, quote, outdated dinosaur. I will not be touching that.

Yesterday, the commission declined the request, though, saying that the current schedule of three debates has been shown to work well. So, Tommy, my question for you, do you think 90 more minutes of televised Trump is going to change hearts and minds? Yeah, I mean, well, I'm gonna answer your question with a question, which is, does no one on the Trump campaign have a calendar? Because I feel like they could have raised this problem a lot earlier. We all knew when the debates were going to be. We know when the voting starts. I mean, how did they just figure this out? It's also like all of the places that were having the debates are not having the debates anymore. They keep moving them because they're like, we don't want to risk COVID stuff. So how like you're not just going to find like another university that's like, buddy, come on through. Let's take this risk.

Yeah, I mean, like, I think this is the Trump campaign. It's kind of like strategic box that they're in. They are just desperately praying for some big Biden gaffe that will help them win back voters and change the momentum. But if doing that means a fourth debate, you're also betting on putting Trump in front of the country for another 90 minutes and hoping he doesn't rant and rave and turn more people off. So it's a tough position for them. Yeah, it's kind of like I think Susan Collins did a similar thing in Maryland or Maine where she was asking for like 16 debates or something crazy like that.

I feel like when people do that, it's like the whole like debate me, debate me mantra, whether you're like Ben Shapiro on Twitter or you're the president of the United States feels very much like you're already operating from kind of a losing position. Yeah, it's a total bit. It's a gambit. They also released just a hilariously stupid list of people they said were uh acceptable for them to be moderators like rachel from the real world san francisco so you know very serious operation i want to see that i also want to see seb gorka the dragon of budapest asking some questions um but like that, we have checked our temps. Stay safe out there.

Watch some debates if that's what you like. And we'll check in with you all again next week. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. In Minneapolis, an amendment to dismantle the city's police department will not be on the ballot in November. A city commission decided that they needed more time to discuss what should be included in the amendment,

which was approved by the city council a month after George Floyd's killing. The original proposal would have replaced the police department with a department focused on community safety and violence prevention. It also called for a division of licensed peace officers. Supporters of the amendment are calling the commission's decision a delay tactic, and the measure is now effectively tabled until next year. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman continues to be a homicidal maniac. Saudi intelligence officer named Saad al-Jabri accused MBS of sending a group of hitmen to Canada to kill him and alleged that the crown prince is holding two of his children hostage in Saudi Arabia. Al-Jabri allegedly has knowledge of and possibly even recordings of MBS that exposes, quote, covert political scheming and corrupt business dealings. Sounds bad.

Wild listeners might be confused right now and thinking, isn't this old news? Didn't MBS already murder someone in a foreign country? You are correct. In 2018, MBS had Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi executed in Turkey. And now we are learning that just weeks later, he dispatched his second group of mercenaries that he adorably calls the Tiger Squad to do it again in Canada. Al-Jabri is known to have close ties to U.S. intelligence and has worked with the U.S. to target al-Qaeda. Mohammed bin Salman is credited with the war in Yemen, murder, and being friends with Jared Kushner. Ugh.

Nowadays, we love our face masks, but there was a time when we spoke of a different kind of face mask, the high-tech rubber ones used by special agent Ethan Hunt to impersonate bad guys. I'm referring, of course, to the mask from the Mission Impossible series, which is currently in pre-production

on its latest sequel. The movie was put on hold back in March, but is now set to continue in Europe with the usual COVID precautions, social distancing, frequent testing, and both kinds of masks, medical and spy. But the production was beset by controversy recently over reports that they plan to blow up a bridge in Poland for an action sequence. Now, that bridge is over 100 years old and a monument to the nation's history. Director Christopher McQuarrie set the record straight yesterday, explaining that while he did want to blow up the bridge, he would only do it if that bridge was slated to be blown up by the Polish government.

Basically, if guys in hard hats were going to do the job anyway, Tom Cruise would come by and do it on a motorcycle. Easy peasy. Mission Impossible 7 is expected to hit theaters on November 19th, 2021, assuming that theaters still exist at that point. Perhaps their reopening is the ultimate impossible mission. I see what you did there. This might be the year that the gamers save the economy. Nintendo reported a 541% increase in quarterly profit from last year. That is mostly thanks to the adorable sandbox simulation game animal crossing new horizons i can't believe we're talking about this when akila isn't here

since the beginning of the pandemic 22 million copies have been sold making it the most popular nintendo switch game right behind mario kart turns out everyone just wants to virtually fish garden and bully animal friends because they think they are ugly. I have no idea what that means. I guess it's part of the game, but okay. In the mobile game realm, freelance writers for the visual romance novel game Lovestruck got a major pay bump after striking for 21 days. The game's publisher, Voltage, agreed to raise the wages of the writers by as much as 94%. That was a huge deal for workers in gaming, an industry where strikes are uncommon and employees are typically not unionized. It wouldn't be surprising now to

see this kind of organizing among the animal friends who, as I made clear, are dealing with an extremely hostile work environment. They need to get organized and fast. And those are the headlines. That is all for today. If you like the show show make sure you subscribe leave a review help protect our nation's bridges and tell your friends to listen and if you're into reading and not just anything about the vast and sometimes confusing culture of animal crossing what a day is also a nightly newsletter check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe i'm tommy vitor i'm gideon Resnick. And good luck on your impossible missions.

That was our impossible mission and we accepted it. 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 Kshaka.