What A Day - No Post On Trump Days

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

This was the first week since March that the number of new unemployment claims in the US fell below one million. Tens of millions remain jobless and the start of Congress’s August recess means it��s unlikely we’ll see new relief legislation before September. Trump said the quiet part out loud yesterday, admitting that his refusal to provide emergency funding to the postal service would make universal vote-by-mail impossible. We discuss Republican efforts to make voting-by-mail more difficult in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and whether they’re succeeding. And in headlines: a peace deal between Israel and the UAE, Mike Bloomberg to speak at the DNC, and the two bubbles of “Jurassic Park: Dominion.”

It's Friday, August 14th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, the only podcast that is always delivered even in snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. Yeah, so Trump's probably going to try to defund us, unfortunately. But if you got in early, you can still listen. Yeah, we hate to break the news to you this way, but we feel we have to. On today's show, Congress hits the road and Trump rages about vote by mail, then some headlines. But first, the latest. Another week, another set of job numbers. And this week, the numbers of Americans filing for unemployment was below 1 million for the first time since March. Yay.

Wasn't far below, by the way. It was around 963,000 people. So looking at this in the context of a pandemic that seemingly has no end, what is the takeaway? Yeah, I mean, well, like you said, this is marginally good in the sense that it's less than a million for the first time in quite some time, but it is obviously not great. It's important to remember that before COVID-19 shuttered the economy in the spring, the highest weekly total had been around 695,000 back in 1982. And separately in this week's numbers, there were another 488,000 claims for pandemic unemployment assistance, which is reserved for people like gig workers and independent contractors. Now, per the Post, though, there are still more than 28 million people who are getting some form of unemployment towards the end of July. So a lot of people

still out of the workplace. And there are major concerns about how slowly rehirings are happening. The longer the pandemic stretches on in the United States, the higher likelihood that these losses become permanent at some point because the businesses might just not ever come back. For example, last week, the Labor Department said that employers added back about 1.8 million jobs in July. But in June, that was 4.8 million, which is evidence of things slowing down even in that short time frame. And there is concern, of course, that as the current government programs to help people and businesses expire, recovery is just going to get even harder. That's right. And meanwhile, Congress failed to come to an agreement on any new package and have left for a month-long recess. So to be clear,

they had recess, they came back for a month and did nothing, and they are back on recess. I kind of wish that my elementary school had that model. They did not. In any case, unless something changes in the coming days, there's not going to be legislation on unemployment aid, evictions, stimulus checks, and more until next month. All that's left are the Trump executive orders, which, as we've talked about on the show, are full of caveats and are often unenforceable. Yep. And as time goes on, those orders seem less and less helpful. Looking at the unemployment relief specifically, it's become clear that some people might see just $300 instead of that advertised $400. That's because of the stipulation that some money comes from the states, which as we know, are dealing with their own financial crises. And that doesn't even cover concerns about how long it could take to actually

get this money sent out and how long it will last. It's estimated that Trump's unemployment aid would cover about five to six weeks if all the states sign up to participate. And one of the related concerns here is that Democrats have started to negotiate. They've come down to $2 trillion as a compromise price tag for a relief bill. But Republicans just won't budge off that $1 trillion figure. And for some of those Republicans, the slightly better unemployment numbers we were talking about earlier might be enough to decide, OK, things are improving, which would make them even less likely to negotiate. There was some reporting that the stalemate is so bad that there's talk of attaching some kind of relief to necessary legislation to keep the government open after the end of September.

All right. Well, let's talk about one specific part of the relief bill, funding for the Postal Service. So Democrats have wanted to secure this funding since they passed the last relief bill, especially as the country gears up for a massive influx of vote by mail for the November election. But when DIMS included $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service and another $3.5 billion for things like mail-in voting and election resources in their current bill, Trump said he would not approve it. As we know, he has frequently railed against vote by mail and said it leads to fraud despite a total lack of evidence. While yesterday, Trump went on Fox Business and said the quiet part out loud, that his efforts to block funding to the Postal Service would make

universal mail-in voting impossible. You don't have to read too deep between the lines to get the meaning of all this. So Trump basically admitted that the reason he opposes a bailout of the Postal Service is that he wants fewer Americans to vote by mail. When asked about his Oh, yeah, this man is shouting. And nationwide, we're seeing more of the same. So let's go through a couple incidents of Republicans trying to block vote by mail efforts and how those are panning out. Sure. So there have been a variety of tactics. To make voting safer, Rhode Island's governor had suspended a rule that required absentee voters to have their ballots notarized. Last month, the RNC and Rhode Island Republicans sued to get that suspension reversed.

Well, yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled against the Republicans. And the reasoning was basically sending ballots that hadn't been notarized was acceptable in the June primary, and no state official has challenged it, so there's no reason for the state not to enforce its own laws. In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign and the RNC sued the state at the end of June, accusing election officials of violating laws as they expanded eligibility for mail ballots. On Thursday, a Pennsylvania judge said the Trump campaign and the RNC had to show actual evidence of voter fraud in the state by today, or just admit that they don't have any. So far, the Trump campaign and the RNC have not been able to prove any mass voter fraud in any state, so that seems pretty dead in the water. But it is

interesting watching a crisis of the GOP's own making unfold in real time. If they hadn't been so adamant about closing polls, maybe there'd be a way to socially distance at more locations and do safer in-person voting. But by that logic, if they hadn't opposed masks and rushed to reopen in the middle of a pandemic, voting might not be so dangerous come November anyway, and they wouldn't have to vilify the post office. But that's the latest. It's Friday, WOD Squad. And today we are temp checking in on another company that truly is not paying us to talk about them, but we're doing it anyway.

Burger King, which rolled out an interesting topical promotion in Belgium this week. Apparently, Belgian BKs are letting customers order face masks with their order printed on the front of them. So you can eat at the restaurant without even talking, which, as we know, increases the chances of COVID transmission. So Giddy, are you going to Burger King often enough that you need to own something with your order on it? I am definitely not. I'm also confused. So you take the mask off once you're in the restaurant to eat or you just you just ordering it and then you're leaving. I mean, I would hope that people are ordering and leaving. But, you know, Burger King is just saying that you got to wear the mask. That's the beginning and end of it. OK, I yeah,

I know I don't I would probably have something that just says like chicken fries and it would also say like, you know, break glass in case of emergency. Cause that's sort of like the level that I'm, I need to get to in order to get Burger King. Not, not too high up there on the list for me, unfortunately. I mean, that's fair. I think that like the Burger King kids club was really the peak for me. Like I just, I loved all the little characters. It was great.

They were very inclusive for the nineties. Look it up. I loved all the little characters. It was great. They were very inclusive for the 90s. Look it up. But yeah, I haven't really been Burger King hive in a while, though I will say I prefer their breakfast to McDonald's and all the others. But hey, you know, I'm impartial. Somebody give me free breakfast, I will eat it. Listen, any of the companies that we give free advertising to that want to send free food to us, by all all means go for it um so do you do you have an order at burger king if you're going is it a

breakfast item lunch item what are we talking about um i mean it's it's sort of like the have it your way theme song from i want to say the 80s like hold the pickles hold the lettuce special orders don't upset us you You can have it your way. Right. So I would definitely be like, no mayonnaise. That's weird. Why are mayonnaise on burgers? I don't, whoever proposed that is gross.

I definitely like more pickles. I need ketchup on the burger itself, not just on the side. So I don't think that my order actually would fit on the mask anyway. But yeah, I think I have things in mind for any restaurant I'm going to, just because my biggest anxiety is when I'm holding up a line of other people. And just like that, we've checked our temps. They are, they're chilling like people in the BK lounge. Stay safe. We will check in with you all again next week. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. stop its plan to annex the West Bank territory for now. Under the new deal, the UAE will be the

third Arab country to normalize its relations with Israel. So the agreement drew lots of criticism, especially from Palestinian leaders who say it legitimizes the current occupation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. And critics also call the deal a PR stunt, arguing that both countries were already on good terms before this. It looks good for Trump, who claims he facilitated a historic deal in time for the election. And it also looks good for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who needed a diplomatic victory while his popularity plummets at home. Throughout this week, Israel has seen mass protests calling for his resignation after he was indicted on corruption charges earlier this year. Well, two countries that have previously been praised for their pandemic responses

are now dealing with their own COVID-19 issues. After going 102 days without community transmission, New Zealand is experiencing a growing cluster of cases. Earlier this week, they reported four confirmed cases, which grew to 17 yesterday. The country's most populous city is now under strict lockdown. In South Korea, the country's largest physician group is planning a strike to protest a new government proposal. The proposal will raise the national quota for medical students in an attempt to address staffing shortages. Physicians in the Korean Medical Association argue that the money allocated to training new doctors should instead go to paying overworked doctors even more. The strike calls for a quarter of hospitals and clinics to close their doors for a walkout, which officials fear will disrupt

COVID-19 responses. It is amazing to me that a city would shut down with 17 cases. Still just astonishing. After dropping a cool $1 billion in the Democratic primary, former New York City mayor, former presidential candidate, and former meatball Michael Bloomberg is back, this time at the Democratic National Convention, where he will be a featured speaker. Good info for future reference, $1 billion will get you approximately one minute of speaking time on a Zoom. So this isn't the first time Bloomberg has spoken at a Democratic convention, or a Republican one for that matter. And this time he plans to use his speech to target how

Trump has handled COVID and highlight how Biden handled the 2008 financial crisis. The new Jurassic Park movie, Jurassic World Dominion, became one of the first major Hollywood films to restart production since March. The crew will be filming in England because Hollywood sound studios are still shut down due to the high infection rates in California. Universal chose to move forward with the production of this specific movie because it required few real locations, very few extras, and a small cast. I do not expect to see more than one person getting bit by a dinosaur at a time. The company also worked with the British government

to make entertainment workers essential so they could fly into the country. The JWD set is divided into two bubbles, one for departments that don't need to be on set and the other more exclusive one for the cast, director, and maybe a few small pet-sized dinos if they can behave themselves. And those are the headlines.

Quick announcement before we go. The Democratic National Convention starts on Monday. And if you're a cord cutter like us, this is your invitation to come watch the live stream with us at crooked.com slash convention. Yeah, the hosts of Pod Save America will be there too for live group threads and a pre-show before the last night of the convention on Thursday as well. So lots of content coming and cricket.com slash convention will be the place to be next week. So join us. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, be our small pet dino and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just the lineup of speakers at the DNC 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 be safe at BK. Just eat your chicken fries close to your face. You don't have to be all out and about with it. Wield that char-grilled whopper carefully, my friends. and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.