Love it or leave it is brought to you by our presenting sponsor Djura, a single malt Scotch whisky made by the same tiny island community since 1810. Happy New Year on Djura. Love it.

Yes, we have a new huge fan super fan Djura Whisky, who judged him black by far has just been enjoying himself some Djura over the holidays and in moderation.

In moderation as everyone should drink it but just wants to pass on that. It is delicious and very enjoyable.

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He got yourselves a federal judge more than Trump has in his pocket under the 212 Islanders historically have celebrated the New Year with a tradition called Bringing In the Bells or community members go home to home to wish their neighbours a happy New Year and bring them one of two gifts, either a dark fruit button, wishing someone a great year abundant with food, or a piece of coal, wishing someone a year of warmth.

Twist.

Who would you choose to give a dark fruit bun or a piece of cold to? Oh, I'll tell you, I've got to live. I'll tell you who I'll give a piece of coal to.

I'll give a piece of coal to Josh Hawley because of some of the anti-democratic efforts he's made of late that I think are despicable.

You're trying to overthrow our government. You get coal. I'll tell you about, you know, who's going to get a dark fruit but who the nurses, you know, is going to go on.

Hello, Paul Hollywood.

Because that's a frequent item on British baking. I always just find the flavor combinations in the sort of in the savory pies to be just baffling. It's like this is haggis with mint and juniper berries.

It's why it's wild. Oh, we made a lovely venison and raisin orange. Stuart's miraculous. No, I bet it's terrible. And now I'm going to British lunatics. Anyway, I bet Gerard would go well with all these items were mentioning.

The point is, what better way to start the New Year than with a new bottle of award winning whisky support? Djura and it's tiny island community of just two hundred and twelve people by going to Djura whisky dotcoms love it and use the code love at ten to save ten dollars. As Judge Tim Black says in Scotland, Sergeyevna, which is Gaelic for gay people should be allowed to marry. Yeah Tim.

Welcome to love it or leave it back in the closet, elect three. Election. He's trying to stage a coup. For democracy. We danced in the streets, cried with joy until I finally adults in the room because we were. Thank you to Troy. A special shout out we donated. George, and she was. But it's back in the closet here, liked. That incredible theme song was sent in by Rebecca Levine, if you want to make it back in the closet, a theme song, please send it to leave it at Crooked Dotcom.

We have one more before we get to figure out.

Well, we'll talk about it next week, but we've got to do a 20-20. We're not we're not back in the closet elect anymore. We're going to figure out something new. So there's a last week to get in a back in the closet like theme song. And we will tell you more about what we will be doing with the show moving forward this weekend. Right now, gaining ground on our show about Georgia has their final episode. It's important to look to the winds to keep ourselves motivated.

And the victories in Georgia earlier this week were incredibly hard fought. So if you haven't already listened to gaining ground New Georgia, it's hosted by Rembert Browne and Jewel Whicker, it has covered the journey leading up to this historic runoff. And it's a really fantastic list. And so check out Gaining Ground, the new Georgia on Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. But first, he was the host of the podcast Binge Mode and digital show NBA Desktop before joining us at Crooked Media.

Please welcome Jason Concepcion. Jason, bye bye.

Bye bye bye. Thank you for having me. So good to have you. Wonderful to be here. Yeah. Look at that beautiful setup. Thank you so much. Listen, everything is it's LCD lights from Amazon.

They're 499. I highly recommend them for anyone who has to be on a lot of Zoome calls and is tired of watching themselves just slowly decay over time. Something else to look at.

With each passing month, I turn up the zoom filter. So it's getting I'm just like at a certain point it's like going to be like Scottie telling. I tell you, there's just no more power. We can't shift any more of CPU to filtering out the way being at home for a year is fucked up your face.

We can't smooth it anymore, Captain. I just slowly move my chair back.

No, everything is further away. Yeah, I get further away. I got to get further away. All right. Jason's here to judge the monologue. Let's get into it. What a week. During these difficult times, we like to start the show with the worst joke that was submitted by our writers.

And this week we have one that we think is maybe the worst we've ever offered. Are you ready, Jason?

Well, it's a historic week, and I'm glad to be here for a historic joke.

I guess we finally know what the Trump train sounds like. Coocoo. I couldn't even commit to it.

I got it. Yeah, I actually respect it. It's hard to do it. It's hard to say out loud is so stupid.

Look, it's a very serious week. Four years ago. Yeah.

After Trump won, you know, I was worried about institutions. We were worried about the liberal coalition fracturing. And as we head into the Biden administration with Democrats in charge of the House and the Senate, the vote certified, I think we can all be proud of the work that went into staying united. Yes, defending our democracy and ultimately winning. We are four years of Trump.

Lindsey Graham famously said, if we go with Donald Trump will be destroyed and will deserve it. Well, here we are. They've lost the House. They've lost the Senate. They've lost the White House. They've lost their reputations. They've lost their credibility. They've lost their claim to democracy itself. So I feel like we should take a moment to pat ourselves on the back. Does Lindsay remember he said that?

Is he aware of that in this timeline? Does he know that this happened in this version of the multiverse?

Or is that like another version, like a looper thing?

I think he's in a momentous situation. I think there's a tattoo across his chest that says John McCain was my friends. Right.

But what he buttons up his shirt, he forget it's gone.

That's gone. Right. We're entering Act three where he's going to find the tattoo on his bicep and then realize, oh, I. I think I understand who the criminal is. And I confronted him four years ago.

It's like it's a hairbrush. There's a long dyed golden hair in it. I remember talking about this four years ago that the thing that kept me up at night was the period I was most afraid of, which was the time between Trump losing and Trump leaving at the period of time after which it was clear he would no longer be president. But while he still had the powers of the presidency, that was what was my greatest fear. And I and I think it is sad that it has come to this.

It is sad that it has been as bad as so many people predicted.

That said, here are some dumb names for what the attack on the capital could be called. Of course, Holli's Fali.

Oh, the Cruz Koo's. That would that's a no for me dog. But again, I respect the work, the Whiskey and Red Bull Rebellion.

Oh historic. Historic. I like that. The Facebook putsch.

OK, historic as well. Ben Sasse is nodding with approval. Does he not? Does he not?

Not as he may not think he's like he's like he's like a take the chair, turn it around, put his arm, sit his arms across the back of the chair and say, hey, guys, do you you know, back in 1858, a lanky man from Illinois took a train and then he's going to tell you that person was Abraham Lincoln eventually.

And a lot of ways Shakespeare was kind of like rap, the heroic battle where one guy tasered himself and had a heart attack. That's obviously, you know, we don't want to be glib. A man did die of what some are calling a heart attack. What I do believe Facebook posts are referring to as antifa of the arteries.

That's. Wow. See, you know, it was infiltrated.

Well, the amazing thing about antifa of the arteries or any other kind is they are everywhere. And yet, as people have pointed out on Twitter, not a single member has been publicly identified. So shouts to them for the operational security.

It's really an amazing organization that's doing great work.

Yeah, I think that Raspail Goule has done a really great job of organizing and DIPP also. Did you see that? So there was this bit of like misinformation floating around that one of the one of the protesters, protesters, one of the insurrectionists had a tattoo of a hammer and sickle and then they zoomed in and it was the fucking symbol from Dishonored.

Did you see those they got? He has the the the what's the call? I played that game. Great game. Great game. But how fucking ridiculous a person are you did you get the dishonored tattoo on your hands. Dishonored. Are you kidding. Are you fucking kidding. The war of dishonor didn't like make it. It's not that strong. It's not what. Defending the princess.

Come on. At least get a master chief. Right. You know what I mean. At least get a whicher. Got the dishonored symbol.

I could not stop laughing. That is so embarrassing. That is so embarrassing.

I don't wario honestly. Yeah. Little Wario. Why not steal Skyrim one. Yeah. Beautiful little arrow through the knee. Everybody loves that. A couple more names, Dbag De, how do you make of trying to make that it's dbag day, right? I don't get it. Yeah, it's tough. I get it. It's it's it's a tough it's another tough one to make the connection. But I get it. Baconator is rebellion.

That's pretty good. It's OK. It's OK. It's OK. Final to sweat.

Isberg and finally Dunkerque. They're just. Why not Yashar. Mm hmm.

I think that I think the issue with Dbag Day and Dunkirk is those were both, you know, positive battles, positive violent conflicts that helped turn the tide against against fascism. But I appreciate the wordplay and I appreciate the work in that sense.

Thank you. Thank you. So what happened on Wednesday after President Trump urged his followers to march on the Capitol to undermine the certification of President elect Joe Biden's victory? And a dozen senators led by Josh Haley and Ted Cruz, in concert with most of the Republicans in the House caucus, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, indulge in conspiracy theories to undermine the election result. Inside the Capitol, a mob of Trump supporters breached the building, ransacked offices, probably peed in a few weird places and temporarily delayed Senate proceedings.

People were calling it a coup, but it was more of a siege because breaking into the government's workplace doesn't make you the government the same way. Breaking into Tom Cruise's house doesn't make you Jack Reacher, does that not?

It does. It does that not. Is that not is it the Jack Reacher title? Not transitive in that way?

No, it's it's not like Air Force One. You don't you don't become Jack Reacher when you go into places. Tom Cruise has been Jason's side note.

I do not see Jack Reacher to reach harder, reach around Jack. That is the prequel. But one of my favorite things in Jack Reacher is this is a movie that Tom Cruise is a producer of clearly, creatively in charge of. And they film a scene in which Tom Cruise, as Jack Reacher walks into a bar and every head in the bar turns like the sexiest, coolest person walked into the room. And this is a private investigator who travels by bus and is paid through Western Union.

Right. Carries cash, only has no ID.

And that was just I love that note. I just like him coming back to the screens, talking to his buddy, the director, and saying, I think we need all of these bar scene actors to turn and look at me like they want to fuck me. I think there's no way that this movie will work unless we make that change.

He then takes them all outside and fights them one by one, which if you're willing to suspend the disbelief in the first place, I think you're it's not that high a leap to get to the fighting.

I believe this was also filmed in Pittsburgh.

This is one of the great along with The Dark Knight Rises, one of the great Pittsburgh movies.

I didn't know that about Dark Knight Rises. I'm learning something, learning something.

After Trump used their platform to call for insurrection against Congress, Twitter laid down the law by blocking his account for twelve hours. This may seem harsh, but Trump can get through it once. He couldn't get into his Gmail for three days because he couldn't tell which of the photos was a bus.

The folks, they literally blocked IRA for longer.

Here's IRA. IRA has a little fun with better work. Says he's going to share Beddows dick pics. He's fuckin toast. I got to think I look, I think we have to get Beddoe to tweet that IRA needs to be let out of the box. I think that I think Beddoe is the key to unlocking this puzzle.

Better do the right thing, come down off of the dinner table and do the right thing.

Enough. Cancel culture, Beddoe. Enough, enough, enough, enough, enough. Obeying the WOAK mob. We need you to bring IRA back.

We need his voice in these trying times.

Of course, the most important and the most long lasting, the biggest event of this week is the victories of Raphael Warnock and John Ossifying Georges Zestful organizing of Stacey Abrams, Natasha Brown and so many others. That means Democrats will take control of the Senate. And it means we fucking got Mitch. We got him. We got him. Does he disappear now?

Does he, like, shrivel up, get smart and then and then fly away, like do his little do the do the do the tips of his little shoes, like curl up against the side of the house that fell on him or.

No, I think he gets smaller. I think he gets physically half the size of his current size, but he does not disappear completely.

He for him he did. But the answer to that is you just move closer to the camera for him. Right. And then we won't be able to tell the difference because it's a proportional shrinking.

He doesn't get shorter. He just physically reduces proportionally, you know.

Well, I, I understand this is disappointing for him to now be ostensibly House minority leader. At least he has his health and. He's OK, right? We will get an answer. I don't I don't know. I mean, look, I don't think you're ever OK when your blood tries to escape through your hands.

Right? Right.

When you put on a marvelous dance ring and the curse hits you like that, that's serious.

Very serious. It's very serious. At thirty three years old, John OSF will be the youngest member of the Senate. I hope the Senate serves avocado toast.

But it's a millennial thing, folks. Did you see people excavating like 2012?

John USCIRF tweets and one of them was like, hey, Pitchfork, I'm expecting a review on the new immagine triggered.

I, I love that tweet so much. I fucking love it. I love that he called himself a noob for life. What I love what I appreciate about demanding that pitchfork review.

Imagine dragons. Yeah. What it's such a perfect encapsulation of him at that moment because it's fandom, it's begging for institutional approval. It's like, don't you understand? You have an obligation to use your platform for good. Yes. People don't know about this. Imagine Dragons album. It changed my life.

That's right. Fired up and tired of the way that things have been solved, the way that things have been solved, would that have made them online?

I'm a freak.

If I if I if I pitch that, I'm just freaking out because I didn't know that you were the lead singer. I'm embarrassed that you're the lead singer of Imagine Dragons. Well, you have to imagine it.

That's the thing is we try to keep it. You know, we want to lift it into the into the cerebral plane where everything just kind of happens inside your head and you don't understand or know or aware of, like, the actual reality of the band.

But it's all like we want it all to happen upstairs.

I mean, here's the thing. Well, that's that's that's in the name, right? That's why we're not that's why we're imagining dragons. Correct. You know, OSF becomes the youngest serving member of the Senate since Joe Biden one day. Wow. You're the youngest senator. Then all of a sudden it's the year 2064 and your eye explodes while trying to tell a bunch of whippersnappers in a primary debate why it's wrong to tear down a statue of Barack Obama, because at the time we all eight factory raised meat and we knew it was a problem.

But it's hard to explain now.

You know, it it is really hard to explain. You never know what things will end up being.

The things that were bad later on, 20, 30, 40 years later. You ever think about that?

You ever think about what is the thing that I'm doing at this very moment that I am completely unaware of that 20 years from now I'm going to go.

That I that was wrong. That was a thing that I should have understood was bad at the time.

Did you read that Kosterman book about being wrong? Yes. He talks about it. He talks about that because, like the factory raised, meat is a good example. But it's that's something we kind of understand the problems right now. But the harder ones to wrap your mind around are the ones we truly are not thinking about at all yet have no attention to. Not part of the way we're thinking about the world that will, in hindsight, look obvious is obvious.

I'm excited to find out what they are.

I can't wait now that Democrats control Congress and the White House, we can finally get to work on some of our top priorities, like stopping the pandemic, complimenting Joe Manchin, passing the Voting Rights Act, massaging Joe Manchin s feet, abolishing the filibuster, abolishing every single pothole on every road in West Virginia, giving D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood, and most importantly, giving two thousand dollars a month to the residents of West Virginia and only the residents of West Virginia in two years.

Charleston, West Virginia. It will be like fucking Dubi. Oh, you don't think you need a bullet train between Martinsburg and Wheeling, are you stupid? Make it a Hyperloop. This would be spectacular.

I always like Joe. I think he's really handsome guy.

I'd like to know how he wants his coffee and I'd like to send him just a package of his his favorite coffee, his favorite foods, whatever it is he needs, if it'll help us.

Joe, I've always appreciated what you've brought to the table. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but I've always appreciated it.

Joe, here's what here's what you can do. All right. Just write the number of epi pens you want us to buy on a napkin, slide it across the table. We just want a public option.

Hey, West Virginia. All right. Put out your left arm. That's the Moderna vaccine. Put out your right arm. That's the Pfizer vaccine.

Now let's head to the brand new terminal of your beautiful airport to fly to the great state of Puerto Rico. I love it.

Don't let's not forget the the great state of the District of Columbia also.

Absolutely. Can we mix up the vaccines? Can we do that? I know they're looking at that in in England, but can they do that? Can we. Is that safe?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Can't be too careful. Yeah. Give them both. Give em three doses in West Virginia. Also this week, Joe Biden named Merrick Garland as attorney general. That's right. Mitch McConnell, the bitch is back.

Incredible to have Merick finally with us in some capacity, it's poetic justice of some kind. I wish I understood that Mitch felt bad about it, but I don't think he does. I don't don't think he's hurt by it, which is unfortunate. I agree.

I actually don't think anything to do with the Republicans. I'm interested to find out the full reasoning behind it. But I have to think a big part of it is just Joe Biden was like, this guy got fucked. He's a smart, good guy. Let's give him a big job. You know, like it really bothered him what happened in the Senate. It was a travesty. This is a person who was nominated to be on the Supreme Court, thought his life was going in this direction, and he just didn't think it's a good decision.

And it also has the added benefit of of giving this person a chance to serve in a new way.

Yeah, it must have been disappointing when you picked somebody who you figure the other side will definitely like because he's like a centrist figure. And then they're like, I actually no, you just don't like you.

Yeah. It turns out there was no one you could pick. We're foreshadowing just how little we respect your legitimacy in any way possible. And and you won't be you'll be shocked at how far this will go. Oh, is it early 2016? Just you wait. Just you wait. Just you wait.

Who could have imagined. Just you wait. Being dad, I I'm saying the words being dad, wow. And that's it, I'm done.

Wow.

Being Dad that feels legitimately 40 years ago at this point, you know, it took place in this shimmering moment before 2020, you know, in a deep blue sea I had.

Who could forget what Samuel Jackson gives his rousing speech.

Mm hmm. Smart sharks, super smart sharks, sharks that are figuring things out and doing math hunting. They know how ovens work. They're very sophisticated. They have maps.

They understand the layout of the base. They can punch the codes into the doors. They know who to eat first, which is really kind of the the main thing that makes a smart shark smart.

We're not doing enough smart sharks movies.

They understand buoyancy like the way it works, you know, which is amazing for underwater creatures. Like they're like, I know what it takes. I need to lower this facility via water, sinking into these different rooms so that we might escape through the soft fencing.

They just have a kind of instinctive understanding of Newtonian physics. Incredible creatures. Sorry. Go on the point. No, no, the point is the point is I feel like being dead happened in this one week. We thought the 2020 shark was dead, being dead. Like, what have we do? Some controversies, like we used to do what, like the old days? And then 20/20 jumped up and like, nope, you're coming down with me.

We're we're only halfway through. And we only had Samuel Jackson for seven shooting. So he's he's he's he's Chelmno. Yeah.

It's like the end of the first Friday the 13th where, you know, you think it's all over and the hero is like gently draping her arm into the water of Crystal Lake and then all of a sudden the rotten arm of Jason reaches out and grabs her, that arm being 20/20. There was so much being content over those few days we have been dead.

Who bragged about I guess not feeding his daughter is how is is that kind of like the best? Is that the elevator pitch of what that was being daddy?

That's why I think that's what I was doing a puzzle. And he bragged about not feeding his daughter.

I think he yes. I think that he was hyping up a teaching moment and making it sound more grand and extreme than it actually was. Then he started getting attacked for it. Then he admitted that he probably exaggerated a lot of it. But by then it was too late because the search field was open for business. Right. And it took a lot of people have been laid low by a brief period of ironic.

I'm so not racist. I can make these jokes that Twitter fais it has taken down some greats and he was felled by it. They just rarely works, you know.

Yeah. The ironic racism and anti-Semitism, it requires a context and an understanding of who the author is as an actual flesh and blood person.

And that's guess what, over the Internet.

Impossible. Yeah, it's a bit like the fist bump. You can do it a dozen times, ironically, but by the thirteenth time, you're just a person who fist bumps. That's right. You know, that's correct. You're just a person who fist bumps. And of course, I have Hilaria Baldwin. You know, it's it's it also happened in this brief, magnificent window in which 2014 was here. Trump was gone. We're back to these kind of controversies that are very silly and very lites.

But it turns out, obviously, she's not from Spain. She's from Massachusetts, Massachusetts. She's not from America. She's from Massachusetts, from outside Boston.

The clip of her saying, how do you see a cucumber?

Absolutely sends me over the edge.

It's the best it rules. What happened inside of your mind. You're at the level of character development. You've so committed to the bit that you're asking for pronunciations on common vegetables.

I had I had two thoughts when I saw one. So she decided to commit to this character right there. That's that.

And I look, she decided when she was going to marry Alec Baldwin that she was going to have this opportunity to be some kind of a lifestyle influence here. And she decided to do it as a Spanish person. She made up an accent to create a brand who hasn't who hasn't done it, who has.

What I find actually the most chilling is not forgetting, forgetting how to say cucumber on television in the in the service of this character.

It's using it to name your children. Like, that's that's fucking incredible. That's incredible, like I've been to Paris, but I'm not going to name Children Croque madame.

This is Croque Madame. This is.

I love that everybody went after Hillary. Gloria Yeah.

And fair enough. Thank you for the respect for that Alec Baldwin.

Man, this guy has gotten too many fucking passes. He throws a punch at a photographer every three to six weeks. Yeah, he is a huge prick at every turn. This idea that he should be playing Trump, he is the most Trump like figure in public life beside Trump. And on top of that, on top of that, he is the biggest fucking apologist for some of the worst sexual predators in Hollywood. He is a scumbag and a dupe.

I don't know if he knows if his wife is Spanish or not. I don't really care. It would it be surprised me if he was in on it because he's a huge fucking asshole who doesn't care about anybody but himself. It also wouldn't surprise me if he was a total dupe because he's the arrogant type of person who believes he he gets people he knows how to see through them. He can see the truth. He can't be con. That's the exact kind of person who gets conned by Woody Allen and Igloria and whoever the fuck else has duped him over the years.

Fucking it cannot stand Alec Baldwin on.

Are you telling me Alec Baldwin is bad?

He's the guy who has made multiple misogynistic and homophobic jokes, like on live mikes multiple times over the course of recent years that. Guys, are you telling me that guy is bad?

That's what I'm trying to tell you. And I'll tell you something else, Jason. I'll tell you something else. While not technically his fault, I will always blame him for the fact that the hunt for Red October, clear and present Danger and Patriot Games is not a beautiful, singular Harrison Ford trilogy.

That is what it should have been. Hunt for Red October is fantastic. It's great. He's so much better without that simpering, smug, gravelly voice prick pretending he's Jack Ryan. Harrison Ford should be in that movie. Also, how about Alec Baldwin holding up a sign that says you're welcome? All right, but hold on, let me stop you there, Alec, for what what is the implied thank you.

Right. You brought down Trump. Did you do that? What are we. Where's the. Thank you. Did you do that sometime that we all missed for what?

You think you were the you think you sealed the deal in the suburbs outside Atlanta?

Right. We missed that. You think you got you were organizing down there. You think you got the wine moms in suburban Detroit?

Alec, unbelievable. I guess for for, I guess, disrupting yoga with Adrianne.

Maybe that's what he's through Hillary's business. Maybe that's what he's asking for. Things for. Yeah.

Who is supposed to be thanking you? Unbelieve also? I can't. All right, Jason, look, I want to end with this because you know sports, all right? We both know sports, of course, were two people that know a lot about sports. That's what everyone says. So I'm going to do some sports jokes.

You can tell us how we did. Tell me if I've gotten these. You see what you think. I can't win my sports material. The Eagles were accused of tanking their game against the Washington Football Club last week when their coach benched their starting QB for a third stringer and Eagles loss would have kept their rivals, the New York Giants, from clinching a division title and playoff spot. Finally, something to link the gays in football. High concept pettiness.

Oh, yeah, that's good. I like that. I don't think it's funny. It's like. It's true.

It's true. It's factually accurate. Mm hmm. Which, listen, I appreciate more and more in these trying times. Factual accuracy.

Alabama Crimson Tide wide receiver Devonta Smith was awarded the Heisman Trophy on Tuesday night, becoming the first wide receiver to win the award for nearly three decades. And I think it's about time we recognize the hard work put in by those who receive, but also appreciate it.

It's factually accurate. And again, that's sports. It's important that we have truth in.

It's really important and in all spaces in these trials where that's what we're a comedy come from, that's where it comes from. Comes from truth. It comes from truth. That's right.

The NBA bubble in Orlando stands as maybe the most broadly successful management of the coronavirus pandemic anywhere in the world. Now, hear me out, Jason. What have we made America an NBA bubble? And if not, can I be drafted by the Phoenix Suns?

Could you be drafted by the Phoenix Suns? You know what? They're going to have a low draft pick this year because they're good.

So maybe I think you could. How's your jumper?

Oh, it's very bad.

When I was a kid, I was on the basketball team, but I had a problem, which is I had the arm strength to make the ball go forward and I had the arm strength to make the ball go up high enough to go in the basket. But I didn't have the arm strength to create the the parabola right angle. Yeah.

The arc to go both high enough and forward enough to go in the basket.

And it's pretty tough when you're on a basketball team and everybody, your team, the other team, they know that no matter what you do with that ball, it is physically impossible for you to make the ball go in the basket that you do not have that capacity.

That's like this is a joke that you're going to get as a huge sports fan.

It sounds like Ben Simmons and he's he's an all star classic, of course.

Hey, they should make the whole plane out of the NBA bubble.

Yeah. Oh, wow. Huh?

What's the deal with what's the deal with the NBA level? I mean, the whole plane, you know.

Yeah, they got to be that way. All the people who don't want to wear masks and stuff and don't want to get tested won't come inside of it. And then we can travel in peace without every cross-country flight. Turning into a political statement about how much you consume propaganda.

That's funny, that's my identity. And finally, Tom Brady left the Patriots to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, many people were confused by this move, but I have a feeling it has to do with Florida's lax kissing your son on the mouth laws.

But Bump, I listen. I love it.

We've never talked about it because we've never talked about this before is still super weird. I here's my take kiss. Yeah, that's fine.

Like you guys are close. You're close with your children. I love it. Show affection. I think that's very positive. I think it's weird to put it in the in the dock.

I think it's weird to put it in the dock. That's my thing. Yeah. What you did in the dock. I put it in the dock. Why is it in the dock. That's a cut for me. Why is it in the dock. That's a cut for me. Folks, when I get that first cut, I'm looking at it. I'm going, you know what? When I'm laying shirtless on the table and my son comes from the opposite angle and kisses me on the lips for a long time and the cameras got us in in a really steady two shot, can we can we just take that out?

It's weird.

Look, I don't want to be I don't want to be a diva. And if you feel like it's it's central to the plot of the film, I don't want to obviously, I want team player here. But my thought is it's hugely embarrassing and deeply weird. Maybe we should cut it. Just a thought. Just a thought. Just Tom Brady going to throw that one to you. Just going to throw that throw that just QB that idea over to you in the editing booth.

You maybe you can receive that. See what you think about it. Just a pitch. Just an idea. Trump for president. See you all later. Chomsky on twenty twenty. Hey. Oh yeah.

Remember that. Do we forget that Tom Brady had had the Maggette it is locker. I think we all kind of like don't talk about that enough. Here's some things I don't forget.

I don't forget the mouth kiss. No I don't forget the hat.

No I don't get that. They cheated a lot. They did sheet a lot. They cheated a lot.

They're pretty good too, which is unfortunate because I wish they could be bad and all those things. But then they were also actually really good. And then their owner was caught up in a in a prostitution sting, which he has been totally. Yeah. Sort of absolved of any wrongdoing.

He got off twice, Jason got off twice.

And with that, Jason Concepcion, thank you so much for being here. What a what a blast. What a delight.

It's been an honor for me to be on the show, which I and I mean this sincerely, I think is like the best original theme song in podcasting. Yes.

Shout out to the band. Sure. Sure. Who crushed it in twenty seventeen. We then they're off touring, you know, they hit it big. They had a big too big for us now but we got them right as they were right as they were shooting up like a rocket ship.

You know, they knocked the cover off of it. Just incredible and very catchy.

When we come back, I talked to Zainichi Tufekci about Facebook's role in the coup attempts and the failure to distribute the vaccine. Two great topics that go great together, I guess, Kate, don't go anywhere.

There's more of love it or leave it coming up.

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I love it at checkout and we're back. She is a sociologist, professor at the University of North Carolina and a writer for The Atlantic and The New York Times. Please welcome back. Returning Champion.

Thank you for inviting me again for yet another exciting week of too much news.

Zeynep Tufekci, thanks for being here. So originally I had wanted to talk to you about the vaccine, and I still do.

But obviously we are recording this on Thursday. We are just on the other side of a failed insurrection and successful ransacking of the U.S. Capital One that was organized on Facebook.

It was the Facebook putsch. As we are recording this, since these events have unfolded, Twitter and Facebook and Instagram have taken more steps than they have in the past to curtail Donald Trump. Specifically, Facebook has gone so far as to say they won't allow him on the platform for the remainder of his term. Twitter had banned him for twelve hours, leading many to note that a twelve hour ban for a coup seems like a light sentence, especially when IRA Madisen, friend of the Pod cricket host, was banned from Twitter permanently for pretending to be better of work and saying he was going to share better.

O'Rourke's nudes, which I think compared to an insurrection, isn't so bad. Zaynab, what have you thought of Mark Zuckerberg response? And then we can talk about Twitter's response.

In some sense, it's mostly irrelevant at this point because I think the more important question is their role in the information ecology change that got us here. Yeah, I realize they have now taken somewhat drastic seeming steps, coincidentally, on the very day they have learned that the Democrats will now be controlling the committees that will oversee their regulation. But even if we don't think about that fact, which is probably not completely coincidental, but even if we put that aside, it's just hard to judge what should they have done today when the real question is how we got here with the changes in the information technology.

Now, what they will often say is that, look, it's not just us, it's the cable news. It's the podcast, it's the bulletin boards.

It's not just us, which is true, but. They are the 800 pound gorilla in the room, right? This stuff does not occur, these kinds of thoughts did not become mainstream. This kind of presidency did not happen on some marginal channels out there.

And the role of cable news, while also is real, has very much been accelerated by Facebook and Twitter because they are also competing with Facebook and Twitter. Right. You can see the evolution of Fox News.

So, I mean, I don't have, like, big, profound thoughts on them changing their rules very drastically in ways they said they would never do for the past four years again, on the day they learned that the president was on his way out. Right. So because for the past four years, lots of people have been saying you should ban him. And they were saying, no, we wouldn't, because he is a leader, political leader, completely against everything we stand for and boom, just like that, they can do it.

Now, the thing that bothers me more is that it's either self-interested, as I noted, just because they realize people are mad at him and that people mad at them are about to take control of the Senate and the presidency or Mark Zuckerberg woke up and got angry. And that's not a good scenario either. Right? Right. That's the thing is like if Mark Zuckerberg woke up and was angry at the attempt to, you know, mob the capital, overthrow the government, it's just too much power for one person to wield either way.

Right?

I mean, that is sort of that's been this fundamental challenge, which is, you know, you see from Facebook, they've come a long way since this since this was, I think, their ethos or at least their professed ethos.

I you get a sense that if Mark Zuckerberg, if you took politics and PR and all the rest out of it, his gut instinct is to say, I think this should be like the public square. It should be almost like a utility, not treated it like a utility by the government. I still want to make money. I still want to be a profitable company. But he wants it to be like a public square where you can say anything.

You can go in the town square and you can spout anti-Semitism. You can be a Nazi in in the downtowns of your cities. And Facebook should be like that. But he's kind of come to understand that that's not tenable because they're a private company. But I am still really uncomfortable with what we're talking about, being pressuring private entities or being forced to kind of pressure the capricious billionaires from making these kind of decisions. What do you see as the as the way forward here?

What what does a better kind of relationship between Facebook and misinformation look like?

So one of the problems here is the business model, right? Because it's not just the limits of speech, it's that the business model of the company is to keep you on the site, whatever else you try to fix. It's that because what's engaging is very often what is more extremist. Right. More interesting. Right. So as long as you have that, the problem of moderation is unsolvable by scale, because even if they decide we're going to get the Nazis off the platform, well, who's a Nazi?

And then you have the question of who decides is a Nazi and where is that line? And you probably can do it with some high profile accounts to some effect. The problem remains that it is pushing the extremism through the engagement algorithms. And it's just tribalism, right? It's not just extremism, tribalism, because that's just what engages us. And I think this is a fundamental problem. Now, I don't want to sound like medius completely out of it because traditional media to try to be engaging and that causes problems to the sensationalism and alarmism.

All of that is true. And in fact, if anything, sometimes bashing Facebook is engaging and we bash Facebook. And I feel that like I recognize that there's now an audience for that. And it's kind of ironic there. But the reality is, regardless of the content, as long as you have this kind of drive to deliver audiences very efficiently to this kind of messaging, which is what the platform does. So when Trump was running, a key thing they could do was go to the platform and say, here's a message, find our audience.

And Facebook's machine learning systems would help them find the audience with the stuff. Right. And then the audience would amplified further. So this is a trickier problem. I'm not completely against the public square as a comparison, but I think that's like a 20th century. Way of thinking about it, their problem isn't that they're a public square, their problem is they're like an audience servicing machine to the message so that they can deliver their ads. And that has all sorts of problems.

I mean, every country for the public square where you need to have is a country has to have laws, right. Europass, certain laws, other places have to have certain laws because that's the only way to deal with it. Like Mark Zuckerberg woke up and got mad at Trump is not a way to deal with it, because when he doesn't always get mad at the thing that we want him to get mad at, too, that means everybody is now just trying to lobby for him to get mad at this or that.

That doesn't really work. Three, he tends to get mad at stuff the day the Senate changes control, which isn't really the way we want to do it. And that's just not sustainable anyway, like it's not the right thing. So I think we have to kind of go back and say, all right, we have a public sphere that is dramatically different and how can we make it healthier? And I always go back to the business model as long as they have these big audience delivery algorithms, the engagement algorithms, the questions about moderation, we come back to we'll just get swamped by the scale.

They'll say, all right, fine, we'll ban the Nazis and then there won't be enough people. And then there will be an argument over who's a Nazi. They'll be some prominent Nazis, but there will be the new kind of Nazi that's not explicitly in the definition. And they'll be your actual problem, not the people after for quite you know, it'll be too late. So that's just what happens is that our public sphere has changed and we're not yet dealing with it.

Now, the Democrats are taking control of the Senate. They have the presidency in the House for a while at least. So their temptation might be to try to set up something that looks friendly to them because that was what happened under the Obama administration. They genuinely thought Silicon Valley's great is full of liberals. They love us. We love them back. There's a revolving doors. And there was the sense that this is a good tool for us. And so there was a hands off approach.

So I think that would be dangerous if that came back and said, how do we make friends of these people so that this tool works for us? Because I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's possible to make this business model work with a healthy democracy.

And that is a very thorny thing to say because we're talking about like a billion trillion dollar company. But I think there are ways to force them into some of their worst aspects of their business model. And I think that's what we need to focus on.

We're about to head into a new Congress. There is an opportunity to look at how to address the power and consolidation that we've seen in tech.

If you were advising these newly empowered committee chairs that have the opportunity to pass something, what would be your argument for their focus in terms of reining in the excesses of Facebook, of Twitter, of Google, of.

Oh, the problem is there is not going to be some, like, quickie answer I could give, because if I had one, I would, but I would really not completely get focused on the who gets allowed. I would be more focused on the audience issues like microtargeting. Why is it allowed and to what degree, what should be the disclosure requirements? What should be the transparency engagement like? Why do we allow certain kinds of engagement algorithms? Because we don't really have to allow everything we allow.

Like with microtargeting, you could put the larger buckets or make it especially for political speech. You could say, you know, if this is a speech, it can't just be targeted at the small an audience. You could limit the use of things like the machine learning systems that help you find more audiences for messages. You could put more oversight into all of that. You could do certain things to try to incentivize them into better business models, the healthier business models, because it's kind of like you got something like smoking, right?

It's not exactly the same, but you got something that has negative externalities. And no matter what you try to do, as long as the nicotine delivery device aspect is there, the cigarette companies going to try to figure out how to deliver nicotine. It be like nicotine will be this will be bad. And the only way out of it is to sort of go at the nicotine. Now, this is not completely exact as an analogy, but I think that's what we have to really think about, like these companies that were really harmful side to them.

This is true for YouTube, too, and they're both making some progress, especially YouTube seems to be making some progress with their engagement algorithms. But part of the frustration is that there's no transparency. So the researchers like we're begging for scraps.

And when we get some scraps, Facebook's. Communication people come and say, you don't have data, you just have anecdotes. Well, yes, because you don't give us the data, right. We don't really exactly understand how the engagement algorithms are working and what we could do about it. So you could, for example, mandate disclosures. Right now, we kind of let them operate in a way that is really cheap for them. They don't have to disclose things.

They don't have to a lot of oversight they don't have, like we let them do all the profitable things of their business without making them do some of the things that would help us understand it better so we can force them into that. We could, like, make it a little more expensive for them to operate this way. So try to push them to operate in different ways. So there's all these things that I think that have to be considered in totality, though, because what I sometimes hear is like there's an antitrust aspect that people want to pay attention to, which is true.

It is a big deal because if they're the 800 pound gorillas, but if you just go after antitrust without understanding the business model affects what you could end up with is like 10 wishlists. Facebook's. Yeah. Could break him up. And you're just like you don't change the incentives under which they operate. Not sure that's getting us. I'm not saying there's no case for antitrust. I'm just kind of saying, like, whatever we're going to do, it has to be holistic.

It has to understand the 21st century aspects of this, not try to regulate it. If it were television or radio, it has to really be careful about the temptation that any government will have to use it in a partisan way.

Yeah, it does seem to start with, though, to your point, does seem to start with transparency, because you you talked about YouTube, even the best reporting on, say, the way in which YouTube can radicalize people. Right. They click on something about the dollar. They get a report on the Treasury, they click on the Treasury report, and all of a sudden they're in a conspiracy theory about who controls them. And like, you know, you kind of go down these rabbit holes.

But it seems like if we started at the very least with the ability to understand the way these algorithms work, the way these radicalization processes work, and when you tell them some of this is happening, they say our data doesn't show.

And I'm like, well, I mean, maybe I don't know. It's really hard to understand what's going on with thought having access to it. And we had a brouhaha with Google recently where they fired one of their AI and ethics reporters. Wow. One of the things that came out was that Google is clearly looking at papers its researchers are publishing with the political AI. They're not just looking to see if it is intellectual property disclosures or something like that, which is it's normal for a company to try to see, like if we got this fancy pants algorithm, we're going to use proprietary.

You don't really want it in a paper. But there now clearly looking at it with a political eye, we've known for a long time that we heard from researchers and Facebook that they know where the lines are. I've been told this by them directly, so we don't really have insight into it. So I say certain things and I think this is what's happening. And then the company says, we don't think so. And I'm like, that can't just be you reassuring me, not even saying you're wrong.

I'm just kind of saying this is not how it works. So one of the things we could start with is a genuine requirement to disclosure and allow research and transparency to try to get at the complexity of the problem because there are competing things and you don't really want to overly censor or you also don't want Mark Zuckerberg to be the king of the public square or Jack Dorsey. So these are I know it's like not a good soundbite, but this is the reality.

You're looking at something very complex and it's not going to have like a one line magic wand answer.

I wanted to ask you before and thank you for it. I just want to ask you about the vaccine rollout before we go today. We learned that there is a fight going on between Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo in New York. Cuomo has put down incredibly strict rules in terms of who can get the vaccine and the penalties for giving the vaccine to people who don't meet that threshold around front line workers. De Blasio basically says, I've given it to all the hospital workers.

Some of them aren't taking it. Regardless, I have a ton sitting on the shelf. Let me give it to older people in the city. What do you make of that fight?

Oh, it's terrible. You know, sometimes conservatives say that the liberal media just likes focusing on Florida governor and ignores New York governor. And I have to say, they have a point there. I just the disastrous policy was a terrible policy like vaccine distribution.

One should not be micromanaged like that, too, even if there are some mix up in that some elderly get vaccinated before every last hospital worker is vaccinated. That's not a terrible thing. That's a good thing. The elderly also need vaccines. The problem is the.

Supply and even if there are some occasional corruption, like find those people and there's like medical bars and, you know, licensing and stuff like that, there's all sorts of existing procedures for medical corruption that you can deal with. You don't need to create like if you vaccinate the person who's not in the blah, blah, blah, million dollar, fine. That is crazy because to have vaccines sitting on shelves at a time where we're facing a new variant, it appears to be more transmissible.

We have seasonality that has really caused an increase. We had just Christmas before that Thanksgiving that created some. So to have like vaccines sitting on shelves, as de Blasio is saying, and not be allowed to be given to other people is wrong, is going to cause excess deaths. And even with prioritization, it should be flexible. It should be hospital workers are elderly and say front line essential workers. This is the current focus in the CDC guidelines.

That's a large group. And if we run out of one people in one group in one and their vaccines in that freezer, you give them get those shots in the arms. And this is not complicated. And I just I cannot believe if the reporting is true, like it is so obviously a terrible idea that I'm just kind of like I literally found myself thinking, is de Blasio making this up because nobody could be enacting such a terrible restriction in the middle of a pandemic.

So if it's really true, it's a catastrophic micromanagement.

Yeah.

For I cannot wrap my head around like it doesn't really matter if the priority lines are not observed and respect to some strict thing. It's a vaccine. It works. Whoever's are you get it and get it in.

Yeah, I want that vaccine. Zaynab, let's get it out there.

Well, I mean we all do. And what they should do is like just roll it out. I'm just so shocked that right now I just saw the numbers. There's twenty million distributed in four million in arms, so there's sixteen million somewhere. And literally we should have public health clinics working 24/7 to get that 20 million into people's arms in a week like this. Not anything that we can do. And if you want to mobilize, you want like the National Guard setting up tents, have the National Guard set up tents.

I mean, this is another problem with like micromanaging the prioritization. It creates bureaucracy, which slows it down. And I also want the elderly to get vaccinated before, say, younger people are less at risk. But if everybody is getting vaccinated slowly, we don't even get that done. Like it's not like they're prioritizing the elderly and very speedily vaccinating, then they're prioritizing the elderly by some bureaucratic logic and not even vaccinating them fast. So this is like the worst of both worlds, micromanagement, bureaucracy.

Plus, you know, where are the trains on time? If you're going to be such a micromanager, like there should be some record of getting things done and that's not there either.

Hopefully we get the vaccine rolling out. We get a we get we get a president who can pay attention. We get through these early periods and all of a sudden there are going into people's arms. And then, you know, we can have a conversation that's not about some of the biggest crises we've ever faced. How nice would that be?

I know about some big financial risk, you know, unbelievable.

Yeah, there are there are other problems there. Still, there is something minor we'll be discussing some celebrity divorce or I don't know.

I can't wait till we get well, hopefully.

Hopefully this speeds up in the next couple of weeks and up to Fetchit. Thank you so much. Go. Good to see you.

And you know, twenty, twenty one. I know we we had started with a bang. I started with a bang.

Thank you so much to for joining us. When we come back, the repeal.

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

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And we're back.

Look, this is a week with some high highs and some low lows. It is twenty, twenty one. And so we thought we would kick it off with a return to the wheel. This week on the rear wheel, we have Ben Affleck's Duncan pick up. We have Alec Baldwin. We have Kim and Kanye. We have Josh Hawley's raised fist. We have John USCIRF, Starbucks breakfast options, the film Tenet and the fact that no one invited me to Puerto Vallarta.

Let's spin the wheel.

All right, fine.

It landed on no one invited me to Puerto Vallarta, and the thing is, nobody invited me to Puerto Vallarta and these disgusting, narcissistic, solipsistic circuit parties where a bunch of gay people, including some medical professionals who should know better, including medical professionals who got the vaccine and then went to parties, big super spreader events in Mexico should be ashamed of themselves. But here's the thing. I didn't know this was happening. I want one of two things.

All right. In the future. All right. I either want to be invited to the super spreader parties or I want it to be flag for me as a as a as a gay person to call them out on Twitter. Either think of me as someone who will have fun at a party or think of me as a narc. I found out about this through the grapevine. I didn't even know it was going on. And that made me sad.

Let's spin it again. It landed on Tennet, I was looking forward to it for so long, a Christopher Nolan movie is very exciting to me. Here's my problem with Tennet. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. On top of that, the thing that really bothered me the most about Tenent is all right, it's a movie where some objects are inverted and go backwards through time. I thought there'd be like more cool shit that happened, you know, some more backwards fighting, some bullets go on back in the guns, some cool shit happening.

All of a sudden there's a big fight scene at the end. You can't see what's going on. I want to go backwards to a time when they were thinking about what Christopher Nolan should do next, and he was finishing his script for the film Tenet, and somebody could tell him, hey, you're really good, but you need notes like everybody else. You're not above notes. Christopher, Chris, buddy, you're a genius.

You're a great director. You're one of the great action directors of all time. You need notes.

All right. Listen to people when they offer some constructive feedback.

That's all with spending again. It has landed on John Osthoff, all right. And I just want to say three things. All right. One, I find it genuinely offensive that there is a 33 year old senator. I am not comfortable with their being younger senators than me, too. I genuinely annoyed by the handsomeness. I find that frustrating.

And three, I'll just say I'll end the show by saying this has been a really bad week, a week where we saw the worst of what Donald Trump and his minions can do, the culmination not just of four years of erosion of basic decency, but decades in which right wing media, right wing radio host right wing politicians have fanned the flames of this kind of hate again and again and again. And whether it was Eladio Baldwin or the KU, what was on my mind over the past couple of days is this quote that I've shared on Twitter before, which I think a lot of people have been taking from my tweets, to be honest, and putting it in articles.

I'm just saying I'm just saying consider the source. But it's the Kurt Vonnegut quote, which is you are what you pretend to be. So we must be very careful about what we pretend to be watching all of these politicians appease and encourage and incite this violence. All of that was performance. But what we saw wasn't a performance. It was incredibly dangerous, was incredibly destructive. And my hope after this week is the combination of the violence that we saw, which was no performance, was real.

And the fact that Donald Trump cost them the Senate means that together what we have is an undeniable truth, that something has to change. And so I think what will last from what happened over the past week, what will have far more consequence than a few assholes creating violence in the nation's capital is the fact that we began four years ago with Republicans in charge of the presidency of the House and of the Senate. And after four years of pain and loss and isolation and chaos and anxiety and fear, we enter 2021 with Donald Trump finally conceding with a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House, and hopefully a Democratic majority that understands that we can't ignore the danger these people pose.

We can't paper over it. We can't pretend it's not there, but we have to confront it. We have to strengthen our democracy. We have to go into this new year with open eyes, because if the one thing that could happen from a mob physically threatening Republican, Democrat members of Congress is that they won't be able to forget that it happened, we won't be able to treat it as just a performance anymore. And that, to me, is a reason ultimately to be hopeful after a week that felt like 2020 at the beginning of a new year, that hopefully will not end because we certainly need it this week.

Here it is, the high note.

Hi, my name is Shelley. I'm calling from San Antonio, Texas. And what has me inspired this week is I'm a doctor working with current patients and have been for months, months. And today I got my vaccinations and I know so many of my doctor and his friends are doing it, too. And hopefully we're leading with a good example and showing other people that it's safe and effective and that they should do it as well.

I love it. My name is JD. I'm calling in from San Francisco with my highlight, which technically is for the last week of December, but could actually be for the last week of the year. My highlight is that I got my application materials completed and in to the Biden Harris transition team. And this is a direct result of being a part of the state, Wisconsin, listening to the pond regularly and also getting the surprise unpaid sabbatical from my job in higher education.

And I really am thinking that my next chapter may look like public service, and it all is a direct result of the work that you and everybody else across the media has been doing. So I know there are thousands of jobs open and hundreds of thousands of applicants, but I have to admit, just getting the materials together and submitted was a highlight for me. I did it on Christmas Eve and it felt good to hit, submit and go into the holidays with my family.

Thanks for all you and your colleagues do and heard to hearing you on the pod.

I love it. And everyone behind the scenes. This is Jamie from Pennsylvania. My high point for the week is that my corral, the Arkadia Corral in Scranton, has completed and released our second version of the performance of the year. The pandemic, of course, has been really hard for so many people and the arts community is no different. Being in a choir has been really scary this year. Having to not stay has been. Whether it's our livelihood or just something we do for the love, but in the fall, we've been rehearsing unit over Zoom and sending the director of voice memos and working with a local audio engineer.

We've been able to stay connected and produce two really cool videos. It looks and feels like we're all together and it's just really fulfilling and cathartic. So I am thankful for creative thinking, skilled engineering and just the dogged perseverance of artists. So that's my high point for the week. Thanks for everything you do and we'll see you on the other side of the nor'easter. Thanks.

Thanks to everybody who called in with those high notes. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at three, two three five two one nine four five five. Thank you to Jason Concepcion and Zeynep Tufekci. Thank you. The organizers and volunteers who called and texted and knocked on doors to help elect Reverend Warnock and John Allsopp to flip the Senate. There are 11 days until Joe Biden becomes president. Have a great weekend.

Love it or leave it is a crooked media production it has written and produced by me, Jon Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg are head writer and the person whose gender reveal party started the fire, Travis Helwig, Jocelyn Kaufman, Pallavi Gwendolyn and Peter Miller are the writers are assistant producer is Sidney Rapp. Lance is our editor and Kyle Ségolène is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Shirker, thanks to our designers Jesse McClain and Jamie Skil for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast.

And to our digital producers, Naar Melkonian and Milo Kim for filming and editing video each week so you can.