The Faust and the Furious

1h 27m
Chris Van Hollen flies to El Salvador, Gayle King flies to the edge of the space, and Harvard flies off the handle. This week, we have Bradley Whitford on the end of Handmaid's Tale and the TV business, Bob the Drag Queen on Harriet Tubman's music career, and Jessica Kirson on life, love, and lesbian pants. Then we end on a few audience questions about executive orders, Republican drag names and more.

Listen and follow along

Transcript

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What's up, Los Angeles?

Welcome to Love Religion.

Live from Dynasty Typewriter, we have got a great show for you tonight.

Bradley Wigford is here.

And we'll test his news knowledge.

Bob the Drag Queen is here.

Jessica Kerson is here.

And we'll see together what goats, Fox News, can escape.

And then we'll open up the floor to you, our dear audience.

But first, let's get into it.

What a week.

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling that the U.S.

must facilitate the return of wrongfully deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, the Trump administration has no intention of doing so.

Hey, shout out to elder millennials out there.

Constitutional crisis and a midlife crisis at the same time.

You deserve that motorcycle Andor Le Croissette Dutch oven.

Yeah.

I have to tell you something.

I got the Dutch oven

and it's great

40s.

Dutch oven.

Makes me so happy.

I used to do drugs.

I still do drugs.

They don't hit like the Dutch oven.

I'm telling you, watching the charred remnants of a brisket just glide off the side,

revealing the perfect white of that leg croissette, fucking ceramic, so it looked like it was burned to a fucking crisp, wipes right off.

I don't need Molly anymore.

No two weeks of being sad after I make a brisket.

The Justice Department argued that seeking his return would violate separation of powers by forcing the executive branch's hand in foreign policy.

But ignoring a Supreme Court order, amazing for the separation of powers.

While meeting with Trump in the White House, Salvadoran President Naya Bukele also dismissed the idea of Abrego Garcia's return.

Question is preposterous.

How could I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?

It's obviously ridiculous.

He doesn't need to smuggle anyone anywhere.

Just open the doors, let the man walk out.

He can buy a ticket.

Now, Trump is claiming he's powerless to get someone back from El Salvador.

Bukele is claiming he's powerless to send someone back to the United States.

We now go live to a shot of Franz Kafka's grave, where visitors have recently heard strange emanations from beneath the tombstone.

Oh, brother.

Stupid.

But here's the twist: Democrats decided to do something.

I know.

A group of Democrats led by Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen said they would go to El Salvador to seek Abrego Garcia's release.

More like Chris Van Hollen ass.

Great job.

Chris, the Department of Homeland Security tweeted out a protective order that Abrego Garcia's wife once sought against him for domestic violence, writing, this MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure.

They still have provided no evidence that Abrego Garcia was an MS-13.

Also, we're not fighting for this person because he's a sympathetic figure.

Nobody deserves a life sentence without due process, except for people who don't inch into the intersection

when making a left.

Two of us.

Two of us get to go

to the gulag with you.

Also, when the third car goes long after the light has turned red, to the gulag with you.

Not one car, not three cars, two cars.

Two cars get to go.

On Thursday, Senator Van Hollen was denied entry to Seacott, the mega prison, even though Republican Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri and Riley Moore of West Virginia were allowed to tour the facility just this Monday.

Here is Congressman Riley Moore posing in front of a cell filled with inmates.

And now let's do a silly one.

In other attacks on basic freedoms, last Friday.

Fuck.

Last Friday, the Trump administration issued a set of demands to Harvard University requiring the school to report foreign students to federal authorities for conduct violations, to end all DEI initiatives, to exert greater control over student groups, to hire more conservative faculty, and to accept John Lovett in 1999.

But on Monday, Harvard became the first university to outright reject the Trump administration's demands, calling them illegal.

Never would have thought Harvard had it in them, based purely on the people I know who went to Harvard.

Said Harvard president Alan Garber in a statement, no government regardless of which parties in power should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.

Way to go, Harvard, he said while jamming a pencil into his thigh.

In their response, the Trump administration accused Harvard of anti-Semitism, demanding meaningful change in exchange for taxpayer funding.

I would never presume to speak for all Jewish people, but on behalf of the cool Jews, boo!

Cool Jews.

The White House then froze over $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university and threatened Harvard's tax-exempt status.

Just pure thuggery, or as they called it Harvard, Cornell behavior.

This is good news.

As difficult and costly as it might be to stand up to Trump, we already know by now what happens when you give in to his demands.

Best case scenario, you slowly turn into this.

For those of you at home, that was a hilarious photo of Rudy Giuliani's drooling hair dye, which you can see in the video version of this podcast available on YouTube at Love It or Leave It Podcast.

Yeah, sure.

Caving doesn't protect you from further abuse by Trump.

Last month, Columbia bent the knee after Trump threatened to yank $400 million in federal funding.

That classic New York City spirit, hey, I'm walking here with your generous permission, Mr.

President.

The university's trustees met with federal officials and agreed to demands including banning masks, cracking down on campus protests, and reviewing the curriculum and admissions for its Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

They let the federal government dictate how the school runs a specific academic department when that is the job for a very smart and deeply annoying person who liked college so much they never left.

In response to Columbia's weasely behavior, Trump didn't say, thanks for rolling over, guys.

According to the Wall Wall Street Journal, Trump is currently pursuing a consent decree, an agreement that would have the Trump administration and Columbia locked in a legal battle over the terms of their agreement potentially for years.

Oh, you thought giving the bully your lunch money would make them leave you alone?

No, bitch.

He blew it all at McDonald's and on shoelifts.

He will see you tomorrow, and this time he wants hash browns.

So Columbia has torches reputation for nothing.

And that's an important lesson for all of us because Trump's attack on academic freedom is part of a broader coordinated assault on the right to dissent, to inform the public, and to challenge the government in court.

Trump signed executive orders targeting two former administration officials for the crime of being critical of Trump and refusing to endorse election lies.

A cool detail in your hinge profile, but a waking nightmare in your actual life.

ICE is grabbing students off the street for co-signing op-eds, as we saw in the case of Rameza Ozturk.

On the legal front, nine law firms agreed to a deal which would provide almost $1 billion in pro bono legal services.

Those firms believed the pro bono work was for uncontroversial causes they already supported, like protecting veterans and making sure every American gets three servings of forever chemicals a day.

But those firms are in for a rude awakening.

According to the New York Times, Trump believes these services might include working for Doge, aiding the Justice Department, or representing Trump officials themselves if they're investigated.

Trump's spokesperson also referred to the agreements as binding.

So it turns out this Faustian bargain had some drawbacks.

It didn't work work out perfectly.

It's a shame that this is the first time anyone has had to imagine what happens if you sell your soul to get out of a jam.

We now go live to the grave of Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.

Good grief.

Guess these lawyers miss Dr.

Faustus, Damn Yankees, the devil's advocate, be dazzled, or an excellent episode of the Twilight Zone with Burgess Meredith called Printer's Devil, which is one of several Twilight Zone episodes with a Faustian bargain.

It's a great episode with Burgess Meredith.

He's got that penguin vibe, but he plays it down.

He plays it down.

One law firm that surrendered, Wilkie Farr and Gallagher, recently hired a new lawyer, Doug M.

Hoff, husband of Kamala Harris, who said he opposed the firm's decision but was overruled.

Small comfort, Doug, when you're providing free legal services to the QAnon shaman after he throws pig's blood on the hood of Jamie Raskin's Chevy Volt.

Real quick, what if we all woke up and Kamala was president and the biggest news of the day was that she was in hot water for bringing her Glock to the Easter egg roll?

Wouldn't that be nice?

Let's all wake up.

Let's all wake up right now.

Wake up!

There it works.

But four firms specifically targeted by executive orders have all fought in court and they're winning.

Judges are halting these brazenly unconstitutional orders by the president.

It's fun that the lawyers Trump can't get are, by definition, the ones who are good at winning in court.

It's like trying to steal a champion racehorse by chasing after one in flip-flops.

Just this Tuesday, a judge blocked the executive order against the firm suspend Godfrey, which successfully went after Fox News for lying about the election, saying the order was driven by the president's personal vendetta.

Said the judge, the framers of our constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power.

We now go live to the grave of Benjamin Franklin.

I wish I was in France having sex with an old duchess.

I mean, I mean, geez, Louise.

As that was the third one, that concludes the grave thing

that we did this week.

Would you believe all of those three different historical figures were played by the same Hallie Kiefer?

Yeah.

The same lesson on what happens when you capitulate applies to the attacks on the free press.

CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, is reportedly in talks to settle with Trump after he launched a completely frivolous $20 billion lawsuit against 60 Minutes for their pre-election interview of Kamala Harris.

This follows Disney's embarrassing $16 million settlement with Trump in a case against ABC News that the famously tough lawyers at Disney could have fought and won.

But being willing to settle hasn't saved Paramount from Trump's rage.

On Sunday, Trump said that the FCC chairman Brendan Carr Carr should target 60 Minutes for their unlawful and illegal behavior and strip them of their broadcast license.

And in case you haven't seen him yet, here's FCC chair Brendan Carr wearing his hideous golden brooch of Donald Trump's fucking face,

which he received during Trump's annual Diva Boots the House Down crony convention.

I've never seen a more clearly cursed object.

A generation from now.

Scientists will be burying this brooch in a lead coffin and sealing it with concrete like a body from Chernobyl.

We talked about this on Pod Save America.

Here's a headline about me shitting on said brooch earlier this week.

Obama Podbro rips megasycophant for wearing Trump drag.

It's a little more complicated than that, obviously, because Trump walks around every day wearing Trump drag.

I have to ask Bob about this.

There are layers to drag here.

Something a Columbia student could write a thesis about if they hadn't just agreed to turn their gender studies department into a conversion therapy center/slash gun range.

By the way, I'm 42 years old.

My co-hosts are in their 40s.

I spend the run-up to Passover in a state of indecision as to which Italian dessert plate to buy.

If I decide to wear a black t-shirt, I change out of navy underwear.

I have very specific opinions about the scents of hand soap.

In the last three months, I have seen Wicked Sunset Boulevard and O'Mary on Broadway.

I know a recipe for a delicious almond lemon cake by heart.

I am not a bro.

How many cocks does a guy have to suck to stop being called a bro?

Very good.

Very good.

On Monday, MIT

joined Princeton, Brown, Caltech, and the University of Illinois, among others, in suing the Department of Energy for slashing research funding.

There is a chance that Brown University got swept up on all this by accident.

When Trump was asking which foreign students to target, he said the Brown ones.

So probably just a misunderstanding.

That's all.

The president of Princeton said in a statement, Harvard's objections to the letter it received are rooted in the American tradition of liberty, a tradition essential to our country's universities.

Good point, Princeton, he said as the bile slowly rose in his throat.

Indiana University started a push for the Big Ten to form a mutual defense pact for when they inevitably start being targeted.

You know, things are bad when we're doing NATO, but for Midwestern colleges.

What if this ends with Sparty the Spartan and Biff the Wolverine kissing?

Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.

I'm not a bro.

I had to Google the mascots.

Point is, fighting is the only way.

If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to freeze your federal funding and threaten your broadcast license.

There's only one thing to do, and it's to tell that mouse to go fuck itself.

I.

It brings me no pleasure to say that we are in common cause with the ultra-wealthy, feckless lawyers of corporate law firms and trustees of elite colleges and the boardrooms of multinational media companies.

But we are, whether they know it or admit it.

And that's clarifying.

That could even be inspiring if we let it.

We are all in this together now, whether we like it or not.

And for those who don't yet accept that, we have to prove how powerful we are too.

Columbia was more afraid of Trump than their students, faculty, and alumni.

These law firms were more afraid of Trump than of their staff and clients.

Disney was more afraid of Trump than of their reporters and producers and their audience.

That has to change, and it has to change quickly because all of us together are far more powerful than Trump will ever be.

If Trump picks off his enemies one by one, he wins.

If he can't, he loses.

It's that simple.

And if I can speak positively of Harvard University, a blight on this nation,

a school that rejected me twice,

anything is possible.

All right.

Sure.

On Monday, Vice President J.D.

Vance tried to lift up the College Football Playoffs National Championship trophy during an event at the White House, but did not succeed.

So good.

Here's what makes this work comedically.

He's so incredibly careful.

He really takes his time trying to get a a good grip.

He does his absolute best and it all falls apart anyway.

A trained French clown couldn't have done this funnier.

I love that as hard as he tries to fight it, JD Vance can't stop his essence

from coming out.

Like, this is his essence.

Like, remember when he went to that donut store and he was like, I would like donut, please.

And he just fucking sucked the life out of the room.

Like, the man is the the vice president of the United States, but his essence is unchanged.

And I think that's beautiful.

And I think whatever it is, whatever that

space between how he imagines himself or how he wants to be perceived and what's actually inside of him, that space is what makes his movements so strange.

It's not in touch with his fucking body.

It's awesome.

It's awesome.

Speaking of clowns, a Fox News host on Wednesday related this charming anecdote about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Okay, Pete Hegseth would have a bagel with cream cheese.

He would drop it, it would land upside down, the cream cheese on the floor, and he would pick it up.

I'm like, wait, is there any hair on there?

Oh, no.

It was so gross, and he would just pop it in his mouth.

There's also a rumor that Pete did not wash his hands after that he said that one time on air.

It seems Pete Hegseth is the victim of a schmear campaign.

I really don't like equating eating off the floor with not washing your hands after the bathroom.

Those are very different.

That's not to say there isn't a clear rule that Heg Seth is breaking about dropping food on the floor.

If it's dry, let it fly.

If it's wet, you will regret.

I eat food off the floor.

You want to judge me?

You fucking...

Fucking judges?

Got your ropes and gavels?

Ready to judge me?

I'll eat food off the floor.

I ate fucking beef jerky off the floor today.

I was opening one of those beef chomps.

You know,

it's basically pellets for people that work in an office.

You know what I'm talking about?

Chomps.

They're everywhere.

I was opening it and I don't like touching the chomps because they're very beefy.

You're just going to, you just, they're beefy.

And so I was trying to open it carefully.

It flies out onto the floor.

I was in a conversation with Kennedy at the time.

Pick it off the ground.

I eat it.

I'm fucking fine.

High traffic area.

A lot of docks.

I don't care.

Because it's dry.

It's fine.

If it's wet, no, that's absorbing.

That's pulling it up.

That's done that's fucking done

you're throwing you drop a fucking cookie on the floor dry cookie dry floor you're throwing it in the garbage

really

wow to live with that kind of fucking privilege

being grossed out is a form of privilege any think about something that grosses you out That's somebody's job.

There's not a thing that grosses you out in this world that is not, there's not somebody who is paid every day to put their hand in that thing

I'm a little bit of a bro

Speaking of dangerous hobbies Blue Origins first all-female flight with Gail King and Katy Perry aboard lifted off on Monday and returned safely from the technical edge of space about 10 minutes later It's a woman's world and we're lucky to be rimming on it

I don't know.

There's a fair amount of backlash and not just from anonymous internet trolls, but even from celebrities like Olivia Munn, who said, what's the point?

Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride?

Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind.

What are they going to do up there that has made it better for us down here?

Really well said.

Here's Emily Radikowski.

That space mission this morning.

That's end time shit.

Like this is beyond parody.

Saying that you care about Mother Earth and it's about Mother Earth and you're going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that's single-handedly destroying the planet.

Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space.

For what?

For what?

What was the marketing there?

And then to try to make it like, I'm disgusted.

Literally, I'm disgusted.

A day later, King responded to the backlash.

Every time one of those goes up, you get some information that can be used for something else.

So

I wish people would do more due diligence.

And then my question is: have y'all been to space?

Have you been to space?

Go to space or go to Blue Origin and see what they do and how they do, and then come back and say, this is a terrible thing.

I'd love to go, but the first question on the Blue Origin application is, are you Gail King?

And the second question is, are you willing to have sex with Jeff Bezos?

And I am, but that's not the point.

I want to go to space.

It's 11 minutes, and then you get to go to space.

In other news,

Florida woman Kimberly Schlopper

has been arrested for buying and selling human bones on Facebook Marketplace.

Her defense, she didn't know, was illegal.

Now for a game we call, Can You Spell Kimberly?

I have $100

right here.

Sir, can you spell Kimberly?

Yeah.

Let's hear it.

My dyslexic ass.

K-I-M.

Wrong.

Thank you for playing.

Can you spell Kimberly?

K-Y-M-B-E-R-L-E-E.

Florida.

Florida, baby.

Residents of a small Michigan town on Sunday lined up in a human change to help a bookshop move its inventory to a new storefront a block away, one book at a time.

Said one guy trying to get to to work, what the fuck is this shit?

Personally, I don't think there was any good reason for them to arrange a human centipede style.

But the books have a new home and that's all that matters.

Look, this is just a sweet story about a small town coming together.

So there's no need to crunch the numbers and get all analytical about it.

According to the report, the book brigade was about 300 people and moving 9,100 books took just under two hours.

So that's 120 minutes, which makes it 36,000 people minutes to move 9,100 books, which means that it was about four minutes of effort per person per book.

The walk from the old location at 108 East Middle Street to its new location on 119 South Main Street is about 400 feet, as I've mapped out here.

So the round trip is 800 feet.

800 feet in four minutes comes out to a little over two miles per hour, a very chill pace to walk one book at a time.

But if you were to do around 30 books, as each person would have to do, you're walking four and a half miles.

You're getting your steps in.

All right.

And that would be nice because it would be people and not books going for a little bit of a walk, which we need.

But if each person took two books, which seems like a pretty reasonable baseline,

each volunteer would end up walking about two miles and the whole transfer would have been done in under an hour.

This just in, I'm a virgin again.

Damn it.

My virginity is returned.

And finally, two Belgian teens were arrested for smuggling 5,000 ants out of Kenya.

My God, please think of the uncles.

Nah, it was bugs.

It was bugs.

As of this recording, the Belgians have been charged with second-degree ants in the pants.

And that's it.

All right.

Next up.

Bradley Witfer's here.

Hey, don't go anywhere.

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

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And we're back.

You know him.

You love him.

Star

of stage and screen.

It's the one, the only Bradley Whitford.

Hi, thank you for being here.

My pleasure.

I'm a big fan.

I got to say, I haven't heard anything because the green room is hot.

It's really fun in there.

Oh, yeah.

It's good times.

Good group.

Good group.

How's it going out here?

It's pretty good.

They're a good crowd.

There's a good crowd tonight.

It's good.

I needed it.

I needed their support.

Hey, you're in the sixth and final season of Handmaid's Tale.

Yes.

What are you cheering for?

Right, it's a little bit.

Now, it premiered in 2017.

Is it weird to work on a show that's gotten it got briefly less and then more prescient?

Is it strange that the prescience curve has changed?

Yeah, there was a radical prescience

curve.

Yeah, it's very weird.

I mean, are we supposed to be funny or you can be funny?

Okay.

But you don't have to be.

No, no, no, no, no.

The show creates space for humor, but also deep meaning and purpose.

Deep meaning and purpose.

You know, it's a very weird time for this.

At the same time,

a moment to think about the importance of storytelling and the limits of storytelling.

You know, when the show started,

they were shooting the pilot before

Trump won that election in 2016.

And the idea of women's health care, of Roe v.

Wade being overturned, was absolutely unthinkable.

And in the course of doing this show,

you know, last year's, this is an amazing statistic, 64,000 pregnant rape victims

in the United States, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, do not have access to abortion care in this country.

So it's literally a handmaids episode.

This is not the funny part of

the stuff.

It's very weird.

Thanks for signposting that for us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wasn't expecting the laugh.

I feel like I should jump to a perhaps funny anecdote from the handmaid's tale.

Sure.

Okay.

You don't have to.

You should announce segues always.

I love that.

I think it's fine.

It was a wonderful creative experience, and we shot in Canada, and it's a very difficult

material with a very sweet, genetically, stereotypically super sweet Canadian crew.

There was a moment where the very sweet assistant director came up and said that, okay,

I don't want to rush you, but I think we we should get the nooses on the girls.

So there's moments like that.

Oh, we got a cut, the peg fell out of her mouth.

Yeah.

Shit like that.

Jesus.

There's something that the show, you know, the show to me, I was thinking about this.

So I read the novel before the show.

When people say, oh, the,

and it almost has become a cliche, like, oh, we're living in the handmaid's tale, right?

They're speaking of a specific kind of, I think, Christian nationalism and its dangers.

And I, um,

I understand that.

But the passage that I, that has stuck with me the longest since I read it years ago is it's a passage about the danger of humanizing terrible people.

That

that it's that in a lot of our

culture, right,

that you're supposed to get to know people, learn about them.

What really drives them?

Who's the real person, right?

When it's their behaviors and their actions that all that matter.

And there's this beautiful passage about what it would have been like to be married to a monster and your way of rationalizing being supportive of a monster.

And, oh, the way that that monster is kind to the dog and has a nickname for the dog and the sweet moments.

And the show generally has done a brilliant job of exploring that danger.

And I just wonder how you thought about that when your job is to inhabit a terrible, deeply flawed, and broken person who seems to be a little bit more self-aware about their evil than a lot of others.

I always thought of this guy

as

the kind of a

you know, McNamara fog of war guy whose big brain obliterated his humanity and maybe

his humanity is fighting, trying, trying to get out.

I mean,

I'm always thinking of sort of parallels with what is going, what is,

I don't know if you're aware of the political situation now.

Try to tune in and tune in, tune it out.

But

we are up against,

you don't need my insight on this, but we're up against fascism.

And, you know,

when I hear the sort of post-mortem about,

you know,

we can't be so woke, you know, that lost the election for us.

You know, we're dealing with fascists here.

It would be like, you know, saying it's a messaging problem to the Jewish resistance.

You know,

let's...

lay off the anti-Semitism because there's a lot of economic anxiety out there in the Alps

in the Alps that we need to understand.

And

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But so when I hear James Carville, you know, going, We gotta stop talking about, you know,

you know, this queer shit.

Yeah, you know, it's like

it's like he's in the room with us.

Wow.

That's professional training.

Yes.

It's a lot of training.

I smell Etoufe.

That's crazy.

Yes, that's what you got to understand.

But I think it, I think about that moment now.

What's interesting in the show, and I don't,

you know, there is hope in the show.

Don't let the bastards grind you down.

The key furnace in the show, which I think is something really important to remember now that is the center of June's character, is that despair is a luxury our children cannot afford, and action is the antidote to despair under the most extraordinary conditions.

Thank you.

So.

Thanks, Amy.

This is your wife.

My wife.

I recognize the laugh.

Thanks, baby.

It's nice to have someone in your corner.

Yeah, it is.

If you can make one person in an audience laugh.

Yeah.

Like Lady Gaga once said.

So we were, we were,

we were, you, it's interesting that you were part of, I think, one of the most hopeful and optimistic shows ever made, Handmaid's Tale.

And then,

no, the West Wing, obviously.

And

I went and looked this up and West Wing,

West Wing premiered in 1999.

So did the Sopranos.

And it felt like there were these two directions in front of us for television.

One was, this is a show where everybody's a hero, and then this is a show where everybody's a piece of shit.

We chose to go in that direction.

And I wonder, like, what it there's a real nostalgia, I think, for West Wing right now.

And some of the more kind of less cynical television of that era.

And I wonder if, like, have you thought about that?

Do you feel that when you're whether it's in the handmade sale or in whatever else you've been doing?

Yeah, I mean, I think about that.

I remember, I remember Tommy Schlammy.

That's his name.

You can get it.

One of the great TV directors.

One of the great TV directors.

His name is Tommy Schlamy.

Tommy Schlamy.

He could go by Thomas Shlamy.

Right.

But he doesn't.

Why would you?

Why would you?

And I remember, because the Sopranos was on at the same time.

By the way,

I love the Sopranos.

I remember

we would

always be accused of being this sentimental, hopeful,

unrealistically

hopeful show.

And that is certainly true in some ways.

But I remember thinking the bigger fantasy is like a mob guy in therapy.

You know,

not that there are six people around the president who believe in him.

Right.

Right.

Like, what's yeah, what's a funny, yeah, what's a less real world to live in?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everybody's fighting to do the right things.

But I remember because what they were doing on the Sopranos, I remember Tommy saying, I can't believe what they're doing.

He is going,

our hero is going completely dark.

And things like Breaking Bad, it became a whole genre.

I do think that that switches at certain times.

You know, I guess shows like Ted Lasso are

unapologetically

hopeful.

And I think it took off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But

how's the world?

Pretty bad.

Speaking of the world,

I don't know if you can tell, but

I don't know if you can tell from my small frame and under-eye bags, but the news is unrelenting, which is why we want you to help our listeners keep track of all the important and devastating and fun news of the week that didn't make the monologue and a hilarious recurring segment we call News It or Lose It.

Oh, there we go.

First question: Yes.

This week, the Wall Street Journal published an article about Elon Musk's 14 note children with four different women and his desire to sire a legion of babies.

According to Ashley St.

Clair, mother of Musk's most recent child, Romulus, the head of Doge, told her to reach Legion level before blank, we'll need to use surrogates.

Is it before A, we leave for Mars?

B, before global population collapse, C, before the apocalypse?

We've broken Bradley Woodford.

No, it's C.

It's the apocalypse.

Oh, okay.

To reach Legion level before the apocalypse, we will need to use surrogates.

Woof.

Next question.

Next question.

Nearly every member of a so-called elite squad of nerds from this federal department collectively resigned this month after being steamrolled by Doge.

An elite squad of nerds from which federal department?

Oh, there's no hints.

There's no categories.

There's no hints.

Was it

the IRS?

No, it was the Pentagon.

But it could have been the IRS.

Almost the entire snap of the Pentagon's defense digital service outfit decided to bounce en masse after Elon's boys bulldozed their office.

One Pentagon official told Politico that Doge's incursion has been catastrophic.

They're not really using AI.

They're not really driving efficiency.

What they're doing is smashing everything.

The best way to put it is, I think we either die quickly or we die slowly.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Are you using AI at all?

Like ChatGPT?

Yeah.

Oh, man.

It's scary.

It's getting very smart.

You know what?

I was shooting

a thing in Budapest, speaking of...

warnings

and

I made a joke because I'm playing a minor character in this thing when James Garfield gets shot.

And I said, I think this would be a funny time for James Blaine, the character, less interesting character that I play, to give a big speech.

And our writer, Mike Mikowski,

walked up to me a minute later and showed me like a 10-minute speech that James Blaine.

could have given at James Garfield's memorial.

So it worries me for the writers.

I worry about that too.

I also worry that you're shooting it in Budapest.

Yeah.

Have you found, like, there's this less and less of shooting in Los Angeles?

Yeah.

It's a huge fucking problem.

It's a huge problem.

I had always thought that the reason there was less and less shooting here was maybe a political problem that in a state

wrestling with the need for more funding for fundamental things like education, that

giving

Spielberg an incentive to shoot

didn't play well, but I do not understand

because

it seems like filmmaking is a real economic engine in

all over the world.

So

I don't know.

Is Gavin going to fix that?

Right now, it feels like

by the way, fuck you, Gavin Newsom, for the

podcast?

No, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the podcast, but the transports bullshit.

Fuck you, man.

I don't think it.

Yeah, I'm frustrated on the...

It just doesn't feel like

there's an emergency.

California, Los Angeles, the film industry, we were the epicenter.

of the world's culture.

It was incredibly important for our economy.

It was incredibly important for our culture.

It's what made this city like a world capital.

And it's all leaving very quickly.

And they're debating increasing a tax credit.

But it used to be the idea was there was a lot of stuff filming here and you could apply for the tax credit.

And if you got it, it would help.

But now if you don't get the tax credit, you do not film here.

So then what's the real tax rate for?

Because nothing is filming here.

Why are we just increasing a tax credit?

Shouldn't there be a bigger policy, simpler, easier, faster, so that more shit, like it is an emergency.

They are not treating it like an emergency.

Oh, really, Bobby?

You know, as

it's been devastating

to, you know, the crew that I lived with, you know, on West Wing, they can't do that anymore here.

Well, that's, this is, I think, that's really dangerous.

Obviously, it affects people's lives, but the advantage Los Angeles has is there's the most talented crew in the world lives here because this is where they built their lives.

And that advantage can go away.

And once we lose it, we can't get it back.

It's still, we still have it right now, but we won't have it for much longer.

Like, it's a crisis.

Like, I'm really like, I get the mayor on this show.

Let me take back the

momentarily, fuck you, Gavin,

and respectfully ask our governor

to

solve this issue.

I have heard that

in connection to

the fire rebuild, that there is

some,

you know, emergency changes coming to that system.

But it seems like it should be something we can depend on here.

Yeah, I like Evan Newsome.

I think he's very smart.

I think he is

like...

He understands these problems.

I just like,

I want it to feel more like our leadership in the state understand that we have a very short window to bring the production back and increasing the pool of money for a tax credit is not enough.

It's too late.

We're too far past that.

We need to like actually really incentivize to bring people back and that the and the studios and the filmmakers and the producers need to need to have a line into the city and the state for what they need.

to make things happen here.

Because I do think part of the problem also is in the same way that they've had to do a bunch of emergency rules to allow people to rebuild after these fires, there's a bunch of ways that California and Los Angeles are just fucking slow.

That's not even about money.

It's just about how hard it is to get the permits, get the permissions, get it all set up here.

So anyway, she's been bugging me.

All right.

They are building a,

there's a great big Apple studio that is

coming online very soon.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good news.

In lighter news, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was speaking to her consideration.

She's good people.

At a town hall recently, one of them shouted that the congresswoman was a butch body blank.

A butch body bigot.

B, butch body bully.

Or C, butch body brainworm.

Butch body bully.

Bigot?

He's that big.

Give him the ding.

Yeah.

Let's roll the clip.

Nice.

Let's do one more question.

Crosswalks in Palo Alto were recently hacked to speak with two wealthy voices.

Name one.

Wealthy voices?

Yeah, the voices of wealthy people.

Um uh I don't know, Elon.

Yes.

They somebody hacked them to make this sound.

Wait.

Hi, this is Elon Musk.

Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla Engineering.

You know, they say money can't buy happiness.

And yeah, okay.

That's exciting.

Yeah, that's

beautiful.

Thank you, Bradley.

Thank you.

He'll be back.

The final season of handmade sales available now on Hoogle coming up with Jesse Cursed and Bob the Drag Queen.

Tape, don't go anywhere.

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It's that time of year again, back to school season.

And Instacart knows that the only thing harder than getting back into the swing of things is getting all the back-to-school supplies, snacks, and essentials you need.

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Instacart, we're here.

And we're back.

Please welcome to The Sage, the incredible Jessica Kerson, and the phenomenal Bob the Drag Queen.

Hi.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

Welcome, Bass.

Way up right there.

It's great.

Hi.

These pictures they chose of us are so quiet.

It's great.

Is what you say?

These pictures they chose of us.

Oh, it's gone now.

No, I just saw them.

I look like a thin Hispanic girl.

Oh, I see it.

Look.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

It's like me with the most makeup I've ever worn.

It's a good picture.

I think they're both good.

No, you don't like them?

No, it's okay.

I hate every picture of myself, so it doesn't matter which one.

You know what really helped me?

And then didn't help me, and I still have the same problem I always did.

So it didn't help at all.

Not at all.

But Fran Leibowitz was talking in that documentary she made, and she said how she used to hit every picture, but within a couple of years, when you look back in a picture, you just think, oh, boy, I looked young.

And you no longer remember the pictures you liked or didn't like because they all are just you being young.

And it's, then you think, well, then,

so I look worse now.

So no matter, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, time's not kind.

No.

Time's not kind.

Sometimes I think, if I look in the mirror,

And I look really tired and I think, God, I look like shit today.

One year from now, that's my best.

Yeah.

I have a theory that we're not meant to look at our faces as often as we look at our face.

100%.

I don't look at my face a lot.

I'm serious.

I do my makeup for hours.

Oh, yeah, you do.

You ever know in movies they always go crazy while doing their makeup?

I was like,

It's because you're not meant to look at your face that often.

That's right.

Oh, wow.

My hot take.

That was a weird pause.

Bob,

hey, you wrote a novel.

It's called Harriet Tubman Live in Concert.

And that's funny.

Yeah.

I get how on the surface, Harriet Tubman Live in Concert sounds like an SNL sketch.

I understand that.

But when you read the book, it's actually, there's a lot of reverence for Harriet Tubman, for

what black people have gone through and are continuing to go through in America.

So everything I do, I'm going to have a little bit of humor in it.

I mean, even when my mom died, my friend Zach Norway Towers called me.

And I was actually really distraught.

Obviously, my mother passed away.

And I was really like distraught.

And I was just crying, and he was crying with me.

And he and I,

you know, rib each other all the time.

And he goes, if there's anything I can do for you, please let me know.

And I was like, if you could just

quit comedy.

So, you know,

I'm going to use humor in everything that I do.

There is humor in the book.

Like on the day after my mom passed away, it's kind of crazy.

I think of you as such a performer.

I have trouble imagining you

sitting and writing for hours at a time without losing your mind.

Is that fair?

Well, I wrote this.

It took me four years to write this book,

which is embarrassing when you realize it's only like 240 pages.

I want to say, I don't think that's embarrassing at all.

That's what everybody wrote.

You finish a book.

You finished a book.

I did.

Look at this.

It's a book.

And it really is that my voice.

When you read the book, if you're familiar with me, you're like, oh my God, you can hear me reading the book or you can hear hear me writing the book and i mean honestly it's really like uh comedians we write i mean we're we don't wing it i mean jessica's the queen of winging it actually like literally she has built an empire but she also is a brilliant joke writer as well so you know i've i've i have three comedy specials out so i've written i'm i've written hours and hours of uh of material so i mean i do write but i this is my first time doing this form of prose for sure and was it difficult writing so many sex scenes for harriet tubman

my god i putting yourself in that mind.

Not a single sex scene in the book.

I mean, it's pretty.

I mean, it's beautiful.

You're right.

I'm sorry to say that.

The love-making scene.

You'll be with Harriet Tubman.

You will be haunted, rest assured.

What?

I'm sorry.

Harriet Tubman isn't a woman that had sex.

Your ghost.

You're saying that her, yeah, she's a revered figure, but is it not possible that Harriet Tubman loved to fuck?

Your ghost will not make it on the Underground Railroad.

Your ghost is not going to make the trip on the Underground Railroad.

I rupped one out to her once.

She actually was a bit of a sex symbol.

So Harriet actually used her feminine wiles in her journeys back and forth.

So it's actually not far-fetched to Harriet Helmet.

You usually got to do what you want.

And whenever that didn't work, she also carried a gun.

That is true.

Harriet Telman carried a, carried the.

That's amazing.

So even in the afterlife, you know, she would, you know, she takes care of business.

Jessica, after seeing your special,

kids know nothing and you have to teach them everything.

That seems like a slog.

It is a lot.

I didn't have any of my kids because I don't want to ruin this temple.

But

it's a lot.

It is because I'm older.

So, but I mean, it's amazing.

But they'll be like, pick me up.

And I'm like, pick me up.

I've been on the floor.

since yesterday.

Yeah.

My favorite thing to do is to go to people's houses who have kids and then like have fun with the kids in a way that the parents will not want to do and then leave.

Like my friend Jasmine has this daughter and we do this thing called, she has a child, we do this thing called taco, where you go taco and then you pick the kid up and you fold them like a taco.

And you just do this

and the kid go taco.

And then we go,

and then Jasmine's like, don't fuck, I can't, I'm not doing that when you leave.

I'm not doing that when you fucking leave.

Yeah, I always, when I, I always like, look, because the parents, when you visit, it's like between like three and five, it's before they've been handed off to the government,

you know, for part of the day.

Yeah.

You're still on it.

And I would love just sort of, you can, like three and kids between three and five, you can really kind of, you can lift them, you know?

So you can, you can kind of spin them around and make them real dizzy.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and then slam it to a wall.

It's hilarious.

Parents hate it.

Yeah.

Parents don't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm going to get married soon.

You think that's a mistake?

Yes.

Oh, no.

You do?

No.

Are you sure?

Yeah, 100%.

But you know what?

One thing I've learned, I don't know, how many long-term relationships were you in?

I've only been in them.

I'm a lesbian.

Right.

So

they've ended after two years and stayed with them for 12.

That's how.

But for me, it's like you have to have you have to have at least two long-term relationships.

Yeah.

Because it's only in the second long-term relationship that you figured out what the problems in the first term, first relationship were your fault.

Yeah, that's true.

They weren't, but I was always told.

Oh, they weren't your faults?

I mean, I had, yeah, I mean, I, of course, had a part in it, but I was always told that every single thing was my fault.

I was with someone who couldn't take responsibility or own her part.

Oh, wow.

This is getting really upsetting.

But I'm with someone now who's the nicest and most amazing, caring person.

You said that last time.

I never said that.

I'm kidding.

Yeah, she's here.

My knee partner.

I forget what Bob said.

No,

we joke all the time.

Joke, I joke.

I kid.

We joke.

Bob and Jessica, as things get progressively worse, and American conservative media gets more and more panicked about gender and sexuality, because if they didn't, they'd have to cover the news.

I'm running out of things to say about it, which is why I wanted you two to say it instead, as we all weigh in on the question, will this successfully distract straight conservatives from the many terrifying real problems affecting our country?

In a segment, we're calling, look over they, them there.

I love...

Bob and Jessica sounds like a straight couple.

Like Bob and Jessica are coming over for dinner.

It sounds like the hosts of a morning TV show.

And they start with Bob and Jessica.

And that's the traffic report.

Back over to you, Bob and Jessica.

It does.

Yeah, it does.

It really does.

First up,

the claim that sitting in front of a screen makes you a woman.

What?

Yep.

To be fair, Jessica is sitting in front of a screen.

So one out of three chances, it will work.

Let's roll the clip.

When you sit behind the screen all day, it makes you a woman.

Studies have shown this.

Studies have shown this.

And if you're out working, like building robots like Harold, you are around other guys.

You're not around HR ladies and lawyers.

What do you think?

It gives you estrogen.

What do you think?

Let me finish, Judge.

What a bad.

Behind the screen.

Can we just look at the beginning of the clip when he goes, sitting behind the screen all day?

Yeah, sachet.

That's amazing.

Looks good.

That man knows the flavor of penis.

If he did a blind daisy,

that's dick.

That is dick.

I know it is.

Right.

It's like, okay, diet, Dr.

Pepper, Dr.

Pepper, penis, penis.

No, he'd be like, diet, Dr.

Pepper, Dr.

Pepper, Jim?

But he sits in front of a screen all day.

He's on the news.

I think he might be full of shit.

Yeah.

Jessica, your Hulu special is called I'm the Man.

Yeah.

Is that because you do stand-up and you don't work behind a screen?

That's like because of the term like, I'm the man.

Like I am a female comic who's very powerful and fearless.

And I, yeah.

So like society's, you know, view of what a man is.

Also, every time I've been with a woman, a straight guy, I said, who's the man?

And I'm like, I guess it's me because I don't listen and I'm dead inside.

I was at Taco Bell recently, not to brag.

I'm there every night.

But I pulled up to the drive-thru, and the lady at the drive-thru was like,

Welcome to Taco Bell.

And I was like, hi, can I get the Doritos locos

and

the Mountain Dew Zero

Baja Blast?

And then she said, Yes, ma'am, absolutely.

Just drive up to the next window.

And I was like, I don't have a, I don't mean, I don't want my voice that feminine.

Okay, sure, whatever.

So I was like, and I was like, I'm not going to correct her.

It's fine.

We pull up to the window, and I look, it's a man.

Because

I said, yes, ma'am.

We pulled up two men.

We were like, what do we do?

We didn't say anything.

I just said, I just said thank you, ma'am.

He said, yes, ma'am, on your way.

Kiss, kiss, kiss.

Kiss, kiss, kiss.

That's an opportunity to kiss.

Yeah.

You should kiss.

Mountain Dew Zero.

That's a cursed drink.

No, oh, no, no.

Let me tell you right now, I'm not one to go on and on about beverages.

That being said,

I'm pre-diabetic, so I can't drink sugar-full drinks.

So if you're out there looking for a great sugar-free beverage, I'm going to rank them for you.

So at the very, very top of the list, you have Taco Bell's Baja Blast, Mountain Dew Zero.

This is elite.

You can't even tell it's zero sugar.

Then, under there, you have a Diet Dr.

Pepper, okay?

That's a good one.

Absolutely amazing.

Below that, you're gonna have Coke Zero and Pepsi Max.

But over here in the other world, there's this group of maniacs and they drink Diet Coke.

I like Diet Sprite.

Diet Sprite is great.

Diet Sprite,

Dad.

Diet Coke is a cult.

It's crazy.

It is a cult.

They'll drink it with anything.

They're like, good morning.

I have a sauced chicken cheese and a Diet Coke.

Yeah.

So in my fridge at home, we have Diet Coke and one lever down is all caffeine-free Diet Coke.

Silver Clan, Gold Clan.

Wow.

Because...

Silver Diet Cokes, you can drink until 3 o'clock.

Gold Diet Coke, you can drink 3 o'clock till morning.

I would say, you have reached a certain age when the caffeine and Diet Coke is sending you into a caffeine.

Yeah.

When you're like, if I drink this Diet Coke, I'm not going to get to bad as hope for that.

You are a woman of a certain age.

Yeah.

I am.

I am of that, whatever age you think that is.

I have hit it.

I am on the other side of that age.

If I get anywhere near a full caffeinated Diet Coke after four o'clock, after four o'clock, two days are ruined.

That's amazing.

that is such a crisis if I have a Diet Coke after three o'clock the next day is fucked I'm not better the day after that that's how fucked I am I imagine you have a Diet Coke and someone walks in like are they filming breaking bad in here what's going on this guy's cracked out in here

next up

the idea that tariffs equal girlfriends This week, Vox published an article titled The Strange Link Between Trump's Tariffs and Incel Ideology, Meet the Lonely Men Who Think Tariffs Will Get Them Girlfriends.

Apparently, it's part of a larger online hysteria that claims women have cushy email jobs, providing them with a level of financial security, which keeps them from having to marry and have sex with socially dysfunctional men.

If tariffs tanks the economy, women will be forced to marry men for economic survival, thus righting a terrible wrong against the duds.

Can someone kill me?

I'm serious.

Can someone just kill me tonight?

I don't think maggots know what a tariff is.

I don't either.

I genuinely don't think they know what it is, what it does, who pays for it, where it comes from,

who came first, the tariff, or the product.

They have no clue.

And they will say it does anything.

Tariffs, tariffs, cure cancer, tariffs gives you girlfriends.

Tariffs gives you wings.

Don't drink a tariff after 3 p.m.

Yeah, I just like, it's just like you're a,

you're sitting in your, you're in front of your computer in your parents' house.

Becoming a woman.

Becoming a woman.

You're gaming.

Life isn't gone your way.

You think that tariffs are going to fuck up the marketing jobs for the women and turn you into what?

A factory foreman?

I hate to say it, but those guys who are not getting laid,

not only could tariffs not get you laid, Jesus Christ

could not get those guys laid.

Yeah, tariffs, that's your problem.

That's your problem.

You got jersey bed sheets.

Get it together.

Terrible.

That was.

No, hey.

Come on, that was horrible.

Come on,

it was such a problem.

If you committed, we would have been in.

They didn't hear that.

Yeah, that's true.

That said, it's terrible, is what I said.

See?

It worked.

It worked.

We're just terrific.

Next up, maybe the TSA body scanner turns you gay.

Oh my god.

In a recent podcast clip that went viral, a Christian nationalist pastor expressed concern that the TSA body scanner would turn him gay with its gay beam.

I had to be molested at the airport to go to Florida, right?

Just to get on an airplane because I'm not going to go through the

machine.

I didn't let CJ do it.

I wouldn't let him do it.

Said, you're getting patted down too, buddy.

I don't want them turning you gay.

I can't.

I'm sorry.

I just can't take it.

I just don't think it's the beam, my friends.

I mean.

You go through, like, I'm about to go through security, and you come out and you're like, hello!

I mean, we know that's not true because all gays have TSA pre-check.

Everyone knows

we would never stand in this machine.

We don't do that.

That's such an important point.

We walk by real life.

It's like you feel so VIP, you're like.

Looking at the straight men kick their shoes off, taking out their laptops and their fucking iPad Pros and their Nintendo Switches.

And finally,

can white men, can white men know,

don't finish it.

The answer is no.

I also, I misread it.

It's not can white men, it's can men wear white jeans.

Yeah, no, because they shit themselves so much.

That's straight man.

Yeah, maybe the straight men shitting themselves.

The Trump administration has ignored the Supreme Court, sent our nation into a constitutional crisis, attacked our universities, erased our history, but Fox News can't cover that.

So they have to ask important questions like, can men wear white jeans?

I will say,

in their defense.

No, finish the thought.

Finish the thought.

White jeans are like hot.

Like when a man wears white jeans, I think to myself, there's no way this man would ever be straight.

A straight man would not think to wear white jeans for starters.

And if they do, they would be covered in mustard and ketchup.

Beef jerky.

Cheeto dust.

Red bull Cheeto dust.

They don't have the, they don't have the tact it takes to wear white jeans.

It's really,

it's high, the white jeans, they're high risk, high reward.

For sure.

If it's working, you feel like you're just crushing life.

Look at me in these white jeans.

The other thing about the white jeans is if the sneakers are off,

you look insane.

Yeah, you look

crazy.

You look crazy.

Everything has to be right.

Now, a lot of lesbians don't wear white jeans either.

I just realize.

Huh.

I love that no one just responded to that.

Why do you think that?

I'm very alone.

I don't know.

I mean, I do, but I don't know.

I don't know.

Let's just go over something else.

Can you just agree with me?

It's true.

I have never seen a lesbian wear white things.

And if I see it, I'll say, not a lesbian.

You can't fool me, bitch.

You're a lesbian.

No.

We got to get these cards checked.

She's from Lebanon.

Oh my God, you're Lebanese.

Yeah, I'm Jewish from Lebanon.

So anyway,

I got a lot of questions about chicken tarna, so we're in good shape.

Chicken.

Are you Jewish?

Yeah.

Me?

Oh.

No, I've got.

I've known.

Hey, do me a favor.

Never ask anyone that.

Well, I was, I was like, because you were, I was like, all this Jewish stuff you're saying is, I was like, Jessica, are okay?

Well,

you were Jew, that would have been

you have to show the book.

Oh, that's amazing what you just said.

Just show my book.

I mean,

I've been getting laughs the whole time.

Can you fucking show my book?

The book is Harriet Tubman Live in Concert, a novel, Bob the Drag Queen.

New York Times bestseller.

The bestseller.

Bestseller.

Finally.

Finally, a story about about what it would be like if Harriet Tubman was around now.

Exactly, exactly.

And we got some great acclaim.

Whoopi Goldberg loves the book.

Karamo loves the book.

All the black people.

Yeah.

Great.

You going to ask me if I'm black?

Are you?

You're black.

Now I'm feeling like I like, should I have asked at the beginning?

Yeah, it wouldn't have been offensive at all.

Yeah, no, no.

It would would have been weird, but it would have been offensive.

Like, certain people you can ask.

You're like, are you like,

I met someone recently, and I didn't ask her if she was black, but I did lean over and I was like, is she black?

So I don't know if any of you watch.

I don't watch Real Housewives.

Do you know if you watch Real Housewives?

I've been watching it.

So I was on this TV show with one of the real housewives of Potomac.

Her name is

Robin.

Yeah.

And I didn't know if she was because she's so light-skinned.

So I leaned over to

another black person, Danielle Reyes, and I was like,

is this bitch black?

She is.

Cool.

Oh, what a relief that is.

I'm also just thinking about like, maybe one, like,

you're black, and I knew that before.

I'd have to ask.

I'm just imagining how it would be received if everything about this novel was the same, but you were white.

It'd be crazy.

It would be crazy.

So tell me about this fictionalized version of Harriet tubbin in the present she's a rapper i understand

so she she comes back so harriet tuppin wants to continue her work as an abolitionist right helping to get people to freedom now harriet tubbin actually did use music in her work as an abolitionist she would go to the edge of the woods and she would sing a song very quietly not like in the cynthia rivo movie she's in the she's in the woods belting

like girl you're gonna get caught no girl

You go to the edge of the woods, you would sing a song very quietly, and then the nearest enslaved person would hear that song and they would start singing.

So you wouldn't get caught.

And then everyone else else starts singing, and that is a message that lets you know someone's going to be delivered tonight, someone's going to be taking their journey, someone's going to become a passenger on the Underground Railroad.

So it's actually not far-fetched to imagine that Harriet Tubman would use music in her work.

And obviously, the goalpost for freedom has moved, right?

What freedom means is constantly moving, but it doesn't mean you don't keep moving with the goalpost.

So Harriet Tubman is working with a semi-retired hip-hop producer named Darnell.

And on the journey, she realized that he might not be free and she's going to help him get to his freedom.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

I love that.

Thank you.

Bozbook, Harriet Tubman, live in Congress out now.

Jessica's special, I'm the man.

Hits Hulu on April 25th.

Yeah.

That's great.

Next Friday.

Yeah.

Where did you film it?

I filmed it in New York at Sony Hall.

That's great.

That's so amazing.

Yeah.

I'm really proud of it.

It's great.

Yeah.

No, it's really, it's different.

You know, I pride myself on being very different on stage.

And I really am excited for the world to see it, you know, and I'm excited it's with Hulu.

They're incredible.

That's

if you don't watch it, you're crazy.

Jessica Kirsten is not only one of the funniest comedians of all time, she is the comedian that they call when someone needs to learn how to be a comedian.

She is,

did I, am I lying?

I'm not lying.

She is like a comedian's comedian.

She, and you know how you know she's good because gay guys like her.

Yeah, that's good.

And we hate everyone.

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

So check out the special.

When we come back, we have one more segment.

Hey, don't go anywhere.

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And we're back!

Hey, everybody, welcome Bradley Whitford back on stage.

Come back.

Oh, my God.

Welcome back.

Bradley Whitford, everybody.

I was working on my Harriet Tubman audition.

Hey, everybody.

Before we get to our final moments together,

quick notes.

One, go to crooked.com slash store.

We have a new join or die Pride merch.

We want to get the pride merch out there so people can wear it during pride, getting ahead of the game.

Really great.

Basically, look, the conservatives are trying to separate the, peel the T off from the LGB, all right?

And we got to keep the LGBT, we got to stick together.

So

really great designs.

They're awesome.

We have an amazing designer, Zevi, and their whole team did an amazing job.

So go to crooked.com slash store.

Check out what our founding daddies would have wanted.

All right.

Also, we've got a newsletter you can sign up for.

It's crooked.com/slash daily.

They're doing an amazing job.

The team at What A Day does an amazing job on the podcast.

They do an amazing job on What A Day the newsletter.

So check that out.

Also, next week we're in DC, but which is already sold out.

But we'll be back in LA on May 1st with Guy Branham, Best Selling, Edie Patterson.

And so if you're in LA, grab tickets at crooked.com/slash events.

All right.

Now we're into our final segment.

It's been a joy to be here with Bob Jessica and Bradley Whitford.

I like to say her full name.

Gay icons and Bradley Whitford.

So it's time to close out the show for a segment we're calling questions about being gay, lesbian, or Bradley Whitford.

Here's how it works.

If you have a question that you were ever too afraid to ask about what it's like to be gay or lesbian or Bradley Woodford,

now is your chance.

Our producer, Bill, is floating around around with a mic.

We'll take a couple of questions and we'll get the fuck out of here.

Any questions?

I have a question for Bob.

Okay.

Bob,

you came onto my radar when you were out in New York City getting married to other drag queens.

Oh my God.

I know.

Yeah, it was called Drag Queen Weddings for Equality.

This was, my God, maybe 15 years ago.

And we used to go out every Saturday and do these protests in Times Square about inequality between the queer community and

muggles.

Yeah.

So my question is, would you do that in today's

politics where we are now?

Yeah, I mean,

I did joke.

I mean, I am a very, very visibly queer person.

I'm also a physically large person.

I'm like 6'2 ⁇ ,

a dainty 230.

Also, Trump's figures.

Which

I

was saying, I need to go put on one of his golf outfits because that man is

we are not the same size

Donald Trump is not 220 20 pounds something like I'm you're telling me I am 10 pounds heavier than Donald Trumpy Trump

Yes, I mean so I mean yeah I

I certain I certainly I certainly would I mean I still love to you know rebel I was at this I used to do a lot of activism back in the day, like getting arrested and doing all these protests and stuff because my voice was really small in terms of the world.

So I had to make a lot of noise to be seen and to be heard.

So I had to get arrested.

I had to call the news there while I was getting arrested, that kind of stuff.

And I remember being doing this panel at DragCon, and this one lady was like, tweeting's not enough.

Instagram posts are not enough.

I'm like, bitch, not your shitty little tweets.

No one follows you.

Of course, yours aren't enough.

But the thing is, everyone has to do their part, right?

Everyone can't be in the streets marching.

Everyone can't get arrested.

It's also insanely ableist to be like, if you're not marching, bitch, some people can't even get out of their home.

Their anxiety won't even let them leave the house.

So, if everyone does their part, some people are going to be getting arrested.

Some people are going to be causing scenes.

Some people are going to be doing, uh, causing, you know, creating legislature.

Some people are going to just be tweeting.

Some people are going to be retweeting.

Just do whatever it is that you can do.

So it all moves the needle forward, in my humble opinion.

I like that.

This is a question question for all of the panelists.

The president has made a ton of executive orders.

If you could make an executive order, what would you do?

Get rid of him.

I would ban straight men from being flight attendants.

Because I am 30,000 feet in the air.

I want to feel comfortable.

The last thing I want is I'm like, nigga, you want some peanuts?

I'm like.

I ain't never wanted cran apple that bad.

I will be like,

I'll be thirsty.

I will, on the on the 24-hour flight to Australia, I will rather starve than have a straight man give me a heated up hungry man meal.

Bradley, you have any o?

You have an executive order?

God, just give me a president without like cream sickle hair

it's very odd i have a question about so i'm bald right

and when you when you have the the full horse show like dr phil

what do you say when you sit down at the barbershop like what are you saying to them it's like a beard trim kind of thing but like is no one like girl just shave this part off i can't i'm questioning the communication going on between someone who will not just shave the back of their hair on

and then they because he's going to a barber he's on tv all the time someone's doing his hair and they they're going to a groomer i don't think he's going to a barber yeah they now he's probably getting groomed and he's like give me the summer cut yeah the uh it's hot out here my dad wore a toupee like that so it's even more traumatizing it seems like he has that and it's kind of swoopy but also there's been reports about having scalp reduction surgery so that it closed part of the top

there's been a lot of different reports but it's very clearly a very i think that if we saw him, it would be kind of vaguely Merlin-like, you know, fully down.

Is there ever a hair correction, a toupee that works?

Or

they have great toupes.

Oh my God, toupees are brilliant these days.

So I don't know why the fuck he's not going to get his hair done in a way that looks nice.

But he thinks it looks good.

It's all that delusional thinking.

You know, he gets his suits intentionally, like, they look all ill-fitting, but they're intentionally made that way and he he got he also noticed you ever see him on profile he stands like this

like he's about to go in the pool is because he's wearing the heels

all the guys wear the heels so he's leaning forward oh that's interesting

but also because because men have decided it's it's the pilates for fags and yoga's for fags they all shuffle they don't have any flexibility here yeah so they just shuffle because they're just everything here is tight.

So that's part of it too.

My executive order of the week would be, I love, I've learned so much about cooking and I've learned so much about food from influencers.

I really have.

Nothing has been more helpful.

I think it's an incredible tool for social media.

I learned recipes.

I think that like I've become a better cook faster because I have so much knowledge that I can draw on from seeing people chop and do things that I can just draw on, which I love.

There are these incredible women making incredible dishes.

They are beautiful.

They are

talented.

I never want to see the men you're cooking for.

Every time one of these incredible women finishes making a spectacular meal, they place it down in front of this fucking garbage bag of a man.

These women are in,

they are clearly working out.

They're up at five.

They're taking care of this kid.

Their skin is amazing.

They're on top of every single part of their day.

And they put this food, this little ish, in front of a fucking ungrateful beast.

And it fucking kills the fantasy.

Like when Martha Stewart went to jail, she wasn't perfect anymore.

That's my executive order.

I don't want to see your husband's.

Let's do one more question.

Ideally for everybody, but it could be for one person.

Yeah, this is for all the panelists.

If you were to make up a Republican drag name, what would it be?

Oh, that's interesting.

That's interesting.

Tarif.

Yeah, I mean, so.

So, so to give it.

Oh, Mar Tarif.

Oh, Mar Tarif.

So to give an idea on how drag, to give an idea on how a drag name works, drag names work, there's a lot of ways.

There's three formulas that really work for drag names.

one is a very feminine version of the name you already have so instead of donald trump he'd be like dawn the radonda trump right

and then you have um a play on words right like uh

this queen she just lost her home her name is lavonda bridges that kind of name right

so a play on words like shalita baby and then you

And then you have really opulent names like Manuela Dupree Balenciaga.

So those are typically the three way, but there's obviously like also stupid names like Bapa Draquid

as well.

So those, so to give you all a framework, those are the, you know, the ways that people often come up with drag names.

I have one.

I'm ready.

Anti-abortion.

There it is.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

How about that?

I have one, Lindsey Graham Cracker.

Oh, that's nice.

I have one.

How about

who's

the Supreme Court who just lost in Wisconsin or where was it where Elon Musk tried to buy all the

Susan Crawford?

Yeah, so her name would be Shanita Vote.

Oh, that's pretty good.

She won.

She did win.

Yeah.

She got all the votes she needed.

Misinformation.

Yeah,

that must have been done.

But it's still good, though.

It's still good.

Oldie, but a goodie, oldie, but a goodie.

I think Brad, the drag queen, would be great.

Yeah.

Have you ever done drag, Bradley, but Verde?

Yeah, I have.

I played a cross-dresser on Transparent, and I loved it.

It was very exciting to me.

It was scary to me

because I was like, oh, shit.

Like,

am I going to be able to do that?

You were still turned on.

Yeah,

I was like, I've never done this, but

the fitting, I was, you know, I'm fine, you know, playing somebody who murders someone, but I'm like scared, shitless, going to the,

and it was, I got into it.

The costume person complimented my legs, and immediately I was like, make my tits bigger so the hem,

you know, so the hem comes up.

It's a slippery slope.

That's how it's like.

Oh,

I once played a cross-dresser and bitch, I'm not playing no more.

All right.

That's where we have.

That's where we have to leave it.

Everybody, check out Jessica's special on Hulu.

Everybody, check out Bob's book, The First.

Farat Thompson.

Everybody, Brett, check out Bradley Woodward on the final season of Handmaid's Tale.

That's our show.

Thank you to Bradley Whitford, Jessica Gerson, and Bob the Drag Queen.

Next week, we will see you in Washington, D.C.

There are 563 days until the midterms.

Have a great night and have a great weekend.

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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.

Bill McGrath is our producer and Kennedy Hill is our associate producer.

Howie Keeper is our head writer.

Sarah Lazarus, Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, and Will Miles are our writers.

Jordan Cantor is our editor.

Kyle Segmund and Charlotte Landis provide audio support.

Stephen Cologne is our audio engineer.

Our theme song is written and performed by Schersher.

Thanks to our designer, Sammy Koderna-Rees, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast.

And thanks to our digital producers, David Tolles, Claudia Shang, Mia Kalman, Delan Villanueva, and Rachel Gaeski for filming and editing video each week.

Our head of production is Matt DeGroote.

Our head of programming is Madeline Herringer.

And our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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