What A Day - Pardon Me, Mr. President

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

New York City is opening up elementary schools next week after city officials faced heavy criticism for appearing to prioritize economic activities like restaurant dining over the well-being of children. Across the country, public school closures have led to a spike in private school matriculation, since private institutions have a better chance of staying open. Trump still hasn’t conceded yet, but he has ramped up predictable lame-duck behavior like pushing through a battery of new rules and policy changes. Some policies might not pass legal muster or will be easy for the Biden administration to reverse, but others will have a lasting impact. And in headlines: Biden announces the first all-female senior White House communications team, Iran’s foremost nuclear scientist assassinated, and the Utah monolith is gone in a cloud of dirt.Show Links:"Trump Races to Weaken Environmental and Worker Protections, and Implement Other Last-Minute Policies, Before Jan. 20"https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-races-to-weaken-environmental-and-worker-protections-and-implement-other-last-minute-policies-before-jan-20

It's Monday, November 30th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Erin Ryan, filling in for Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we believe that every day is Cyber Monday because most of our human interactions are now just through computers. Yeah, honestly, this year has been a year comprised entirely of Mondays. Every day is Monday. Today is Monday. Yesterday was Monday. Tomorrow is also Monday. We've all got a case of the Mondays. We're all Garfield.

And everybody else is John Arbuckle and normal. All we wanted was some lasagna and a nap. But that never gets to happen. On today's show, we'll explore the last minute policies that Trump is trying to push through before January 20th, then some headlines. But first, the latest. And we'll start with coronavirus, which is still surging and expected to spike even more because of Thanksgiving and commensurate dumbassery, which is causing some states and cities to take even more actions to restrict the spread. Before the break, you and Gideon were talking about how New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio were causing some confusion when they closed city schools due to a rise in cases. Well, there's been another update. That's right, Erin. So just yesterday, de Blasio announced that New York City elementary schools will reopen December 7th

and parents will have the option to allow those children to go to school five days a week, effectively abandoning the hybrid in-person remote learning system that's been in place since the schools opened in September. Middle schools and high schools will remain closed for now, but this is a major change, at least for younger students, from the previous system, which determined whether schools would be open or remote based on the city's positivity rate. Oh my God. I do not envy parents who have to deal with this right now. Not at all. Parents in New York City must have to wear neck braces from all of this policy whiplash that's going on with schools. Just what a nightmare. The timing is interesting. With all the warnings about COVID surges now and into the end of the

year, why is de Blasio making this move now? Yeah, I mean, it's seemingly in response to a lot of criticism from the public that lawmakers aren't actually prioritizing kids and families, but rather the economy of indoor and outdoor dining. Basically, the reason New York City has seen cases go up and surpass the 3% positivity rate threshold de Blasio set for keeping the schools open hasn't really been traced specifically to the elementary schools. So, you know, why punish them? Why focus on them? And that's been the thinking in some other states as well. In Rhode Island, for example, schools will stay open as

the rest of the state's non-essential businesses like gyms, casinos, and movie theaters go dark for at least the next two weeks starting today. But one Rhode Island principal told the Washington Post that the main challenge has been having enough teachers to teach the kids. At his school, four students and zero faculty members tested positive for the virus, but teachers who have been exposed outside of the school have had to quarantine sporadically to keep everyone safe. In Michigan, elementary school students are still attending in-person classes, while older high school kids will be learning remotely because they're more likely to transmit the disease. And that's been leading to an exodus from public schools to private ones, right? That's right.

So wherever kids can go in person in the pandemic is where parents seem to want to send them. This year, New York City public schools have reported 31,000 fewer enrollments. L.A. schools are down 11,000. Massachusetts lost 37,000 students. And Wisconsin's public schools lost about 3% of their student enrollment. But just because a school is private or religious doesn't mean that they'll necessarily be allowed to remain open. Just yesterday, a federal appeals court upheld Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear's decision to halt in-person learning at public, private, and religious schools until 2021.

That ruling overturned a district judge's temporary injunction that would have allowed religious schools to continue having students meet for in-person learning. But regardless of those private schools remaining open or closing, many officials fear that large numbers of students are actually just at home receiving no education and having no way to check in. This matters for the obvious reasons, you know, kids falling behind in learning has lifelong impact, but also schools with fewer children get less funding from the government, which could lead to a real education crisis down the road. So we're definitely going to keep following this. But let's move on now to the presidential transition.

Almost everybody agrees that on January 20th, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, except for President Trump and the people who President Trump pays to agree with him. So, Erin, what's Trump been up to during his lame duck session? Yes, it's true that Donald Trump has refused to utter the words, I lost, or Joe Biden won, or I concede. On Thanksgiving, he did sit behind a teeny tiny desk and yell at reporters for several minutes, though. And at one point, he told Reuters reporter Jeff Mason that he was being a very rude little boy for insisting that the election results are what they are. Don't talk to me that way. You're just a lightweight. I'm the president of the United States. Don't ever talk to the president that way. All right, I'm going to go with another question. I mean, just the visual of this man sitting behind like my first desk, like the tiniest baby desk, screaming about how he's the president is, you know, it's enough to warm your heart.

I mean, Donald Trump clearly invented the phrase, do you know who my father is, right? Like we could all agree. It's that Klan member, right? Oh, yeah, your dad, the other guy with the other people with the sheets on walking in New York City. He likes to remain anonymous. He believed in masks. It's true. You raise an excellent point, Akilah. You likes to remain anonymous. He believed in masks. You know, that guy. It's true. You raise an excellent point, Akilah.

You raise an excellent point. Trump also gave a truly weird interview to Fox News' Maria Bartiromo yesterday, where he accused his own Department of Justice and FBI of being complicit in allowing whatever massive voter fraud handed Joe Biden his victory. Dead people. Facebook. Twitter. They're all in on it, they're all in on it. They're all in on it. He even accused mailmen of selling ballots, selling ballots as though they were

magazine subscriptions or vacuum cleaner parts in the 1950s, and continued to attack Georgia's Republican governor and Republican secretary of state for refusing to reorder reality and make it so that Donald Trump won Georgia. I think that he might be confusing Governor Brian Kemp with Dr. Strange from the Avengers franchise. Yeah, gotta say, this is really, really wild at this point. I mean, if everybody's wrong, doesn't it mean you're wrong usually dude if everything smells like shit it's probably your shoes you know that's a good point fair well we keep saying this but his last gasp efforts to challenge the election results have all failed and continue to keep failing results have been certified in georgia michigan pennsylvania and nevada and this week arizona and wisconsin are certifying plus trump's recount in wisconsin actually turned up more votes for Biden, which I believe is the opposite of what he wanted to have happen.

That's hilarious, though. That is. It is truly funny. It's a waste of money, but it's a very funny waste of money. Yeah. Millions of dollars to find out even more people dislike you than you thought. Three million dollars for us to have this chuckle right now. Yeah. Thank you so much for spending the money. It was worth it. Well, despite all of Trump's antics, his actions seem to be a tacit acknowledgement that after January 20th, they'll be changing the locks on the White House and Melania Trump will have to

find a new rose garden to ruin. Good luck to her. That's right. Trump might not admit he's on his way out with his words, but he's admitting it a little bit with his actions. In addition to the normal stuff lame duck presidents do, like freeing up transition funds for the next administration, which finally happened last week, Trump is engaging in some classic lame duck bullshit. For example, he's been trying to make regulatory changes to roll back environmental regulations, loosen safety protocols for meat processing plants, the famously safe meat processing. During COVID, we all know how safe meat processing plants are.

I feel like maybe we should, let's ease up a little. Let's make them less safe. We've got room. He removed the U.S. from a multilateral intelligence sharing treaty on open skies and destroyed the planes we use for the program, just in case Joe Biden wanted to use those planes for that. Oh no. Trump is also trying to make it more difficult for migrants to come to this country seeking asylum.

Overall, the Trump administration is trying to jam through 36 new rules during his last weeks in office. Yeah, it's real Disney villain stuff. But let's talk about how this compares to other administrations that were on their way out. So while Trump's rules are certainly more cruel than others, and some would say more stupid, he's about average in terms of numbers. Most presidents try to make rapid last minute changes in order to cement their policy legacies. And it seems like Trump is just trying to gum up the gears. Yeah, but Biden can undo all this. Yeah. It's not as easy as the stroke of a pen. Unfortunately, there's a really good ProPublica story that explains all of this, which we'll link to in the show notes.

But some of Trump's rules have been so hastily written that they're probably as riddled with mistakes as a Sidney Powell legal brief and will be laughed out of the courtroom like a Sidney Powell legal brief. But other stuff will take a while to fix. There's really no one doing all the damage Trump and Mitch McConnell's Senate have done to the judiciary system. They're still ramming judges through, by the way, instead of passing COVID relief. Horrible. And it's going to take a lot of work to unfuck our immigration system. You know, Akilah, sometimes I wonder how much different our lives would be if Trump had worked even one-tenth as hard to keep COVID out of the U.S. as he did to keep Guatemalan toddlers out of the U.S. Yeah, honestly, it's fun to imagine. I mean, even if he didn't have any actual actions,

but just didn't like actively make it harder to spread or to stop the spread, you know, like if he wasn't just out here saying that masks were fake, how many more people would be alive? I mean, he's a lazy man and it is easier to not sabotage than it is to actively sabotage. Like he could have done less work and had a better outcome. Yeah. That's how you know he's a true idiot. Well, another area for Trump right now is pardons. Just last week, he pardoned his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. So who's next? Well, let's not give him any ideas. So it's not totally odd for presidents to issue a lot of pardons during their lame duck session. Although going overboard is frowned upon and giving out pardons to people based on political favors is even more frowned upon. Bill Clinton, for example, turned a lot

of people off when he gave out 176 clemencies on his final day in office, including one for his brother. But when has Donald Trump ever felt shame? When has something been frowned upon ever been something that has made Donald Trump not want to do something? So far he has pardoned Michael Flynn who pled guilty for lying to the FBI twice. And he's also got a lot of friends who do a lot of crimes like Steve Bannon and his build-the-wall grifting organization

that bought a boat. Yeah, they got arrested by the post office. Yeah, and he got arrested by the post office. What a great story. Let's do that story again, just for fun, just for a victory lap. I think the ship was called Warfighter or something stupid. What a loser. Oh, man.

There's also Paul Manafort, another crime enthusiast. So I'm sure that there is going to be more pardons of very bad people in store. But wait, we don't have to end on a bad note. Remember, in just a matter of weeks, Joe Biden will be the president, and he's already building a team that is worlds more qualified than the school bus full of 80s teen movie bullies that Trump appointed. For example, on Sunday, he announced an all-female communications team. Yeah, well, I look forward to talking more about that later in the show and more this week because I am very, very tired of talking about Trump in particular. He can absolutely kick rocks.

Hard same. And that's the latest. It's Monday, WOD Squad. Did you miss us? I missed you guys. Well, today we're talking about gamers and politics. This weekend, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did another live stream of the online game Among Us with the leader of Canada's left-leaning New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh. They were joined by Representative Ilhan Omar, as well as popular streamers like Hasan Piker and Pokimane.

And as hundreds of thousands watched, they raised $200,000 for food and legal aid organizations in New York. As we talked about before, Among Us is kind of like the gay mafia, and to be really good at it, you have to be really good at lying. So Erin, my question for you. Are you good or bad at lying to win games? So first of all, people who are truly good at lying never admit that they're good at lying. You always say you're bad at lying because that's an opportunity to lie.

A paradox. I'm a little more analog. I'm a little bit more of a Balderdash person than I am an Among Us person. Wow. I have no idea what Balderdash is. I've heard the word, but I couldn't tell you. It's a game for nerds where you come up with definitions to obscure

words and you try to trick people into thinking they're the real definition. Oh, I would lose that just because I don't know. I'm not going to investigate if that's what you say it is fine, and then I'll use it wrong and then I'll be mad at you. It's a really fun game. You really only need a dictionary and a few nerds and some index cards, but I'm pretty good at Balderdash. I'm bad at other lying games like poker. Oh, yeah. My face just can't be tamed. But yeah, I think that I'm I think I'm about average for lying as a part of gamesmanship. Same question for you, Akilah. Okay, well, I believe that I'm okay. So like specifically in Among Us, I am terrible. And I think it's because it is such a

fast paced game. Like you can like lie and poker with your eyes and just sort of like, you know, ease into it. No one's rushing you. But with Among Us, the moment somebody finds a dead body, you're just all on the spot and they're like, what were you doing? And I'm like, what was I doing besides killing that person? What was I doing? Make something up and I'm like, I was doing a task. They're like, we haven't seen

you in a few minutes. I'm like, I don't know. I think I'm bad at coming up with a convincing lie. With poker, it's like, your cards are good or bad. I'm like, well, they could be good. Right. Who's to say? That's more of a like philosophical question.

I don't assign value to these. But I think that like anytime I'm really put on the spot, I think that it's I'm just going to start laughing as I do in all cases. And people are pretty quick to be like we're voting you out it's also bad because I like literally get voted out when I'm innocent in Among Us because I start laughing I think anytime someone really wants to interrogate me I'm like are you joking right now yeah that's I just don't get it that's that's a bad tick if you're trying to fool people into thinking you're telling the truth also truth be told I haven't played Among Us yet. I've wanted to, but I keep confusing Among Us with The Last of Us, which is a very... Oh, yeah, that one's like in-depth.

That's like a real video game. It's a very serious and amazingly well-rendered video game that is really, really sad. And so I'm like, why are all these people getting together and streaming this video game about a girl with a dead family? Like, why is this happening? But also soon to be a show, I think, on HBO, The Last of Us. Oh, wow. Like, why is this happening? But also soon to be a show, I think, on HBO.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I think I heard that. I mean, you know, I just think Among Us is just the, you know, the one pixel, very cheap looking. We're all little jelly beans. Sometimes you can put on different outfits, different colors. It's super simple. I want to be a jelly bean in an outfit. I didn't know

they were outfits. Okay. Oh, yeah. I dress as an astronaut, which I think is the only right costume because you're in space. But other people could be a cowboy. You could be a pumpkin. Oh, my gosh. I want to be a space pumpkin who does murders. I think that sounds great.

Somebody who's listening, make that. Photoshop an Among Us character that's Aaron, that's a space pumpkin, that is the imposter. That's doing murders. I think that sounds great. That sounds very fun. I love it. Well, just like that, we've checked our Timps. They are, you know, maybe I'm lying.

Who's to say? I'm not going to tell you how they're doing because you might not believe me. But in any case, stay safe and we'll be back after some ads. let's wrap up with some headlines headlines as promised we've got more on who will serve on President-elect Biden's team at the White House. In a statement yesterday, he named his senior communications team, which is the first team of its kind to be made up entirely of women. We did it. We won feminism. Feminism has been won. Series finale on feminism. Series finale on feminism.

We are in Hawaii on a skidoo jumping over a shark on feminism. Series finale on feminism. We are in Hawaii on a skidoo, jumping over a shark with feminism. Among the members will be Jen Psaki, the former communications director to President Obama, plus Kate Bedingfield, who is Biden's deputy campaign manager and campaign communications director. Reports have also circulated of who will fill out Biden's economic team, which he's expected to announce this week. Likely appointees include Obama's Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary, Princeton labor economist Cecilia Rouse as chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Neera Tanden, a longtime advisor to Hillary Clinton, president of the center-left think tank

the Center for American Progress, and dangerously Prolific Poster as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Topping this off, CBS is reporting that the Bidens will bring a cat with them to the White House. Wow. The lead in this story was buried. The most important thing, the cat is coming to the White House. Choosing a fancy cat in a bow tie would make the party's left wing absolutely furious.

I say put a Bernie or bust shirt on that cat and let the cat just run around mad at you because you put a shirt on it. Think that'll, everyone will be happy. Right. I think it's definitely a vibe. We need more loose cannon animals in the White House. A hundred percent. Get a ferret in there. Yes. Well, tensions rose between Israel and Iran after the assassination of Iran's most senior nuclear scientist on Friday. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is believed to have led Iran's military nuclear program until it was disbanded in 2003 and was subject to sanctions by the Trump administration. sketchy. State media pointed to a team of five or six gunmen in one report and a remote-controlled machine gun in another. The killing is still under investigation, but Iran's leader was not shy about accusing Israel, which has put that country on alert for a possible military response in the next few days. Experts in the U.S., including Senator Bernie Sanders, called the

assassination a move to undermine relations between the U.S. and Iran, just as Biden begins to transition into the White House. Trump's administration was responsible for creating what analysts call the worst era of U.S.-Iran relations in 40 years, but many hope relations will improve if Biden follows through with his promise to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal. I feel like I already saw all of this happen in season four of Homeland. And if you haven't seen Homeland, listeners, it doesn't end well for us. It is not a good conclusion at season four of Homeland.

Oh. Yeah. Tens of thousands of people across France came out over the weekend to protest a newly proposed security law that would put a restriction

on filming police officers. Police repeatedly fired tear gas into the crowds in Paris on Saturday, even though the mood was largely peaceful, aside from some demonstrators that set fire Okay, that is not minor. Yeah, seems like a lot. Civil liberties groups say the new proposal will take power away from the media and allow police abuses to go undiscovered.

This all comes just days after a video surfaced of police officers beating Michael Zeckler, a black music producer, in Paris. The officers responsible have since been suspended. Well, we can't wait for them to be fired. America's favorite big steel beam in the desert, the Utah Monolith, disappeared this Friday after capturing the country's attention for about a week. If you didn't hear about the monolith, here are the basics. It was a 10 to 12 foot tall, three-sided piece of metal discovered in Utah's Red Rock country by the state's wildlife agency.

The object's remote location, plus its lack of any attribution, led some to speculate it was the work of aliens, who also brought us the Egyptian pyramids loaded the monolith onto a truck and took it away. One hiker who was at the scene soon after said, quote, How fresh could it be in the dirt that said, Bye, bitch, with a fresh pee stain right next to it. How fresh could it be in the desert? I'm accusing this guy. Well, people will definitely puzzle over this strange outer space message for decades. For me, I think it means, Bye, bitch.

Akilah, I was just in Utah for two weeks, and I was near Canyonlands, the part of Canyonlands where they found the monolith. I'm not saying that I did it, but I'm not saying I didn't do it either. It feels a little on brand for you. I feel like if this was Jeopardy, they're like,

was written by this podcast host next to a monolith. I'd be like, who is or who is Gloria Ryan? If I did it. If she did it. That's the book you're going to put out. It's the sequel to OJ as well. Those are the headlines.

Quick heads up before we go. Today is, in fact, Cyber Monday at the Crooked Store with a 15% off discount on all purchases. There are incredibly soft sweatshirts. There are cozy what-a-day candles. They smell really good, y'all. They're like jasmine, night jasmine or something. I've been burning it.

I've been loving it. If you want to smell like my house smells, you should get it. Also, there's new merch in the sales section. So do not miss this. Head to crooked.com slash store right now to go shop. And that's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, remove your cat's fancy tie and tell your friends to listen.

And if you're into reading and not just profanity laden messages from the aliens like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Erin Ryan. And get better at lying. Cut it out. If you're not going to do it right, you might as well tell the truth.

I don't know if that's a good advice, but I liked it. 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.