What A Day - Trump Suffers The Greatest Defeat In The History Of The World

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

The voting results are in from Kentucky, Virginia, and Mississippi! We go over the results in our first annual ‘2019 Election A-WADs.’ It’s a Beshear pleasure. Today in impeachment news, Sondland flips, Lindsay Graham will see no evil and speak no evil, and more. We interview Brian Beutler, Crooked Media’s Editor-in-Chief and host of The Rubicon. And in headlines: a Nigerian film “doesn’t count” as international, California politicians want take on a utilities giant, and Donald Trump Jr. writes a book.

It's Wednesday, November 6th. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What a Day, the Christmas 1996 Tickle Me Elmo of news podcasts. Please don't trample anyone in a toy store to download us. On today's show, a breakdown of last night's election results around the country with some major wins for Democrats, the latest on the impeachment inquiry, and then some headlines. So let's get started with the election results. To our educators, this is your victory. From now on, the doors of your state capitol will always be open.

That was the acceptance speech from Democrat Andy Beshear, the apparent winner of the gubernatorial election last night in Kentucky and the son of former Governor Steve Beshear. He is narrowly leading and declared victory, though the Associated Press says it's still too close to call. The state has never elected a Republican governor to a second term, and that streak looks to be unbroken now. It was a big night of election wins for Democrats across the country, but particularly in Kentucky and Virginia, where we are going to delve into the results just a bit later. Now, a lot of people are going to be doing post-election coverage today. There will be people sitting at decision desks and split screens with four experts, along with Rick Santorum. But we at What A Day know how to put on a real show.

So we're doing our inaugural election night awards. The 2019 election awards. WOD is What A Day for those listening. It's an acronym. If they didn't catch on, they're never going to catch on. All right. Let me talk about the governor's race in Kentucky. Oh, the sun shines bright in my old Kentucky home. Feel the heat. Yes. So Donald Trump was in Kentucky the night before the election at Rep Arena in Lexington, begging and pleading with locals to vote for his guy, Matt Bevin. Here's a clip. If you lose, it sends a really bad message, just sends a bad and they will build it up. Here's the story. If you win, they're going to make it like ho-hum. And if you lose, they're going to say Trump suffered

the greatest defeat in the history of the world. This was the greatest. You can't let that happen to me. The award for handing Donald Trump the greatest defeat in the history of the world goes to Democrat Andy Beshear for beating Matt Bevin in the Kentucky governor's race. We think, you know, they're still tallying the votes, but it'll be a call. It looks pretty close. Anyway, that would mean Kentucky made Republican Matt Bevin a one term governor last night in a tight race that was just about as tight as everyone expected. Matt Bevin, tacky as the day is long, refused to concede, but I'm calling it,

and I'm going to take a shot of bourbon. Ooh. I was... Everyone else heard that, right? Yeah, there's definitely horses. Okay. I'd like to present an award for best show of force for Kentucky's teachers.

This race, this governor's race, was largely a referendum on Bevin, and he pushed to cut pensions, which resulted in statewide protests Kentucky's teachers. This race, this governor's race, was largely a referendum on Bevin, and he pushed to cut pensions, which resulted in statewide protests from these teachers. Bevin was insulting and demeaning to them as well, even going so far as to say that the teacher's absence during those strikes could have led to children being

exposed to sexual assault, a comment for which he had to issue an apology. Good. Bashir, on the other hand, promised teachers raises. He ran on a ticket with a former teacher. He's advocated for new funding mechanisms for the pension program. Even as other Republicans swept statewide races, teachers will now have a better advocate in the governor's mansion

and hopefully one who will treat them with some respect. Beshear is now poised to be able to restore the voting rights of tens of thousands of disenfranchised Kentuckians through executive authority But there is a final award that we have to give out. It's for the biggest potential yikes. Bevin, like we said, has yet to concede in the race, even as he trails by more than 5,000 votes. He has until the end of the day next Tuesday to call for a recount in the contest, but has yet to say definitively if he will. Now they're getting close to me, which is making me slightly nervous.

Here's what happened in Virginia last night. Democrats took a majority in the House and Senate for the first time in more than two decades and have promised to pass, among other things, the Equal Rights Amendment, gun control measures, and a $15 minimum wage. Now, this has big implications for voting rights and gerrymandering in the state. Following victories in 2017, Democrats are now in control of all branches of the state government, meaning that they can hopefully fast-track these legislations. We have some awards to hand out for this as well. We blew the yearly budget on trains.

Oh, I love it. All right. Well, biggest first goes to Democrat Ghazala Hashmi. She's the first Muslim American woman to be elected to the Virginia State Senate. She unseated Republican incumbent Glenn Sturdivant in District 10. So, go girl. Also, the award for dopest sequel goes to Danica Rome, the first transgender woman

to serve in any state legislature. She won her re-election in her district last night. She's back, baby! Overall, all five openly LGBTQ state legislators in Virginia were re-elected. We're going to have to tip train if they keep playing in here.

I have won award for the craziest karma. In 2017, control of the House delegates famously came down to one race that was tied, and the victor was determined by drawing names out of film canisters in a bowl. So on Tuesday in Virginia, there was a rematch in that race, District 94, and the Democrat Shelley Simons easily defeated her Republican opponent, David Yancey. And that brings us to our award for unrigged maps. Simons' race was in one of at least three redrawn districts that Democrats won on Tuesday,

according to UVA's Center for Politics. So good job, Virginia. Everybody knows about Mississippi. Everybody knows about Mississippi. That's it. I can't believe this many people have fit into the studio. Mississippi. Damn it. All right, we knew the governor's race would go this way,

but Republican Tate Reeves won. We'll get him next time. Yeah, and those were the awads. But we have a few extra key race alerts for you as well. That's right. For the first time in 38 years, Democrats have taken control of city council in Columbus, Indiana. This is the hometown of Vice President Mike Pence and Rep. Greg Pence.

The VP is almost certainly going to go crying home to mother. Mother is his wife. I just want to reiterate, he calls his wife mother. Yuck. Unusual. Voters in New York overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to adopt ranked choice voting, making it the most populous city in the country to do so. Now, if you're not familiar with ranked choice voting, it's a progressive method that lets you rank multiple candidates by preference. So am I the most handsome boy, the second most handsome boy, the third most handsome boy?

They totally get it. Okay. The cyclist who was fired from her job when a photo of her flipping off Trump's motorcade went viral last year just got elected in Virginia. She started in the streets and now she's in the seats. Okay. Julie Briskman will sit on the board of Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. Run for office. Run for office.

You can do it. And vote. Ride bikes. Live your life. Good job voting. Some fascinating key race alerts throughout the night. We're about a year out from 2020 now. So if you haven't done so already, go to VoteSaveAmerica.com to register or check your registration status. Now to some quick updates around the impeachment inquiry. Now to some quick updates around the impeachment inquiry. And to help us, we've got Crooked Media's editor-in-chief, Brian Boitler, who just launched a podcast all about the impeachment of Donald Trump. It's called Rubicon. Hey, Brian. Hey, guys, how are you doing? So good. Yeah, I'm great. I'm great. Awesome. Well, congrats on the new pod. And thank you so

much for coming on our show. Yeah. Let me just read off the latest impeachment news to get your take. So on Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to the EU and the last person you'd want on your spades team, Gordon Sondland, reneged on his testimony to say that, oops, a quid pro quo did totally happen. Yeah. So, Brian, what's the deal with Sondland suddenly remembering there was a plan to extort Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in exchange for U.S. military aid? So the deal with that is that it's illegal to lie to Congress and he got caught. This all kind of goes back to the supposed controversy over Adam Schiff doing these depositions behind closed doors. Republicans objected to this supposedly because

they wanted it all out in the open. And Schiff's response was always, you know, we need to interview these people separately so that they don't try to like settle on a story and get their their testimony in line. Sondland was not able to try to cook up a story with everyone, and so he went in to his deposition and he lied. He probably told numerous lies, but this was one where Schiff ultimately got testimony from other officials that revealed that he was, in fact, trying to conceal his extent of the knowledge of the quid pro quo. And not just, you know, his sense that there was a quid pro quo, but that he actually tried. He actually told a senior Ukrainian official that they wouldn't get military aid or visit the White House for the Ukrainian president unless unless the political investigations that Trump wanted were announced publicly.

Wow, that seems incredibly serious and important for the... It's not great. Yeah, it's not great for him. Okay, well, let's get to how Republicans are dealing with this. Senator Lindsey Graham says he's not going to read any of the impeachment testimony transcripts, which I kind of think just means he's confessing that he can't read. But is this just what Republicans are doing now? They're just going to stick their head in the sand?

Lindsey Graham specifically, when this controversy first broke in late September, said that, you know, unless there's an explicit quid pro quo, you know, I'm not going to be supportive of impeachment. And that based on, you know the the early uh depositions that um that the chief had scheduled that we weren't going to learn that there was an explicit quid pro quo and so now he's kind of stuck and so what else can he say but like i'm not going to read any evidence that contradicts what i said before because you know with with that position contradicted i will if i'm being consistent have to support the impeachment.

But I I kind of interpret it more as like this is like a way station for Republicans. Right. Like they set the they set the bar for themselves at explicit quid pro quo. Here comes Gordon Sondland, the president's maybe one defender of all the witnesses that have come forward to testify testify saying that he actually articulated the quid pro quo himself. And so now they either need to stick to their guns and say that this is an impeachable offense or they need to move the bar to a new place. And that place might be that, yeah, you know, extorting foreign governments to help Republicans win elections is totally cool. They're not there yet. They haven't reached that point. But it's, you know, the news just broke and they have not been able to settle on anything better than I'm not going to I'm not even going to look at it. That's it. Not going to look at it. I mean, do you think that anybody's

going to like jump ship soon? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I we've we've been waiting for three and a half years for Republicans to abandon Trump based on one outrage or another. And I don't want to lose any more money gambling that that's going to happen now. But this is sort of a new situation where Republicans themselves said, some of them at least, we will abandon Trump if you prove X. And now X is very quickly being proven. And not only are they going to have to deal with, you know, their own criteria set against these 300, 400 page deposition transcripts, but all of this is going to be turned into public testimony. And so the pressure on them to stick to their guns and just, you know, the fact that they're going to have to vote after having said that they would do the right thing

on the basis of explicit quid pro quo, and then they're just going to, you know, backtrack and violate their own standard will become very hard. But they are capable of incredible acrobatics. Yeah, I've been impressed with it, and I think there will be more impressive acrobatics to come. Brian, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Hopefully we can check in with you again on all of this and what other sorts of handstands Republican senators are capable of. I'd love to do it. Thanks, guys. Of course. If you haven't already, definitely go check out Brian's new pod. It's called Rubicon, the impeachment of Donald Trump. And now to some ads. What are you up to this weekend? You know, I don't have so many plans. I think I'm traveling, but if I wasn't, I'd have to figure out what to do. Yeah. I'm also, well, I'm also traveling, but the place that I'm traveling to would maybe have the location of the thing that I want to do this weekend.

Oh, which is what? Which is clear a damn rack. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Are you referring to Nordstrom Rack, our friends? I'm referring to Nordstrom Rack where clear the rack is back. You can save an additional 25% on clearance items for a total savings of up to 75% off.

Wow. Yeah. So the dates are November 8th through the 10th that's just this weekend that's just this weekend so we we better get out of here and make our make our way over there because we you know yeah for sure it might be kind of far away and you know i have to get a head start um it's online and in store you can enter code crooked at checkout to take 10 off your order of 50 or more one-time use per customer, online purchase only. Let's go clear some racks. Clear that rack.

That Nordstrom rack. And now back to the show. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. 1996. After new witness testimony revealed that someone else even confessed to the crime, celebrities like Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, and T.I. took to Twitter with an online petition to exonerate him. Right now, it has over 100,000 signatures. More than two dozen California mayors and county leaders have come together to call for a customer-owned power company to replace Pacific Gas and Electric. That's the utility company that was flying under the radar until they started causing lots of wildfires and intentional blackouts. The company filed for Chapter 11

bankruptcy protection in January, citing an estimated $30 billion in wildfire liabilities. Mayor Sam Liccardo of San Jose wrote the proposal to turn PG&E into a public commodity, which would bring a new meaning to the phrase, people have the power. Wow, Gideon, how'd you think of that? I'm the smartest person living. Okay, well, Nigeria's first submission for the Oscar for Best International Film, a movie called Lionheart, has been disqualified because the movie was shot predominantly in English. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences requires films to have a predominantly non-English dialogue track, never mind that English is the official language of Nigeria. Responding to the news, Lionheart writer, director, and star Genevieve Najee tweeted,

We did not choose who colonized us. As ever, this film, and many like it, is proudly Nigerian. Don't blow this, Oscar. Make this right, and maybe black people will forgive you for Green Book and Crash. Come on, Oscars. We would never do that on the awards. Large Adult's son Donald Trump Jr.'s book, Triggered, How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, came out on Tuesday, containing many insane claims, such as the one that his dad can't be racist because he let him hang out with Michael Jackson as a child. Whoa. Not touching that. Now, I was really looking forward to reading this book, but when I got my copy, and this is not a joke,

all mine had was two handwritten recipes in Don Jr.'s handwriting, one for a dish called rat stew, and one for a dish called rat bone sandwiches. I'm not complaining, because I made them, and they were awesome. Only now I am totally addicted. So my overall review of the copy of the book is basically, it is far too powerful. What is going on here? All right. Well, the same G.O. media executive whose unpopular stick to sports directive led dozens of journalists to resign from Deadspin last week. Yeah, he just resigned from Deadspin. In a press release on Tuesday, Paul Maidment said he is leaving immediately because this is, quote, the right moment to, quote, pursue an entrepreneurial opportunity. Yes, this is like how it's the, quote, right moment for me to, quote, leave my car when it's, quote, fully, quote, on fire.

If you're keeping score, this leaves basically no one a dead spin. Good luck to Geo Media CEO Jim Spanfeller as he looks for high tech news robots to replace his former staffers. Still herb. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. Big thanks to Nina Simone, Train, and That Horse for their musical contributions to this special election episode. You should know, that's a huge honor.

We're new, so if you like the show, make sure you subscribe, give us a rating, leave a review, and tell your friends to listen. Yeah, by the way, if you're into reading and not just the Guinness Book of World Records long fingernail section like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash newsletters.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And that's how you win an award. What A Day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tunn 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 Kashaka.