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[00:00:00]

Love it or leave it as Braunschweiger presenting sponsor Djura, a single malt Scotch whisky made by the same tiny island community since 1810, the Scottish Isles, John Lovett, Fan Club and God knows no limits in their admiration.

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Well, will you get it? It's in the name. And this week they're at it again and have submitted a wee question from Alan, the Assistant Djura distillery manager.

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Hey, Joe, it's all in here calling from the phone box. And you have a wee question for you. The weather here can often be in trouble. To inform the island can be difficult given the treacherous whirlpool of the Norfolk Island. My big question is, what's the one thing you couldn't live without if you were stranded on anyway? Hope you're getting on. All right, Sludge.

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Thanks for the great question, Alan. I'll just be honest, I need a couple things. I need a regular supply of nonorganic crunchy peanut butter. I need a regular supply of Diet Coke and any compliments.

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That's really the you forgot Djura whistling. Well, I'm assuming. John, thanks. Thanks for asking. I'm assuming on the island of Djura that was a given. I'm assuming that that was a given and it's a good point.

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Remember this is an ad for with a note to hit again you know.

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Anyway, thanks John. Making whisky on an island of just 212 people that surrounded by treacherous whirlpool isn't exactly easy. But making whisky any other way wouldn't be djura if you'd like Djura Whisky shipped to you visit Djura Whisky Dotcom's love it and use the code Lovett ten to receive ten dollars off. You can also find Djura in retail stores across the country as they say in Scotland. Shalon Givat which is Gaelic golf or the golf Gaelic if it's Irish but apparently it's Gaelic.

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If it's Scottish apparently learn something new every day. I made that backwards.

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But as they say in Scotland, gingiva, which is Gaelic for maybe Anthony Fauci should yell.

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Welcome to the 19th episode of Love It or Leave It Back in the Closet.

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La la, la, la, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Back in the closet, stuck at home. I'm going crazy. No place to go shove it keeps me company. Locked down, he's been friendly. The world is crumbling and everyone is. Whereas love it when you need a and he's back in. I think that in the closing that song, which is which was honestly just like so excellent and so nice, was sent in by Jackson AMRs.

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Thank you so much. What a delight. Genuinely liked it as like a piece of music, not just a piece of music.

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That is about how great I am, you know, which is another reason I liked it.

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We want to use a new song each week. If you want to make one, you can send it to us at Hey Crooked Dotcom and maybe we'll use yours and you can tweet it at me and, you know, just to change it up. All right. If your song is a little less nice to me, I think they'll be OK, too, honestly, for a couple or for one or two. Maybe I'll maybe I'll regret it. But why not try it?

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I don't know.

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Also this week, a couple of things. You should check out our show, This Land, hosted by Rebecca Nagle. She's been looking at this issue of Oklahoma tribal land for a long time. She tells an incredible story in this podcast. And the cases that she was following all culminated in this incredible Supreme Court ruling in which Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion with the four liberals on the court basically giving jurisdiction and giving land back to native people. And it's an incredible historic event.

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And she's been watching this the whole time. So it's a great bonus episode. It's emotional. It's incredibly informative, explains what happened and what led to this moment. So you should really check it out. You can listen to season one of this land now on Apple podcast or ever you listen to podcasts.

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Also new merch.

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We have a bunch of new merch at the store, crooked dotcom stories. Check it out. We have some good stuff. At some point, I'm supposed to say that we have more gay for democracy T-shirts with sold out. I think you can still order them, but they're about to be back in stock. So check that out. And finally, last week, the Adopt a state program, we do three votes of America. We sent out the first call to action.

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And Florida has raised upwards of forty two thousand dollars to support virtual voter registration, which will help reach 400000 Floridians. North Carolina made 10000 calls in one day with a local organization to educate voters about state legislative races. They're on their way to their one week goal of 30000 calls. Pennsylvania. I need you to step it up. All right. There's going to be great calls to action for you. And so if you're listening this show and you want to join me on Team Pennsylvania, where we're about to crush it and make sure that Pennsylvania doesn't make the same mistake it made last time, that we can win up and down the ballot in Pennsylvania, go to vote, save America, dot com, slash Idont and also just skip all the small talk and go to vote.

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Save America dot com slash Pennsylvania and you can join thousands of volunteers looking to flip these swing states. Later in the show will be joined by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, to talk about not just the Roger Stone commutation, but also what we can expect in terms of holding Trump accountable now and when he leaves office. One of my favorite experts is here, Zeynep Tufekci, to talk about the pandemic and what happens when it meets social media and when it meets politics.

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And the incredible Michaela Watkins is on the show.

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But first, she is the author of How to Make People Laugh, host of the podcast FAQ The Nation, and the director, writer and star of the rom com Third Street Blackout. Welcome back. Returning Champion again farci.

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Hello. Also, it's how to make white people laugh. I don't presume to know how to make all people laugh. Oh wow.

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What a that's a meaningful error. I apologize. How to make white people laugh.

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It's funny. It was like you guys were giving me way more credit than I deserve in life.

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And it's a very important change because it removes the valence of politics and just makes you like an expert who teaches people at corporate retreats how to do a better PowerPoint.

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What can I tell you? Something really weird is that I've been writing some things that have been tested for electoral purposes.

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And it turns out some of my work really resonates with like the boat rally crew, like the people, like the straight up truth.

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I was amazed and I was like, what am I, a Trump base whisperer? What's happening?

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Let's hope so. It's not. All right. Let's get into it. What a week.

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On Wednesday, President Trump posed in the Oval Office with an assortment of Goya food products after a similar post in which Ivanka Trump posed with a can of Goya brand beans violating ethics rules.

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When I said, show us your beans, I didn't mean it like this. A case.

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Is that about testicles like donnis testicles? No, no.

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I actually realized, as I said, that that is an inside joke about a game we played one time on Love It or leave it called Show US Your Beans.

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It has absolutely no meaning to you and I apologize.

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OK, well, that's criticism. No one don't tell jokes that only three people will understand.

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Oh, but they'll love it. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, Mary.

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Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, was also going to pose with Goya products, but unfortunately, she already spilled the beans.

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Hey, we wanted this gentleman. My stories are probably like some sort of like Venna.

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AP. I don't know, you know what I mean, her beans are less ethnic. I just think we want to start. Yes, I just think we should need it to start with a terrible joke. I think that's a no.

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Yeah, I hate achieved. Mission accomplished. No, but you know what?

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I'm a terrible audience member because I love jokes like that. Me too. Me too. And I even even when when you were referring to testicles earlier, I mean, when I thought you were referring to testicles earlier. I love that too, because I love referring to testicles.

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I'm probably like the worst person to be doing this particular segment. OK, let's continue. I will love all of it and it'll be really bad for the world. OK, go ahead.

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I'm having fun. This week it was announced that Republicans are considering shrinking their Jacksonville convention and moving it outdoors.

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Cowards. That's their cause because they don't want to die from coronavirus. I don't know.

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I don't know why this acknowledgment of reality was pretty surprising until you realized that it was a long con by Eric Trump to hold an absolutely sick convention at Busch Gardens. Oh, dude, Dud.

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We could actually do the convention at a baseball field. Here, hold this club. I'll run over there and you throw the ball and then I'll throw it back. And what if we did that for like five minutes? Would that be crazy?

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Oh, I like that. Because first you when you started with like a yeah. That's like a hospice level sick, like, you know, kind of like a young young people internet speak, whatever.

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And then you moved into some real earnest, you know, father little boy issues that the Trump family has because of the terrible parenting.

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You know, it's a you know, it's not cats in the cradle and that's that's what you neglect like goes into that.

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Well, it's funny because that's what the married Trump book is about and a lot of ways. But I find it like apparently it's sold a lot of copies.

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I'm very happy for anybody who wants to read it. I have no no issue with that at all.

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But for me, it's like I don't feel like Trump is a nut.

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I'm struggling to crack, you know, like I'm not like it's also it's also like we're mindcrime spree.

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Like he's still inside the bank and married. Trump is outside with a bullhorn yelling his father was withholding it.

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Use the N-word. It's like, well, we can talk about that one. He's fucking in shackles. We can't do that right now. He's still doing crime.

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Wait.

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Oh, so that's a question, though, I have for you, is that, you know, in January 2001, I love my own grammar, but on January 21st, do you think we're going to stop talking about Trump? Like, because you make it sound like there's going to be books and stuff. I'm just like, we're done on January 21st. I don't want to utter his name ever again. It's over.

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So I'm of two minds about this. Obviously, emotionally, I would like to have a new experience, but also so I think we're gonna have to do two things, like we're going have to make sure that we get out of this psychological cul de sac that we're in.

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Yeah, I agree with that. But at the same time, like I talked about this with Congressman Adam Schiff on the show today, like there's going to be an incredible amount of pressure to just move forward, in part because we may have a chance to do like incredible progressive legislation. There's going to be ongoing economic crisis, ongoing pandemic. We're going have a lot to do. Like the next president is have, you know, Joe Biden inherits a huge, huge disaster.

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But we still need to make sure we, like, go through the fucking paperwork and be like, let's figure out what these crimes were.

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We're going to have to do work. We're going need like a you know, we're going to need to do truth and reconciliation.

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A post-mortem with like the stage manager and the prop master might help us, like, not do it again. Yeah.

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Get the cues right next time something. Yeah, that's right. Yes.

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Anyway, speaking of gatherings in Florida with authoritarian leanings that championed conservative gender norms, Disney World reopened this weekend on the same day Florida recorded its highest single day of cases since the virus began. Timonium Pumbaa like I'm not I'm not moving back to Iraq. Rock. I'm staying out here. Have you seen the hospital admission rates in Pride Rock? No, thank you.

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Wait, does that also mean the one in Los Angeles, the one in Anaheim is opening?

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No, just the one in Florida. Oh, no. Oh God, yeah.

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I don't think the one in L.A. would be opening. That sounds crazy. They're opening either one of them is crazy.

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It's a crazy thing to do. I understand that all of these businesses, large and small, have these incredibly terrible set of choices before them. Like, I get that. But I'm not that sympathetic honestly about Disney World. I'm obviously sympathetic more for like small businesses where they're just in a state of, you know, personal financial ruin, a little like, yeah, mom and pop operations like Disney.

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You really you guys give them a chance to reopen. Let. See how they can do this thing, you know, they've got funnel cakes to sell. It is hard to make a funnel cake at home. Republican governor, Republican Governor Kevin State of Oklahoma tested positive for the coronavirus after attending Trump's Tulsa rally and refusing to wear a mask. But at least it was for a good cause.

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Destroying the country after testing Positive still told reporters.

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I'm probably getting tons of text right now from other governors around the country, at which point a bunch of governors were like, I got to fucking Texas guy.

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Now I got to say, get well soon. That's this relationship.

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I just did a fucking we're friends, some text pals with him. No, thank you. Fucking idiot.

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The funny thing about that joke is that you it's like one of the many things in the last four years where you didn't need a joke at all. You just had to say the thing that he was at a rally that at the rally didn't wear a mask, got coronavirus. That is the punchline. See you guys later. My job is done.

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Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was like, you know, coronavirus is a huge, huge asshole. But occasionally there's a bigger there's a bigger one.

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But also, like, knows how to maybe make a joke.

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I don't want to say it's not funny. There's a sense of humor. It's got a little little bit this week.

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I'd rather I'd rather have a beer with Coronavirus than Donald Trump. I'll tell you that much. What does that mean?

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What does it mean? I like it. I like it. I know what you mean.

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I know what you mean. Yet it's take my chances. This week, Brazilian President Jer Bulsara was bitten by an emu. Obviously, we really hope he's OK.

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We wouldn't want him to catch covid from biting Bolsin Arrow at Misdirect. We thought you were talking about both Ainaro, but you were talking about the Ibou. Oh. Oh that is where that's comedy.

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That's where it is comedy also.

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No, but seriously I hope they're testing the image because I just you know. Yeah I good. The worst person you could be fighting right now.

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Protect the ammo. Yeah. Also this week, prosecutors, as at Ghislain Maxwells bail hearing claim that she has a secret husband twist.

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It's Lindsey Graham that I would really not see that coming.

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That's what makes it such a that's it turns out like that's what they have on him.

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That's what they have. Right. You didn't go A to B, you went A to B to C, and then you jumped over to G. G is Lindsey Graham.

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The G stands for him from A to B to Lady G this.

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Oh, by the way, did you know that Ghislaine or Ghislaine. What sort of Ghislaine. I don't know how to pronounce your name anyways. I try not to know the very many human traffickers in general.

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Right.

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But she like what I didn't actually realize about her until kind of recently. Was that how rich she is herself? Like I thought she was like side hustling a human trafficking gig because she needed the money for some reason, like in my mind, I was trying to rationalize why someone would ever do something so totally, totally horrific. And she does not need the money. She's just a monster. Not that needing the money would even be a rationale, but you know what I'm saying?

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I just didn't know how rich she was.

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There's real like sexism in the coverage in odd ways. Like she's constantly referred to as like an a paramour or associate in a strange way.

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And because of that, like it's oddly like objectifying in which she's not treated like a central part of what is ultimately an international criminal conspiracy.

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It's weird know exactly like she's a boss. She is like one of the main monsters. She's not like some sort of, like assistant. It's like ridiculous how we've been talking about her. Yeah, it's strange.

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Also, this week, it was announced that Chipotle plans to hire 10000 new employees for locations with Drivethrough. This is obviously good news. We are on our way to what I believe will be Chipotle's final form, a feedback that attaches directly to your face.

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That is the goal that has been there. That is, remember when Netflix was like, yeah, we're starting with DVDs, but we're eventually going to streaming. Chipotle is like bowls are an intermediate step.

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Those are where we start, but it is not where we end. We have a vision and we're almost there. The next step is just long giant balls.

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They will call them trough place and then they move to a feedbag model. And honestly, I'm on board. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm sick of bringing the fork to my face.

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I think your vision is like is a little short sighted because you need to go from face to then I'm going to just make it gross for like a quick second, please, because there's opportunities for, like the back end where that then goes into like an act like a some sort of like recycling, you know, waste management system and then turns it back into a Chipotle product.

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What you. What you're talking about is a Chipotle enema. That's what you're talking about.

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Yes, Chipotle enema also sounds like something, you know, weird that people named Lena do anyways.

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But Butko up now. We got to move forward. We got to move forward. I'm so sorry, but Portale all right. To prevent terrible people. Do you guys. I apologize for this whole thing. I apologize.

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This is what we do for our jobs. This is our profession.

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This is our 10000.

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Be the last thing we ever get to say, both of us.

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This week, the Twitter accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and others were hijacked to promote a Bitcoin scam before Wednesday.

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The biggest hack in the history of Twitter was Mike Huckabee.

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It was also impossible for any verified person on Twitter to tweet for over two hours, a huge blow to the Lincoln Project.

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OK, the Lincoln Project is everyone's like favorite K pop band right now, you know? I mean, they're like everyone is talking about loving them like like jamming to their ads. Like it is just.

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Yeah, yeah. Is it like are they good? Are they bad. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just saying keep talking about them like I don't want to say, like I'm glad that everybody's doing everything they can at this guy. Am I donating to this organization? Am I just going to support progressive organizations? Are they going to support progressive organizations?

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But I'm not going to begrudge the only group of people inside of Republican politics that showed even the tiniest shred of conscience. So I'm conflicted feelings, conflicted feelings.

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I'll I'll click on an ad. I'll watch. You know, you're going to be doing a great job. You agree?

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And on Tuesday, the Trump administration carried out the first federal execution since 2003 after the Supreme Court gave the OK. A second federal execution took place soon after a recent Gallup poll found Americans support life sentences over executions by 62 36 percent. And a historic shift in this country which has long preferred the death penalty. When you add these executions to Trump's current death toll due to the mismanagement of the pandemic, he has almost earned enough points for concierge's status.

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Oh, I'm sorry, I can I. Wow. It's bold to even approach that topic in the joke writing.

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I consider myself an old idea.

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I just want to applaud you for for taking that kind of a risk.

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And, you know, what do you say? It's awful. Jeff Sessions was defeated by Trump favorite and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville in the race for the Republican Senate nomination.

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When asked for comment, Sessions said, I leave elective office with my integrity intact before crawling through a small opening in the side of a fallen oak tree where he stores his food and trinkets, eventually drifting off to sleep while swaddled in a Confederate flag.

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The end, huh? That was that was like the most fun. You remember the day he's just for for Jeff Sessions is just like looking back at the day that he decided to endorse Donnie.

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He was first and like how it ruined his life.

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Like, I'm going to support this guy for president. Why not? And the wife's like, sounds like a great idea, you know what I mean?

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What could happen? They went, what could happen?

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What's the worst? What's the worst that could happen? It's not like you're going to lose your job, you know, become a pariah.

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With coronavirus cases on the rise in Southern California, officials in Los Angeles and San Diego announced that schools would remain fully remote in the fall. And now even the popular kids will know what it's like to eat lunch alone. It's fine.

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It's fine. It's not that it's not that bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did it. I did it a few times.

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Guys, am I hiding when I say a few times, am I hiding dozens other of other times.

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Hundreds of other times we don't know.

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But just right now I'll say I did it a few times and so I'm still working through some stuff, not ready to fully, fully process her high school years and my cats in ninth grade Elena's.

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On Thursday, a five minute video surfaced of Superman actor Henry Cavill using his huge muscles to custom build a PC.

[00:22:11]

Oh, I didn't even see that. Is that first of all, people are still doing that. It was it did it look like one of those see through telephones from the nineties that I had as a child?

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Sorry, I was just thinking about Cavill. I wasn't paying attention. It's fine. We should see what's going on. Never mind. We move on. What? Yeah, whatever you said. Sure. It's good.

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Add a pizza to that video and I'll have to leave society.

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And it's like it's like the quarantine has been worth it for sure. For sure. One of. And finally, in a statement Friday, Ruth Bader Ginsburg disclosed that she once again has cancer, that she previously underwent treatment that was not successful at some point earlier this year. But since May, she has been undergoing chemotherapy that has been effective and she plans to continue working and to remain on the court.

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I've said this before, but Ruth Bader Ginsburg genes have the powerful longevity properties of tiny Ashkenazi Jews.

[00:23:10]

When I was born, when I was born, both of my grandmothers, three of my great grandmother's and my great great grandmother were all around, with the exception of one grandmother, Bessie. These were all diminutive Jews. But you got to hang on, Ruth.

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As of Saturday morning, it is one hundred and eight days until the election. It is 186 days until Inauguration Day. And if McConnell so much as hears a faint, steady tone, she'll be replaced by a 43 year old right wing lawyer who believes in only two things rigorous daily exercise and stopping abortions.

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Oh, first of all, fuck that cancer.

[00:23:45]

So hard for reappearing and all that shit like fuck that cancer. And yeah, I mean, I'm not even going to feel nervous because I believe in her genetic makeup so thoroughly.

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I believe in medical science and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in equal measure.

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So I choose not to be worried about this issue.

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And I will just end by saying one more time, if Ruth Bader Ginsburg still has a lip on her shower stall, if she has to step over anything to bathe, I'm going to fucking lose it.

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The most important and dangerous place in America is any room with a wet floor.

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And Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I'll even throw in like I don't want to even see grand molding in her home, like any lip of a between a doorway and nothing.

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I don't want any like let's give that woman some smooth surfaces, but with firm grip.

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Firm grip. I like railings. I want I'll take some shag carpet you know. That'll be OK. Yeah. Yeah. That's how unpadded floors. Negin John. Love it.

[00:24:51]

It's been so lovely to have you. Oh thank you so much for having me. This was really fun. This was super fun. I think you're a great monologist.

[00:25:00]

Oh.

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Which is not what they call these model people who do these monologues. They call them comedians and. Oh, great comedian as well.

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Well, I mean, I'm I'm such a fan of yours. You're a delight and charming and funny and wise. And it's and and I'm so excited to see you and I hope to see you in person someday again. Soon.

[00:25:22]

Someday again. Soon we will. Thank you. When we come back, my conversation with Congressman Adam Schiff. Don't go anywhere. There's more of love it or leave it coming up. Love it or leave it is brought to you by Tommy. John wants to know the secret to saying sweat free. This summer. I recommend Tommy John's ultra breathable underwear and bras.

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And, you know, if I'm recommending a bra, you can take that to the fucking bank.

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Yeah, this broken love it recommended.

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It's a seal of approval.

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That's it. That's all there is to it.

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Love it or leave it is brought to you by Open Farm. Open Farm is the first pet food brand to offer full traceability and every recipe. Enter the lock code on the side of your bag to see the origin of every ingredient, every single one of open farms. Meal starts with hearty protein rich meats like they're grass fed wangu beef. Wow. All right. Ocean wise approved of willcock Pacific salmon. Then they add non GMO fruits and veggies like pumpkin and spinach with absolutely no fillers such as corn or so you'll see the difference in their energy, their coats and their poop.

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You can really that's where you get this experience. But I find that you can really tell when a dog's eaten wag you from there.

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Shit, I heard that pundit on any kind of other beef.

[00:27:45]

No, she likes to make sure it has that that the marbling you only see in true wangu beef that she always checks for the because she just she just bends over and she pushes it away with her nose, she pushes his way, she goes to the French Laundry, her only the finest little monster.

[00:28:03]

The truth is actually pundit does have allergies.

[00:28:06]

I do have to be careful about the ingredients and I've been giving her the open farm beef and salmon combo Freeze-Dried food, and she loves it.

[00:28:14]

She's going to town. I only found out now that there might be wangu in it and I'm thinking maybe I'll give her my food. Not her because I'm not. You boost your best friend's bowl with a range of dry and wet food supplements and Topper's like our collagen backbone broths. Oh I also put some of that on her old food and she really loved that too. Whether you're a new puppy parent or your pet has been in the family for years.

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And we're back. Joining us today, he is my congressman. He's also the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Please welcome back, Adam Schiff. It's great to be with you. So thanks for taking the time. You know, the past week, there's a lot of this broke at the end of the week, but I really wanted to talk to you about it. So we had the commutation of Roger Stone sentence. We had the Supreme Court with a bunch of important rulings on congressional subpoenas.

[00:29:20]

On top of that, Bill Barr has still continue to do his thing of steadily eroding the Department of Justice, putting in lackies, getting rid of career people, people that he doesn't consider loyal to the president.

[00:29:32]

In the wake of the Roger Stone commutation, you basically made the argument that the remedy is the election. And I totally appreciate that. I agree with that. Everything should be focused on that way of holding Trump accountable and saving the country. But I actually just wanted to talk to you a little bit about what you imagining happening after. And as much as we need to focus on the election, the one area where I think I actually just don't know what happens, you know, let's say we are fortunate enough to do what we have to do to defeat Trump.

[00:29:57]

We have these rulings that mean we're not getting tax returns until maybe next year.

[00:30:02]

How do you imagine your role in looking back when Trump is gone, if Trump is gone, to make sure we get to the bottom of what happened, that we undo some of these cover ups, that we look into some of the ways in which Bill Barr tried to subvert the justice system, what what is your sort of overarching goal next year to make sure we don't let some of these crimes just pass us by?

[00:30:25]

Well, I would say a few things. First, I would say that between now and the fall, our goal has to be exposure of all the wrongdoing. Let the people see what they have in Donald Trump, how much corruption there is, how much corruption there is of the people around him. Expose that to the sunlight because we know the Republicans aren't going to take action to hold anybody accountable. They proved that during the impeachment when we presented overwhelming evidence of other abuses of power.

[00:30:52]

So up until November, I think exposure of wrongdoing after the election, after he's gone, then I think we have to continue to expose what he did while he was in office, because, of course, the administration has stonewalled us in every way it can. It has stonewalled every subpoena, every request for information. So there's a lot more evidence of the president's wrongdoing that is being withheld and will be withheld as long as he's in office. But it's also going to be vitally important.

[00:31:22]

And indeed, I hope that we'll be introducing this package soon to introduce and pass into law a whole set of our own post Watergate reforms or Trump gate reforms that attack the abuse of the pardon power, that strengthen the independence of the Justice Department, that protect inspector generals, that provide for expedited court process, for congressional subpoenas, that have an enforcement mechanism for the emoluments clause. Any number of things that we thought were inviolate norms that we now realize, no, you can violate these.

[00:31:54]

As long as one party has become a cult of personality around the president, you can violate these norms with impunity. We need to put this into law. So that package is going to be very important. We will hopefully introduce it even if we can't get it made law this year. I think that will be a very early priority in the new Congress in terms of the president is a liability and people around him. That will be a difficult decision for Joe Biden and for his attorney general because, you know, the evidence is there.

[00:32:26]

If you look at just one example, the Justice Department indicted Michael Cohen for a campaign fraud scheme that was directed and coordinated by individual one, Donald Trump. They argue that Michael Cohen should go to jail for his participation in that scheme. So what is the argument to say? Well, Michael Cohen should go to jail, but the guy that did the directing and did the coordinating should get a pass. That's a difficult argument to make, but it's an issue that Joe Biden will have to weigh given the circumstances after the election.

[00:32:59]

But I think those are all the steps we have to undertake exposure now, exposure later reforms and ultimately up to the Justice Department and the new president in terms of what repercussions go beyond that.

[00:33:13]

Do you see as part of this legislation any strengthening of the ways by which Congress can enforce its subpoenas? Absolutely.

[00:33:19]

And in fact, I would put near the top of the list expedited court process for the enforcement of congressional subpoenas. You know, we may go beyond that and revive inherent contempt as well, but there has to be a mechanism to enforce our oversight function in Congress. Otherwise, Congress becomes a paper tiger incapable of holding any administration to account. So many of the other reforms are going to live or die upon whether Congress can enforce them. And to enforce them, you need to be able to do oversight.

[00:33:50]

So, yes, I would put that very near the top of the list.

[00:33:53]

Yeah, there was this strange moment where when the Supreme Court ruling first came out. Even Trump was lambasting the ruling on Twitter, but somebody had to go into his office and say, actually, you know, Mr. President, they may be saying you're not above the law in theory, but in practice, they're kicking the can. In practice, we can go through, you know, basically an entire congressional term and not have a subpoena enforced. Do you plan on following through on these subpoenas?

[00:34:17]

You know, there's ones that have come out of your committee. There's ones that have come out of ways and means, a few others. Do you plan on enforcing those subpoenas next year?

[00:34:24]

Well, we plan on enforcing them this year. And in fact, we've asked for expedited action by the Supreme Court to send the decision back immediately so that we can go back into the Court of Appeals or the district court and get these records. So we're going to pursue them now. They may very well be able to stonewall up and through the fall. You know, frankly, for me, the issue is less about getting the records before November. It's more about getting them when the country is at risk.

[00:34:53]

We don't know why this president is so beholden to Vladimir Putin. Is it just his affinity for dictators or is it just his admiration for Putin? Is it his insecurity or is it his financial interests in Russia or with Russian oligarchs? This is why the withholding of these financial records is dangerous, because we don't know whether the president is compromised. At least we don't know what is compromised by his financial holdings. And so that's not dependent on November. That's an issue right now.

[00:35:25]

It's been an issue for the last year or two years that we've been trying to get these records. So we're going to persist with that litigation. We hope to get it this year. But if we don't, we'll continue until we do, because the country deserves indeed needs, I think, full answers.

[00:35:39]

Thanks for talking about this, because I do think on the one hand, you know, I'm with you. We have the remedy. We got to get him out. Everything is hinges on getting him out. And honestly, looking too far past that right now is a luxury I don't think we can afford. We're in the middle of this pandemic. We're in the middle of a crisis. He's a lawless person, is he's supported by these Republicans in the Senate.

[00:35:56]

We have to do everything we can to save the country by removing him. The only value I think, right now and looking forward is I worry. And I think others worry that next year we have a Democratic president, Democratic Congress, God willing, there's going to be a pandemic, an economic crisis. There's going to be an opportunity to pass some of the most progressive legislation in history. It is going to be a genuine opportunity to move this country forward in a profound way, hopefully, hopefully.

[00:36:22]

And in that context, I can see a lot of pressure on people like you who have this oversight responsibility to say, look, with impeachment, there was political blowback. The most important thing is getting these pieces of legislation done. Why are we looking backwards? You know, we fail to look backwards in a lot of respects after Watergate, Iran-Contra, after the Bush crimes. There's this habit we have after a politician leaves office to say it's time to move forward.

[00:36:46]

How do you resist that pressure? How do you commit to making sure we look backwards and get to the bottom of all of this so that we know what happened and can prevent it from happening again?

[00:36:56]

Well, that's just you know, it's not just to look backwards. It's a look back to protect the future without understanding exactly the magnitude of this president's depravity and those around him without analyzing what went wrong, then we're not going to remedy the situation. So to me, it's all about protecting the future. But we can't do that. Being ignorant of what's happened in the past, they may very well be some of that dynamic that you mentioned. The people want to say, you know, let's move forward, let bygones be bygones.

[00:37:27]

Let's turn our attention purely in a forward direction. But I think it would be a terrible mistake to think that Donald Trump could not recur. I mean, it certainly could recur in the form of Donald Trump. He will be at this point, a former one term president, but it could recover very well and other people that lack basic morality. And so I think it's going to be very important to make sure we follow up that we do what's necessary, that we learn the scope of misconduct in this administration, that we hold everyone accountable and that we pass laws to protect the country going forward.

[00:38:01]

You know, similarly and apropos of what you're saying about the pandemic, I introduced a bill a month or two ago. Senator Feinstein introduced the Senate version just within this week to establish a 9/11 commission to analyze what went wrong with our handling of the pandemic as a nation. Why we have the worst response in the world instead of the best response. Now, you could say and this bill won't take effect until next year. That is, the commission wouldn't be formed until next year.

[00:38:28]

Well, why bother looking back when Donald Trump is gone, we know how responsibly was for so much of this. We do need to look back. We need a full accounting of all the reasons why we failed to stop this pandemic and how we protect against it or another one like it in the future. So I think those look backs are very important to protect the country going forward.

[00:38:48]

Thank you. Before I let you go, I did want to ask you two lightning round questions in a segment we are calling Shift into Higher Gear.

[00:38:56]

That's the lesson we're all stuck at home. I don't think we're operating on our best, to be honest. Question number one now, Roger Stone has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back. You're in the tattoo parlor chair. You have to get a tattoo of a politician on your back. You are offered Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Who do you get? You have four seconds to decide.

[00:39:15]

Are you really going to open up that fight? No. No, I'm not. All right, Carex, you got it. Next question. Next question.

[00:39:25]

If it doesn't have to be a nominee, I would probably pick the dude.

[00:39:28]

Oh, wow. OK, just a just a huge just really makes Big Lebowski a big part of your personality. Really makes it a much bigger party. That's a very big part of your personality.

[00:39:38]

Next question.

[00:39:40]

When we last spoke, you admitted, you know, look, because I'm a ferocious interviewer, I think you sort of withered under cross-examination that you lapsed in your veganism in the midst of the impeachment because I knew you were going to go there.

[00:39:54]

Look, we've all done some emotional eating in the past few weeks. I can only imagine from your point of view, seeing Roger Stone commuted might have caused this, but have you had a lapse?

[00:40:05]

Have you had a veganism lapse recently? I have.

[00:40:09]

I broke down and I ate some salmon jerky. Let me tell you, it was pretty awesome. Congressman, but I want you to know it was it was it was wild salmon jerky and wow, you're crazy.

[00:40:22]

You're a wild guy. Listen, if you're going to get a cheeseburger, come on.

[00:40:27]

You know, I decided to throw caution to the wind. Salmon jerky is your cheat. Wow. OK. Chairman Adam Schiff, thank you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. And stay safe and we'll see you again soon.

[00:40:39]

You too. Great talking to you.

[00:40:40]

When we come back, Mikhail Watkins', don't go anywhere. Love it or leave it. And there's more on the way.

[00:40:47]

Love it or leave it is brought to you by Stamps.com with stamps. You can print postage on demand and skip those lines and crowds at the post office. Plus, you can actually save some money with discounts that you can't even get at the post office. As if that wasn't enough, Stamps.com offers up services with discounts up to 62 percent and no UPS residential surcharges. Stamps.com brings all the services of the U.S. Postal Service right to your computer in the safety and comfort of your own home office or anywhere else.

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That's Stamps.com enter. Love it. Stay safe out there.

[00:41:41]

And we're back here to explain her thinking. She's from one of the country's richest families and currently serves as a secretary of education. Betsy Davos, thank you so much for joining us. To be honest, Madam Secretary, I'm a bit surprised you agreed to come on the show.

[00:41:55]

Oh, Jonathan, I'm actually a huge fan. It stinks.

[00:42:01]

Oh, I think I. I think I understand what happened. OK, all right. Let's dive in.

[00:42:05]

Lots of parents and teachers and administrators, they're very nervous about opening schools, given the administration's failure to contain the virus. What are you saying right now to worried parents across the country?

[00:42:16]

Jonathan, these concerns are exaggerated. First of all, it's very difficult for children to be infected. Their noses are quite small. But also, I find it offensive that anyone would think we treat our children like, well, I quite like test subjects like rhesus monkeys in their early years of the space race, just putting on those little helmets and strapping them in their little seats, sending them on an adventure to outer space. Actually, that's that's kind of a sweet analogy.

[00:42:50]

Yeah.

[00:42:51]

Terrifying. Just terrifying stuff. Well, you've never been to space. Clearly, I haven't been to space.

[00:42:57]

But, you know, a lot of those monkeys, they didn't make it home. Oh, well, you know, show me someone who missed their space monkey and I'll show you an island in Florida.

[00:43:17]

Well, you know, the point is, Jonathan, is that we have a plan. And for instance, doctor putting him in quotes, Foushee says that we should keep a minimum of six feet apart at all times. But I say, why do a bare minimum? I say place desk's 20 feet apart. If the classroom isn't big enough for that, just use one of the school's grand banquet halls. And I know your concern. I know it, Jonathan.

[00:43:46]

I know. But obviously, given the pandemic, sacrifices must be made and our doctors will simply have their coming out party over Zun.

[00:43:56]

I'm sorry, did you say Grand Banquet Hall?

[00:43:59]

Well, well, Jonathan, they don't have to be grand. I know some of these 19th century institutions really Scampton ceiling height, so don't get me started. But if your banquet halls are substandard, just use the polo grounds.

[00:44:15]

As long as we're careful to protect our precious horses from exposure to the children protecting horses, kids are not going to respect social distancing rules.

[00:44:23]

They are kids. And we still don't know the long term impact of this illness and we still have rising cases.

[00:44:28]

I think that that's why everyone on staff needs to wear face coverings, teachers, counselors, headmasters, you name it, head headmasters.

[00:44:39]

What are you talking about? Of course, head masters, Jonathan. Headmasters. Yes, rules are rules. I don't care if you're a groom of the stool, you're in a mask. For pupils, that mask must be in your house colors. How about that? For example, if a child is associated with done script house, let's just say they're wearing a mask in Bedford Blue and their mask will be removed immediately and done. Script House will be docked ten points to Secretary Darvas.

[00:45:12]

I have to stop you. First of all, I don't know what a. The stool is fascinated to find out what that is, but what about public schools? You're in charge of public schools. You're supposed to be in charge of helping them.

[00:45:24]

Are you suggesting public school children won't care about their house points?

[00:45:31]

I think you're underestimating children. I mean, I just don't think, you know, children at all.

[00:45:37]

House points wild. Also, we're going to be requiring all one time used items like textbooks and teachers, things like that. They just get disposed of once they're contaminated.

[00:45:50]

And the minute a book is returned to the library, it must be promptly burned.

[00:45:55]

Secretary, it seems crazy. School budgets are tight. They can't afford to throw away books. There's no resources for this.

[00:46:03]

Well, then let them do that. Donors choose situation they love so much. You can't see me, but I'm rolling my eyes.

[00:46:09]

I, I don't think teachers like buying their own supplies on donors choose. Then why do they do it every year.

[00:46:16]

Secretary device.

[00:46:17]

Betsy, if I can call you Betsy. Listen, public schools do not have ballroom's or horses or house points. They barely have enough space in their classrooms to fit all the students. There's no money for medical supplies. There's no money for ordinary supplies.

[00:46:31]

Oh, OK. I don't care. What do you mean you don't care? What do I mean by. I don't care, OK? I act like I care and most of the time I even believe that I care. But if I actually truly care, if I really cared, I'd resign. I don't belong in this job. I'm just a very rich person who donated to powerful people with my family's money when I wasn't investing in Theranos and failed Broadway musicals.

[00:47:04]

So it was absurd to accept that job. It's genuinely, genuinely evil not to make room for an actual expert during this crisis. I don't know how to help public school children. I wouldn't really want to if I had to. I don't actually have any discernible skills, even if I tried. So you're as qualified as I am, Jonathan, and you're just an actor from that 2001 film Rat Race still.

[00:47:32]

Then why why secretary divorce, why do this? Well, for starters, let's look at my life. I mean, my brother is a literal mercenary war profiteer. My husband got rich on multi level marketing. There are no moral guardrails in my life. And money meant I've never actually had to be forced to show greater courage or integrity or when, you know, might have cost me.

[00:47:59]

But even though I'm unqualified and oblivious, I'm also white and rich and middle aged and dressed like Liddy Dole. So the only difference between me and, say, Konya is I know what to tell my Schopper to buy it. Niemans to make old white senators feel at ease.

[00:48:17]

Please, please resign. Please. No, thank you. Oh, there's no crying in baseball.

[00:48:24]

Gabai, Betsy, Betsy, devas everyone. And well Betsy divorce is gone. And who's here in the Zoome. It's Mikhaila Watkins. Thank you so much for being here. You just missed you just as Secretary of Education.

[00:48:41]

Betsy Derrieres. Oh my gosh. She was right there. I know.

[00:48:44]

She ask austerity. Did she offer anything, you know, helpful about how you're going to bring kids back safely? No, nothing. Nothing.

[00:48:54]

Just an imposition and a kind of a lovely Oscar de la Renta jacket.

[00:48:59]

It's very slick. Oh, John, that's a real surprise. I mean, she's so she just seems so on the ball.

[00:49:05]

Yeah, no, it was I expected to get more firm answers. I just got a lot of nonsense. Megalith, thank you again. Thank you so much. It was so fun. Thank you for doing this.

[00:49:14]

You want firm answers, you should ask her about groom of the stool, the groom of the stool.

[00:49:20]

We come back, I'll be joined by Zeynep Tufekci. And it was a really good conversation. She's somebody that looks at the intersection of social media and politics and science. And it was a great conversation about the state of our response to the pandemic.

[00:49:33]

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

[00:49:36]

Love it or leave it is brought to you by better help. Is something preventing you from achieving your goals yet. Twenty. Twenty. Yeah. This year.

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The year boy John the writers ha really went far this year man. I think they've put too many ideas into this season of America.

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[00:50:52]

Love it and we're back.

[00:50:56]

She is a writer for The Atlantic and The New York Times, a professor at the University of North Carolina and author of the book Twitter and Teargassed. Please welcome back. Zeynep Tufekci. Thanks for being here. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:51:06]

So you've been writing extensively about the coronavirus and what happens when science meets social media, when science meets politics. You've been talking about Mass for some time. You wrote about it in May. You signed an open letter with other scientists urging politicians to take more serious measures about mass. It does feel like right now we've been having this conversation for a while. It's obviously ridiculous that it took until now for Trump to put a mask on. But what in your mind is the most helpful way to move the conversation forward right now?

[00:51:33]

Because a lot of the times it feels like it's a bunch of people who understand why masks are important talking to each other.

[00:51:39]

And we know from polls that 70 percent of the country thinks mass should be required, 80 percent. No, they make a difference. So what are your thoughts there?

[00:51:46]

So I think one of the major confusions around this was the idea that masks wouldn't protect the wearer perfectly. And that is correct. Especially cloth masks are not going to protect the wearer. But what they do is they protect the transmission of the virus to other people. And that's especially important because with SARS, the earlier version of the same coronavirus, we got lucky. People were infectious when they had fever here. People are infectious before that.

[00:52:16]

So what we're trying to do with getting everybody to wear masks is to stop the spread of the virus from people who don't even know that they're infected to other people. The second thing, I think that's really important. To understand is that it's kind of like measuring air pollution, so when you want to bring air pollution down, you would put a filter on the exhaust pipes of the car. Right. But then to understand whether air is clearer, you don't measure the air inside the very car.

[00:52:52]

So when people wear the mask and then we look at, you know, did it protect the wearer, we're doing the wrong measurement. What we're trying to do is, is our air all of our common air clean. Right. It's not that only that car that just put a filter on what that car, by putting a filter on, protected everyone else.

[00:53:09]

The third thing here is that masks even help the wearer a little bit with a lot of these kinds of viruses. The initial dose matters, right? There's a lot of young health care workers who've died tragically. And part of the reason that for them it's the higher risk is there are around patients all the time and they're doing procedures that generate these little aerosols that they're just ingesting a lot. If you're wearing a mask and you're still infected, perhaps because the mask is not like a medical mask or something.

[00:53:40]

And ninety five cents, not 100 hundred percent for you, but if it's cutting down, your dose is absolutely helping you have a milder version of it most of the time. So from every kind of perspective we can talk about and I kind of find it tragic that it became politicized because it's the one thing you can tell people you can do this both to protect your community and probably, to some degree, help protect yourself a little like there's no other tool we have that is that efficacious for that little bang for the buck?

[00:54:11]

What I just told you, this is not a lot of thing to communicate. And I just can't believe six months in, we're still having to explain pretty much what the scientists have more or less figured out. And it's not that complicated and we're still fighting over it, which is tragic.

[00:54:29]

Well, that's why I want to ask you about. So now, at first I think there was some defenses around masks. There was a fear about masks being courted. And maybe they're honestly with some intellectually dishonest information about masks early on where really what they were saying was not masks won't help you, but actually masks will help doctors more.

[00:54:49]

But that was now months ago.

[00:54:50]

At this point, it seems as though there's a consensus around masks. You know, we've seen Democratic leaders and many Republican leaders at this point talking about masks. You have Trump allies. You have people like Ted Cruz refusing to wear masks. You have others refusing to wear masks. Yes, it is politicized. But it seems to me what we're talking about is a group of Republicans have rejected the science and that they are engaged in politics while everybody else is trying to stop them from doing that.

[00:55:18]

And the country seems to get it right. As I said, 70 percent of the country thinks Mashaba required 80 percent, according to a poll today says they believe masks can help control the spread.

[00:55:27]

So I want to come back to that question, which is what do we do about this minority of people led by a propaganda apparatus that have politicized masks when we need them to do the right thing to protect everybody?

[00:55:39]

Some of the early adopters of mask of messaging were Republican senators and some governors, even because it fits the individual responsibility model. Right. It's something you can do now. I think there's a lot of things the government should do, but this was the one thing you could tell individuals to do. And there are some early Republicans who are kind of trying to get on board and saying, wait, this is a good idea. Like we do this, we get out of lockdown.

[00:56:04]

It's a win win. It fits. There's no ideological problem. It just got twisted from Trump down. Yeah. And that tells you the GOP is Trump's party, like when we were having difficulty convincing a lot of Democrats, even though some of the Republicans had jumped on board. But then Trump went around with his don't need to wear this. I maybe I personally won't wear one. And then after that, you see the polarization, too. That's really tragic because it was a low cost intervention.

[00:56:35]

We also had this dismissal of East Asian expertise, because early on when I was writing and saying, look, there's all this preponderance of evidence in favor of masks, a lot of doctors and CDC and everybody kind of came late to that, partly because the Western establishment, even in Europe, was not taking the East Asian expertise seriously in Hong Kong and South Korea and Taiwan. I mean, they dealt with SARS, too, right? That there's a lot of their top notch people there and they weren't listening to them.

[00:57:05]

And masks bring a collective good in Western countries, and especially the English tradition has a hard time wrapping its head around something that doesn't necessarily help you directly. And I think of just went against the way we tend to think.

[00:57:25]

I mean, historians are going to look at it and say, what did they fight about really? Because, again, it's such an easy intervention and what you. Mentioned earlier the early messaging that they might be unhelpful or even harmful was more about the shortage, right? I think that was very damaging. Yeah, you know, we're a nation facing a catastrophe. I mean, it's not a moment to lie to us for our own good. But in the messaging, what we weren't told was, look, there's a shortage and we need to preserve them for health care because I think people would have stepped up.

[00:57:55]

So that really added to the confusion, this perfect storm of all these things that came together. I mean, I told Trump quite responsible for a lot of this. It's so obvious what he's done wrong. But in reality, there was a lot of articles published and, you know, liberal or mainstream media that considered mask wearing almost like superstitious.

[00:58:18]

It's just something Asians do. Yeah. So there's some self-examination, I think that needs to happen.

[00:58:23]

So one other aspect of this has been how it's played out on social media. And it was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because, you know, I think I first became aware of your work in the way that you looked at how mass shootings spread online as an idea.

[00:58:36]

You know, I've been struck by these viral videos of people refusing to wear masks.

[00:58:42]

They are spread, I think, by people who are angry and frustrated that their fellow citizens are helping completely.

[00:58:48]

Absolutely. So what do you think is the consequence of this of these, like, sort of pro mask videos of anti mass people spreading? What do you think happens?

[00:58:57]

I'm so glad you asked about this, because I've been wanting to either talk about or write about it, because I think they're absolutely counterproductive right now. I get it right. People are frustrated and you find some person throwing a tantrum over a mask and that gets a million views or two million views. And I've been like looking around and I know Tick-Tock is kind of hard to follow because it's so obscure. It's also really viral on Tic-Tac.

[00:59:24]

It's merged with the Karen meme. Right. For one thing, people throwing a tantrum over mass, I'm sure happens. But it's not that common a thing. People are trying to do the right thing. The second thing is, once you make that into a martyrdom to the people who are like unhappy about this, it looks like everybody's like laughing at someone who's being victimized because they're against mass. And I think it's actually making people more reticent because we know from other kinds of research that if you shame people, it just backfires in trenches.

[00:59:59]

People. Now, I'm not saying like it's good and adulterers are stupid tantrum over a mass. I do not like that myself. But given that probe, like we're highlighting what I think is a super rare behavior, most people are just either wearing masks or maybe a little confused and are trying to say what's the right thing to do? And then you put it into the polarization machine. What ends up happening is that the people who are slightly on the other side of the polarization end up getting pulled into that polarization.

[01:00:31]

And what you can do is you can do the positive messaging we know from other public health and you give the positive message. You say you're helping people.

[01:00:40]

Thank you for your kindness. Yeah, because if you just sort of chastise the one person who's looking quite silly, I get it. The videos are funny and I get all the anger, but it sucks to put that distorted incentives that you talk about. We did with mass shootings. I put the person on loop. Yes. Ninety nine percent is looking. Oh, that's terrible. But there's that troubled young men thinking that showed you. Right. You do not want to feed that machine.

[01:01:08]

And so thanks for bringing that up.

[01:01:10]

Yeah, I've just honestly, it's because I've been following your work that I had that reaction. So you say most people are complying or are confused and then we highlight these sort of bad actors at the same time. You know, you've talked about how we focused on beaches and at the same time, you know, we also focused on sort of protest against mass, but really like the problem isn't necessarily beaches or mass. It's the kind of like day to day noncompliance, the day to day not taking it seriously.

[01:01:35]

The people who aren't avoiding mass as a political statement, but just because they can't be bothered or they're undisciplined or they're sick of it or they're hearing mixed messages, how do we stay focused on the right aspects of this?

[01:01:45]

We should have kept parks and beaches open. That's from the beginning, because the alternative socialization is indoors and that is just really risky and dangerous as opposed to being outdoors. I mean, this is a virus. UV light inactivates viruses and there's wind, so it dilutes. So people are going to socialize to some degree, especially young people. You're not going to have them absolutely not socialize for a whole year. We can convince them to do less. And to the degree they do it, we can try to do it in safer places.

[01:02:14]

So that was the one thing. But also what we saw is like I've been collecting some examples, like Eielson example, like an article in New York Times and Washington Post, L.A. Times, like across the political spectrum. And you'll see this article that says contact tracing has revealed that it's in those restaurants, bars. Meatpacking and poultry processing plants and most of the like in places like California, most of the people who are falling ill are poor people, low-wage workers, often African-American or Latino, who could not stay home.

[01:02:50]

Mm hmm. Right. They do not work on slack. I can work on Slack and Zoom. Right. These people have to go to work and they are working in unventilated indoor spaces. They do not have the right protections that even if they're wearing personally masks, just not enough protection per say. And that's who's falling ill. Even sometimes the article will explain this. What do you see in the photo? A bunch of people on a beach.

[01:03:14]

And I look at the pictures very often, the people are not within six feet, right? It's taken with a telephoto zoom. It kind of crams them, but sometimes it's not even. I mean, I've seen pictures from, you know, Jacksonville beaches that, you know, there's hardly anyone. And the title says Pack and also outdoors. I mean, I would personally feel a lot more comfortable, almost any distance outdoors compared to anything indoors.

[01:03:41]

I don't feel comfortable. Six foot indoors. I feel comfortable outdoors. And because I especially who on earth in a beach goes to a complete stranger and talks to them for 15 minutes, which is kind of the CDC guideline for, you know, really close. That's really unlikely. In fact, we do not have a single confirmed outbreaks. I'm not saying nobody could ever get infected at the beach, you know, especially if you talked at close distance with someone stranger.

[01:04:07]

But six months in, we know the victims. We know how they get infected. We know who they are and where it happens. And we have this absolutely misleading visual that is dominating and misleading people. Right. So I think there's this weird way in which we lost control of the science, in the messaging and both the politics and the moralizing have taken over on the left. And the Democrats, they noticed the politicization of masks and Trump and all of that, but they do not necessarily notice that all their newspapers are publishing these beach pictures and shaming young people when the data absolutely says it's poor people and it's restaurants and bars.

[01:04:51]

So we don't always see our own tribes sort of the way in which our own communication gets distorted. And also sort of in terms of social justice, it's hiding the actual victims is the major crisis we're not really addressing. I said this in an interview. It's like a starter pandemic in that it's not the worst possible virus. Like it's terrible, of course, and it's tragic, but it's a manageable one in the spectrum of the kind of viruses we could have a pandemic with.

[01:05:21]

We could have had the H5N1 or something like that be a pandemic with much higher fatality rates, more transmissible. So we got something that's like mid-sized and yet we're screwing this one up. Yeah. So I just kind of am afraid, you know what, if we do get one that spreads like measles and has, you know, fatality rates, something like H5N1, which is like 50, 60 percent at times, that's scary.

[01:05:45]

I mean, this is terrible, of course. I mean, the all the hundreds of thousands of dead people. It's crazy and scary and it's terrible. And yet, really, of all the pandemics we could have gotten, this is on the milder side, cold comfort.

[01:05:59]

One last question. We know it's going to worry about that another day.

[01:06:03]

The but it seems like for a long time we've been treating this like a crisis that's always a month away from being over. And so we haven't been doing these sort of long term things. You know, you talked about the fact that even now, six months in, we still haven't figured out protocols to make sure that people aren't forced to sort of go through traumatic medical procedures alone. Right. That's really doing away from their families, family members forced to be away from their families.

[01:06:29]

And even now in the conversation about, you know, what levels of risk we'll accept, it's not a really honest conversation about the fact that our failure means we're going to be dealing with this for months.

[01:06:40]

Yeah, we're not having an honest conversation from the beginning, I think, like flattening the curve. And I wrote an article in February explaining Flattening the Curve because I was like, we're not going to do this. And I watch that messaging evolve almost into like we're going to flatten the curve and be done rather than we need to flatten the curve as a breather for the hospitals while we get our shit together. Right. That was kind of what we needed to do and we didn't do that.

[01:07:05]

And after that, it was like a couple of weeks a lockdown. And we're done like, no, no. That's like we just sort of get the fire slightly lower, but it's still burning. Right. And now we're in the second thing and everybody's like, OK, this is out of control again. And the reality is, until we do the comprehensive solution, which includes the universal masking, which includes looking hard at ventilation, right now I'm seeing school districts try to open by putting herrnstein and.

[01:07:31]

Advisers into the school and not thinking about opening the windows. By all means, put the hand sanitizer in, wash your hands, but it's the ventilation that's driving this right. So you're not getting the proper, like six months in. Where is the sort of the ventilation considerations where the UBC lights may be near the docks and just to get the filters, all those things, open windows, do whatever we can outdoors. It's like six months. And there's so little outdoor transmission in the literature.

[01:08:01]

We should push everything we can as much as we can, including schooling to the degree possible. I'm not saying like a very hot place is going to do this, but whatever we can.

[01:08:10]

So we know what we need to do and we're not doing it. And the reality is the best case scenario is that we get better treatments throughout the fall and some mass vaccination campaign with a working vaccine sometime in spring of twenty one. And we can get back to a regular normal life in about a year from now. And what we do now is going to determine what that year is going to look like. Right. We can have that year with a lot more deaths.

[01:08:45]

Kids can't go to school, a lot of tragedy, hospitals overwhelmed. And what happens like cancer patients aren't getting treatment. There's like a lot of diseases. Vaccinations of children around the world are down. Right. There's all these costs we're paying by not fixing some of this. So we're either going to do it that way or we're going to get, you know, our act together and say, right, we're going to fix the stuff as much as we can and put the fire out and then just sort of try to coast till the vaccines and treatments are all right.

[01:09:14]

And from what I fear is that just by our both political and scientific communication crisis, we're just going to end up with the worst possible scenario by just sleepwalking into it. And tragically, it'll be the elderly who pay the price. Plus, I think especially younger kids another year away from school will be devastating for a lot of kids. Schools is the only structured safe space they have the American Academy of Pediatrics and the so-called. Because four of the parents are in this pressure cooker, the kids are under house arrest, but we're not even going to get them.

[01:09:52]

So we're going to have the very young and the very old pay a significant price because we can't get our act together. And I'm sorry to be so cheery, quote unquote. But the reality is, if we ignore this, it's going to hit us for another year like this. And that's what we're looking at.

[01:10:10]

Normally, I would like to find a silver lining, but we'll have to find it. There is none. The only silver lining is that this is like a crisis. That's not the worst possible virus. As I said, it's not the worst possible pandemic, but it's showing us every weakness we have. Yeah, it's showing us our political weaknesses. It's warning enough that it's got our attention because we've been warned before. We had the other SARS. We had this we we've been warned before that looked like we weren't going to pay attention.

[01:10:38]

So it's now serious enough. Maybe we're paying attention and then we can sort of look at old weaknesses that have been exposed and try to fix it. Yeah, and that's my silver lining, is like, can we learn from this Xanadu veggie.

[01:10:52]

Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's good to see you and stay safe. Thank you. You too. We come back, we'll end on a high note.

[01:11:01]

Don't go anywhere but love it or leave it and there's more on the way.

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You know, Tarsha used to go crooked and we're back because we all needed this week.

[01:13:08]

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

[01:13:10]

I love it to be from Arkansas. And this past week, I was officially elected and as the president of our local synagogue here in northwest Arkansas, I love to pray to God. And that was really meaningful. And I guess it was so much so that we had a few members cried. So I got to meet people, cry my first week, and that's a sign of something to do and doing something right. And anyhow, appreciate you. Appreciate all the defense of it.

[01:13:38]

Hey, John, my name is Chris. I live in Austin, Texas, and my hide out for the week was I'm finally after a month getting over the coronavirus. But in Austin, in Travis County, Texas, we are going to the Democratic primary runoff election. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to vote because I'm afraid of infecting my community and I won't do that. But here in Travis, we have curbside voting just like curbside pickup. So I was able to pull up a poll worker came out.

[01:14:07]

We all wear masks and I got to cast my vote for our progressive Democratic candidates here in Texas. So hopefully with curbside voting and keeping everybody safe, we're going to be able to help turn Texas blue. Thanks. Bye. Hi, this is Janine.

[01:14:24]

I'm from East Rockaway, Long Island, and I went with my two little kids to our first Black Lives Matter protests this weekend. And I was just excited to get out there and seeing people in our surprisingly from the neighborhood come out to support racial equality.

[01:14:44]

Thanks. I have a D.A. from Oklahoma.

[01:14:49]

I'm a tiny blue dot in a sea of red, and that's usually not so great about it. It's been a good couple of weeks for Oklahoma between enshrining Medicaid expansion and our state constitution and then the decision in the Supreme Court to feel a little hopeful. And also, I guess I was on Cherokee Nation land now, so I don't know what that means, but I'm looking forward to signing up and have a great day. Bye.

[01:15:14]

Thank you so much to all the listeners who called in this week.

[01:15:17]

If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at four to four three four one four one nine three. It is one hundred and eight days until the election. You can sign up for vote Save America right now to defeat Donald Trump, keep the House and win back the Senate. Thank you so much to this incredible group of guests, Negin Farsad, Congressman Adam Schiff, McKayla Watkins and Zeynep Tufekci.

[01:15:40]

Thank you to our grocery workers, truck drivers, delivery people, restaurant workers, flight attendants and everyone had to choose between staying safe and earning a paycheck. Thank you to our doctors and nurses and EMTs and first responders and thank you to our whole staff working to keep this show going out and crooked, going strong.

[01:15:55]

Have a great weekend. Love it or leave it as a crooked media production is written and produced by me, Jon Lovett, Alyssa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg and her head writer and the president of the East Side, or Biden writers Travis Helwig, Jocelyn Kaufman, Alicia Carroll, Peter Miller and Zach Oyama are the writers are assistant producer is Sidney Rapp, Bill Lantz's 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 our digital producers, Naar Melkonian and Miloje Kim for filming and editing video each week so you can.