What A Day - Veeping With The Enemy

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Last night was the first and only vice presidential debate, with Senator Kamala Harris and VP Mike Pence facing off. Their conversation covered police killings of Black Americans, Trump’s response to the pandemic, Roe v. Wade, and more. We discuss a debate that was a lot more measured than the last one, but still very frustrating. Trump went back to the Oval Office yesterday and released another long-winded video in which he said contacting COVID-19 was a “blessing from God” and described the antibody cocktail he received as a “cure.” Outside of DC, there are still over 40,000 new cases being identified daily, with the Dakotas and Wisconsin as particular hot spots.And in headlines: George Floyd killer Derek Chauvin is released on $1 million bail, a Greek neo-fascist political party is found guilty of running a criminal organization, and SNL pays their audience.

It's Thursday, October 8th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, where we are offering to hose down the fly that landed on Mike Pence. Yeah, you can't feel good after landing on Pence. If you want a shower or a hot bath, you know, you can get one here. We're also willing to give you old fruit. That's just for snacks, though. On today's show, the first and only vice presidential debate, then some headlines.

But first, the latest. Like last week's debate, everything currently happening outside of the debate hall was overhanging the entire evening. So a quick update on that. First, there's President Trump's COVID diagnosis. So yesterday, Trump, who could still be contagious, went back to the Oval Office and released another long-winded, bizarre video in which he said contracting COVID-19 was a, quote, blessing from God. And talked about the antibody cocktail he received from Regeneron as a, quote, cure. For the record, it is a potential treatment, it is still experimental, and it is very much not widely available yet. Due diligence also dictates that we mention that Trump previously had a financial stake

in Regeneron, the makers of that antibody treatment, as well as a stake in Gilead, the makers of the other experimental drug that he was given, remdesivir. And meanwhile, as cases linked to the administration spread, a memo obtained by the New York Times warned White House staffers about what to do when interacting with Trump, including wearing yellow gowns, surgical masks, and gloves, among other PPE, when within six feet of him. We haven't gotten more information about Trump's current condition. We still don't know when he last tested negative for COVID. And multiple recent reports also suggest that Trump wasn't being tested daily, at least recently. His physician, Dr. Sean Conley, said that a test on Monday revealed the president had antibodies, which prompted health experts to

question the significance of that, given the fact that he received an antibody treatment just days before. Even a spokesperson for Regeneron suggested that the test was likely just detecting the antibody cocktail that was given to Trump. Yeah. And then outside of D.C., there are still about 40,000 new cases being identified daily in the United States as we approach winter. Particular trouble spots have emerged in states like North Dakota, where hospitalizations have been rising. The situation in Wisconsin is also grim, and health officials announced on Wednesday that they would open a field hospital to accommodate more potential COVID cases. Right. So the pandemic remains the top story. And that was the case at last night's debate, where Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence faced off for about 90 minutes with some plexiglass dividers between them. There was a fly that briefly lived on Mike Pence's head. We expected the pandemic would be a major topic, and it was. So let's hear a little

bit of what the candidates had to say. The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country. And here are the facts. 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months. Over 7 million people who have contracted this disease. One in five businesses closed. We're looking at frontline workers who have been treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at over 30 million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment. And here's the thing. On January 28th, the vice president and the president were informed about the nature of this pandemic. They were informed that it's lethal in consequence, that it is airborne, that it will affect young

people, and that it would be contracted because it is airborne. And they knew what was happening and they didn't tell you. But I want the American people to know that from the very first day, President Donald Trump has put the health of America first. Before there were more than five cases in the United States, all people who had returned from China. President Donald Trump did what no other American president had ever done. And that was he suspended all travel from China, the second largest economy in the world. Now, Senator Joe Biden opposed that decision.

He said it was xenophobic and hysterical. But I can tell you, having led the White House Coronavirus Task Force, that that decision alone by President Trump bought us invaluable time to stand up the greatest national mobilization since World War II. And I believe it saved hundreds of thousands of American lives. Right. So this is the predominant conversation that this campaign has been about for months and months. Pence, who is the head of the COVID task force and the administration, talk about these travel bans and they talk about the disease coming from China. Harris and Democrats talk about the reality that people currently live in, facing over 200,000 lost

lives in the United States and a brutally damaged economy under this administration. And the Trump administration's case deals with hypotheticals about how it could have been worse, which is something that Pence spoke to, as well as new deflections about an old Biden plagiarism scandal and H1N1. Yeah, gotta say, I do not care about plagiarism right now. I care about not dying and having a real plan. But anyway, Pence also got a question about the outbreak that is currently enveloping the White House. So let's talk about his response to that. Yeah, so Pence tried to sort of defend how the Rose Garden ceremony went down, which is where a number of these cases have been linked to and possibly spread. He cited the fact that it was

outdoors, as well as the fact that a lot of people had been tested. But as we've noted, the White House had this faulty over-reliance on those tests. But one of the interesting things that he said in this section was that the administration, quote, trusts the American people to make the right choices, which doesn't sound like a wholesale defense of how that day actually progressed. But moving on to another topic that we have all been focusing on given the summer that we've had, the Breonna Taylor case in Louisville, Kentucky, where officers murdered her in her home. While questions are still swirling around Attorney General Daniel Cameron's shoddy work with the grand jury and the ongoing federal investigation, Harris and Pence were asked if justice was served in this instance. The question itself was a bit misleading,

saying that Breonna Taylor's boyfriend shot and wounded a police officer in self-defense when the Ballistics Report does not confirm that. But in any case, here's a bit of what each had to say, starting with Senator Harris. I don't believe so. And I've talked with Breonna's mother, Tamika Palmer, and her family. And her family deserves justice. She was a beautiful young woman. She had as her life goal to become a nurse, and she wanted to become an EMT to first learn what's going on out on the street so she could then become a nurse and save lives. And her life was taken unjustifiably and tragically and violently. Bad cops are bad for good cops. We need reform of our policing in America and our criminal justice system,

which is why Joe and I will immediately ban chokeholds and carotid holes. George Floyd would be alive today if we did that. We will require a national registry for police officers who break the law. We will, on the issue of criminal justice reform, get rid of private prisons and cash bail. And we will decriminalize marijuana. And we will expunge the records of those who have been convicted of marijuana. This is the time for leadership. And here's Vice President Mike Pence. Well, our heart breaks for the loss of any innocent American life, and the family of Breonna Taylor has our sympathies.

But I trust our justice system, a grand jury that refused the evidence. There's no excuse for what happened to George Floyd. Justice will be served. But there's also no excuse for the rioting and looting that followed. I mean, it really is astonishing. Flora Westbrook is with us here tonight in Salt Lake City. Just a few weeks ago, I stood at what used to be her salon. It was burned to the ground by rioters and looters.

Pence went on to say that it's insulting when Biden and Harris say that there's systemic racism in America and implicit bias in policing. And that's when the fly landed on his head because he also smelled bullshit. That fly is awaiting results from a COVID test. So there's an obvious contrast in their answers here. But what stuck out to you about their assessment of this tragedy? I think for a religious man, Mike Pence has absolutely bastardized the meaning of thoughts and prayers and reduced them to a submission to inaction and settling for less, quite frankly. The gall of a vice president to even say that justice was served here while the investigations persist is proof positive that he's out of his depth when he's talking about this. But to have so little to say about what happened here that he comfortably

changed the subject to rioting and looting and some meme-adjacent understanding of systemic racism in this country is laughable at best. Senator Harris, in contrast, spoke about Ms. Taylor's commitment to public service and her interest in becoming a nurse. She spoke about George Floyd being essentially lynched on video and a pain that is older than this country. And Mike Pence pointed to a woman in the audience whose hair salon burned down. As bad as I feel about a woman whose curling irons and hairspray are no longer in existence, I gotta say I feel just a tad worse for Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor's mother, who has received no justice from a police department, that investigated itself and conveniently found that they did nothing wrong.

I also feel worse for every young black woman in this country who thinks about the possibility of their own murder in bed every single night. I'm among them. It's beyond the pale that this so-called man of faith can't be human long enough to engage with a question that I know lots of young voters want an answer to. And yes, systemic racism exists in this country. If you're listening, quickly consider how many black teachers, bosses, and mentors you've had. And then think about the white ones. It is a system of disenfranchisement and racism that makes it overwhelmingly likely that there are so many more white ones than black ones. And Senator Harris dug into that later in the evening when asked about packing the Supreme

Court. She astutely pointed out that among the dozens of judges the president has nominated to appeals courts, zero of them are black. Mike Pence didn't have an answer to that. Right. And that brings us to the Supreme Court, which was also a somewhat lengthy segment of the debate. Yeah. There were questions about the planned hearings for Amy Coney Barrett and the will of voters who are already voting in this presidential election. So let's go through how all that went. So a couple of things jumped out here. Harris stuck with something that has been effective for Democrats, which is focusing on the looming ACA case that is going to go before the court shortly after the election. And then Pence skirted around the ACA other than a vague line about the administration's plans for people with

pre-existing conditions without saying what the plan is. That's a common theme from both him and Trump. Then when he was pressed on it, he changed the subject to court packing, a topic that the Democratic ticket has not been so clear on. That is a big gamble, though, seriously, from Pence that voters won't find health care to be front of mind right now. And the other big question with the court had to do with Roe v. Wade. Conservatives have been excited about Barrett's nomination, thinking that she would, in fact, rule in favor of cases that seek to strike it down or chip away at it. Pence, though, said he couldn't presume how Barrett would vote on Roe, but he did say he was pro-life. And in last week's debate, Trump took a similar posture, telling Biden, quote, you don't know what's on the ballot when the issue came up. And this is

coming from a ticket who had previously campaigned on overturning the landmark decision and talked about appointing anti-choice judges. So it definitely seems to signal that the Trump campaign knows that that is not a winning position. Yeah. Well, you know, we didn't hear about a lot of stuff on the court. We didn't hear about, you know, the right hanging the balance when it comes to LGBTQ rights, immigration, segregation, which Amy Coney Barrett has weighed in on. And also another topic Pence skirted was whether Trump would peaceably walk away if he lost the election. I think we deserve an answer on that. But this is the first and only time we're going to see these candidates up against each other.

But there might be a debate next week still for some reason. Trump might be infectious and attend. We don't know. We don't know. Like we said this week, he claims that he wants to do it, but it appears as though doctors are still going to be monitoring throughout the course of this week. And Biden's campaign has said that there has to be proof

that the president is no longer contagious before they go forward with this. Will they be hologrammed in? We will find out. But that is the latest for now. It's Thursday WOD Squad and for today's Tim Check we're talking about the effects of the pandemic on our most beloved dinosaur movies. Jurassic Park Dominion has paused filming for Okay. Giddy, my question. Of all the movies that have been delayed by COVID so far, which one has hit you the hardest? Okay. I think Fast and Furious is the tough one for me.

Fast 9. Really. But I think that they were like the earliest one to move among this list, if I'm not mistaken. So perhaps Vin, in addition to being, you know, an amazing singer, a new recording artist, also has some insight into the trajectory of the pandemic and knew that we should not be in movie theaters this summer.

But I think that one that one hurts the most for me. I adore those movies and I will watch them until I'm dead. It is wild to me that a movie that has eight other movies is the one that you're worried about not seeing. But fine, you deserve your ninth and I'll allow it. I think we all deserve our 10th and our 11th and our 12th until our grandchildren are in theaters watching Fast and Furious. But same question for you, Akilah. Of this list, what are you upset about? Okay. Well, I definitely think James Bond,

No Time to Die is pretty disappointing just because we got that banger hit from Billie Eilish right before we were all told to stay at home and not go out in the world. So it's like, the song is just sort of hanging in the ether until we get to see the movie that it belongs to. But I do hope that maybe it's a better film you know when they bring it out perhaps they have they'll remaster the music we don't know there's lots of options there so it's kind of between that one and you know honestly I love Wes Anderson and I'm a little bummed that

the French Dispatch has already pushed because Wes really didn't get nominated or win very many awards for Isle of Dogs. And I think that this was his comeback as like, here's a movie with real people in it. And now we just got to wait. But just like that, we've checked our temps. Everybody stay safe. Be cool like James Bond, I guess.

And we'll be back with some headlines. Headlines. The ex-police officer responsible for George Floyd's death posted bond and was released from jail yesterday morning. Records show Derek Chauvin was released on a $1 million bail from a state prison facility in Minnesota. At this point, it's not clear who paid the bail bond company. Some of Chauvin's relatives launched a crowdfund for his bail last month, but that one raised less than $4,000. It's also not clear where Chauvin will be going from here, though bail conditions ban him from leaving the state. Chauvin is currently facing second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in George Floyd's death, with a trial set for March of next year.

A neo-fascist right-wing political party in Greece called Golden Dawn was found guilty yesterday on charges of running a criminal organization. Many are calling the verdict one of the biggest trials of fascists since the prosecution of Nazis in the Nuremberg trials. The court tied Golden Dawn to a string of attacks, including the fatal stabbing of a left-wing rapper in 2013. Golden Dawn became Greece's third largest party after the country's financial crisis and held seats in the Greek parliament between 2012 and 2019. Members of the group were accused of targeting anti-fascists communist trade unionists immigrants and queer people when the guilty verdict was revealed to the public thousands of citizens outside the courts burst into cheers and applause booyah the first stop on the disinformation super

highway facebook is making some slight and some would say nearly imperceptible moves to stop politicians from using it to corrupt the election yesterday the company announced it would temporarily suspend all political and issue-based advertising after the polls close on November 3rd. So there will be a brief blissful moment when the only people posting about Trump there will be doing it for free. Until news outlets declare a winner, Facebook will also display notifications on the news feed saying the election is undecided. Both these moves are aimed squarely at Trump's suggestion that if he loses, he might not accept the election result. Facebook also said on Tuesday that it would remove all groups, pages, or Instagram accounts that identify with the pro-Trump conspiracy QAnon. So if you're a

cannibal Democrat riding in a scary pumpkin wagon that is pulled by skeletons, you can take a second to relax. That's the sound of me relaxing. Well, coronavirus has destroyed thousands of jobs, but it's created at least one paid audience member at a taping of Saturday Night Live. It turns out the first responders that were seen in last week's SNL broadcast each got $150 for their time. Those payments were made to conform to a New York Health Department COVID guideline that prohibits live audiences at tapings unless those audiences consist only of employees. Not sure what the science is there. Maybe they think coronavirus will know to stay away from people who are on the clock.

Who knows? In other SNL COVID news, the show bumped its musical guest for this week, country singer Morgan Wallen, after he appeared in TikToks last Saturday, partying maskless and kissing people at University of Alabama. FYI, the worst time to make out with college students is during a pandemic. The second worst time is anytime you're not in college. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, stay off Facebook and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just summaries of movies that will come out in 2021 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 please be safe in your pumpkin wagon. Just try. People fall off those all the time. I hear horror stories. So, you know, hold on. What A Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte horror stories. So, you know, all that.