Welcome to the 22nd episode of Love It or Leave It Back in the Closet. No one gets better than the crappy TV show. That song was sent in by Richard, Neil and Richard, I see what you did there. OK, so that one goes out to all the pinheads because that may or may not be a deep cut reference of the six man theme song. Incredible. We want to use a new theme each week. If you want to make one, you can send it to us at Hay, at Crooked Dotcom, and maybe we'll use yours.

I cannot believe at this point if you include Traviss, truly abysmal rendition.

We have now heard 22 versions of the theme. They've been amazing. So tweeted at me. We'll use it. Thanks a lot.

Also, we just want everybody to know that we have a new show coming out of crooked media. Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to President Obama, co-host of Save the World, will host Missing America, a new limited series about how the U.S. under Trump has stopped leading the free world and started trying to dismantle it. In this absence of leadership, a host of political diseases are sweeping the planet from nationalism to authoritarianism to sectarianism and disinformation, then speaks to inspiring leaders and activists from around the world about what's happening in their countries and how they're fighting hard to take up the slack in America's absence and show a way out from the rise of nationalism and Right-Wing populism that has taken hold in so many places.

Learning from their examples and advice will discover what the U.S. can do at home and abroad to confront these challenges. I've already heard a bunch of these episodes. You'll really appreciate them. You will learn a lot. They will be really informative and help you kind of think about this moment. The first episode drops next Tuesday, August 11th. Listen to the trailer and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And please listen to this week's episode of Holier than Thou.

Phil Picardy talks to two trans activist Raquel Willis and Gina Rosero about the ways in which trans people have been revered throughout history religiously and what it means for uplifting trans lives today. Subscribe and listen now on Apple podcast, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcast. If you haven't checked out Phil show on holier than thou yet, there's a great episode to try. It's a fascinating way into a really important conversation and I think I think you'll be hooked.

Also, we put a ton of merch on sale at the crooked store, up to 70 percent off. Friends of the parties call Congress Gay for democracy tank. I don't know why that's on sale. Can't keep that on the shelves, but whatever. And lots more. It's our biggest sale of the year, apparently. So you can check it out at Crooked Dotcom Store and you can check out our new website, Crigger Dotcom. We just launched a new version of the website and it looks awesome.

So I hope everybody checks it out. Crooked dotcom, crooked dot com slash store. Later in the show, I talked to Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Joe Kennedy, who are facing off in a pretty heated Massachusetts primary, really grateful to both for taking the time, because both conversations I found interesting and helpful to understanding this primary, understanding both of the candidates. And I think it's worth hearing because it is this, I think, unusual and interesting primary taking place, even though most of us won't be able to vote in it because we're not Tom Brady supporters, shall we say.

Oh, and also, by the way, they both did a new version of Queen for a day, and they were both great sports about it.

And it was very entertaining.

But first, she's a writer, actor, comedian and host of the podcast Couples Therapy. Please welcome back. Returning champion Naomi Paragon. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me. Love. It is truly an honor, really to have any activity during court dates. Yeah, yeah.

I, um, I played tennis for the first time in like fifteen years and I looked forward to it like something I was really looking forward to.

Yeah.

Naomi has graciously agreed to judge the monologue and she can share her thoughts as we go, what she likes, what she doesn't like. Perfect. That's sort of what we do.

So let's get into it.

What a week after being met with resistance for its plan to mix online and in-person classes, the Chicago public school system is planning to start the coming school year fully online. Obviously, this is hardly a substitute for in-person schooling, but hopefully they can come up with some digital way for bullies to shove nerds into lockers because they're jealous.

OK, that's nice. I know that's what your parent probably told you growing up. Love it as it is, they're hurting you because they're jealous. Out of respect for my parents, I think they knew I was too smart to buy it. I think they knew I knew what was going on. I don't think that they were jealous.

Mm hmm. Hmm. Mm hmm. That's true.

I don't think that they were jealous. I do think early in my childhood there was a ethos of if you're being picked on on the bus, pick on them back.

OK, tough or you from Boston, this feels very Boston rule. No to be an island, Long Island, which is the Boston of New York. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You're correct there.

And I actually even remember the name of the kid. And that's fine. That's OK. I don't know about. Fine, I'll allow it. I accept acceptance is the answer with Chicago's announcement.

New York City is now one of the only major school districts still planning to offer in-person classes this fall.

I actually think this makes a little bit of sense, because the Chicago style of virus is just thicker and it makes you feel kind of heavy and awful for a while while the thinner New York style virus is sort of easier on the system.

OK, OK, cute. Cute is what I'll say about that. You know, I think that's like that's fun. That's funky. Who isn't eating their feelings in this time. So I do appreciate that reference. Next one.

Next one also, by the way, I just think that we're so desensitized that, like, the fact that, like, I'm at a place where I'm willing to compare the virus to various styles of pizza, I think speaks to just how broken I've been from being in my home for six months talking about.

Yes. Yes. And also, I by the way, I just like I don't want to hear it in my mentions. Obviously, you know that I have come to really appreciate the Connecticut style of the virus. And I just don't want people to be yelling at me.

I was wrong about it. I love Pepper's.

What about Detroit style virus? They'll come after you, too. And I'm like, excuse me, mustard.

I don't have time that we don't have time for it. Not mustard. No, on the crust. Get out of here sick. Get out of here. Get out of here.

Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Tish James is seeking to dissolve the NRA in a lawsuit that accuses NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre and other top executives of committing fraud to pay themselves over 60 million dollars from their profit and only three years.

And these guys are riding high. Gun sales are up. And it turns out there is a policy to reduce school shootings that Trump and the NRA can support, a massive unchecked pandemic that closes the fucking school system.

That's it. That's the one thing that these people will do to stop school shootings is close all schools. Yes, but like you always thought, the name Wayne LaPierre was fishing. Oh, yeah. You can trust you don't I mean, like, I was like Frode. I was like, obviously that is an alias. If I've ever heard one Tish's coming in here with some common sense, OK, this is like the most she's literally like, excuse me, his name is Wayne LaPierre, give me the paperwork.

And she had it in a week. She had everything she needed.

And I think Tish James has framed Wayne LaPierre. I think that that I think that that beach house was to protect the Second Amendment. Yes. You can't listen.

You can't fly commercial and keep people in ah for ah ah ah ah ah. Seven years here. I'm going to get killed yet you're supposed to you're not allowed to say that we shouldn't have assault weapons unless you're a fucking expert.

Well that you're you can't use your common sense.

You got to know all this stuff. Wayne LaPierre just bilkent people just like yeah they're coming.

They're coming for your guns. I need money. I need money. Give me your money or they'll take your guns. You need your guns. I need your money. How does giving you money get me guns? That's what I'm not getting because he doesn't send you guns. It's not a gun catalogue like you don't don't wwor NRA dot gov and then just get a gun delivered to gov. Yeah. The duck. I said it. Yeah. They don't, they don't.

You don't even get a gun. They don't even give out guns anymore. You know, they kept that gun money. Also this week, scientists announced what may be the most disturbing news about the coronavirus yet that it may cause hair loss.

This is obviously not a big deal and I are not worried about this at all. What are you looking at, Naomi?

My eyes are down here, OK? I don't know who thought this was a good one for you, because if there's anything you have right now during the pandemic, it's luxurious WLOX, OK, you're coming through with girls, you're coming through with your new curls. So this one needs a rewrite.

But first of all, this is the most work I've had someone else do to help me fish for a compliment from you, just like, hey, can we get a couple of comedy writers together to figure out the perfect joke to make sure that travesty punch this up? I want to make sure that when I read this, Naomi has no choice but to stop the basically to compliment me.

So anyway, yes, there's some new signs that this may cause hair loss, which is kind of impressive because doctors are trying everything they can to make Donald Trump care about them endemic. All right. Here is the one thing.

Next week it'll be covid makes you bad at golf and also lactose intolerant. And, you know, it also makes you allergic to deals and spray tans.

And the only treatment is you have to read books and try Indian food, try Indian food. He doesn't eat it. He doesn't eat anything. He doesn't do any of the five things, you know. No. Like he's got to have a welldone steak. Yep. That I knew with ketchup, ketchup, a burger, make some fried chicken has made it through his bowling, you know. Oh wow. On Monday, President Trump confirmed that he.

Will allow Microsoft to acquire tick tock instead of following through on his idle threat to ban the Chinese owned app, which is a huge relief to anyone who wants to make sure that when they use an app with invasive user monitoring and data collection to generate revenue and power, sophisticated, opaque algorithms that shape the contours of our culture itself, it's by a faceless American corporation.

Boom, that's patriotism. I like that. I love it. You're here for the country. I am. Your show us. You're here for the country. I am it.

Look, Naomi, if I'm going to watch a tick where a hot guy makes a Reuben sandwich and then for a week, all I see are sexy boxer briefs, that's OK. I want to know that my data was harvested here in the good old U.S. of A.. OK, you've you've heard of by American. All right. Spy American.

OK, ok. That's cute. I like that. I would I would put that on some merch. OK, I would definitely put a sticker of that on my laptop.

We got, we got a merch alert. All right, Mercola.

This week it was announced that Joe Biden will no longer accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Milwaukee and that the entire thing would move online. We're basically heading to the point where the DNC is just going to be a four part Joe Biden masterclass. How to make aviator's your thing.

Episode three is Joe revving the engine of his Camaro while shouting not bad for 90 minutes straight until Joe coaxes him out of there with a chocolate malt.

I love anything having to do with Joe and Jill. Any time you can paint a picture of what the hell that relationship is, I'm grateful. I feel gratitude towards the chocolate malt because it harkens back to his dear friend, Corn Pop, you know what I mean?

So I like that it does most recently chocolate. I'm always on my mind because it did make an appearance in Season four episode of Golden Girls, in which in which Dorothy spent time in her youth as a soda jerk. Oh. Which is just the kind of references you get.

Yeah. Eighties season for Golden Girls. And by the way, an aside about Golden Girls, it's been in the news because it's got some pretty racist episodes. I will also say those ladies are too mean to each other.

Is that what you were to say? I was going to say those ladies are too horny because I started watching it. I like Rewash because it's on Hulu and I didn't realize in my memory it was just Blanche who was like the lady about town and giving us, you know, Streetcar Named Desire moments and then to watch and to like early on in season one. Dorothy is in a relationship with a man. She finds out as Mary. Yeah. Can you imagine a geriatric two timer?

I said, these golden girls, these golden girls need protection.

Oh, my God. That's show man. What a time to be alive. When that was the number one program.

They're so mean to Dorothy. We got to. I can't I know they are very mean to Dorothy. So mean to Rose that you're just like Dorothy. Just live somewhere else because she literally talks to Rose like she had a lobotomy. Yeah. She so me.

And it's so sarcastic all the time. No one ever gives Rose a straight answer. She's like, who are you talking about? And they're always like the Pope. Rose, you stupid bitch. It's just a question. Fill her in. She's not as smart as you.

That's OK. You know, she was in the kitchen, OK? She would like some answers in the living room.

She was making some kind of generic, non-specific Scandinavian. Never, ever. It's never actually explained whether it's Swedish or Norwegian or Finnish. It's just generic Scandinavian cuisine. And you yell at her. But the thing is, though, they are the meanest Hiro's, however they call Blancher slut. You know, they call roast stupid, but they called Dorothee ugly. Oh, the thing is, I don't think it bothered Rue McClanahan and Rose White because they know that those were characters.

Right.

So they're just Khosravi like, shut up, you you giant beast. So Bea Arthur has feelings. I know she's famously mean, but the woman had feelings. No woman had feelings. She was a statuesque queen, that is. You're right, though. They were they were dragging down. They were the original Real Housewives on a drag at each other. Throw it wide. Hmm, give me more news, give me more news, more news, news, news, news, news.

Trump, on the other hand, announced that he would probably deliver his speech accepting the Republican Party nomination for a second term. Live from the White House, which is very much unethical and likely illegal. Trump could avoid the controversy by just choosing a location more personal to him, like Mar a Lago or the island.

Oh, yes, always bring up that island. You know, I went to Dalton, right? It's like a very dark chapter in history.

I didn't know that. I didn't. Yes. Luckily, we didn't overlap me and Jeff, but I'll always keep the island front and center on people's minds. Good joke. I like it, Keith.

That's just because you just like the politics of it. You want the people remembering that that island is there. Yes. That's weird. Temple. Yes. Is there something in there? I swear to God, we need like National Treasure Nicholas Cage to get in there and find whatever they're hiding in those rocks.

And Nicolas Cage is like, I know exactly where it is. I've been here about, oh, I need someone to show me how to find it.

In Missouri primaries this week, progressive Cory Bush defeated longtime Democratic incumbent William Lacy Clay. William Lacy Clay is, of course, best known for having a name that almost definitely should have gone to a serial killer.

Yeah, OK. Harkening to Gacy. That's fine. You know, I can tell you're not a true crime buff, so I feel like that was not that's not your voice. That's not your Povey. I feel like someone put that in you because crime is hot now. Crime is calm. It's very on trend. Crime is on trend now.

But, you know, that's fine. I think it's important to take a swing. It's important to take a swing. And it's so unfair to that man. Like winning the is like I didn't I'm a full fledged person. I have a whole bunch of qualities, you know. Right. Yeah.

And of all the things, I don't think name is what makes a serial killer a serial killer. You're a progressive on Schwitters and I'm a serial killer, too, because I lost a Burnie's person break.

Oh, that is Twitter, though, in a nutshell. People like you are a serial killer. You Missouri voters also approved a Medicaid expansion, which was huge.

It's in defiance of the state's GOP leaders extending coverage to over 200000 currently uninsured residents. These expanded protections will really come in handy if, God forbid, anything should happen.

I like it.

I got to that was a real that I saw. That was real. It was real affection for that joke. I really liked that. I really liked it. I thought it was sweet.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Wednesday that the city could cut off power to homes or businesses that host large gatherings in defiance of public health guidelines. This comes days after police in Los Angeles threw a secret rager at a closed down bar in Hollywood. Eric, if you'd like to be invited next time, you can just ask them the Q dinner.

I mean, like a little like Cutie is a cutie one. It's like. But was there really a secret where you drew and. Yeah, I think it was the sheriff's department. I think the sheriff's department had a party and you had to go up to the door and be like, I don't have a temperature. Let me in. You just said I don't have a temperature. I'm good temperature check. Yeah, I'm great.

Oh, no, no. But my mommy checked my forehead. I'm good.

Meanwhile, Senator Richard Blumenthal tweeted that the Senate had received chilling reports of ongoing election interference, but that is all classified.

Thanks, Dick. This is the government equivalent of telling your friend, you know, a really big secret, but that you can't tell him because you promise.

But but, Naomi, apropos of nothing, I would like to read to you Article one, Section six of the United States Constitution, which says Senators and representatives shall in all cases except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses and in going to and returning from the same. And for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

What? Naomi, I'm not a lawyer.

All right, though I have.

I got a great LSAT score continue to this day to sincerely believe I would have been great at it. And honestly, I agree with you.

I agree with you. I can see it. Just say one thing for me.

Love, say, say overruled, overruled is that that's what a judge would say. Yeah.

I'm trying to promote you. OK, you say then say objection. Nope. Say it like you mean it. Now I'm in an acting class.

Objection. Objection, Your Honor.

OK, I fell asleep. I think you were just more of a test taker. OK, give me the real. I didn't feel. I didn't feel. I didn't feel the pressure.

Yeah, maybe I'm just maybe I'm I'm more of a book smart lawyer, not a street smart. You know, I'm not I'm not an Erin Brockovich type.

You know, you're an Ally McBeal.

I'm an Ally McBeal. Well, she is. Yeah, she's a lawyer for sure. Yeah.

All I know is, I mean, I don't know what happens if a senator takes that that Article one, Section six out for a spin. All right. Hands down to the Senate floor. Just tells us just fucking tells us they can do it legally. I think not a lawyer, maybe a really bad idea. I'm just saying we should have the option. Yes. I just think about it. Could somebody just say they're considering it like, hey, this is really important.

The country needs to know Republicans are preventing you from knowing. So I'm going to go to the Senate floor and say because like, legally I'm cool.

You know, just us. Just threaten it. Threaten it for one second maybe. I don't know.

Again, just floating it just just a guy floating ideas very big, perhaps incredibly dangerous. Long term ideas. I don't know.

Just floated. Also, in an incredibly vile and brazen, cynical act, Republicans in Wisconsin and Ohio turned in petitions to get Kanye West on the presidential ballot in those states, hoping to siphon off votes from Joe Biden.

Not to be outdone, Democrats are trying to do the same to Donald Trump by adding to the ballot, an AK 47 with googly eyes, breast implants and a hat that says masked ass.

Oh, I love how grotesque that imagery is that really got me masked as masks, Al. And it's also the breasts, googly eyes and breasts. The whole thing is the butt of the gun on the ground, you know, or is the one where the face is. Is it like, you know, I think I actually like, you know, figure one. I don't know, like you. Is it do you where is where's the trigger?

You know, where's the trigger in this image, you know, being the googly eyes are at the end of the gun. All right. Staring you down before your life is threatened and then the breasts are by the trigger. So. Oh, that's interesting.

So is the gun vertical in your mind or is it horizontal?

It's horizontal. Wow. Wow, that's so interesting. I had a different I imagine the gun being upright, but yours a more practical.

It's in use. It's in use because think about it. Think about it.

They want to touch the breasts. Hello. So it's got to be the trigger. Hello. Hello. That's how you get votes. That's how you get off the vote. What about moron. Cause it's fucking obvious in hindsight.

You're so right. So stupid. Feel like a big dummy vertical idiot.

Stupid, so stupid.

A student is suing Yale, claiming that the university's online courses are inferior and do not justify the cost of tuition. Admittedly, the school is still ironing out some of the kinks, but the problems aren't entirely their fault. It's not their fault. A guy in the Zoome of the Skull and Bones initiation forgot to mute himself while jerking off in that coffin.

No, thank you.

It's just, you know, died. Just thank you. No, thank you. You know that I am sex negative of it. She's sex negative and Skull and Bones super positive.

Skull positive. Sex negative. How dare you. She hated it. She hated it. Her face fell.

It was horrible. It was horrible. Oh, this is fun.

While actively campaigning for Trump in Wisconsin, Interior Secretary David Bernard confirmed that federal authorities are monitoring protesters social media feeds if they're going to encroach on the civil liberties of people who are practicing their constitutionally protected right to assemble and peaceful protests, then the least they can do is smash that like button.

I really like you saying smash that like but smash that like one. Smash that. Like, smash it. Do me a favor, smash that like money, just do me a favor, smash that line. Hey, hey, hey, hey, come on, give me a solid hey, I like this.

When the FBI raided the Calabasas home of YouTube or Jake Powell as part of an investigation into criminal acts related to the looting of a mall in Scottsdale, Arizona, in May, if federal agents are going to smash their way into Jake Bell's home, the least they can do now do yes, the least they can do is smash that like button too soon for a callback smash that do Jake Bovary's smash that like button.

Jake Ball is so funny. And actually, did you see an image from that his gun was standing up against a hot tub? Well, I was vertical.

I saw a Hummer backing into a very, very tacky mansion. Yes, that's what I saw.

Huge. And but then they showed and they got a couple of aerial shots and they did recover a bunch of guns. But one of them was just like an assault rifle, leaned up against a hot tub. Like if he's having a smoke and feels threatened, that's how it looked like it was just set up there.

You know, it's all of our faults. The man was never meant to have this much money in the market. It doesn't make any sense. He's not up to this. He's not up to being rich. This guy doesn't know how to do it. Ah, clearly.

Oh, God, he. Would it be like a tiger king? I feel like I see him becoming a Tiger King type figure. Yeah, he's in our world.

There's something that seems to happen with with somebody over time where it's just clear by their eyeglasses choices that they're doing a lot of cocaine. That's all I'm saying. I don't know how you can see, but it's like that frame those that face cocaine.

I'm just saying. So you could just see it. I don't I don't know. To be clear, I don't want to be sued by Paula. For all I know. For all I know, he's a straight edge.

I don't know about that is the best joke I've heard so far, but that's the best of all of them.

He doesn't you get shows the rest. I haven't thought about that in a while. Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio tested positive Thursday while being screened to greet Trump in Cleveland. Foiled again covid. You'll get him next time.

Those screenings keep on catching people who are about to be with Trump.

It's almost as if, Naomi, that testing can protect people and make sure that the virus doesn't spread. It got to wine.

All right. It got what's it got to make, you know, all these people around Trump, it's been catching. Yeah.

Yeah.

Also this week, America watched in horror as Trump sat down for an hour long interview with Jonathan Swann of Axios.

And so now it's time for OK, stop, surprise. OK, stop.

We'll roll the clip and you can say, OK, stop Naomi at any point to comment. Naomi, are you ready? I'm in it, baby. Let's roll the clip right here.

The United States is lowest in numerous categories.

OK, stop. OK, I think we all need to talk about the fact that he does not know how to read a graph. OK, also, does he know what an X axis is? Does he know what a Y axis is? He's holding them like he's shaking. He's literally like they're shaking in his hands. He is terrified. He holds paper like it's the first time he's interacted with paper. Right? He's like, is it big money?

And he doesn't realize it's like not like a not a bill. And he's just like, you know, what do I do? And he's like, look at the chart on this.

This big money is big piece of money, this oddly colored non green money with some kind of a chart and that you can't spend I can't read what a man keep going lower than the world low.

They're lower than. OK, stop.

I just want to posit the Jonathans one performative. Huh.

He did a great job obviously in his interview, you know, of course.

I mean, it's been a I think it was pretty eye opening. I don't know how much I don't know. But I hopefully it's reaching some people who are on the fence, I guess. But anyway, the like.

Huh. Is so fake. It's so fake because really it's like you're being dumb, you're dumb. But he's like, I don't understand.

I'm having trouble processing. It must be not getting it in one.

Take a look. I here here's case deaf. Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases I'm talking about.

Death is a proportion of population. That's where the US is really bad. Well, much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.. Can't you can't do that. You have to. You have to go.

OK, stop, stop. You can't do that. Can't do it. He literally say you can't do that like he was on the playground and someone change the rules to hopscotch. You can't do that. You can't do that. Horrified. Horrified. Also, don't you hate how Paudie Trump's lips are when he talks? He really gets patted. In a way that really turns my stomach. Yes, it's and it's it's it's unfortunately been ruined because Alec Baldwin picked it up for his impressions.

Yeah, I made it to Central to that impression. But yes, it is quite frustrating.

I will say to you can really see the kind of the Ambre of not just his hair, but also his skin, like the face, the the the way it moves from a rich tan for orange up through the Browns and into the ghost white of a man who basically is indoors watching Fox News six and a half days a week.

It's surely a relevant statistic to say if the US has X population and X percentage of death of that population versus have to go by the cases.

We look at South Korea, for example. Fifty one million population, three hundred deaths.

It's like it's crazy that I do know. Do you think they're faking their statistics?

Just some stats that you don't know that. Why does he think that a journalist would not know that information? He knows it. Like what does he think that he's like? You don't know that he feels like he's really like the energy Trump has here is like a little like his like feelings are hurt whenever he tells. And he's like, oh, no, they're like he gets a little sad, like everybody is shared.

That said, look, see, when you know what happens when Donald Trump is confronted with the facts and like, that's absolutely true. Swan does a great job. He confronts Trump with the facts of what's actually going on in the country.

But it's also just worth remembering, even in this moment where we are right now, this conversation shouldn't be happening because when Jonathan Swan says we're number one in deaths, it's really bad.

Things are really bad.

A real kind of non malignant force would say, yes, Jonathan, we have a disagreement about the data. But honestly, it doesn't matter because one death is too many. And until we're at zero deaths, I want to do everything we can to fix this crisis. I'm as unhappy as you are because the country is in obviously such pain because of this, it breaks my heart. And so as much as there have been problems with the response until now, we have to do everything in our power right now.

And and and I think we've actually done a better job than what you're saying. But the truth is, any covid-19 in this country, it means we have work to do. Right? That's what a real yes on. Right.

They're debating the scale of the problem because the scale of the problem makes him look bad. But actually how he looks doesn't fucking matter. What matters is what he's actually they never get to it. They actually never fucking get to it, so to speak.

South Korea, an advanced country because have a very good relationship with the country. But you don't know that you take a number of cases. I can look well, many woofers. I don't agree with you.

OK, wait, wait, wait, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Can you explain to me where last meaning we're first job, I love it, I think what he was saying is we're lowest in this, which means we're the best in this is what I think he was trying to say.

He was trying, like for you were lowest in death rate per case, which means we're the best at it. It's the it's the worst number, but the lowest. But we're the best. He struggled. Look, his vocabulary has been whittled down to about 850 words. He's working with he's working with a very small set of adjectives at this point. Earlier today, he couldn't remember the word phrase, oh, no. So he said back to normal is a good word.

I mean, grouping of words.

Oh, you mean phrase, you fucking asshole. You're going to call. You're going to say Joe Biden's lost his marbles. Look at you. Oh, you're down. You're down to a tiny vocabulary.

I also didn't notice until this moment that someone says, anyway, when can you commit by what date that every American will have access to the same day testing that you get here in the White House?

Well, we have great testing we're doing. And by what people do, let me explain.

There are those that say you can test too much. You do know that? Who says that?

Oh, just read the manual manuals, read the book and read the books. What books?

So, OK, stop reading manuals. Good advice for life. Read the manuals, read the books. I'm sorry.

That for me was my favorite of all of his responses. What books. Materials like he feels like he sounds to me the way I sound when my mom wants me to fix the internet.

It's like, what button. What button, you know, what books, manuals I like. Feel his emotion. They're in my bones.

The dark reality. We're in the darkest timeline, truly the dark. And that's OK. Stop. Thank you to the great Naomi and Paragon for joining us. Always a delight, always excited to see her. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. Love to talk to you. Let's watch them together, Golden Girls and get into it.

I sometimes say to Ronan, hey, we check in with Dorothy. That's how I say it's time. I mean I mean, I'm in.

So my brain has been so broken and so, like, in need of completely anodyne sounds. Yes.

That even the slightest hint of drama, tension or awkwardness like even the mildest of television dramas I like pause it and I say, I'm very sorry. I know there's only seven minutes left of this episode. It is too tense for me at this moment.

We must switch and check in with Blanche, check in with Sophia, see what's happening.

OK, Naomi, you're the best.

You're the best. When we come back, I talked to Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Joe Kennedy.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of love it or leave it coming up.

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And we're back. He's the representative from Massachusetts 4th Congressional District, and he is in a heated primary with Ed Markey for the Senate. Please welcome Congressman Joe Kennedy.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Pleasure. How's it going? How are you doing? Campaigning in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of a crisis.

Yeah, it's a not exactly the best way to have to run a campaign, but still, look, every campaign I've ever run has been about trying to address the needs of our people. And it means going out there, meeting people. It's high fives and handshakes and fist bumps and hugs and being present with as many people as you possibly can. And that's awfully hard to do when you are trapped in your attic for months on end. But we've got twenty seven days to go.

As of now, we've been able to get out and about at least more than we have in the past. And the response is great. But when you're talking to people and actually be able to engage, I'm going to ask the same question to Senator McCain and to you.

Why should Democratic voters in Massachusetts choose you in this primary?

Because if there is a connective thread with Donald Trump getting elected to covid-19 response to the challenges we face today on racial justice, it is that our country has been disconnected from the politics and the leadership that we've seen in Washington, D.C. and we need stronger leadership in Washington. That means folks that will fight for that change. It means representatives that are going to be here and be present in Massachusetts. It means folks that are going to go out there and fight for the change that we need nationally.

It means connecting to your constituents. And the bottom line is that Senator Markey hasn't been here and he lives in Washington, D.C. He's been here for less than a week, a month for much of the past several years. He's missed over 60 percent of his votes during this pandemic in Washington when he says that he's supposed to be there fighting for us. And, John, when it comes to the most basic responsibility, the reason why I do this job and I think most folks do the job, it's to try to help.

But when a family came to Senator Markey to ask for help for their murdered son was murdered by a police officer several years ago, Senator Markey literally did nothing. And if you're not here, you're not willing to help that family and you're not fighting for us in Washington, then I think Massachusetts deserves a lot more, deserves somebody that's going to fight for our constituents as hard as they are fighting for their families.

Do we need technocratic legislators? Don't need them? Don't we need people who are just going to be the guys that, like, write the bills and aren't the sort of look like you're a charismatic speaker, you have a huge following, you can do all of those things. But don't we also need the kind of the guys that don't do that as well, but they can work on the legislation so they can lead the committees? Yes.

Yes, we obviously do. If he's not going to lead the committee, I have more seniority than he does. Yeah, you're not going to lead that committee. He's clearly on these issues will contribute to that discussion and debate. But I don't think you can sit there. And when the defense says, look, I voted against every single judge Donald Trump put up, that's great. What did you do to actually make sure that Mitch McConnell wasn't going to be the one appointing those judges in the first place?

And the answer that was literally done nothing. I campaigned for more senators around the country than he did. I did. And yes, I got the name and so I can do that. He's been in office for forty seven years, the Democratic Party, John Breaux, some eighteen million dollars in that first race for Senate. And you're telling me you can't go elect mayors? Bernie Sanders sent out an email a couple of weeks ago. Think supporting 11 progressive prosecutors across the country, Senator Markey could lead an effort to elect climate change driven mayors, city councilors, public utilities commissioners.

Right. I stopped my campaign and we raised over one hundred thousand dollars for local charities in Massachusetts. He didn't pick up fundraising for himself. We went down to the border multiple times and the family separation policy, I sent him the letters and signed legislation into all of that. Fine. It wasn't going to matter because Steven Miller doesn't care. Right. So we use our enlisted two hundred fifty thousand dollars for local legal services organization suing to reunite those families.

Why? Because if not, then why the hell would you be in this job if not to make sure that the US government doesn't separate children and your government today? There was a relentlessness that this moment calls for, to just do what you can at these challenges. And I don't think he's shown that. And I certainly don't think he's shown that until I jumped in this race. You talk to people around the state, they didn't see him being here.

I've been endorsed by six different labor unions, state rep, state senators, mayors and current that he's got more of them. They're going up against a Democratic incumbent that's been there for forty seven years.

I want to interrogate both sides of this. You know, that fits with something you've said, which is basically, you know, being a senator is about more than the votes you cast, the bills you write and you've taken some flak from that. Right, because Senator Markey is the author of The Green New Deal. He has a pretty strong record as a legislator, as a progressive. But one area where it seems to me that you've actually demonstrated what you mean by that, that I wanted to hear you talk about, because it's been a bit even in just sort of diving into this race, it's sometimes hard to even understand what you're actually referring to on trans issues.

I think there's been it's an example where you've shown what it means to use sort of, for lack of a better term, the soft power of being in Congress.

Can you talk a little bit about what you mean when. You say you need to show up, that it's not just about the bill. It's not just about voting, because I just want to hear actually what that actual work looks like.

So if you look at issues with regards to LGBTQ community and trans rights, I'm sure legislatively, Senator Marqise record in mind is actually fairly similar. We sign on to the right bills. We sit out and given speeches on important topics. But then there's the question of, well, what else is needed and necessary? I remember eight or nine years ago sitting down with a number of families who had trans children and they walked me through the challenges they face on a daily basis.

A parent, a mom who told me she kept a file on her kitchen counter of affidavits, sworn statements by friends and neighbors because they had had the police called on them so many times reports of child abuse because they're supporting their trans child. And she had to keep a file there to be able to push back against those inevitable reports that were coming next year from members of the trans community about how they had to go about planning out their day or their drives or their travel or to just the doing things that I never would have to think about because of the discrimination that they would face moving across parts of our country.

The fact that there is still codified in federal law, a trans panic defense where if somebody is a victim of violence because another finds out that they are trans, that defense justifies that violence rather than actually codifying a hate crime. It says that your violent act against a member of the trans community is OK. You're not going to understand the details and the challenges the community faces unless you are present for it and you're open to them. You are engaged with members that are confronting this on a daily basis.

Yes, writing that right, Bill, is important and final legislation is important. But when it comes to standing up for folks that are structurally disenfranchised in our society, that the average life expectancy for a trans woman of color in our country is thirty five years old. Thirty five. We can do better and we need to. And you're not going to do that just by filing legislation and thinking that that's somehow going to be enough. And so when I had the chance to give the State of the Union response to Donald Trump in his first year in office, I talked about trans community and I talked about that mom and the pain that a parent of a trans child feels and confronts every day in the midst of one of the first actions of the Trump administration was targeting trans kids in schools.

Because we have to give voice to members of our community, particularly those that are targeted for discrimination.

Strikes me as of that is an indictment that basically you want a senator who is more using the bully pulpit of the job more. Right. Is that sort of what you're getting at? Right. It's someone who's speaking out more about issues. I'm really asking because I don't totally understand. It's like, yes. Is it constituent services? Like what is showing up in practice actually doing to make life better for people is, I guess, what I'm asking.

So, yes, it's the bully pulpit, but it's their connection to a community. Your job as a representative is to give voice to the people that you represent to influence those policies. So twenty eighteen Republicans were in control of the House, the Senate, the presidency. The question is, how do we respond to it? Well, you can do a couple of things. One, you can write legislation. And Senator Markey passed a couple of bills.

I passed a couple of bills. But Republicans are trying to take away health care from 30 million people and pass tax cuts. So it wasn't a massive time for progressive legislation. I think anybody can agree. So what else can you do? One, you can be back up in Massachusetts fighting for your constituents to make sure that we are able to weather this storm. But Senator Markey was here for less than a week, a month during that time, less than a week, a month.

That was at a time when we were trying to push automatic voter registration through the Massachusetts state house. When you were trying to protect members of the trans community that were subject to a ballot initiative to try to rescind protections. One of the fights that led, she wasn't there. I held constituent office hours and all the three or four cities and towns I represented and we had a kid. So you can be present. But she wasn't around. We talked about being in D.C. It wasn't a time for major legislation.

You can then go out and flip the House or the Senate to try to make sure that we can, in fact, pass progressive policies and hold this administration accountable. I was in nearly 20 states across the country campaigning for dozens of other candidates in the House and Senate. Senator Mark Udall was literally zero, didn't go to one. And so at a time when we say as Democrats that our values are under assault, that this is a massively important election, if you are not home with your constituents, if you are not able to pass major legislation in Washington and you are out there fighting for change, then I'm sorry you're not doing enough.

So we have Senator Markey out there. He has the backing of people like AOK is the backing of Senator Elizabeth Warren, is backing of a lot of progressive champions. And what they say to this indictment is ultimately the job of a senator is to take in all this information. Right, talk to constituents, listen to experts, meet with people locally, be involved in the community. And ultimately, that has to translate into policy. That has to translate into what you fight for when you're in Congress.

And I look at Ed Markis record and I say, OK, this is somebody who passed a cap and trade bill through the House.

Right.

An incredible feat. A Herculean task. Right. This is somebody who was for Medicare for all before you were signed on to the bill. Right now, he's somebody fighting for ending qualified immunity.

Right. Like you look at these issues. Right. What you would hear locally. Right. Whether he's you know, you say he's not showing up, but he has sort of taken in these problems, taken in these issues and translated it to an incredibly progressive set of policies instead of proposals. And ultimately, isn't that what showing up is supposed to do? Aren't you supposed to listen to people, hear from people and then translate it into actual sort of legislative change in Congress however you can?

Isn't that the job?

So, John, yes, that cap and trade bill that you referenced didn't actually pass. And part of the reason why it didn't pass is that coalition that was needed in order to pass. It fell apart because we didn't have that leadership that came together to drive it.

But that's not. But, you know, you can't blame Ed Markey for that. I mean, getting I mean, look, I was in the Obama White House at the time. That was just the fact that they got a bunch of House members, even in some tough districts, to take that vote and send it to the Senate. It's an indictment of the Senate, maybe an indictment of Obama, but it's certainly not an indictment of Ed Markey, John.

So the fact that we didn't have a coalition that was needed, Labor, obviously, with Greenpeace Canada, but the fact that, you know, the coalition there to drive it through, I think is a challenge. Right. But the larger point you referenced his record, Senator Markey opposed the integration of the Boston public schools. Senator Markey supported a constitutional amendment to ban access to abortion. Senator Markey voted for the crime bill in 1994 that led mass incarceration.

Senator Markey, reference your time. The administration joined with Republicans. Obama was trying to lower the number of immigrant detention beds in this country. Senator McCain joined with Republicans against the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to actually keep those number of beds steady. Senator Markey voted for the Iraq war or that we still send our servicemembers off to fight. To this day and so I think if we're going to have if you have a senator that's been in office for forty seven years running on his record, I think you also have to look at that record and say, well, what has been done if you're in record in office for a long time?

I totally understand that the votes that you cast 20 years ago, 30 years ago might not turn out to be the way that you you'd hoped, right? That's fine. Right.

But then you fight, you acknowledge that and you fight to change it. And that's the difference is that I don't think there has been that acknowledgment of I've asked Senator Merkley if he apologizes for the crime bill and he's still to this day. I don't.

Yeah, I mean, you talked about this. I wanted to ask you about the desegregation of schools and of busing because it is the position he took. I think it's in the late 70s. And it seems to me that as a politician, he was going along with a racist status quo. You know, Boston erupted in white racist anger at the prospect of desegregating the schools. Ed Markey took a political position to appeal to white voters in nineteen seventy something.

Isn't that just an indictment of Boston in the 70s? Aren't you just saying that being politically expedient in 1970s Boston meant being racist right now, writing the history of your state and fairly?

No question. My uncle was in office then and he didn't. He stood with the black community and said, no, we need equality. And segregation is not equality. The argument that you make about a politician when confronted with a deep moral choice and the choice that they made, I think is relevant. But I'd point out the fact then that Senator Markey was one of a handful of the 10 members of the House of Representatives that were confronted with the choice on the Iraq war.

Senator Markey was one of three that voted for it when seven voted against it. Senator Murphy said he was lied to. Every member of the delegation was lied to. Every member of Congress is logical. He was the one that went with that establishment idea as to what should happen and voted for the Obama administration, went to try to send troops into Syria to seize chemical weapons stockpile. Senator McCain was the only member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote present.

You want to vote yes because there's a genocide. You want to know because you don't get mired down in another war in the Middle East. Fine. You don't vote present. You are a U.S. senator. The job is to take some tough votes. Senator McCain, when he got to office, was supported a constitutional amendment against women's access to abortion. And what I'm saying is, I think the job of a senator is not to just go with the flow.

It's not to be able to just go with where the winds take you. It's to stand up and say, what kind of country do we want and what kind of country we fight for? Because that is what this position allows you to do. That is what a U.S. senator from Massachusetts allows you to be.

Where is a place where you disagree with Democratic primary voters in Massachusetts? Where is a place where you feel as though right now you're actually telling Democratic primary voters something that they don't want to hear on an important issue?

Over my time in office, when I came into office back in twenty, elected in 2012, as I said, came in and took leadership on issues on trans rights, which was not necessarily the norm at that time. When I had the chance to get that response to the State of the Union, I was one of the first politicians, the country on a national level to say Black Lives Matter in a nationally televised speech, which wasn't necessarily at that moment a hugely popular position to uphold the issues that I've let on from economic inequality to immigration.

I've done my best to push our own party because I think that's what our nation stands for. I think that's what this moment calls for. And I don't think, a, if a senator is going to run on your record, that record has to be part of it. And, John, it also has to be looking to the future because that's what this is about. And it's about making the case for the change that we actually need. And I don't think that to deliver on that change where you need representatives that are connected to our communities, because ultimately your ability to push stems from the support that you have at home.

As you know, everything comes back to the people that you represent. But if you are disconnected from those communities, if you do not have a relationship with those communities, if you do not have the faith and confidence of those communities, then you're not going to be able to push it harder as far as you want. There's a reason why I've been endorsed by 60 different labor unions across the state. There's a reason why we are our strongest support comes from communities of color, because when it comes to issues of economic dignity and racial justice, Senator McCain doesn't have that base of support here.

And those are the issues that are critically important to the foundation, not just of democratic ideals in our party, but to, I think, the country we believe we can be.

So on Medicare for all. Markey, one of the original co-sponsors of the Senate bill, you did not originally sign on to the Medicare for All Bill in the House. You said you wanted to make some changes and then eventually you did sign on to a Medicare for all the different bill, but different Bill.

One of the things you said was that you were passionate about this because your uncle was for it in 1971. This is something you felt you were sort of heir to that legacy. My cynical take on that is great. Ted Kennedy. Is for universal health care, if you weren't alive, I wasn't alive and you had the chance to be a part of the bill, you chose not to. You offered some critiques. But what I see is a politician making a calculation, which is I'm not sure right now being for single payer is where I should be politically.

And then the primary comes or are you thinking about this primary? And then, of course, you have to be for it because it's one of the most important issues to Democratic voters. And I am I being too cynical about what happened with Medicare?

OK, yes. So let me walk you through it. I said for years that the basic policy that our health care system should aspire to is that every single person in this country gets access to health care that you need when you need it, period. The single payer bill that you reference and I can remember the exact bill number, but it was John Conyers had filed that bill literally decades ago for a point of reference. It took Senator McCain over a dozen years to sign on to that bill when he was in the House.

I didn't sign on to it for two years. And when I didn't, I was clear about why the bill actually put big obstacles in place for access to abortion. It said government has to provide all essential services. Didn't address the Hyde Amendment. It didn't include long term care. There are barriers there to mental health would lead to the closure of facilities across the country. And I was clear about saying, hey, if we're going to sign on to a piece of legislation, I want to make sure it encompasses truly the needs of our constituents and the needs of my constituents in Massachusetts.

That was clear about that and the reasons why privilege. I am. Paul, after Mr. Conyers left the office, took over that effort, I had multiple conversations with Congresswoman Gypo and her office. She addressed those concerns to include a long term care, and they addressed the Hyde Amendment and a number of other provisions. And I signed on to the bill now from somebody that actually understands the legislative process. I also think that that's kind of the way the legislative process is supposed to work.

You're signing on to a piece of legislation that ends up actually putting up structural barriers to access to abortion. For women, that's a problem. And so that's what I did. The bill that you're referring to for Senator Markey in the Senate was a different version of that bill. Bernie Sanders, the bill on this issue was rewritten before the bill was really filed in the House. So I stand pretty strongly on the value of we need to make sure that every person gets access to health care, that they knew what they needed.

The legislation that was filed didn't actually accomplish the goals of what the advocates actually wanted to do. I pointed out the shortcomings work with the person it was drafting that legislation. She redrafted it. And I signed on to it long before I ever thought of getting involved in a primary challenge in this race.

One one, you know, we're going to do a lightning round. I want to ask one more question, because I actually want to get at the core of why you're what this primary is about.

You've talked about generational change. You've talked about getting rid of the filibuster, something you've led and been ahead of Ed Markey on. At the same time, he's been the leader on climate change, one of the most important issues to a young generation. How do you square that circle? What is your case to a young progressive for whom climate change is the most, if not one of the most important issues for them? Why they should go with you instead of Senator Markey?

Because there is an urgency to this moment that we cannot afford to lose or to waste. And, John, the reality here is that climate has been a central part of my focus in office as well. I focused on the environmental justice side of it in communities that I represent, like Fall River and Taunton, that have been on the forefront of climate change, the economic impacts of it for working class communities across the country. I've filed legislation to try to empower environmental justice communities to fight back against the siting of power plants and solid waste disposal facilities.

I joined with the seminal champion of environmental justice issues and the former chairman of the Progressive Caucus who has endorsed me in this race. Rogova, on this single piece of environmental justice legislation in Congress, period, not well known, I actually have a stronger or higher lifetime voting record with the League of Conservation Voters than Senator Markey does. So the narrative out there, obviously, I'm not going to say Senator McCain doesn't have a long record on the environment.

Of course he does. But the argument out there that I somehow haven't been a pro environment champion is just not the case. The difference in this moment is that I've got two little kids. There is a I think, a growing understanding of the intersectionality of climate. Any economic that we do has to be a climate bill through any transportation bill, has to be a climate bill, any form of economic recovery. And it has to be a climate that we're seeing the highest rates of cold infection take place in environmental justice communities like Chelsea Lawrence in Springfield and Reverand Every that has to be the way we address this.

And with due respect, Senator Markey, the only time he started focusing on the environmental justice aspects of climate change was after Congress, when, of course, your critics joined with him for the Green New Deal. That has never been his focus. As you've articulated, it has been the macro framing of these issues on cap and trade and CAFE standards, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it's not the part that gets to the core of the disenfranchised communities and the way in which they are exploited by pollutants and by corporations passing off the cost of pollution onto black and brown communities that can't afford to fight back.

Thank you so much for giving us this time before we let you go, we do something here. Love it or leave it. We used we did it with the presidential candidates. It was called queen for a day, because we are going to we're speaking to both candidates in this primary. We're going to do something that we call AFLAC for a day. For decades, Grover Norquist has challenged people to take his pledge. No new taxes, no elimination of tax deductions, no source besides Mayo.

I consider myself the Grover Norquist of people who wasted their vacation playing video games for 10 hours a day. So I have my own pledge. We're going to get you. We're going to pin you down. I have three quick questions. One, you're speaking to a convention of local brewers and someone asks if Sam Adams qualifies as craft beer, what do you say?

Yes, but you're asking somebody who's a teetotaller has never drank a Sam Adams. So.

But but OK. All right. Well, you're on record. Yes. OK, now, that question now that Tom Brady has abandoned the Patriots, can we finally admit that that video where he kisses his son on the lips is super weird?

Tom Brady is a constituent, might still be a constituent and could become a constituent. Thou shalt not criticize a constituent.

Wow. Wow. A dodge. Last question today. States have to have the option to choose permanent standard time or to participate in Daylight Savings Time. As senator, will you pledge to write into the law a revision to the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to give states a third option to remain on Daylight Saving Time permanently?

Sure. Yes, yes. That's all I needed to hear. All right. I'm a I'm a one issue voter, congressman, from the one issue.

And, you know, you know, I assume, you know, if that is your one issue that the man you're interviewing tomorrow, my opponent has deep thoughts about.

We're going to I'm going to ask him. I'm going to ask him. I have to assume and look, he's going to he's going to face the same gauntlet. You know, I you know, don't take him up on these questions. I don't think you will. All right. I don't think you guys are talking. But please don't, because I need to know what he thinks about these things, you know?

You got it. You got it. Thanks for your time, Congressman Kennedy. Thank you so much. Thank you.

When we come back, my conversation with Senator Ed Markey.

Don't go anywhere. Love it or leave it. And there's more on the way.

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You know, Broadcom still love it and we're back. He is a United States senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Senator Ed Markey, thanks for being here.

Well, thanks for having me on. Love it. So, first of all, how are you how has it been campaigning during this trying time, during this crisis?

Well, you know, I'm narrowly in a campaign. You're shaking hands and smiling now. No shaking hands and no one can tell you're smiling because you have a mask on. So we start with that fundamental change. And so we've had to move it largely online. But in this digital era, we have the digerati have joined my campaign, this incredible gang of very smart, mostly Massachusetts educated young people. And so there's just incredible change in the way in which we're campaigning and how we're communicating.

But nonetheless, we still have near ubiquitous communication with everyone in the state. It's just we've had to change to deal with the coronavirus and a lot of ways we might even be getting more information into people's hands than under the old system.

So I just want to ask you, you know, you're in this heated primary. Let's start with just your main argument. Why should Massachusetts Democrats choose you over Congressman Joe Kennedy?

One word, leadership, my law is the one that took on the auto industry, took on the oil industry to reduce greenhouse gases that come out of the tailpipes of vehicles in the United States. It's still the largest single greenhouse gas reduction of any law ever passed in the history of the United States. Barack Obama used that. The issue is fuel economy standards. I'm very proud of that. It was my law that the 1996 Telecommunications Act, I'm the principal Democratic author that unleashed the broadband revolution.

But at the same time, I made sure that the rate which guarantees that every child, regardless of race, regardless of income, has the Internet on their desk in their classrooms. The first time ever that a technology got deployed at the same rate for poor children as for wealthy children. That's my law. It's my law that requires the NIH to tell the Congress each year how much money they need to find the cure for Alzheimer's by the year twenty, twenty five.

If we don't find a cure, 15 million baby boomers will have Alzheimer's. That's my law. It's a 25 to 30 billion dollar research program. And I can keep going on and on because I have more than 500 laws that are on the books. And each time I had to find a Republican that I was going to be able to partner with so I could put the law on the books. So whether it's health care, greenhouse gases, gun safety, Alzheimer's, the difference is that I have led and delivered for the people of Massachusetts and our country.

And my my opponent's record is just not as rich, I will say.

So even a leader on energy for your entire career? Actually, you know, I saw that you posted this old video of you at the Democratic Convention being illegally nominated to be vice president because you were anti-nuclear. You sponsored the Green New Deal with Aoki during the Obama administration. You managed to pass through the House a cap and trade bill, Waxman, Markey, which is an incredible legislative feat. It's something I think about all the time about how that period of time when we were getting health care through and there was a climate bill that was getting through was an incredible period of legislative progress.

It didn't end up becoming law because it died in the Senate. But just getting it through the House at the time took an incredible amount of work.

Can you just talk a little bit about what it took to get that done? And does it bother you at all that it wasn't Markey Waxman?

Well, I'm married to a Jewish doctor, Susan Blumenthal, and she won't take my name either. So whether it's Waxman or Blumenthal, I'm just used to being the Shabbos goy. I just have to. All right.

So so what happened was Henry Waxman and I, we decided in January of 2009, Barack Obama being sworn in. And two of the three big things were in our committee, the Affordable Care Act and the climate bill. So what we decided to do was we would move the climate bill first had never been done before. Very complicated. We had to build coalitions that never existed. And we then got it passed on June twenty six to nineteen to to 12.

Then we worked on the Affordable Care Act and we finished that in the first week of August. So both bills were done and ready to go. Now, we did not anticipate the obstinate, obdurate opposition in the Senate to the health care bill, which then became the priority, which just kept gobbling up more and more political capital. And so by the time we reached 2010, the political capital had been largely spent. It took a lot just to get health care over the line, which had to happen, the Affordable Care Act, but then pretty much time had run out.

So that's why I introduced the Green New Deal. I asked Yossi Alesandro Casser Cortez to have lunch with me right after she got elected in twenty eighteen. And I and so I was kind of going through this question that you just asked me, you know, what's the difference between 2009 and today? And I said, well, back then, Henry Waxman and I, we really didn't need a movement because we were the chairman. We had Nancy Pelosi.

Now we need a movement.

I said to him, OK, so let's draft up a green new deal and create a movement around these issues. And that's what's happened over the last year and a half between the Sunrise movement, college campuses, high school kids. It's all come together in an intergenerational movement mood climate from being something that people thought was important, but not out of the top top tier issue into something now where every one of the presidential Zinat party had. A climate plan that wasn't on the books the year before and Joe Biden is asking AMC to be one of his advisers in drafting his plan.

So we've come a long way with the movement to ensuring that the ambition of the climate response matches the magnitude of the problem.

You know, even hearing you speak, there's an incredible amount of pride you take in your legislative record. Like why should people send you back to the Senate? Well, look at my record. Look at what I've done legislatively over a very long career. You know, I talked to Congressman Kennedy and to me, the argument that he made boils down to this, that you've been around a long time. You have a progressive voting record. You've passed important bills, but you're not relentless in using the non legislative, more kind of subjective powers of the office that whether it's about raising money or campaigning for other Democrats or using the sort of resources and attention that you can garner as a senator to spend that capital in ways that are outside of Congress, back in Massachusetts to improve people's lives, that that basically the generational argument boils down that he's hungry and you're not as hungry until this primary.

What are you what is your response to that argument from Congressman Kennedy?

That's what the green New Deal is. The green New Deal is ambition politically on steroids.

Candidates are running on the Green New Deal all across the country right now, defeating incumbents. It's shaking up the whole political system. It's lifted the vision of candidates to the constellation of possibilities in our ability to solve the existential threat to our planet. You can't have a movement that's bigger than this with the exception of the nuclear freeze movement, which I also introduced into Congress in response to Ronald Reagan. And I did that with a young woman, Randall Fosberg, who was kind of a pariah outside her brilliant arms control strategist who was ostracized by the white male aristocracy of arms control.

But after I introduced the nuclear freeze four months later, one million people were in Central Park protesting the nuclear arms race. And it's still the largest single gathering in American history. I'm very proud of that. And the Green New Deal is modeled on the same promise that we have to go to the outside to build the education in the activation, to reach the implementation stage of passing real visionary climate legislation, which is going to happen in twenty, twenty one.

And a big part of my leadership with the IOC and by the way, AOC has endorsed me on what she says about me is not your age, it's the age of your ideas. And in this race, I'm the youngest guy in the race because I'm the leader on the trolley, the leader on the Green New Deal, I'm the leader on gun safety legislation and I have the laws to prove it.

One argument that Congressman Kennedy made is that is on the filibuster, on Electoral College reform, on Supreme Court reform, that basically we need somebody not just focused on these policies, but someone who understands how much politics has changed and that one thing that might be required is getting rid of the filibuster. Now, I know you had signed on to a letter about the filibuster. You talked in the past about preserving the filibuster. I believe your thinking has changed a bit, but I don't know that you've ever I'm not sure if you've ever gone on record saying that you would support getting rid of the filibuster if it was necessary to pass the Green New Deal.

Do you support that?

Let's first have the biggest landslide of all time to just fumigate Donald Trump. Otherwise, the guy is criminally negligent, is racist, get rid of them and do the same thing for the Senate. Now, some people say, well, we might win 50 seats. And I say, no, no, no, I'm not ambitious enough. Fifty one. Fifty two. Fifty three. Fifty four. Fifty five. Fifty six. I've been around long enough to see it happen.

Now after we do that and Joe Biden is one. And if a relatively small number of Republican senators still want to block legislation that we have to change the filibuster rules. But I actually hope this my hope is that once we deregulate them, get rid of Trump, don't get rid of this fear that's built into the hearts of too many of them that are afraid to cross the aisle on big issues that will have a shot at. We need to make sure that in twenty, twenty one that justice is what our agenda is.

And if the Republicans still adamantly, obstinately want to oppose it, well, fine. We're just going to have to change the rules and get it done.

It seems I have to say I'm a little surprised that you would have still hold out hope. I mean, like Donald Trump is not the reason Republicans didn't go along with a climate bill in the past, not the reason that they've been trying to repeal Obamacare for the last decade. Right. I mean, look, we can hope that these Republicans will go along, but if we're going to pass something that requires 60 votes were either I mean, we're going to get rid of the filibuster.

We're not going to pass a climate bill. I mean, you can be optimistic, but.

Well, you. And you can't be in this business if you're not an optimist. That's just it's built and I'm a realist. Let's just take fuel economy standards. They had not been increased since 1975. So I bring the amendment out onto the House floor and I lose. I only get one hundred and fifty five votes. I need to wait. So two years later, I bring it out again. I get one hundred and sixty six votes. I need 218.

The next year I bring it on, I get 178, I need 218. But then we win the House and Senate and all of a sudden, just a year later, Nancy Pelosi and I are standing over the shoulder of George W. Bush and he's signing an increase in fuel economy standards that Barack Obama uses for one of his greatest single achievements, increasing those fuel economy standards. Obviously, I'm a realist and I'm willing to take my losses. By the way, that's a big part of leadership, too, because you have to go through the stages of education inactivation, right?

That's where I feel we are on climate change. And I think that the polling makes it very clear that out there in suburban white America that attitudes have changed fundamentally at climate change. And I think the politics of it, may I say, may make it possible for us to legislate. But if it doesn't, then we'll have to change the rules, because a second term of Donald Trump or eight years of inaction is like a death sentence for the planet, that we can't allow that to happen.

So that's kind of what I'm leading towards. That's what AOC and I have been trying to do, set up this moment where we've got a shot and it was just going to be blocked by rules. And we have to change the rules because we only have one planet.

And we have to say, you know, you're running on this very long legislative record. But, you know, one of the areas that that there's been some I think heated debate has been about a couple of votes that you've taken. And if you're going to run on your record, you got to answer for some of these votes. And one of them I actually wanted to drill down on, because it is more recent. It's this twenty thirteen vote on detention beds.

Now, I know that you hit back at Congressman Kennedy for having voted on a bill that had similar language. But there is a difference, right, between voting on something when it's an amendment to be added to the bill and when it's in the final bill and you're just passing it and everybody kind of accepts that there's some bad stuff in an omnibus spending bill. I mean, you know that I'm not I'm telling you something, you know, and to me, I look at that and I think that was a bad vote.

And it seems like you won't say that that's a bad vote.

I did not vote to increase the tension because I didn't vote specifically on that. It was included in the larger bill. I didn't vote on what had happened there, John, is this. They were changing the rules in terms of bringing knives into the passenger cabins. I actually had to live through the hijacking of the two planes at Logan Airport, you know, Mohammed Atta and the other nine who hijacked those planes and they used knives to kill the flight attendants and the pilots.

And we lost one hundred fifty people from Massachusetts that those two planes flew into the World Trade Center. So when those rules were changed, I had an amendment that I was fighting for to ban knives going back into passenger accounts. But ultimately it got included in that bill. And so I voted for that bill. Again, the larger detention that that issue was already in the bill. So that was my that's why I did it. And then but then six months later, Congressman Kennedy voted for a large bill as well that had the detention bed increase as well.

So that was why I did it, because I felt such a connection to all those people that the flight attendants and the pilots wanted me to get that ban in place.

And that's why I said, yeah, but isn't the isn't the distinction, though, just that that that was that was an area where you joined with mostly Republicans, but on.

But that was on. It was a big, big bill was an omnibus bill. It was a big bill. So there really isn't a distinction in how we voted. I'll tell you where we do have a distinction. When we had a vote on Promesa, whether or not they would have this control board over Puerto Rico, which is now wreaking havoc on the educational system, the health care system, University of Puerto Rico is on its knees. He voted for it.

He voted with the hedge funds. He voted with the bondholders. I voted with the people of Puerto Rico. It's like having a second Hurricane Maria hit that island. That is a real distinction between us. We voted twice in favor of Promesa and I voted not as opposed to this other issue where we both voted for large packages that already had that increase, which, by the way, I opposed.

And he was one of the points that Congressman Kennedy has been making pretty passionately is around this issue about D.J. Henry and the fact that the family feels that you didn't have a good relationship with them or didn't stand up for them when their son was killed by the police. And I know you've reached out to the family and I wanted to get your response to that. But I also just wanted to hear you talk a little bit more broadly about what you view your role is as a senator in terms of just relationships with Massachusetts being sort of part of the community, listening to people, because that has been one of the sort of.

Or critiques, my heart goes out to the Henry family. It's unimaginable that they could lose a child, a son in those conditions. They asked me to help and I wrote letters with the Massachusetts delegation to Eric Holder to reopen the investigation when I met with them. And and again, it's just been just a terrible situation for that family.

And I'm working right now and continuing to try to reopen the investigation. They deserve justice. They have a right to get the answers. They have a right to get the accountability. And from my perspective on this larger question that you're talking about, I think it's very important for the senator to be there. So that's why the overwhelming number of mayors have endorsed me. Why the overwhelming number of state representative, state senators, why the Sierra Club has endorsed me and the League of Conservation Voters play any role in Planned Parenthood.

Why? The Human Rights Campaign has endorsed me because I've been there standing up and fighting. And so this is a moment of reckoning in our country. And so all these progressive groups have rallied to my side because I have been there. But it's interesting because so have the local officials, because I've been there on the crisis, on gun violence, on issue after issue that is central to the state. And I've been a leader. So that's the job of a senator.

You have to be able to pass legislation that your job is to pass laws. And very few members of Congress in history can match my record for getting laws passed. But you also have to be responsive at the local community level, and I work very hard to do that as well. Thank you, Senator Markey, for your time.

Before we let you go, we do something here it love it or leave it for decades. Grover Norquist or what would happen if Atlas Shrugged wish to be a real boy, has asked Republican candidates for office to sign his pledge, committing them to his core values. No new taxes, no elimination of tax deductions, and no talking during young Sheldon and Senzai.

And since I consider myself the Grover Norquist of people who once tried to rent a houseboat, I figured I'd start my own pledge. Back during the presidential primary, I picked candidates down on the issues that matter to me most in a segment we call Queen for a day. But for one day only, we're doing a Massachusetts primary version in a segment we're calling Aflac for a day.

We've got three questions for you, Senator Markey. Are you ready? I don't have a choice.

I'm ready. Spent my whole life getting ready my whole life. I feel like I'm on the 64000 dollar question. And is the music. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. Listen, don't, don't, don't listen. Question. Here are the questions. You're speaking to a convention of local brewers. Someone asked if Sam Adams qualifies as craft beer. What do you say?

I know this is going to sound bad. I don't want anyone to know this, but I've never had a drink in my life. I'm the only Irish guy, you know, so I had a beer in his life. But I would say the answer is yes, it does. It does call.

It's a you know, you and you and your primary opponent are both teetotallers. You have that in common. It's something you have in common.

I've never had a cigarette either. May I say my mother did a good job on me. Wow.

All right. Now, OK, next question. Now that Tom Brady has abandoned the Patriots, are we ready to finally admit that that video where he kisses his son on the lips is super weird?

I actually infallibility is a very elusive human quality, but I actually ascribe it to Tom Brady. So I guess that's allowed along with, wow, I'm Brady. I can't do it. It's just I'm constitutionally incapable of being critical of anyone that the six trophies when that were not on the scoreboard on the day that he got drafted in the six rounds, just him. Unbelievable.

All right. Fine, fine. Another final question today, states and this is something I actually think you're passionate about today, states have the option to choose permanent standard time or to participate in Daylight Saving Time. As senator, will you pledge to write into law a revision to the Uniform Time Act of nineteen sixty six to give states a third option to remain on Daylight Saving Time permanently? OK, that's my pitch.

Thank you, John, so much. Thanks for asking that question. Well, you call it the permanent act of nineteen sixty six. Well it's been amended twice since then and the person who amended it is me. I know that I have amended it now. I amended it the first time, you know, when I took over as the energy subcommittee chairman. Guess what, I take over and I think it's oil. It's gas, it's solar, it's wind, it's conservation.

But inside of the jurisdiction is time.

Time itself seems. They have jurisdiction over time, and so what I did in the first round was I moved Daylight Savings Time from the end of April unbelievable to the beginning of April. But I had intense negotiations with former congressman from Pennsylvania and other states because they told me you're violating a core principle that the cows must get up in God's time. So no matter how many times I explained to them that the cows don't know what time it is short, it just so I eventually had to compromise it, just move it to the first week of it from the last week of it.

Then I waited for all those guys to lose and leave Congress, and I started all over again to move it to the beginning of March, which is where it is now, and actually take the week after Halloween. So it would still be like early. So a long way around is you have a double take of Daylight Savings Time. I think it puts a smile on people's faces.

And honestly and it's really like one of the cooler, if I'm going to list all the bills I've ever passed in terms of bringing the greatest happiness to people, let's bring in that hour of sunshine to the evening. So my answer to you is, I do support moving Daylight Savings Time to be permanent. And it's something that I do believe in and that would be near the top of my agenda and at the top of the agenda.

Wow. Because I'm a one issue voter. So so I actually want to pitch, though. I here's what I think. I actually think you don't need to make it permanent for everybody because I actually think the problem is. So Massachusetts is on the eastern edge of the time zone. And so Massachusetts gets really screwed by by normal standard time. But here's the thing. We got to think of it. Forget the farmers for a second. We got to think about the people in Detroit.

Right. Because Daylight Savings Time for people in Detroit sometimes makes dark come too late, which hurts their ability to get a good night's sleep. So my pitches get leave it up to the states. We can leave it up to the states and we can have basically states that want to be on the permanent daylight saving time. Take that. Some states want to keep the shift. They can take that and some states can stay on standard time. That's my pitch.

You know, I feel as though I'm talking to somebody who's dealt with this for a long time. I want you to consider my policy proposal. This is a this is this is from this podcast. This is this is my this is my idea. All right. This is what I'm doing. I'm this is my leadership.

Can I say this? I'll finish up on this, because you are you're talking to a time afficionado.

I pride myself on my work here.

Remember the car guys car talk? Of course I remember that they were the best. They were the absolute best. So here's what they wanted. They're not unlike you. They had the same level of passionate followership out there. So so they were they were a good buddy of mine. What they want is get this double daylight savings time.

So they want really from the middle of June to the middle of August that you take that extra hour and you move it to the evening so that in Italy, France, you know, it's still daylight a quarter at 10:00 at night, you're out there dining, having a good time. I think one of the things I'm going to have to focus on when I get back is just let's reopen. You know, I'm on the Environment Committee. Let's just reopen all of these type issues.

So I'm with you and I want to work with you on that. Next year, I'll come back on your show and talk to you about what I think is possible legislatively get passed, although I'm sure I'm going to wind up in a conversation with some farmer Republican from Kansas and Nebraska.

Well, I'm trying to give you out. Well, Senator Ed Markey, you've given us so much of your time. Thank you so much. This is a great conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. We come back.

We'll end on a high note. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of love it or leave it coming up.

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Here it is. This week's high note submitted by our listeners.

However, perspective from West Hollywood. Since I'm not going to spend every Thursday night to see my favorite podcast, my high notes are just confirmed to be a poll worker for the most important election of our lives.

And I'm from banking for the first time this weekend and calling people in Pennsylvania, this is Crystal, OK, this is Lexi. And we are calling the morning after Missouri expanded Medicaid. They're working on this for ten years. We didn't let the racists distract us yesterday. She got it.

My name's Jessica and from Austin, Texas. And my high note this week is yesterday. Thursday, I woke up to an email from Wisconsin saying that we were going to switch our efforts to my home state of Texas. And I got so excited because I know that we can Texas can go blue. We just need to put in the effort. So I was really excited about that. And I got to do some Texas thinking for my fellow Texan here to tell you I love it.

This is Lindsey. And my high note is that finally my son's district decided to start the school year remotely. And so that means for me as a teacher and him as a student are going to be able to safely teach and learn at home instead of a germ factory. Thanks so much for giving me a great laugh every week. I appreciate it. Thanks to the listeners who submitted their hyena's this week.

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