Finally, Justice for Matt Gaetz

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Listen. All right.
Welcome to Love It or Leave It. Tonight on the show, Brian Jordan Alvarez shows hole punch.
Reggie Watts tunes up while I tune out. And to wrap it all up, Reggie, Brian, and I give doubling down a big old thumbs up.
Plus, again, I want to see what's on your minds tonight. So at the end of the show, we're just going to see what's on your minds.
What? We're done with high notes. We're simply done with them.
I have loved everybody's high notes, but we're doing something now called Joyride, which is instead of something big and important in your life, something small, fun, and distracting in your life. Or, in the case of last week, something big and distracting in your life.
It was about an orgasm. All right.
But first, let's get into it. What a week.
In the days since his reelection, Donald Trump has been announcing cabinet picks and White House appointees that reflect his desire to be surrounded with friends and allies, regardless of qualifications. This is of course known as the Adam Sandler doctrine.
This was, this was purely a joke. And we literally wrote it before we heard that Trump had actually nominated Rob Schneider to be the ambassador to Germany.
Yes. Yes.
Former SNL actor and current anti-vaxxer Rob Schneider, ambassador to Germany. Yes.
No, we made that up.

But you believed it. Because that's where we're at.
Trump first announced that Susie Wiles, his campaign co-chair and who is a former lobbyist, will serve as White House chief of staff, making her the first woman to ever hold that job. Thisie Wiles is a real keep the trains on time and on the tracks sort of person.
Who's on the trains? Where are they going? None of her business. Trump named Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be ambassador to the United Nations.
She is a once normie millennial Harvard Republican that was very critical of Trump, who used the first Ukraine impeachment to do a rebrand as a MAGA dunce. She ultimately joined a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election.
More recently, she famously tried to set a trap for those college presidents over anti-Semitism, which she didn't even get to use because they just jumped into the hole before she'd even have a chance to, like, spread branches over it.

It's like she had, like, had this whole line of questioning to lead them to a gotcha,

but they were just like...

Stefanik will direct that same pre-natagonism toward the United Nations,

and honestly, whatever, we've got bigger fish to fry.

Trump also named another former critic-cum-supplicant to a high-ranking foreign policy role, Marco Rubio has been chosen to be Secretary of State. When asked for comment, Rubio scurried under a thimble to escape a hungry robin, which I assume means he accepted.
Imagine if the person you were nine days ago could hear you saying, oh, thank God, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Imagine how hard you would punch you.
The rest of the nominations rolled out like this. For those listening at home, that was a scene from late Game of Thrones where a white walker runs towards Cersei Lannister.
Trump selected former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA. Zeldin doesn't have a specific track record or interest in environmental policy.
He has expressed skepticism of climate change, but his main qualifications seem to be being from New York and voting to overturn the election. And yeah, that pick sounded bad when Trump announced it back on Monday, but it's Thursday now.
And with Thursday comes perspective. So have at it, Mr.
Zeldin. When's the last time any of us really hung out in a marsh? You know, we have bigger fish to fry.
Tom Homan, acting ICE director during the first Trump administration and one of the architects of its family separation policy, will serve as borders are. This is distinct from Trump's other family separation policy, which is marked by some outright estrangement, but mostly a quiet deepening chasm between parents and children, marked not by angry conversations, but silences and unsent texts, plus a decision to simply split up into a wicked group and a gladiator two group.

Plus, Santa Monica fascist Stephen Miller

will come aboard as deputy chief of staff for policy,

fresh off his press tour for Nosferatu.

I hear he is phenomenal.

Trump announced Tuesday that he will nominate Arkansas governor and guy who unironically believes God is white, Mike Huckabee, to serve as ambassador to Israel. Big congrats to Israel, or as Mike Huckabee calls it, Jewtopia.
Huckabee said this about Israel's settlements earlier in the week. I think Israel has a title deed to Judea and Samaria.

There are certain words I refuse to use.

There is no such thing as a West Bank.

It's Judea and Samaria.

There's no such thing as a settlement.

There are communities, there are neighborhoods, there are cities.

There's no such thing as an occupation.

I mean, sure, we can all deny the existence of people and realities that complicate our worldview, I guess.

There's no such thing as a Mike Huckabee. Feels good to say.
Would be cool if it worked. On Tuesday, Trump named Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth as his Secretary of Defense, which again seemed like the craziest choice possible on Tuesday.
But here we are on Thursday, having lived a thousand lives,

all of them terrible. He previously considered Hegsa to head up Veterans Affairs during his first term, but was advised he probably wouldn't get confirmed by the Senate.
Here's a video of Pete throwing an axe at a drummer. Who's going to win this battle of the lumberjack? Then on Wednesday, Trump announced that former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard would serve as Director of National Intelligence.
Congrats to Tulsi, but an even bigger congrats to her FSB handlers. You guys crush this one.
Should someone who amplifies conspiracy theories and parrots Russian propaganda be put in charge of 18 spy agencies? A question for all of us to consider nine days ago. But amazingly, jaw-droppingly, the worst was yet to come.
As Trump announced Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz

as his pick for attorney general.

And you know what those magic words mean?

It's a hard reset on the simulation.

Any minute now. Here we go.

I wonder how far back we'll go this cycle.

I'd like to see Gravity in the theater for the first time again.

That was a fucking blast.

Ooh, wake up 2012.

About to find out I was going to shoot a pilot for NBC, a TV show with my name on it. It's going to be a hit any second now.
Here we go. Let's reset.
Any second. When a reporter asked GOP Congressman Mike Simpson whether he thought that Gates, who is despised, I remind you, not just by House Democrats, but by House Republicans, was fit to be Attorney General, Simpson replied, and this is a quote, are you shitting me that you just asked that question? No, but hell, you'll print that and now I'm going to be investigated.
What a perfect quote to encapsulate Trump's second term. Put it in the history books, countries that still have those four years from now.
Politico reporter Meredith Lee Hill also said she saw a House Republican laughing so hard about Gates's appointment that he started crying. The choice of Matt Gates did not sit well with many Senate Republicans, some of whom thought it was a literal joke.
He's got his work really cut out for him, a chuckling Joni Ernst told reporters. Said Susan Collins, I was shocked by the appointment.

That shows why the advice and consent process is so important.

I'm sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing. If there's one thing Susan Collins is going to be, it's shocked.
Just a 71-year-old woman moving through the Trump era like a baby on the business end of a peekaboo. Lisa Murkowski said that Gates' selection

was not on her bingo card

and that he is not a serious candidate, adding,

if you wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say,

now I'm waiting for George Santos to be named.

Can I ask a question?

When did people start saying not on my bingo card?

Events are never on bingo cards.

Numbers are on bingo cards. It's always only numbers.
Though some Republicans did get in line with the manifestly unqualified Gates, who has never been a prosecutor and only briefly served in private practice as a lawyer. Tommy Tuberville, who reportedly reacted to the news with, holy cow, went on Fox News and threatened his fellow Senate Republicans who might be thinking of voting against the Trump nominee and if you want to get in the way fine but we're going to try to get you out of the Senate too if you try to do that cool colleague uh Lindsey Graham also seemed ready to board the Gates train he won the election he deserves a chance to pick his cabinet I am predisposed to allow him to do that.
I think Matt Gaetz is very bright. I think he's qualified.
You fag. He's not qualified.
Words have meaning. Look, I know we're all focusing on the fact that Matt Gaetz is a fucking maniac and vile person who allegedly solicited sex from teenage girls.
And that is the most important point. But also, a guy who spent a couple years as an associate at a Northwest Florida corporate law office before Nepo babying his way into Florida politics is not qualified to run the Department of Justice.
And everyone knows this. Lindsey Graham knows this.
Matt Gaetz knows this. Now, some have speculated that this is some sort of a favor.
Gaetz immediately resigned from Congress on Wednesday, which is strange. Doesn't have to resign immediately.
He's not even been officially nominated. Trump isn't president.
But then we learn that the House Ethics Committee planned to vote on Friday on whether to release an apparently damning report on the bipartisan investigation into Gaetz's alleged crimes, sexual and otherwise. In case you're wondering what might be in that report, here's Matt Gaetz's number one enemy, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, talking to the press back in April.
And I'll give you the truth why I'm not speaker. It's because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.
So the theory goes, Trump nominates Gates, Gates resigns before the report can be released, and then the Gates nomination goes down, clearing the way for a slightly less terrible pick to seem like a relief by comparison. It's an interesting theory with just one problem.
Trump wants Gates to be attorney general. Trump is reportedly very serious about this, with one advisor telling the Bulwark none of the attorneys had what Trump wants and they didn't talk like Gates.
Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit.
Gates was the only one who said, yeah, I'll go over there and start cutting fucking heads. I just hope Merrick Garland feels good about twisting himself into an inert pretzel to avoid the appearance of political weaponization, only for Trump to run on that anyway and then appoint Matt fucking Gates to take his job.
Then on Thursday, a lawyer for the woman who Gates allegedly slept with when she was a minor asked for the report to be released anyway. John Cornyn, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, suggested the committee could subpoena that report, saying we should gain access to all relevant information by whatever means necessary.
Personally, I don't think we need the report.

The publicly available information is incredibly damning, and any GOP senator pretending not to know enough about who Matt Gaetz is, is lying. You don't need final word from the Bayer Safety

Committee before you're allowed to say, hey, maybe we shouldn't let this horny pervert grizzly

loose at the Department of Justice. But yes, of course, subpoenaed the report.
Go off, King. On the whole, Trump's picks seem to dare Republicans to challenge him, and few seem up for it.
Here's Congressman Troy Nell summing up the prevailing GOP mindset on Capitol Hill. There's no question he's the leader of our party.
So now he's got a mission statement, his mission and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it.
Every single word. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads.
If he wants us to writhe on a tarp covered in chocolate pudding and oink like filthy little piggies, We will. Actually, let me just get the tarps out now.

We don't want to leave him waiting.

Just a little bit of therapy away from realizing

he just wants to do some sub-dom play at home

and then...

That's all he wants.

Completely unexamined.

Get one beautiful woman to step on his balls

for him to get out of this mess.

Or a guy.

Could be a guy.

I don't think he knows if it should be a guy or not. And we're all about to see how pliant these little piggies can be because on Thursday, Trump announced his intention to nominate Robert F.
Kennedy Jr., the anti-vax crank and bone collector, to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. Our nation's fate is in the worms' hands now.
And I know worms don't have hands. I went to school pre-Trump, thank you very much.
Kennedy, who rails not only against Big Pharma but also Big Food, complained earlier this week about Trump's fast food diet, saying campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is like just poisoned. You're either given KFC or Big Macs.
Then he added, that's why I always pack my own lunch, gesturing to the dead raccoon tucked under his arm like a football. In a twist, following Trump's announcement, friend of the show and Colorado governor Jared Polis tweeted in support of RFK Jr.'s nomination.
Of all our guests on this show, Jared Polis is not who I would have predicted to be psyched about RFK Jr. heading up HHS.
I'm not even going to say who I would have guessed. Jane Fonda.
Stop asking me. I don't mean that.
I don't mean that. I don't mean that.
I don't mean that. Wrote the governor, I'm excited by the news that the president-elect will appoint Robert Kennedy Jr.
to HHS. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA.
Okay, so maybe we do need to make marijuana illegal. Said Polis, I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans, which I think are terrible, just like mandates.
But what I'm most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health. Polis goes on to explain his enthusiasm for Kennedy's desire to lower the cost of prescription medication, remove the influence of big agriculture from the FDA, and reduce pesticide-heavy farming, which he notes is bad for our pollinators and our people.
Sure, that would be good. I'm not sure why Jared Polis thinks a crank lawyer and dilettante is the person to accomplish them, but whatever prescription drug is making him feel that way, I would certainly like some.
Twitter users pointed out that Polis tweeted in August about RFK Jr.'s hypothetical involvement with the Trump administration. Not sure how bringing back measles and bringing back polio makes anyone more healthy.
Yes, August Jared. So true, August Jared.
Here is RFK Jr.'s actual response to that post by Governor Polis today. It reads, Thank you, Governor Polish.
I look forward to working with you. Maha.
Which is, Make America healthy again. Pol has tweeted a little cleanup, saying science must remain the cornerstone of our nation's health policy, and the science-backed decision to get vaccinated improves public health and safety, adding, Lest there be any doubt, I am vaccinated, as is my family.
I will hold any HHS secretary to the same high standard of protecting and improving public health. Just a reminder, according to The Lancet, over the last 50 years, vaccines against just 14 illnesses have prevented 154 million deaths, 146 million of which were children.
Since 2000 alone, just the measles vaccine has prevented 60 million deaths. Vaccines are a miracle.
The only reason anti-vax skepticism has any quarter in modern society is because anti-vaxxers live in a world in which life before vaccines is unimaginable to all of us. They spin each other up.
They deny basic science,

all while protected by one of the greatest achievements in human history.

Kids have gotten very sick

from preventable childhood illnesses,

and some have died because of RFK Jr.'s brand of bullshit.

And lots of people bought into the anti-vaccine hysteria

around COVID and died because of it.

But anti-vaccine crusaders were on the outside

making trouble that changes if RFK Jr. oversees the FDA, the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, not just for the damage he can do in the short term, but the damage he can do to research in the long term.
Polis says, I don't want vaccine bans, but RFK makes some good points about pesticides and nutrition. There are many dangerous and foolish people who have a few good points.
Eric Adams is right about the rats. The Unabomber manifesto had some interesting arguments about industrialization and global capitalism.
That's not a justification for putting them in charge and hoping for the best. I would put the Unabomber in charge of Harvard.
Now that I think about it for just a second. Does that mean that experts are always right? No.
Does that mean there aren't ways in which stodgy consensus or health policy co-opted by lobbyists ought to be disrupted? Of course not. I remember when the federal government put out the food pyramid telling us we needed six to ten servings of bread a day.
What a glorious time to be alive that was. Can't have any chicken tonight.
I'm on a diet. It's only pasta.
That was what the government did. Country gained a trillion pounds.
No dessert until you've had your six slices of bread. When I was growing up, in middle school, you could get a plate of french fries with chocolate milk for lunch.
That's a botch. But this department, more than any other, has a responsibility not just to the truth, but to how we gather the evidence and data over decades to help us know the truth.
RFK Jr. doesn't respect that inquiry.
He's a danger to it. The man is a crank.
What is a crank? A crank is somebody whose combination of arrogance and ignorance leads them to believe they know better than every expert, that they can see what all the best minds have missed, that they know better, and that ego and dogmatism often prevails even

when the stakes are high, even when the stakes are life and death, because they don't know what

they don't know, and they're too cavalier and entitled to find out. And that makes someone

like RFK Jr. unacceptable.
And Jared Polis ought to fucking say that. Or maybe having gay governors

was a mistake. Hate to say that.
I don't want to turn on gay governors. There's that bisexual one in the Pacific Northwest.
Maybe she's okay. Meanwhile, the signs of the orderly working of our democracy are all around us.
In his meeting with President Biden, Trump thanked him for a smooth transition. Thank you very much.
And politics is tough.

And it's, in many cases, not a very nice world. But it is a nice world today.
And I appreciate

very much a transition that's so smooth. It'll be as smooth as it can get.
And I very much

appreciate that, Jim. You're welcome.
The only smooth transition I see involves my brain cells. I know Biden has to do this meeting, but does he have to be so friendly, at least challenge this bitch to a push-up contest? Melania did not join her husband for the visit to the White House on Wednesday, skipping a traditional meeting with First Lady Jill Biden without providing a reason.
In her defense, Trump hasn't announced his pick for First Lady yet. Oh no, sorry you can't make it, girl, said Jill Biden, refilling the same continuous bath she's been taking since July.
in other news Mattel has apologized for accidentally

printing the URL of a porn website on the packaging for its Wicked-themed dolls. The label mistakenly directed fans to wicked.com instead of the official site analgasm.sex.
Speaking of gasms, People Magazine is named John Krasinski. It's 2024.
Sexiest man alive. Man.
Sexiest man kind of alive went to former president Jimmy Carter. Mark Zuckerberg released a cover of Get Low with T-Pain.
Let's take a listen. From the windows to the walls Till the ground drops down my balls Till all these bitches crawl Do you know how annoying you have to be to make us forget you're not the world's most annoying billionaire? That really was Mark Zuckerberg.
And now that you've heard it, you have seven days to play it for someone else or else Mark Zuckerberg crawls out of a well and makes you listen to it again. The Onion won a bankruptcy auction, this is good news, to buy Alex Jones' InfoWars with the help of Sandy Hook families and said it plans to turn the website into a parody of itself.
It will take control of all the company's assets, including its studio. Unable to safely test for rabies, they unfortunately had no choice but to have Jones himself humanely euthanized.
Rest in piss, Alex. That's great.
And finally, Denzel Washington revealed he had a big gay kiss in Ridley Scott's Gladiator 2, but the scene ended up on the cutting room floor. I know.
30 years ago, Denzel and Julia Roberts were not allowed to kiss in the pelican brief because of racism. 30 years later, Denzel can't kiss somebody because of homophobia.
I'm calling it progress. Said Denzel, I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out.
They cut it. I think they got chicken.
He went on to say, next time I'll make sure it's in the say, All right.

Up next, Brian Jordan Alvarez is here to put the stud in study.

Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

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Look, we know things don't feel great right now, but we can equip ourselves for the unprecedented months ahead without letting the news overwhelm us. Join us each week at Strict Scrutiny as we break down the cases that will decide the rules we all have to live by.
We'll supplement your daily news diet with a dose of necessary legal analysis and healthy serving of our Real Housewives takes, some pop music, and 90s throwbacks

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reality TV argument. Subscribe to Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget

to check out full episodes on YouTube. And we're back.
Please welcome to the stage, the star of Hulu's English teacher, the incredibly funny Brian Jordan Alvarez. Come on in.

Hello.

Here?

Yeah, great.

Okay, great.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi, Brian.

Hey, good to see you.

We see each other at Barry's Boot Camp.

We do.

Almost weekly, I would say.

We see a lot.

We see each other a lot.

And it's a really hard place to bump into somebody.

Yeah. I'm usually energized.
If it's after, then I have a lot of energy. And I'm like, I'm always.
We see a lot. We see each other a lot.
And it's a really hard place to bump into somebody. Yeah.
I'm usually energy. If it's after, then I have a lot of energy and I'm like, I'm always right to see you.
I just feel it's like you're kind of focused. I just feel vulnerable in that setting.
Right, right, right. It's not where I lie.
I'm not there to talk. I'm not there for a chance.
I'm not looking to have a general meeting. You know what I mean? Right, right, right.
Yeah. I'm sorry if that's the energy I've been giving off.
I'm always happy to see you. No, it's great.
I mean, I feel like we sort of booked this off of that. Yeah.
A little bit. A little bit.
I think it was, I think it was like unspoken. Yeah.
Yeah. What's it like to have a hit on your hands? Oh, it feels great.
Wait, who's that? Are the clappers clapping people watching English teacher? Yeah. have any of you seen me dancing to try to get you to watch english teacher yeah okay that's a smaller crowd okay i have to say like i had this i like had this i realized i had this sort of um uh uh uh what's a drinking problem drinking i did have this drinking problem I had this, um, I like had this reflected kind of pride or like I, it felt poignant because I remember watching you make, uh, uh, the, the, uh, Caleb Gallo, the YouTube videos.
And thank you. And it was so exciting to see this show and then see all your friends.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah what is satisfying for me, and to FX's credit,

is that the voice wasn't lost.

It actually got better.

It's like, oh, yeah, this sort of got upgraded

to a full-level show.

And it wasn't like, oh, they lost the sauce.

It translated.

Now, do you worry that there was a period of time

in Los Angeles where everybody was telling you

about their web series? And do you worry that you might cause that to happen again? Well, what's funny is I never thought of Caleb as a – it's this show I put on YouTube years ago, and I never thought of it as a web series. It was like me and my friends making this amateur thing, but I always called it a show because the word web series was so sort of – I found that um i was like allergic to this word web series you know and so then it is funny when people are like hey i'm interested in making a web series how did you make your web series and i'm like i didn't make a web series i don't know what to tell you i'm sorry uh but yeah yeah i mean hopefully it inspires people though in a real way yeah did you talk to kids, actual high school kids, in working on the show? For English teacher? Yeah.
Not really. No.
No, I mean, you know, we have a lot of genuinely young people. I guess we only have a couple of real high schoolers.
Most people are in their early 20s who are playing our students. But, yeah, we learn from from them and we let them improv a lot and we're finding the voice.
And some of them are sort of TikTok finds. There's this guy who's really funny in the show, Ben Bondurant.
He plays this character, Jeff, who always has these very funny one-liners. And he was from TikTok and this girl, Aaliyah, was from TikTok.
And we like put her in the pilot when she was like, you know, had a big TikTok following, but then she exploded after we cast her in the pilot. Now she has all these pop songs and she's great.
So the youth is, you know, is present and their voice is present. You're from Tennessee originally.
Yeah, very, yeah, very rural Tennessee. We just went home to visit my parents in Tennessee and Elliot here was shocked at how small the town I grew up in was.
There's a Walmart. There's not even like a Red Lobster and Olive Garden.
Those things are in a city nearby. This is like a small, small town.
But I was born in New York City. So I got to the Sticks of Tennessee when I was four.
So I kind of knew like, oh, this is the country, but I'm from the city. And I'll go back to the city one day.
And you knew that at that young age. And here you are in the city.
I was like, I'm a gay city five-year-old. What kind of restaurant? If there wasn't a Red Lobster Olive Garden, what was there? My God, there's something called, there's something that's a take on the sizzler, but it's not the sizzler.
It's called Western Sirloin. Oh, that sounds good.
There's a Waffle House. Oh, that's nice.
Which is great. That's great.
Yeah, I eat at Waffle House a lot. You can get a lot of protein at Waffle House, a big omelet.
Right, right. You don't need to get a waffle.
Exactly, yeah, yeah. You can just get eggs.
But sometimes you do end up getting a waffle. You'll get a waffle.
You don't have to not get a waffle either. Exactly.
Huh? Someone's recommending the Loaded Hash. The audience feels like part of the show and they're not but it's a I'm sort of giving it to them because they've had a hard couple of weeks because of all that's been going on do you read comments about the show online or are you mentally well? I have very positive comments sections for whatever reason so I do yeah I enjoy the comments not all of.
Yeah. Not all of them, but you know, I mean, I don't read all of them, but I, I, yeah, I browse them.
Yeah. You do.
You get in there. You get in there.
Yeah. Sometimes I respond.
Sometimes you respond. Well, with this thing I've been doing, I've been doing this Tik TOK dance trend and then saying stream English teacher, which was good for like, it was good because it created sort of a moment.
And so then when people say this worked on me, I just watched the show and now I love it, I'll say like good or something. Wow.
That's good behavior. What a man of the people you are.
Wow, that's good. That's good.
Really relating to people getting in there. I respect that.
I try to make them, the audience of this show, feel like less. Like they're lucky to have me.
And if they want to reply, they can. But that's like, I mean, you don't expect God to respond.
That's an amazing dynamic. In fact, you're crazy if God does.
Wow. You know what I'm saying? That's a really powerful dynamic.
I love English Teacher. I think it's an amazing show.
Thank you. And there was a specific moment in the finale that I thought was just such beautiful writing where the principal says he doesn't eat burgers but he's going to eat this burger tonight because it's a special night and it just is and I thought it captured something I am amazed that you got a show this specific, well-written, gay, on television.
Do you think the lead character is gay? No, I'm just kidding. Is that what you took from it? That is what I took from it.
Thank you. That is what I took from it.
It's beautiful. It's largely to, I mean, not to be corny, but FX uniquely is good at this.
They have done this with other creators too, where they get you through the system of making a television show and they preserve your voice and they enhance it and they bring you good people. And Paul Sims too, who also sort of guided.
Well, I don't, I don't, I don't know what their process was like, but I know that he and Donald Glover made Atlanta together, which was also an amazing show. And Paul Sims came to me years ago and he was like, let's make this show with FX.
And he's been a guide through this system. And you know, like I was saying earlier, it's just like, I'm like, I love this show.
Like, it's not like I watch it. I'm like, ah, I got fucked up.
Like, I'm like, I'm the biggest fan there is of this show. Cause I made a show once and that wasn't my experience.
Right. Exactly.
It's not like I watch it and I'm like, oh, I got fucked up. I'm like, I'm the biggest fan there is of this show.

Because I made a show once and that wasn't my experience.

Right. Exactly.
It's very

often not. I feel really grateful.

I looked at it and I thought,

is this the best I can do? Maybe.

It's like,

yeah, kind of like

Che Diaz on

what's it called?

And then there's this. No, close.
What's next? And just like that. Che Diaz makes a TV pilot and feels that it gets ruined in the process.
I'm glad that that didn't happen. That's usually what people, yeah.
And Che Diaz is real to me for what it's worth. No, no, and real to all of us.
More real. Okay.
Now, we like to play a game on this show. And it's, you know, especially in, it's obviously, you know, this show is, it's called Would You Fuck This School Supply? That's what the game's called.
And we can do some kind of an intro for it, but we don't really need it I mapped onto someone else's body I thought that was my body it could be your body I almost look like a velociraptor or something like the way my head is kind of like pulling back it's like I'm breaking into that kitchen in Jurassic Park. Would you fuck a Trapper Keeper?

No.

It's soft. It's supple.

It's elegant. It's the perfect place to stuff your crumpled up quizzes.

Too painful.

Because I'm imagining the rings.

Yeah, but the Trapper Keeper rings were always

the weakest of the rings.

They were of poor quality.

They were not rings of power. They weren't.
They weren't strong.

They weren't strong. God, the siren song of the Trapper Keeper.
Nobody needs it, but you wanted one. Applaud if you had one.
Applaud if you wanted one, but were not allowed one. Make it make sense, you know? I think I secretly always wanted Lisa Frank stuff and probably didn't have it because it was yeah I wanted what the trapper keeper promised which was safety containment a perfect place for everything yeah yeah like what I wanted was a binder but I wanted to be a different person.
Right, right, right. Like I wanted the control and security and discipline of the Trapper Keeper lifestyle.
Yeah, yeah. But I couldn't have it.
I remember being in kindergarten and having one folder with one sheet of paper in my backpack. Yes.
You know that feeling? You're like you drew something and you you're like, just have it in your one folder in your little backpack. Like, that's all you got going on at that age.
When I was in fourth grade, we would get assigned weekly reader homework. Does anyone remember weekly reader? Weekly reader homework.
The weekly reader? You'd have weekly reader and there'd be a quiz on the back. You'd be assigned it.
I didn't care for it. That wasn't the same as like pizza party readings, right? You know that stuff? Did you ever do that? No.
You read a lot of books and then you get pizza, right? This was a big American moment. We didn't have that.
I wish you had been a part of it. No, I would have loved it.
I want it for you. But I would just get the assignment and then just shove it in my desk, just in the back of my desk, and then my teacher, Mrs.uss.
Wait, how, what was the structure of this? You read a book and then you, it's a, you, you read like basically a child's magazine and then you have to do the homework that comes with it. Okay.
But I didn't want to do it, but I didn't want it to. Generally it's fun or not? I don't, not for me.
What's the pitch? I think it's just homework. I think it's learning.
I think it's learning. It's regular homework for school.
Okay. And then Mrsrs burfess called my mom in for a meeting and my mother's like well another chance for a teacher to tell me how great jonathan is and she's like this kid hasn't been doing homework for months my mother burst into tears whatever she had to learn did you stay anti-homework for most of your school well at a certain point in this time they figured out that i was seeing double all the time and so that might have been a part of it oh wow that's a big thing yeah so i had to go to eye therapy to get to see to see not double because i was due because it turned out that i was just really good at magic eyes and i was making everything them.
You know magic eyes?

Those weren't hard to me.

Because it was just like, you put them together, they go apart.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I had to go to a special place like 30 minutes away and do like eye

exercises.

But were your eyes...

No, you wouldn't know by looking at me.

Okay, wow.

I conversely was always going to get eye exams because I wanted glasses so bad. And I still to this day have perfect vision.
I'm sorry I do. Wow.
Wow. I just don't need glasses.
I went to a restaurant the other day and it was the first time I was with a contemporary who took out a flashlight to look at the menu. Oh my God.
This happened the other night. I was like, oh my God, this is it.
It's starting. But we were at, we were at this place where it was like, it's literally actually pitch black dark.
That's how you, that's what you tell yourself. Is this okay? There's one candle? Sure.
Yeah. That's how it starts.
It's pitch black in here. And then you're just one step away from this.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Erasers.

Erasers know you're going to make some mistakes and that's okay.

You got to give me something I really want.

Oh, oh, okay, okay.

Go ahead, go ahead.

Sorry.

I'm an interrupter.

I wouldn't kick them out of bed for leaving that weird crumbly gray eraser dust.

What about you, Brian?

I would not, no.

You're a no.

You're a no on erasers. Yeah.
Well, I don't know that they get sexier from here. They must.
Next up, pencils. Maybe a dull pencil.
A dull pencil. Maybe.
Yeah. I mean, definitely not, really.
Right. I think it's more like kind of...
Well, no, sure. I think it's more like the kind of...

The vibe.

The vibe.

It's like, does the vibe convey

kind of sexual energy that you respond to?

We'll find one.

We'll find one.

We'll find one.

Pencils or a maybe.

Next up, safety scissors.

It's the bad boy that's closest so far.

The bad boy of the school supply set.

Safety scissors are perfect for all your

scissoring needs.

Yeah, basically it's a yes.

Look at the shape.

Yeah, I like safety scissors.

Those weren't the kinds...

This is like the body

composition I'm trying to...

Yeah, no, no, no, it is.

Thin legs.

Yeah, these scissors have been skipping

leg day for sure, but not us. Not us.
Yeah. Do you have any other thoughts? No, I'm totally open.
Oh, that's fun. No thoughts.
You're going to get a season two of this show?

What's going to happen? I cannot.

You can't say? Because you know that I

said this publicly.

I just will say this.

If there's no season two,

we march on FX.

And then we get there and they say, we're not in charge.

You got to go to Hulu. Then we go to Santa Monica

and we're like, Hulu! And they're like, it's actually

still not us. You got to go back to Disney.
Now we're like,

now we're going over the hill again.

And now we're at Disney. And now we're like,

Thank you. to go to Hulu.
Then we go to Santa Monica and we're like, Hulu! And they're like, it's actually still not us. You got to go back to Disney.
Now we're like,

now we're going over the hill again.

And now we're at Disney. And now we're like,

are you in charge of this? And we're like, kind of. And it's like,

what's going on in this business?

Also, I'm feeling very grateful for the reception and very excited

and happy and ready to make as much more

as I can. They better.

Those

honchos up there.

Mickey Mouse, who's ultimately in charge of all of this, and us.

Isn't that funny?

Mickey Mouse.

Yeah.

What is the difference between Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie?

Does anybody know?

Are they the same person?

Steamboat Willie just entered the public domain, right? Yeah. Okay, good.
But are Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse the same person? They are the same. It's an early iteration of Mickey Mouse, right? It's a bit like the ship of Theseus.
You know, in a sense, like, is Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse? Like, how much does Steamboat Willie change before becomes a new thing? Like they, they changed the nose, they changed the look, they changed the ears, they changed the name. It happens slowly, but now we're looking at Mickey Mouse.
It's like, that isn't Steamboat Willie. Right.
And yet. Yeah.
We're like, this is not the same man, but then the same thing can be said of people. Right.
Because we are, we, we change everything. All of our cells change, all of our cells change over.
And it's like, so we are just the kind of like our, our sort of getting the wrap up, the moral and ethical existence of us is really just, just our memories. Our memories are what make us culpable for our past.
Do you think, you think it's just our memories? The question really is, is there a soul? Well, I just think that like, if let's say you killed somebody, you, you killed somebody, and then your mind is white. It really is.
You're white, and you wake up the next day, you're like, I don't remember it. I had nothing to do with it.
It wasn't me. It didn't happen.
I mean, we probably would just throw you in jail, but it would make us feel weird. You know? Have you thought about that? Not really, no.
Do you think that's something that you could teach next year? Yeah. Get into some of these philosophical philosophy.
What'd you major in in college? Acting. I'm just enjoying the silliness.
When we come back,

Reggie Watts is here.

Everybody watch English Teacher.

Watch English Teacher.

Binge English Teacher on who?

And we're back.

My next guest has a song in his heart

and hopefully on this stage,

please put your hands together for Reggie Watts. Hi.
Thank you for being here. You have such a lovely energy.
Oh, thank you. Very soothing.

Well, I feel soothed.

Do you?

I feel, tonight I do.

I think it's this space, it feels cozy, you know,

when you walk in and you see a man entrenched in a book,

you know, with like a lamp and like there's books behind him.

When you first enter.

No one's reading during the show.

Oh, yes, he is indeed reading during the show. Well, there is that.
But perhaps he's the one that's just emanating this kind of undulating, ah, it feels good back here. I feel okay.
This is where I should be. Because I was listening the whole time just behind you guys, like sitting on the stairs.
So imagine if you erased the curtains. You were just there.
I was just right there. And I felt that too.
Okay. Well, there we go.
I think we're all responsible. Sucks.
Now, and that's why I'm glad you're here. Because I could use some cheering up.
Oh, yes. Of course.
Because I don't know if you've been seeing what's been going on, but there's a new Star Wars trilogy coming out, and it's made me very nervous. It's made me very nervous.
Are you excited about a new Star Wars trilogy? You're ready for more? Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. I love.
Yes. Interesting.
I'm at the point now where I just can't be hurt again. You know, by what? I've just been hurt by Star Wars a few too many times, cinematically.
I feel as though I've been punched in the face a few too many times. I'm a Rogue One girl.
I love Rogue One with all my heart. I think Rogue One is the greatest film they've made since the original Star Wars.
That's my position. 100%.
You agree with that? 100%. Are you kidding? And it's self-contained.
That's what made it so great. I know.
It's amazing. They had to fucking finish that shit.
Yeah. Because of what happens.
Because of what happens. No spoilers.
Yeah, we can do spoilers probably. We're going to do spoilers because we love it.
But why am I saying we? This I haven't been on the show until now. But maybe not again.
No. Because of this.
No, it's going so well. I say, thank you.
I say, I always say, if you want to know Star Wars, if you want to feel Star Wars, like for real, you just watch Empire Strikes Back, Rogue One, and Andor. And that's kind of kind of it for me.
Yeah, yeah. I agree with that.
It's like serious Star Wars. Yeah.
Did you watch the original Star Wars, the first? Yes. Star Wars, then Empire.
Yes. They go right to Rogue One.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, in order, yes.
And that's what I loved about it, too. It was that moment just before Princess Leia gets captured.
It butts up. I just think that felt cool.
I love that too. And also, it is so rare that a movie will – I think my problem with some of the Star Wars movies is they do fan service and they impute meaning into what didn't have meaning to create lore.
And that's what makes it feel like fan fiction. But in Rogue One, they took something that was sort of like, wait a second, there's a hole in the Death Star.
And if you go poop, poop, the whole thing goes up. That's dumb.
And they actually made it part of the story. They gave it reason.
They gave it a reason to exist. Yes.
That it was actually, it was built there on purpose. It wasn't just a silly accident.
Yeah, it wasn't a fluke. And that was a very cool, yes, anyway.
Yeah, agreed. 100%.
And it just feels like, and I'll just add very quickly, I think it's the thing is that you feel like you're in that world. Yes.
Like Empire with the blank desolate white you know frosted landscape and these little dots on the horizon and they're looking with these futuristic binoculars like and it's kind of shaky it was like the first time i saw it when i was a kid and i was like what the oh shit that's like but oh there's something out there what the fuck is that i don't know what that is And then slowly you just find this reveal that there's these giant mechanized walking machines that are just lumbering

and there's nothing they can do about it.

But they're trying to get ion cannons on board.

They're just like, it's all this shit.

And it's just impending.

I'm like, what the fuck?

That created such an impact in my life.

It was so cool.

And then you find out that, oh man,

these things, they thought everything except rope. Vulnerable to the power of rope.
It's like, what's its weakness? It's like, well, yeah, the rope, but also very tall. Very tall, too tall for a rope.
We got them with ropes. Yeah, we got him with ropes.

Sometimes you're going to get him with ropes.

Totally.

Hey.

Listen, sometimes on this show now,

we're just going to talk about Star Wars for a while.

Not going to go to jail.

Not for that.

So as I said, we're struggling these past couple weeks,

and we would hope you'd help us cheer us up with a segment we're calling Singing in the Pain. Oh.
Well, all right. And here's how it works.
I'm going to share something I'm genuinely worried about, staring down the barrel of 2025, and you'll improvise a little tune about the many wonderful things coming down the pike

next year to give us a little boost. Are you ready? Yes.
First up, I am genuinely worried about the Trump administration scapegoating and coming for trans people. I'm worried about the implications of it.
I'm worried about just the basics of access to gender affirming care. I'm worried about people feeling emboldened

to target trans people.

And I'm worried about an encroaching narrative

that perhaps we have to moderate

on some of these core values.

And that makes me really nervous.

Gotcha. Got you? Everybody, everybody now We got so many worries in our lives We always trying to wonder how we're going to survive So many assholes So many, many assholes That are so insecure They're gonna pick on somebody That don't even account for a fraction Of the people that they see in the world.
They're just the people that be feeling themselves so much more. I feel it.
There are so many things that are going to suck really soon. But you gotta keep on living your life.
Keep on, keep, keep on living your life.

Keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on living your life.

That was cool.

That was cool.

That was cool.

That was awesome. How do you do that? How do you do that on your phone? That's wild.
I got lucky. A guy made a great little lap.
Now, I'm obviously worried about a lot of other things. I'm worried about mass deportations.
I'm worried about this guy, Tom Homan, who is going to be the border czar. I'm worried about what RFK Jr.
might do

if he becomes Health and Human Services Secretary.

But I'm wondering if there's anything

that you're looking forward to

that you could take us through,

perhaps in the Star Wars universe,

that might cheer us up.

Got you.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's take a listen.

Let's take a look.

We'll take a lean and a listen. See what we got.
Star Wars. Sorry, Star Wars.
Star Wars. That's how you pronounce it? Yeah, Star Wars.
Star Wars. Star Wars.
Star Wars. Star Wars.
Yeah, it's like stars the stress. Star Wars.
Star Wars. Yes.
Star Wars.

Star Wars.

But, you know, whatever people like. Star Wars.
Whatever. Okay, here we go.
Yeah, I cannot wait, wait for Star Wars to come in. Been waiting for so long.

I couldn't stop feeling like I was living in a show.

Made me feel like I was watching something that was created in the 1980s. We used the 1990s style filmmaking.

Yeah.

In a fucking way.

In a fucking way. that's right because sure all these things terrible things are going to happen but and or season two is also going to happen in 2025 no if ands we're also going going to have the second installment of the Mission Impossible movie.
Finally. How are they going to get out of that? It seems impossible.
It doesn't seem possible. That would just be great if he just dies like 30 minutes into the show and his team has to finish it.
Do you ever see the movie Executive Decision starring Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal?

I saw it way, way, way back.

And basically, it's called,

they have to get, I believe,

aboard Air Force One,

and they use a stealth bomber

to attach to the bottom of the plane.

And in the first 15 minutes,

Kurt Russell goes up into the new airplane.

And then there's some kind of problem. And Steven Seagal goes goes I'm not going to make it closes the door dies 15 minutes of the movie we're like wow anything is possible anything could happen an executive decision 1993 did anybody else see that movie when Steven Seagal died in the first 15 minutes you never saw it I have now I need to that I know I think I did see it but I don was a long, long time ago.
I don't have to see it now. Well, it was important.
It was important for me because I didn't know they could do that. You can't do that normally.
Yeah, you can't do it normally. No, but they did it, and it just changes everything.
And now we've got, you know. There's just so much, you know is your pin what does your pin mean it has a little it's a flag like a flange yeah um yeah this is it's like an es5302 you can order these on gremlins.com but this is a uh it's basically just like a sprout and i don't know why i was given it.
But it was at a, oh, you know what?

It was at a health conference of some sort.

And so they gave out these little sprouts.

It was kind of like a reminder of nature.

And so I thought, that's kind of cool.

I like it.

I do like it.

People put it in their hair usually, though.

Like little antennas or something.

Like fellow teleglubbies.

You have such an interesting energy. There's like such, it's such warmth.
There's such warmth. When you came backstage, so before the show, Reggie comes backstage, he's like, the lighting in here is bad.
And he turned off the overheads, and then there's a vanity, there's like a vanity with mirrors, and he undid all the incandescent and fluorescent bulbs um or just the there's the fluorescent ones to leave the incandescent ones and then turned it on to make the room have more of a moodier lighting and and i just thought wow to live in such it reminded me that i'd never i never consider such things i just kind of careened through existence not thinking about the effect the lights are having on me or even considering how the feeling is, but you think about the feeling. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I like it. You know, I like the immersion of reality, you know? So it's like, I like if you go somewhere, you're like, if you could adjust it a little bit to just make it feel a little bit groovier, then why not? Right.
And if you do that a little bit all the time, your life's a little bit groovier all the time. And I'm just in white, bright fucking fluorescent lights all the time.
Yeah, but you get shit done in ways that I wouldn't be able to do. Huh.
You know? You think so? I think so. I think because I know, I have friends that are exactly like how you described yourself.
Like they do that.

Yeah. And I'm the one like I'm chasing after or like trying to get ahead and going, hey, I have this.

And then they're like whatever.

But – and that's fine.

And I get it.

But they're usually people that kind of get shit done because they're a little bit more focused on what needs to be accomplished.

Do you feel a connection between your mind and your body? Yeah. Sure.
Really? I sure do. Wow.
What's that like? Yeah. Yeah.
It's cool. I mean, it's cool.
You know, it's like... Because my therapist says I don't have it.
Really? She's like, oh, no, no, you have anxiety. You just don't know.
Isn't that interesting? I haven't seen her in months. She texted me after the election to check in.
Really? Didn't respond. Oh, wow.
I will. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know.
I mean, I guess, you know, it's fun. It's fun.
It's fun to do it. You don't need to.
I mean, obviously, have you tried ketamine? No. Okay.
Ketamine is very much just basically the more that you take, the more of just a piece of pure consciousness you become. So it's just you're just perceiving.
You forget the sensation of your body at all, and even the sensation of breathing. So you just, and you might even notice it.
It might seem scary at first, Like being able to breathe underwater. Interesting.
Do you worry that if you take too much, you might start a super pack in Pennsylvania? Yeah, but it would be like a super pack. It would be like people just roaming around the streets going...
Oh, that's just a super pack. Just a super pack of guys.
We are the best pack.

The pack go around.

We're so good.

They call us super duper.

That's not what I meant.

Sorry.

These are nice, by the way.

Oh, thank you.

I absolutely love these.

Thank you very much.

They're a little dirty.

Yeah, but you know, I have some shoes

that have that kind of foam. It looks

like styrofoam.

Whatever is that called? Sole thing.

And

it just gets dirty. There you go.

Maybe I'll try ketamine. Reggie Watts, thank you so much for being here.
Stick around. We'll be right back.
Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way.
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We cannot keep pretending that Donald Trump is an outlier when everyone else seems to be out there with him. But instead of feeling paralyzed, our job now is to pull what we've got and see what we can make happen.
Here at Assembly Required, we will continue to face each executive order, legislative policy, and news cycle, no matter how terrifying or absurd, by asking, what can we do to learn more about what's happening? What can we do to solve problems, however small? And how can we find the kind of hope that can sustain our work in difficult times? Listen to new episodes of Assembly Required every Thursday on Amazon Music. And we're back! One note! If you're wondering what comes next after this election, there are two brand new episodes of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams.
She sits down with historian Heather Cox Richardson to explore how history can guide us. They cover fighting misinformation.
They cover how to get involved post-election. Everybody check out Assembly Required, especially right now.
It's a very kind of reassuring guide for what could come next. And Dan is walking through all of what we learned about the polls on Polar Coaster if you become a friend of the pod subscriber on crooked.com slash friends.
Okay. Please welcome back to the stage, Brian, Jordan, Alvarez.
Oh, he's up there. I was in the crowd.
All right. People Magazine named John Krasinski this year, sexiest man alive.
In honor of them not giving a fuck, we're each going to spin the wheel to share a questionable act that we'll never apologize for, or something we do in our daily lives that we won't apologize for. Something we're just going to work with that that that we're just not apologizing for.
All right. And no one's going to make us feel regretful about it.
Okay. And it'd be whatever you want of any scale, you know.
Okay. I don't think you confess to a crime.
You know, just go for it. Well, we're going to spin a wheel.
Oh, there's a wheel? What does the wheel do?

It really just gives us an order.

That's a real wheel, too.

We look great.

Reggie, it's landed on you.

What's something you're going to say?

I have no regrets, no apologies.

In this new era.

I do not.

You're right.

This is a new era. 2026.
Just. I'm not going to apologize for being alive.
Okay. I'm not going to do it.
That's the OG thing to do. I know it is the OG thing to do and I'm tired of it.
My whole family did it and. And it's like, I don't, yeah.
So I want to be that. I don't want to do that anymore.
Have you been doing that? I meant that being alive is the original thing to do. Oh, yeah.
It is the original thing to do. It is the original.
Super OG. Yes.
100 hundred percent. It's step, at least step one.
Yeah. I think.
Yeah. Yes.
Have I? Yes. Maybe, you know, like when you're like, I'm in the way.
Nobody wants to be around me. You know, like where you feel like really small.
Yeah. You don't want to take up space.
Yeah. You don't want to take up space and you feel like, I'm ruining everything or whatever it is.
Like that kind of, that feel like oh what if i wasn't alive you know and you have those like those those thoughts at least i don't know if i've had those thoughts where i'm like like huckleberry finn right right didn't he like fake his death right and he saw his own funeral yeah and all that and he went surprise i know it's me yeah you're like you'll see me again it's like like, that's so funny, Huck. So funny.

So funny.

That's cool.

Come on down.

I don't think, well, it's like, you know,

it's like there's just those moments where I'm like,

what if I didn't exist?

What if I, and it's kind of like a romantic,

kind of like an indulgent romantic feeling, but it is still in that ballpark.

I think it'd be terrible if you didn't exist.

Yeah.

I think it'd be terrible if any of us didn't exist. I...
It's a lot to think about. Fuck.
Whoa. That wasn't passive aggressive.
That was just pressing the button.

Well, I don't think I should share my deep thought now. It's landed on Brian.
Okay, okay, okay. I will not apologize for realizing that so many cleaning and moisturizing products are the same.
And therefore, I will continue to not apologize

for washing my body with shampoo anytime I feel like it

and every day of my life putting body lotion in my hair,

which is how I style my hair,

with Vaseline Intensive Care Body Lotion,

a very particular brand.

And people sometimes say, what's your hair routine?

And I put body lotion in it

I mean it's wet right now I just came from

the gym

you use just

moisturizer on your hair

very specifically Vaseline Intensive Care

body lotion

and you said that the reason you want to apologize

for it is because these things are like other

things what is the thing that you would be using if you weren't using that that would be meant for hair? Pomade. Pomade.
Hair clay. Hair clay.
Hair gel. Mousse, yeah.
Mousse. Or washing your body with body wash.
I'm like, this is, come on, shampoo. This is so similar.
I mean, if I have body wash, that's fine. But then you wouldn't use body wash on your hair.
I have. Well, we all all have i don't yeah that that is yeah more along the drying spectrum because sometimes that's like 50 50 sometimes it's like no big deal and then sometimes it's like you look fucked up that day yeah yeah for sure for sure yeah that's cool did you see that there was this guy that um uh uh he ostensibly died in a kayaking accident and they search for

his body for months.

And then a Tik TOK influencer posted that she was standing on the street

saying,

would you like advice?

And this strange man that looks like this man who disappeared said,

I need advice.

Should I leave my family and run off to Uzbekistan to marry this beautiful

woman?

And then, and she's like, but not, and the, the person that gives advice is like, well, I leave my family and run off to Uzbekistan to marry this beautiful woman.

And she's like, but not, and the person that gives advice is like, well, I think you need to figure out your marriage before you just do that.

And he's like, maybe.

And then his kayak showed up.

But then it turned out a day later, he went through Canada.

And now they think he's somewhere in Europe, i.e., or I guess that's Asia. He's far away.
I don't know if he went to Uzbekistan, but they think he ran, that he faked his own death to get away from his family. Have you ever thought about doing that? No.
I haven't. But I don't know if that really classifies as faking your own death.
It sounds more like he just went away. Well, no.
He left his wallet. It's like he left the kayak in the river, swam to the shore, and then got out.
He had a whole plan. And had moved money around beforehand.
But then he's in a man on the street style TikTok? I think. I'm not, I just.
He's like suddenly on Billy on the street? I don't think he was like functioning at 100% in this period of time. By this point, he's tired.
Remember when that governor? Yeah, he was tired. Remember when that governor ran off to South America because he'd fallen in love? Yeah, Mark Sanford.
And then he held a press conference. And in the press conference, the reporters were like, and I think his wife was standing there.
And the reporter was like, well, are you done? Are you going to end this and just come back? And are you ready to apologize? He's like, I'm not sorry. And I'm in love with this woman.
And love is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. Yeah, he blew up his whole life.
See, but that could also be the positive plot of a romance movie. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Like in the movie in Tootsie, how Terry Gard just gets totally fucked.
And treated like shit, but she's not the hero, so whatever. I don't remember the plot of Tootsie well enough.
Oh, he dresses up like a lady. That I know.
That's really all you need to know. I just remember them being like, what is it? Zoom out.
How far? Ohio. What is it? You guys know? Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, something like that. I don't remember either.
Let's spin it again. It has landed on me.
Oh, shit. And you know what? I'm going to just assert this now because I don't know what the future holds.
I'm not apologizing for liking Diet Coke. I'm going to keep drinking Diet Coke.
I don't know what's in it. I'll never know.
I'm sure it's doing terrible things to me over time. Let those things happen.
And if RFK Jr. starts getting in there, project number one, most important, don't touch the vaccines.
And that's the focus. Nothing else really matters.
But, if he starts fucking with aspartame, and I gotta to start dealing with fucking stevia and all the other also rants in the alternate sugar game, no. I say no.
It's one thing to take away the MMR vaccines, all right? But I already got those. I need an unlimited, continuous supply of Diet Coke.
What do you think of Coke Zero? I think it's great in a pinch. I think it's great in a pinch, but it's not.
You much prefer Diet Coke. Diet Coke.
Yeah, I'm a Zero. I think Zero tastes.
Well, Zero tastes shockingly similar to regular Coke. That's what I love about it.
Diet Coke is a whole different drink. Yeah, Diet Coke is.
Almost unrelated. It's weird.
If you haven't had Diet Coke for a while and you come back to it, it's like, I don't know what is happening. Yeah, you got to get your- So true.
You got to get your body used to that chemical. You got to get it.
You got it. You're right.
You got it. This is, again, I don't even want to say these things.
I'm afraid they'll get on RFK Jr.'s radar. But as you all know, I do eat cookie dough by the bag from the supermarket.
It's part of my life. Yum.
And I did have people over for dinner the other night and we had a lovely dinner and they said, should we walk and go get ice cream together? And I said, or, crazy pitch, do you want cookie dough from my fridge? And everybody's nice because you just gave them dinner so they could say, no, they can't. And I said, no, no, no, let's just eat raw cookie dough.
And they're like, I guess we'll try it. And they took a bite and they're like, this tastes like chemicals.
And I'm like, no, it doesn't. Doesn't.
You never get worried about the raw egg in there? Aren't there big warnings? Such an important point. They've solved it.
Capitalism is good. Oh, no raw egg in the new cookie dough.
They solved it. The Toll House raw egg can't eat it.
Oh, because they sell cookie dough now for eating. Yeah, they do.
They do, which is why, which is how we

yeah, it's Eaton dough, which is how

we won the Cold War.

A top-down planned economy

won't get you there.

It won't get you there. You need

entrepreneurial minds

with the profit motive.

With the profit motive. And the

profit motive is where I leave us tonight.

One more time for Reggie Watts, Brian Jordan Alvarez. Very fun.
Thank you guys. And we're back.
Now it's time for Joyride. We just need one silly, distracting, fun thing that gave you a little bit of joy this week.
What do you got? I'm coming to you. So one of my coworkers was out of town for a couple weeks getting married on honeymoon.
We all got bored and decided to gift wrap everything on his desk and around his desk, bubble wrapped his chair and all that. And he came back Tuesday and had to unwrap it all.
Wow. I'm happy that in this dark time

a bit of needless waste

and

it brought you that

tiny piece of joy

it was

it was

and I'm glad you had that

alright that is our show

thank you to Reggie Watts

thank you to Brian Jordan Alvarez

thank you to the lyric

have a great night

See you next week everybody

Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production

It is written and produced by me

John Lovett and Lee Eisenberg

Kendra James is our executive producer

Chris Lord is our producer

Thank you. It's Love It or Leave It.
Thanks to our designer, Bernardo Serna, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast.