Escalating Tensions

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What's up, Los Angeles?

Welcome to Love It or Leave It live at Dynasty Typewriter.

We got a great show for you tonight.

Congressman Eric Swalwell is here.

Talk about winning the argument with Cash Mattel and losing the war on cringe.

Bossum Youssef is here.

Paul Shear is here.

And we get into some bad movies and even worse reality.

Then we wrap up with a hundred and eighty-degree twist of the wheel.

Hmm.

Whatever that means.

But first, let's get into it.

What a week.

We live in cruel, capricious, and dangerous times with new threats around every corner.

To wit, there was this national security incident at the United Nations earlier this week.

Yes, when Donald Trump and Monday's Melania Trump stepped onto the escalator, it stopped.

The escalator stopped.

And you're laughing?

Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, no relation.

And if we find that these were UN staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up, the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability for those people.

And I will personally see to it, Jesse.

Good.

This is a first.

I've never seen someone asked to speak to the world's manager.

On Wednesday, Trump went on social media and called for UN staff to be arrested in a post about the escalator that was somehow this long.

Look at this fucking thing.

He accused the United Nations of three sinister events, adding the escalator, a teleprompter malfunction, and a wonky sound system to the mix.

It's amazing that Milani and I didn't fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps face first, said the leader of our armed forces.

It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly, or it would have been a disaster.

This was absolutely sabotage.

It's sad to see Trump go woke woke like this.

When you think about it, escalators are just DEI stares.

Also, it's beyond disturbing that Trump needs a teleprompter to do his usual rambling nonsense.

It's like catching your dog reading bark, bark, bark from his phone.

The UN released a statement.

saying it was a member of Trump's team who ran ahead of him and accidentally triggered the escalator stop mechanism at the top.

And White House staff, not UN officials, operate operate the president's teleprompter, which I can tell you is true.

The president's teleprompter is operated by the White House military office and they do a very good job.

And I felt bad whenever I had to make last-minute changes while sweating through my wrinkled suit because these were very serious, disciplined, well-appointed people, and I did not belong in that kind of a professional setting, which is why I do this now.

According to Maria Bartiromo, that stopped escalator almost became an international crisis, but for the quick thinking of our first lady.

The president wants answers.

After the escalator stopped, as soon as he and the first lady stepped on it, look how great Melania was.

She is unfazed.

She walks on it, it stops, she turns around to the president, and she just leads the president up and walks.

So she was unfazed by it.

But

this could have been a massive, massive issue.

And you know, the president being frozen there in one place makes him vulnerable.

I see the problem here.

You're confusing the president with sharks.

I feel like I'm in outer space,

unfazed by a stopped escalator.

Presidents stand still all the time.

Have I lost my fucking mind?

But don't worry, Republicans are nothing if not solutions-minded.

Here's Jesse Waters' answer for the United Nations gaffe.

I mean,

this is is an insurrection.

And what we need to do is either leave the UN or we need to bomb it.

It was noted moments later that the UN is located in New York City.

Boy, that escalated quickly, which is not something Trump could say at the UN.

Thank you.

Now,

if Trump has new enemies at the UN, they're at the bottom of a very long list.

After all, if Epstein can get on his bad side, it can happen to anybody.

On Saturday night, Trump posted a missive on True Social addressed to Attorney General and woman who parked too close to your car, Pam Bondi,

in which he demanded that she prosecute his enemies, which is obviously gross.

Let Pam enjoy her weekend.

This is how loyalist attorneys general get burned out.

Authoritarian hustle culture is still hustle culture.

Pam, said Trump, I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially same old story as last time, all talk, no action, nothing is being done.

What about Comey, Adam Shifty Schiff, Letitia?

They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.

We can't delay any longer.

It's killing our reputation and credibility.

They impeached me twice and indicted me five times over nothing.

Justice must be served now.

Everything about the Trump era is worse than the Nixon era, up to and including the fact that we won't even get any good paranoid thrillers out of this.

Trump is his own deep throat.

Which makes sense.

The post came a day after U.S.

Attorney Eric Siebert resigned under pressure from Trump.

Trump was pissed that Siebert hadn't brought any criminal charges against Attorney General from New York, Letitia James, and former FBI director and guy who will never admit that he is personally responsible for electing Trump because it would require him to face that his decision to announce a renewed investigation into Hillary's emails, only to announce a week later and days before the election that he would not change their original finding, was not only a brazen violation of DOJ policy, all the more indefensible given that there was an ongoing investigation of Trump that he did not make public, but amongst the most catastrophic mistakes by a law enforcement official in American history, based not in some apolitical and righteous ethic, but a naive and ultimately self-defeating fear of a perception of bias, a mistake so grand and so rooted in personal flaw that it obliterates any other aspect of his legacy, including his ultimate defiance of Trump and will define him as a villain for all time.

James Comey.

Sure.

Siebert's office had been investigating Tish James over mortgage fraud allegations, but hadn't found any actual evidence to support an indictment.

Said Trump, I don't understand.

The AI can't make a video of Letitia James doing mortgage fraud.

She doesn't even have to be naked or anything.

Siebert was also overseeing the investigation into James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress.

After Trump forced Siebert out, Siebert was replaced by Lindsey Halligan, a White House advisor and former Trump lawyer with no prosecutorial experience.

Prosecutorial experience.

Where we're going, we don't need prosecutorial experience.

So Trump gets Siebert out and Halligan in so she can indict James and Comey.

But she's got two big problems.

Well, three if you believe in a just and everlasting God.

First, there's a ticking clock and not the one inside the alligator that follows Trump around Mar-a-Lago.

The five-year statute of limitations on Comey's alleged crime falls on Tuesday.

Second, federal prosecutors in Virginia presented Halligan with what's called a declination memo explaining why, after a two-month investigation, there is insufficient evidence to justify indicting Comey for lying to Congress.

It's a tough first day for Lindsay, isn't it?

You don't know where the bathrooms are, you've never prosecuted a criminal case before, and you were given one job by the world's least loyal boss, but your brand new team, mouth still full of we'll miss you, Eric Siebert sheetcake, tells you it can't be done.

And yet, she persisted on Thursday evening, at just about the worst time for this show, James Comey was indicted after all.

At which point, Lindsay Halligan slowly took off her mask and, oh my God, it's Hillary Clinton.

All right, everybody, buckle up.

So

FDR's Attorney General, Robert Jackson, gave a famous speech in 1940.

This is real.

He said,

We know that no local police force can strictly enforce the traffic laws, or it would arrest half the driving population on any given morning.

With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone.

In such a case, it is not the question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who had committed it.

It is a question of picking the man and putting investigations to work to pin some offense on him.

It is this realm in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies.

It is here that law enforcement becomes personal and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group being attached to the wrong political views or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.

That's why law and order

starts with a murder and ultimately leads to a suspect.

It's It's a much less satisfying watch if you start with Briscoe combing through his ex-wife's trash looking for evidence of tax fraud.

I found that full text of the speech by Jackson on the Department of Justice's website, by the way, so you probably should download it for safekeeping.

This is a little aside.

FDR later appointed Robert Jackson to the Supreme Court.

He dissented in Kuromatsu before taking a leave of absence to prosecute the Nazis at Nuremberg.

He had a massive, that's true, he had a massive heart attack in March of 1954 and a second heart attack that killed him in October of 1954.

But in between, he literally left his hospital bed so that he could sit in his chair when Earl Warren issued the court's 9-0 ruling in Brown v.

Board of Education.

So RBG was in good company when she hung on for too long.

Oh, where'd you think it was going to land?

Somewhere that, somewhere where that didn't require your complicated feelings to emerge?

Trump bad.

Every joke has to be Trump bad or you you go home, fuck you.

They can't all be Trump bad.

Just most of them.

And it's not just that Trump's lackeys are looking for any reason to charge his enemies.

They have zero interest applying the law when it benefits their allies.

The pardon list is long, from friends to insurrectionists.

DOJ also dropped its case against Eric Adams in what a federal prosecutor who resigned over it called a quid pro quo.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and housing official Bill Pulte's parents reportedly made the same error on their mortgage documents that the administration is using as a pretext to target everyone from Lisa Cook to Adam Schiff.

No one at DOJ seems particularly bothered by that.

Maybe it's just because they didn't grow up around it, but I've never really understood the draw of vacation homes anyway.

It just seems like another place to keep errands and dishes.

I have a vacation home in every city on earth.

It's called a hotel, and you can use the towels like napkins for bed dinner.

Not a crime yet.

Speaking of rich guy problems, we also learned this week via MSNBC that Borders are and guy who doesn't like his daughter's boyfriend because he drives a red car, Tom Homan, was under investigation for accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents who posed as business executives seeking government contracts.

According to the New York Times, the money was delivered to Homan in a bag from Kava.

What would you like as your base?

Greens.

A lot of greens.

You catch my drift.

On Monday, the White House denied that Homan had accepted a bag of cash, but Homan himself did not.

They said that

you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term.

And I imagine you want to respond to that.

I'm sorry.

Look, I did nothing criminal.

I did nothing illegal.

And there's hit piece after hit piece after hit piece.

Interesting.

You know, it's actually very easy to say I did not take $50,000 in cash, but he doesn't say that.

And none of the sources familiar with the case who spoke to MSNBC or other reporters, even sources explaining why the charges weren't pursued, say that he didn't accept the money.

So,

where's our fucking money?

That's tax dollars.

Where's my money?

The good news is that according to reports, there is hidden camera footage of the exchange and Democrats in Congress are already demanding that evidence.

The bad news is that the Trump administration has a habit of making incriminating videos disappear.

So I say, release the Homan files.

$50,000 didn't kill themselves.

One other note.

The sting against Homan took place in September of 2024, but the DOJ and FBI waited to see if, in the event Trump won the election, Homan delivered on the bribe, even though accepting a bribe is a crime, even if you never deliver on it.

Which means the Biden DOJ sat on this through the election and the transition and Homan's appointment to a senior White House role, only for the investigation to be closed by Trump's loyal appointees.

Another win from Merrick Garland.

Maybe he'll share a cell with Comey where they'll go back and forth for five to seven years explaining to each other how they're such good people.

And just know that if I end up in that cell with them, I did kill myself.

all of this corruption it's enough to give you a splitting headache which is too bad because in a rambling and deeply false speech on Monday standing side by side with a guy who you know has fucking insane poops RFK Jr.

Trump claimed that there are people who don't have autism because they don't take Tylenol or vaccines.

And by the way, I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don't take vaccines and don't take any pills that have no autism.

That have no autism.

Does that tell you something?

That's currently, is that a correct statement, by the way?

Yeah, with the Amish, for example.

The Amish.

Yeah, virtually.

I heard none.

See, Bobby wants to be very careful with what he says, and he should, but I'm not so careful with what I say.

This plus the escalator fucking broke me this week.

Like,

we can't be afraid of this fucking guy.

Trump went on to explain that this is also why the Amish don't have trains.

In addition to the autism-proof Amish, which isn't true, of course, Trump also claimed Cuba has virtually no autism due to Cuba's lack of access to acetaminophen.

I mean, there's a rumor, and I don't know if it's so or not, that Cuba, they don't have Tylenol because they don't have the money to fight Tylenol,

and they have virtually no autism.

Okay, tell me about that one.

Does Tylenol cause it, or do cigars cure it?

Well, note that there is, it turns out, autism in Cuba, which explains the pretty significant black market for Legos.

Havana, more like, have an autism

In case you're getting confused by all of Trump's technical jargon, Trump broke it down in a way that everybody could understand.

Nothing bad can happen.

It can only good happen.

But with Tylenol, don't take it.

You hate to see him plagiarizing FDR like this.

Speaking of it can only good happen, Disney's decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air led to to a massive backlash as people all over the country spontaneously launched a consumer boycott, canceling their Disney Plus at Hulu subscriptions.

If Steve Martin and Martin Short carry Selena Gomez through five seasons of only murders in the building, but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Oh, we're just, we're just, that's what we do now as liberals.

We just don't tell the truth about what we see with our own fucking eyes.

Are you kidding me?

When there were but two footprints on the beach,

That was when Martin Short carried Selena Gomez.

By Monday, Disney announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live would return to the air.

I almost forgot what it's like to have something go our way.

I haven't felt this jazz since Planters announced that Mr.

Peanut was trance, which I'm now realizing was a dream I had.

Nexstar and Sinclair announced that they would continue to preempt Kimmel, meaning his show won't air on ABC affiliates that reach about 20% of the country.

Given that this wasn't part of any plan to get Kimmel back on the air everywhere, it suggests that Disney's reversal on Kimmel was at least in part a reaction to our collective pushback.

We all moved, and as a result, they moved and pretty quickly.

And we have some even more exciting news.

In order to make amends with Disney's audience of enraged libs, we have some new programming coming this fall to Hulu and Disney Plus with TV shows like Abolish the NYPD Blue,

The Amazing Race, which is not white,

Who Wants to Eat a Millionaire, America's Woke Us Us Home Videos and Gray's Anatomy oops all abortions.

And new films like Beauty and the Beast Gets Me Too'd, Snow White and the One Miners Union.

Inside Out Three, Meet Climate Guilt.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

It's the Zionists.

And Sex Toy Story.

On Tuesday night, Kimmel returned to the air with words for Donald Trump.

You almost have to feel sorry for him.

He tried did his best to cancel me.

Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show.

That backfired, Big Lee.

He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.

It's like when J.D.

Vance called my Pod Save co-host Jon Favreau a dipshit on social media this week.

Not exactly the same.

It didn't dramatically boost our numbers or anything.

But the New York Times covered it, so that's pretty fun.

Jimmy called out Trump for threatening to target Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon next and thumbed his nose at Trump's humorlessness.

The President of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs.

Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke.

He was.

Say what you will about Joe Biden, but at least he couldn't stay up that late.

Why don't you imagine a future where you're like cooler?

I'm in a bullying mood.

I'm sorry.

That was too much.

That was too much.

Trump proved him right by posting, I can't believe ABC fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back.

The White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled.

I think we need to test ABC out on this.

Let's see how we do.

Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 million.

This one sounds even more lucrative.

But even as Trump continued to issue such obvious threats, out comes J.D.

Vance, Trump's intellectual Zamboni, to tell us not to believe our lying eyes.

What people will say is, well, you know, didn't the FCC commissioner put a tweet out that said something bad?

Well, compare that.

The FCC commissioner making a joke on social media.

What is the government action that the Trump administration has engaged in to kick Jimmy Kimmel or anybody else off the air?

Zero.

What government pressure have we brought to bear to tell people that they're not allowed to speak their mind?

Zero.

We believe in free speech in the Trump administration.

We are fighting every single day to protect it.

Right after we take out Trump's greatest enemy, Osama Ben Escalator,

in a separate interview, Vance added this.

Now, the FCC chairman Brendan Carr put out a couple of tweets, but the government took no action.

We did literally nothing to try to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

We believe in free speech.

We also believe in the right of a television station or a network to cancel somebody because of low ratings.

First of all, it wasn't a couple of tweets or jokes on social media.

It was an interview where Carr said, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and then named Kimmel specifically.

Also, Jesus Christ, that's how threats work.

You say the threat so you don't have to take the action.

He didn't say we can do this the easy way or forget about it.

That's the whole purpose of or else.

Just because you don't provide the or else doesn't mean you didn't threaten somebody into doing something.

The action was the threat.

The threat is the action.

I feel like I'm in outer fucking space.

But clearly, as Kimmel pointed out, and as Vance is reflecting here, this didn't just blow back on Disney.

It blew back on Trump too.

There's a lesson in this for all of us.

Trump is faking it till he makes it.

Through his bluster, he pretends to have more power than he actually does in the hopes that others will fall for the act and give him power he couldn't take.

And we have seen it work.

He's intimidated law firms and colleges and media companies.

He got 16 million out of Disney.

Not to mention virtually every Republican who has caved to his demands.

It's what he's doing right now over a potential government shutdown.

And by the way, the last time, Democrats fell for it, allowing the fear that Trump might use a shutdown to lawlessly eviscerate the government even further to become leverage against them in the negotiations.

But as data journalist G.

Elliot Morris pointed out this week, a lot of powerful people just don't realize how unpopular Trump is, writing about Disney siding with Trump only to get blindsided by a massive consumer boycott.

In an unhinged screen on social media, Trump wrote that he won in a historic landslide.

These text boxes are getting fucking crazy.

Look at this.

Look at this.

You know what you're in for.

This is not the text of a president.

This is the text of a cast member of Vanderpump Rules from three in the fucking morning.

This is like early Kristen Dodie.

Not current president.

Caroline knows what I'm talking about.

Trump is demanding that Democrats go along with whatever he wants while his administration is threatening to use a shutdown as pretext for mass firings, all meant to intimidate his opposition.

Or as Chris Murphy put it, he's shutting down the government because he thinks he's a king, which as king behavior goes, pretty fucking lame.

Have a big feast.

Eat a pig with an apple in his mouth.

Marry your second cousin from Prussia.

Live a little.

All of which had me thinking about a conversation I I had with Senator Elizabeth Warren on Monday's Pond Save America episode about the decision by Democrats to focus on the health care fight in Congress, which may be politically unifying, but is ultimately a policy disagreement as Trump runs Rothschild over the Constitution.

So I think of this as nothing succeeds like success.

You've got to get some wins.

You've got to show.

that you can stand together, you can stand up when the going gets tough, that you can still all

push hard because

that's how we're going to have to take this fight on.

I was really living out this week, seeing Kimmel back on that stage and seeing him deliver what I thought was a truly excellent monologue, the second best late night monologue of the week.

But seeing him unbowed when so many others have caved, it was a reminder that capitulation by corporations and institutions is predicated on two things.

One, that Trump is very scary, which he is if you're backstage at Misteen USA.

Remember what we were going to try to imagine together earlier?

And two, that Democrats and all those who care about democracy and oppose attacks on basic freedoms are nothing to worry about.

But that's just not true.

Or really, we have to prove it's not true.

Yes, that is up to elected Democrats.

And I was glad to see Warren challenging Sinclair and Nexstar and informing the companies that suspending a late-night show in part to seek regulatory favors not only erodes the First Amendment, but also creates the appearance of a possible quid pro quo arrangement that could implicate federal anti-corruption laws.

Because it's kind of fun to imagine a day when those laws are enforced again.

Like imagining yourself being a stark quarterback.

But.

It's not just up to them.

It's up to all of us.

We all have to fake it till we make it.

It's the best policy in sex, and it's the best policy here.

It's like a wise man once said, it can only good happen.

We got to get some wins on the board.

That's why I fed that Magwai after midnight and unleashed its unholy progeny on the utility ducks at the United Nations.

All right.

And inexplicably, that is the end of the monologue.

All right.

Yeah, thanks.

All right, we've got a great show for you tonight.

Up next, California's own representative Eric Swalwell is 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.

Please welcome to the stage, California's own Congressman Eric Swalwell.

Hi, thank you for being here.

Come in

Hi, Congressman.

How you doing?

First time here.

Thank you.

Welcome.

I'm glad you're here.

So you got into it with Cash Patel this week.

Yeah.

Good fight with Swalwell is what he wrote.

Well, so I've seen people say.

Did he write it before or after?

I wonder, though, I feel like he may be getting a bad rap here.

Yeah.

Impossibly.

Which is, did he write it or did somebody write it on a piece of paper and hand it to him?

Because it feels like more like somebody handed him a note, right?

Right.

Right.

So,

but my, my thought was, like, is he pumping himself up before I go?

Or was this like Marvis Frazier after getting knocked out by Mike Tyson 30 seconds into the fight being like, good fight with Tyson?

Like, oh, I see what you're saying.

Well, that's right.

So it's, it's not good either way, right?

So if he wrote the note himself, that's revealing.

But if there's somebody that feels like they need to write the note to buck him up that says, good fight with Swalwell, hold the line, brush off the attacks, rise above the rest.

You know,

that's a sad thing to have to write on a piece of paper.

Though there have been moments in this show where that'd been a smart thing for Bill to put on a card.

Never get a pump up like that in this show.

Just a card that says, wrap it up.

Sorry to make this about me.

During those hearings, you asked Patel no less than nine times if he told Pam Bondi that Trump's name appears in the Epstein files, and he declined to directly answer the question all nine times.

What do you think is going on?

That's not like a, it's not like he succeeded in like, yeah, in dealing with the question.

So what do you think is going on here?

They're afraid of telling us what Trump knows about this.

He's not authorized to say anything.

about this.

And he went into this hearing with one job, and that was to keep his job.

And keeping his job means keeping all of us from knowing who's in the Epstein files.

And so even saying that he told the Attorney General that Trump was in the files would mean that Trump's in the files, and that probably got to Trump, and that's why Trump is having them bury the files.

I mean, he he gets it, right?

And then also the good fight with Swabble thing.

He needed to go into the hearing, have a fight with me, because if you recall, like two days before the hearing, there was a Fox News story with no fewer than 10 sources.

Like, I've never seen a story that said we have 10 sources that said his job was on the line, quote, Pam can't stand him.

So he knew, I mean, Pam can't stand him.

So he knew his ass was on the line and he needed to pick that fight and not make things worse on Epstein.

So there's something interesting that's happening.

And I'm curious what you think about this, which is, obviously, we see how dangerous it is to have a completely politicized FBI director and attorney general.

They're not even pretending that there's any kind of independence between the White House and the Department of Justice.

But it also is a double-edged sword because nobody views him as a reliable narrator and nobody views Pam Bondi as a reliable narrator.

They're seen as spokespeople for Trump, which means there don't seem to be a lot of ways out of this scandal, whereas a previous administration might be able to say we threw it over to the independent agencies.

That's right.

Their job is to bury this a mile beneath the earth.

And by the way, if anything comes out now about the Epstein files, I don't think anyone buys it at this point.

I mean, it has probably been so scrubbed and erased that they have no credibility.

I don't think he inspired confidence at all in the American people that he's able to do his primary job, which is fucking protecting us from terrorism, mass shootings, public corruption.

And so we're still trying to understand what did we know about the Kirk shooter prior to the shooting?

Like, what was his online activity?

And should that have been seen by the FBI?

And now this Dallas shooting, which you referenced, it was clear that this troubled individual was also very online.

And what should the FBI have known about that individual?

So I think we actually have to start asking questions.

Like, why do you guys keep missing these, you know, political assassins?

And what does that mean for the rest of us?

Yeah, there's a vicious circle, which is you have someone like Cash Patel so clearly in everything he does, desperate to keep his job and prove that he belongs in the job.

And so in the aftermath of a shooting, he's posting and posting and posting to prove like he's part of it.

I'm part of it.

I know what's going on.

I'm helping.

I'm helping.

I'm helping.

Meanwhile, he's like, he's

kind of part of a culture of like jumping to conclusions about these serious crimes.

And then we have absolutely no idea if we can trust what he says in the days after because he is so worried about his job.

And by the way, not to go too far in the weeds, but That nonsense that he posted over the weekend, I don't know if you all saw this.

He posted this like 1,500 character tweet about how they're looking into and going down the rabbit hole of all the conspiracies around the Charlie Kirk shooter.

And he's just responding to right-wing social media theories about even Candace Owen said maybe the shooting came from like a tunnel underneath.

I mean, it's bad shit crazy, but the fact that the accuser are borrowing people.

But the fact that he's

the fact that he's responding to it, what this does is a prosecutor, he just opened and exposed himself as a witness because the defense attorney is going to say, oh, that in a trial, they're going to call him as a witness.

And they're going to say, so what, what else was out there?

Like they want to create reasonable doubt.

And putting that crazy ass tweet out there actually just made the prosecution's case much harder.

So he's bad.

All right.

So

then at the same time here in California, you know, we're heading towards the midterms.

Here in California, we're trying to kind of

fight to redraw the maps to compete with Republican gerrymandering.

What are your thoughts about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger coming out against Prop 50?

It's not helpful.

And I just want to first say I benefited from what Governor Schwarzenegger did.

I was a 30-year-old city councilman prosecutor back in 2012 when the first independent redistricting lines were drawn.

My parents didn't know a congressman until I got elected, right?

Like, so we were not connected politically at all.

And the Independent Redistricting Commission gave someone like me a chance.

And so a 40-year incumbent who had always had redistricting to protect him got drawn into my hometown.

54% of the district was new because it was drawn by like math and geography.

Like what a, what a concept.

And so I won.

And I'm grateful to that because it brought in a new generation of members of Congress in California.

But I'm also not going to wake up the morning after the midterms and watch democracy in ashes and say, well, at least we protected the California Independent Redistricting Commission.

Because Democrats too often fight these battles with one hand tied behind our back, and it's usually the upper hand.

And we need both hands in this fight, and that's what Prop 50 is about on November 4th.

So

speaking of Democrats fighting with, you know, at least one hand,

we're staring at a shutdown on October 1st.

I've seen endless debates about how and whether Democrats should be using their leverage right now, save it for

the, not for the CR, which is the shorter-term continuing resolution, but for the longer-term negotiation.

I'm honestly, I don't think there's easy answers here.

I want to start by saying that.

And I have allowed myself to be persuaded by the idea that we should be

not giving any bipartisan impermater to what the Republicans are doing because of what they're doing to our democracy, that we should draw the line on health care, or that we should fund the government because Trump is so unpopular, we should not own a shutdown.

What do you think?

Keep it open for what?

And by the way, they've already shut it down.

They have fired cancer researchers.

They've gotten rid of air traffic controllers.

They've gotten rid of FEMA response agents.

They've already shut it.

They've gotten rid of USAID.

They've already shut it down.

So keep it open for what?

So they can deport more of our friends and neighbors.

Keep it open so they can kill cancer research rather than killing cancer.

Keep it open so they can go after their political enemies.

Like, why would I want to co-sign on that?

And that's why I voted against it.

And that's why every senator should vote against it.

So

I hear that.

We cannot,

there is no path right now to a vote in which we can fund the government while addressing those issues, right?

It's just simply not possible.

What Democrats in the Senate have rallied behind is pressing on undoing some of the cuts to healthcare.

It's the biggest public health cut in history, and they want to fight on that measure.

And if they get what they want, presumably they would vote to reopen the government.

And I have to think if that came to the House, you would vote for that.

No?

I want to end

massed agents getting rid of my friends and neighbors.

I want to put the cancer research funding back in place.

I want to end the political prosecutions.

So there's a lot more that I want to see before I'm going to vote for it.

And also, anyone who says, oh, politically, shutdowns are not good,

remember when the Democrats won the House in 2014 after they shut down the government in 2013?

No, we didn't win the House in 2014 after they shut down the government in 2013.

So I don't buy this whole argument that it puts us in political peril by standing up for what we believe in and saying, fuck that, I'm not funding this government.

Yeah, like I guess I just, what I want to understand is, is that a call to basically have no, Democrats no longer support any kind of a budget measure until there is a change in Congress, until Republicans fully abandon Trump, right?

Like I'm trying to get to the end of We should get more than just subsidies, right?

And we should ask for more than just subsidies is how I see it.

And that's the mindset of most of my colleagues right now.

And they also want to see us fight.

And it's a show, don't tell mentality.

I think that's why Gavin Newsom is being rewarded.

He's not sending eight-page, strongly worded letters to the administration.

He's going to court and he's winning.

He put the redistricting battle on the ballot.

And so

doing something demonstrative, I think, beats just having these theoretical arguments about what we should be doing.

Do you think that the way Schumer and Jeffries were agitating for a meeting

was the right way to go into this fight?

Or are they drawing a hard enough line right now?

Are they the right people to be in this moment?

I'm going to speak for Jeffries has held the House caucus together.

I don't have confidence in Schumer.

And I didn't didn't have confidence in the first vote.

I don't have much confidence right now, but I will say Jeffrey's held almost all of us together.

We only lost one vote in the most recent shutdown vote.

But also, it was perfect.

They perfectly did set Trump up, right?

I mean, they got him to agree to a meeting, and then he disabused us of the taco meme when he backed out of the meeting.

So I don't think we need to say anymore because he doesn't want to have a meeting enough said.

I just wanted to win, you know?

Yeah.

I have a a bias toward winning too.

I have a bias towards winning.

So one thing I wanted to talk to you about is, so

can we show the clip of Schumer talking about the TV thing?

Can we start with that one?

Please don't.

I'm showing it.

We know Donald Trump watches a lot of television.

Mr.

President, if you're watching television, shut it off and come sit down and negotiate with us.

I found this to be not even that high on the list, but like a pretty cringy moment.

And there is some sort of a problem, I think, sometimes with Democrats and cringe.

Do you notice this amongst your colleagues?

Yes.

We don't all have to be messengers.

We don't all have to be messengers.

Yes.

Okay.

And can you tell the ones that shouldn't be?

We had a...

So at the State of the Union, we brought in, and actually,

the PodSave team was there.

At State of the Union, for the first time ever, we learned our lesson after 2024.

Right before it started, we brought in all of these influencers to have access to members right before the State of the Union started.

And so rather than going to traditional media, we had tons of folks who had 10,000 followers to 10 million followers, which was great.

And that was the approach we should have taken in the past.

Credit to our caucus for doing it.

What concerned me, though, was I started to, it was an invite.

a cattle call to all of my colleagues.

And I started to see some of these colleagues come in.

I was like, no, no, no, no, no.

Like we don't all have to be messengers guys.

Like, some of you do really good things, but I don't think I need you doing something cringe that's only going to be a 10-yard sack or like a, you know, a

pick six.

I'm using sports analogies for you.

Sorry.

Don't.

I know.

I know.

I know what those are.

Pick six

10-yard sack.

Is that close?

Is that hard?

Is that difficult?

I don't.

I'm like truly genuinely, like, sometimes I play a little dumb, you know, to fag it up a little, but I really actually, genuinely don't know what those, what you're suggesting.

Is it a hard play, but they're not good enough?

Is it an easy play?

They're messing up.

It doesn't matter.

We don't all have to be messengers.

I got it.

I got it.

Which brings us to a segment we're calling the cringin' eye.

Okay.

All right.

We have

five cringe moments, and you have to rank them from one, the cringiest, to five, the least cringe.

But it's blind ranking.

Once you've given a number, you can't go back.

Okay.

All right.

First up, we have Nancy Pelosi reading a poem Bono wrote about Russia's invasion of Ukraine at a St.

Patrick's Day event in 2022.

I got this message this morning from Bono.

Ireland's sorrow and pain is now the Ukraine.

And St.

Patrick's name is now Zelensky.

How about that?

I think five is a safe beta.

Wow, five.

So you think that there's four cringier moments coming.

Okay, five, Pelosi.

Okay, let's keep going.

Next up, we have

the Democrats kneeling in Kente cloth during the George Floyd protest

in June of 2020.

It was given by the members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

I want to note that.

It's about a justice and policing act, but nevertheless, the moment is the moment.

At four.

Kent,

okay, okay, you're doing great.

You're doing so good.

Next up, Congressman Hank Johnson strumming his guitar and singing a rendition of Jason Isbel's Dreamsicle with the lyrics changed to be about Epstein.

Epstein died by suicide.

Believe that Andrew must be blind.

You've been telling us you'll release the pound, but where are they?

Two.

Two, okay, two.

Honestly, I thought it was pretty good.

I thought he did a good job.

Next up, we have Hillary Clinton giving America its marching orders in June of 2016.

I don't know who created Pokemon Go,

but I'm trying to figure out how we get them to have Pokemon go to the polls.

That's three, and I imagine I'm going to be the next clip.

Shut up.

I hate this show.

It's never supposed to be fun for me.

Pokémon.

I could, I could, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, it could be a Heisenberg uncertainty principle moment where you've changed what you were about to observe.

I can be cringe too.

Everyone eats shit.

Next up,

we have a member of Congress posting a TikTok of him wordlessly eating a taco in May, a jab at Trump's ever-changing tariffs, and the short-lived Dem slogan taco, Trump always chickens out.

Hey, Congressman, trying to help you.

What the fuck is up with Trump always chickening out on tariffs?

Can you get the guy a button?

I don't, yeah, wow, that's a lot, that's a very 70s look.

Can I just, I want to understand

just

wonderful

inside of the story of the video, where you're a character who's been asked a question,

how does eating the taco answer the question?

It's a lot to think about.

I do like,

I do sometimes think what cringe, though, is

people caring in a hyper-earnest way sometimes.

Also,

don't we want Trump to chicken out?

Isn't the fact that Trump chickens out kind of a thing that people use to say, oh, he doesn't ever do what he ever says?

Sometimes I think it's like a bad slogan.

Like, we need people to think, like, no, he doesn't chicken out.

He really does politicize the Justice Department.

He really is going to shut down all these agencies.

You know, like he's not just a bullshit artist.

He actually does what he says.

But it's also a psyop, right?

You

have to

get in his head as well.

And so there's no easy way to take this guy on.

We've never had

a villain like this in the White House who has challenged us in every imaginable way.

And so I'm not.

bullshitting you and to believing that we have the right answer, but I think we have better answers today than we did in 24.

And I also believe that we need to apply what I call an always-on model.

So, in 2024, people would say that the biggest mistake Kamala Harris made was when she went on the view and was asked, what would you do differently?

And she said, nothing, essentially.

I don't think that was the biggest mistake.

I think the biggest mistake was that she wouldn't be on TV or interviewed for like three or four days since that happened.

And so she was defined.

And right-wing media defined her over and over as it's just more Biden.

Donald Donald Trump, for example, makes five mistakes an hour, but he's always on.

And so the lesson that I've taken away from that is to be in more places, more spaces, and that always on

projects as always honest.

And so

authenticity, I think, beats just having like a straight policy message.

We're not voting for policies.

We're voting for people, even if it's cringe sometimes.

Donald Trump is cringe all the time.

I mean, he's cringed nine out of 10 times at the truck, the McDonald's appearances, the dancing on stage for 30 minutes, but he's always on.

And I think we can learn from that instead of trying to project what we think.

Right.

But I think Democrats, we try and win the Harvard Law School moot court competition rather than just trying to win the gut check at the bar stop or the barroom.

And we'd be better off if we did the latter.

I think it's a really important point as somebody who was rejected from Harvard Law School.

Just to wrap up our game,

five, it was Pelosi's reading the poem.

Four, it was the Kente clause.

Three,

it was Pokemon Go to the Poles, which I continue to believe one of the most memorable Democratic slogans in half a century, which I didn't write.

Two, Hank Johnson performing his Epstein song.

And number one, it is Eric Swalwell silently eating a taco as the answer to a question.

Eric Swalwell, Congressman, thank you so much.

Of course, right.

He'll be back at the end.

That was great.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

One more time for Eric Swalwell.

Hey, don't go anywhere.

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And we're back!

Please welcome to the sage.

It's the incredible Bosam Use IP and the incomparable Paul Shear.

Hey, hey!

Come on out.

Oh, they're here.

Come in.

Come on here.

You go in.

You can go wherever you want to go.

Just

sit down, you queers.

All right.

Oh, man, a lot.

Good to see you both.

Thanks for being here.

Very excited.

It's been a very rough couple of weeks.

Only a couple of weeks.

It's been a rough couple of years.

And there's a lot to get through.

Trump is committing Watergates on a seemingly daily basis at this point.

And that's where you two come in.

We're going to talk about both serious, vitally important news topics and chat about movies in a twist on a Love or Leave It classic called Reality versus Reality TV.

Tonight we bring you real life versus real life.

One of them has the two E's.

Wow.

All right.

Real life versus

the evil guy.

I like that pose, though.

I like it.

I look very casual i look very diabolical

i think you just look intense i think you look intense bossam okay uh how who will i ask about each topic there's only one way to find out bossum you've been hold on what is this game you're gonna tell us real life or real life and we have to pick no i'm gonna ask each of you questions okay and one of them is gonna be questions about real life got it it seems like you're not into this game Like the way that you presented it was like, I'm gonna do the thing in real life and real life.

And I was like I don't even were here like I like I do not like this game because I don't want to put you through a game also English is my second language, so I don't understand what's happening here

It seems like you're like well now this is a good one, but this does not seem like you're like this is a good one.

Yeah, so I'm gonna try not to be defensive right now

And I'm gonna receive what you're saying

I wanna I want to cater to you

so I hear what you're saying

We're going to play a game.

Okay.

Okay.

And it is called Real Life versus Real Life.

I'm going to ask you one of you questions

about real life.

I look very diabolical.

The other, yeah, about real life.

Got it.

One of you will get

questions about what's real life and the other about real life.

This is a fun game, John.

Oh, there's a real and real.

Yeah, the double A.

Awesome.

I still don't know.

You've been a heart surgeon, an advocate for the Palestinian people, and an exile for your own political satire of powerful rulers.

You've been known as the Jon Stewart of the Middle East.

Turns out you were the Jimmy Kimmel of the Middle East.

Yeah.

At least Jimmy came back.

Yeah, yeah.

But so can you just,

I feel like it is amazing how with each passing year, your experience becomes more relevant in America, which is a bummer.

I'm feeling like home.

Yeah, that sucks.

So wait, what?

What?

Oh, not all me.

It is.

So you were taken off the air for political satire.

Yeah.

So what happened?

Well, I actually

was took out like a couple of times, and one of them I was interrogated by the general prosecutor.

And

I sat in front of him.

And

it was like chaotic.

I was let in by a lot of policemen going into the, you know, the investigation room.

And then

before we got into the room, the policeman kind of like took me to a different room.

And I was, I don't know what's going on.

And then the officer, like, Mr.

Yusuf, before we go in, I need to ask you a question.

Can we have a selfie?

My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my children love you.

So, like, they got like, I got all of his friends, and I got like selfies with like six officers.

And then I went down, and then I sat with the

investigator.

And he, and

my first question is, I was trying to explain my jokes for them.

And

which always works, right?

Like,

if people ask you, tell me a joke, yeah, a surefire setup to

kill, and then when you have to explain a joke, also surefire, yeah, yeah, it was like, What did you mean by this joke?

And then, then, the thing is, when they ask you something like this, and you're and if you're on a show, you can explain what's the meaning, but yeah, but in this situation, I'm trying to play dumb because it's like, I don't know, I don't want to say something that will kind of incriminate me, but you also don't want to throw your writers under the bus because then they'll be brought in and there'll be no selfies with the writers because no one cares about that.

Yeah, and then I think when I cry to explain the joke, he would send me like, that's not very funny.

And then

everybody's a critic.

Yeah.

But so

can you like, look, there are people that are saying, oh, you know,

the people like J.D.

Vance, but even some that are like sort of conservatives and others that are some comedians are like, oh, this is all blown out of proportion.

This isn't a First Amendment violation.

This isn't so serious.

What does it look like to you, what's happening in the U.S.

right now?

Free speech?

I mean, in a capitalist

democracy, there is that capitalist king.

So the thing is like yeah you're free to say what you want but like i own the platform and i can kick you out because you know i want that so the thing is uh now you because abc reinstated them and then next year and the other like uh uh other yeah

it's like okay we're not gonna put them in our affiliate so now the the problem is money rules everything it's like we'll have a freedom of expression but like i'm not gonna give you the space to experience this freedom of expression but i guess you could also say the same thing for the reinstatement which was i think disney had lost like seven like seven percent over like the course of a weekend.

Like they people pulled their subscriptions.

So I think they were motivated from a business perspective to get him back on the air too, right?

But but what will happen the next time it happens?

Like, you know, like, you know, because there's always a fake, oh, it's the ratings, the money.

Like they did, they used that too with

Colbert.

So

I don't know.

Like, I think we should...

maybe not like think of it as like a binary thing, which is people against the authority.

It's the people who are funding the authority it's the people the billionaires who are buying those platforms and putting their own agenda and then the people in the authority are just puppets because they're paid off by these people this is the thing i don't get Everyone wants to say about how bad the ratings are in late night, but it seems like everyone's listening too.

It's like, that's the other thing.

It's like, well, no one's watching.

But when some like a turn of phrase gets said, immediately people are watching and we have to take it off the air.

It seems like it's all a show or it's not.

It's either people are watching it bigly, or they're not watching it at all.

Like, I don't know what that middle ground is.

How can it both be a business failure and ratings disaster, but also something heavily monitored by the White House that demands an immediate national response if it crosses a line of our choosing?

Paul, why did you give Netflix's War of the Worlds remake starring Ice Cube five stars on Letterboxd?

Because

it is

great.

It is great.

This is a movie where Ice Cube has said the director wasn't there and I had to figure it out myself.

This is a movie that is shot through a computer screen.

He is an NSA expert working on a Sunday when aliens attack.

Spoiler alert.

And

the entire movie is saved by an Amazon delivery driver.

Now, people say, well, that's great advertising for Amazon.

Here's the thing that's amazing about it.

This movie was written for Paramount and they sold it to Amazon later.

So this, Amazon, the writer of it was like, Amazon, I want to put more Amazon in here.

So I think that that's really interesting.

Like they had so much Amazon specifics.

There are drones controlled.

Like Ice T, sorry, Ice Cube has to buy

Ice Cube has to buy

a USB

stick to put it in his computer.

And he has to get it via drone.

It's great.

Watch it.

It's fantastic.

I love a movie where a plot point is getting a USB stick.

Yeah.

That's how you know know.

Think of that.

That's the classic.

You couldn't crack no way to sit in a room and think of a way to avoid that.

We got to send the drone.

We got to send the drone.

It's great.

And he's also a weird dude who spies on his daughter a lot.

Are you serious?

Yes.

A majority of the movie is him spying on his daughter.

I really like that movie.

You know what?

When there's something that is so off, right?

Like, I can appreciate the beauty of like one battle after the other,

the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, and this, because they are both, they are both doing the best version of what they can both be, which is that is the best, worst movie I have seen in a long time.

And that is a great movie that is

the best, best movie in a long time.

So it's like, I have to applaud them both.

If you're going to take a look at that, you have a lot of time on your hand.

Oh, come on.

I got, you know, this is.

I thought I was giving you a moment.

I like the abrupt spot.

I'm thinking about it.

I'm thinking about it.

Well, I want to ask about War of the Worlds, but I don't want to spoil it.

Bossum.

Yes, sir.

You had a Nelk Boys interview go viral over the summer because you chided them for interviewing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his favorite fast food, which was Burger King, which is

blasphemy.

Of course.

During that episode, you told the Nelk Boys, you guys are not little kids.

You're fucking 30 years old.

It was very satisfying, I think, for people because there is this kind of, it's funny, it's similar.

It's sort of the reverse image of what we were just talking about which is uh you know you have comedians doing these interviews with politicians and these are serious times and the interviews have serious stakes and people are influenced by them but if you challenge what's happening and why they're why they maybe don't ask hard questions well they're just they're just entertainers they're just comedians they're just people having a conversation um uh what was what was that conversation like what was the response like what what was that feeling what was that moment like well well the thing is uh there was a common friend who told me like the net boys you know they messed up with them, getting behind me, then I would give him like solo-balling the questions.

So, can you be like the counterpoint?

So, because they were like losing people right and left.

So, I just like went there and kind of like put them in, you know, in detention.

And

I was kind of like, because they were using the thing we didn't know, we didn't know.

It's like, you cannot just like go through life pretending that you don't know because

what you have been used,

it started right before the podcast because

the Nelk Boys with other influencers were paid huge amounts of money to go to these free trips to Israel.

And they had like a trip like a couple of years,

just like six months before, like, you know, like before October 7th.

And I told them, you were recruited in 2023 and you were activated in 2025.

They recruited you there.

And then so they would use you when they come here because you are the same Nelt boys that actually Donald Trump used in his campaign.

So now I think the politicians are like realizing, oh, like it's not like mainstream anymore.

We need to go to these like Gen Z's and the young millions and like token, go to this like popular podcast.

And of course, those people, oh, I'm having the prime minister of this country, having the president of the United States.

That's a great reach for me.

So they don't care about doing the work and they just want to do the exposure.

But they're being used.

They're being used.

I mean, everybody wants their Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on Arsenio moment, right?

It's like, well, let's not talk about politics.

But at the same time, this is a thing that I don't know if people have said this to you, but it's like, stay in your lane.

Okay, you're supposed to entertain, so just entertain.

And that's a really interesting thing because I think that that's what those people are trying to do.

But

it's not responsible.

But here's the thing: what he's saying with the podcaster, like the podcaster, many of the podcasters, like, you know, they pretend that they're tough, asking the tough questions, and you know, like, like being the people, they actually stepped out of their lane already.

And when that politician comes in, they're just like, oh, so sweet and nice.

Well, can I ask you?

Can I say no one has ever asked Netanyahu about his favorite fast food?

I mean, that was a hard question.

I mean,

you would not not get that.

You know, never get that from somebody else.

The guy is from fucking Philly, and he's saying, Burger King, are you

terrible answer from BB, among other terrible answers from him?

Yeah, that's the only bad thing he did.

And that was the worst thing I've ever heard from Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, Paul, you're headlining the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

Yes.

Let me hear me out.

We'll ask both of you about this.

So we've got a bunch of big comedians are doing the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

Yes.

And I find it interesting because

it's divided between.

Like, God, they must be paying an absorbent amount of money to get these comedians to go to Riyadh.

But it really does seem to be divided between people that could use the money and people who have more money than God already.

Boston, what was your reaction to the Riyadh comedy?

Well, we actually had a conversation about that exact topic and so, and then

the whole idea was like, oh, they're whitewashing the regime.

I said, okay, so

let's say now you're going to give people pain for going for a certain country with

quote-unquote questionable politics.

Isn't American politics questionable too?

The fact that we also, the whole idea about like we are better than everybody, if you're going to talk about like, you know, destruction or talk about war, America has been doing that for years.

So should we, like, so the fact is, like, trying to pretend that we are better than the rest of the world just because our media tells us so, I think we are actually like guilty of what are many of the things that we accuse other countries.

Like, are you supporting, if you play in California, are you supporting ICE?

Because you're like, well, you know, like, because you're, I mean,

is that at least something you could equate on some level?

I think that you can interrogate whether we are at times naive or rosy about America's terrible conduct domestically abroad without going so far as to not be able to draw this distinction.

One important distinction is that if you go and perform at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, that government will decide how many people outside of that room see it.

That does not happen in the United States, not yet.

They murder journalists.

They imprison them.

There are, you know,

that is a regime that cracks down actively in a violent way on dissent.

Now, you can criticize America in all the ways that I think it is justified, but yes, I continue to believe there is a very big difference between going down to the laugh factory

on sunset and going to Riyadh to perform at this festival for a lot of money, which is to lend credibility to a kind of monstrous dictatorial regime.

And

we are not fully an authoritarian state just yet.

Yeah, but it's not just like about the authority.

Like, I remember like Biden with the fist bump and everything.

You know, like, we weren't we supposed to be like the police of the world, like, we are like responsible about the morality of the world.

And then we still do business with all of these regimes.

We are actually like, we can say whatever you want about any regime in the world, but we have been like supporting them.

We have been taking their money, whether

in the Middle East or anywhere else.

I'm just like saying that

you can point fingers to any regime in the world, but I don't think the United States is that much different.

I would say,

sure.

You can open

here, yes.

English second language.

No, what I was going to say is only, I think that, like, you have to be able to be honestly critical without having your mind so open your brain falls out.

Yes,

the United States has done terrible things, but you can still draw moral distinctions between performing in Saudi Arabia and performing in the United States.

And even as our government does terrible things in our name, that doesn't mean individuals don't have a moral responsibility for where they perform for money.

And that can mean different things to many people, and that can be up for debate.

I think it is hard to justify extraordinarily wealthy comedians taking huge sums of money to go to Riyan to perform for a regime that is looking for global credibility despite its many horrible and monstrous crimes.

That does not negate any criticism of the United States, but it does not change that moral choice.

You know, a couple of years ago, I'm- Do you disagree with that?

Yeah, yeah, but like in the couple of years.

But no, would you agree or disagree?

I agree with many points, but the thing is, I have to say, as someone who came from the Middle East, right, in these last two years, living here and seeing what our government let happen in front of all of our eyes, I am pretty much like this franchise of all of like whatever moral thing that you can say about this government.

I'm sorry, like I

even told you yesterday, like, you know, as if like the people in the Arab and the Muslim diaspora, they feel that we're helping our people with the Western Union and we're fucking them with turbo tax.

Like, you know, we're helping them with the money and then like our taxes go there to fuck them over.

And that is happening through our government.

And you can say whatever you want about the Egyptian regime, about like the Saudi regime, whatever, but they did not

assist in billions of dollars in genociding a whole nation right in front of our eyes right now.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm only doing five minutes.

Like, not headlining.

Middling.

It was because of the snacks.

Snacks are good.

They got good snacks there.

Whatever I wanted.

Fresh pop.

And the dates there are amazing.

Oh, very good.

Oh, my God.

The dates are wonderful.

We'll be right back.

Hey, don't go anywhere.

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And we're back.

Where did we go?

I don't know.

We had so much good conversation in between.

Before we get to our final segment, first of all, everybody should check.

You know, Paul talked about the great, great movies, the great bad movies.

And you can listen to How Does This Get Made, which is the greatest show about the worst movies, and Unspooled, The Greatest Show About the Great Movies.

Yeah, plus, there's Dark Web.

Oh, yeah.

And you were talking about Dark Webb today

about

with Two Live Jews,

which I remember from my childhood.

Yeah, so Two Live Jews was a comedy rap album

that I thought was amazing because my parents wouldn't let me hear Two Live Crew.

Now, Two Live Crew, they rapped about some hardcore stuff, but Two Live Jews would sing songs like, Oi, It's so humid, oi, it's so humid, oi, it's so humid.

It's like a sauna in here.

And

someone brought up today, they said, oh, they should have said they were schwitzing.

It's not really a sauna, it's a schwitz.

But that's to be said.

It's esteem.

It's esteem.

Yeah.

So the two, so two live Jews brought back a really buried memory for a lot of people because, yeah, I found an old clip of two live Jews, which at the time I thought were two old men.

They were just guys in like nutty professor makeup.

I'm learning that in real time.

Yeah, so yeah.

But yeah, you can check out.

They have like a few albums.

There's this kosher as I wanna be, as I believe, the first album.

There's this controversy right now about this book, about MDMA and recovered memories of abuse, and it's all very serious.

I'm just imagining you doing MDMA recovery therapy.

Singing that song.

And bringing up all these lost memories of two broke Jews.

Two live Jews.

Two broke broke girls.

Two broke girls.

Two live Jews.

Oh, two broke Jews.

No, that's science fiction.

Awesome.

Wow.

Hey, I was anti-Semitic of the month one month, by the way.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

Stopantisemitism.org has chosen me, and I was actually in the finals.

And then.

Then you made it to the finals.

They had the finals.

And then, like, fucking Dan Balzarian won.

I just like, no, I lost it to Danny.

He bought it.

He bought it just like all those girls.

It's like the Web.

It's like like the Webbies.

I don't even know what I'm getting in trouble for for this episode.

I don't even know what it is.

Cut, cut, do some minutes.

Tighten it up.

Hey, Bill, we got to tighten this episode up.

Also, you can see Bossum Live at LA at the comedy store here at Dynasty Typewriter in Durham, Tempe, San Antonio, Irvine, and it says Islamabad.

Is that right?

No, no.

Wait, are you actually?

But I'm doing the typewriter next Friday.

Okay.

to test it like here next Friday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a test show, so it's code for it still sucks.

So help me build the show, please.

Thank you.

Yes.

Yeah, help him.

All right, please welcome back Congressman Eric Swalwell.

Oh, well.

Before we get to our end game,

look, as we see, there are all kinds of ways in which corporate media is compromising and capitulating.

We here at Crooked Media, we are independent.

We have no FCC licenses that I'm aware of.

Wouldn't even know how to get one.

And you can support us at Crooked Media as we try to build an independent, progressive alternative to right-wing media and to corporate media, mainstream media.

And you can support Crooked by becoming a subscriber.

If you go to crooked.com/slash friends, you can now subscribe on YouTube, Substack,

the others, so many.

Everywhere, anywhere you where?

Apple.

Apple, of course.

The biggest corporate.

Well, we're still part of society.

I know.

We're not in a fucking hole.

Just subscribe already.

A lot of you haven't.

This week, Donald Trump completely reversed course on Ukraine, declaring that Ukraine has America's full support and reclaiming all the land Russia has has invaded so far.

In honoring Trump's surprise about face, we wanted each of you to share something we've pulled a 180 on.

Something in your life where you just were wrong and did a full flip on.

Could be anything you want.

Let's spin the wheel.

Got it.

Oh, great.

It has landed on Congressman Eric Swobo.

Well, I've done a 180 on the picture.

For sure.

I mean, I look like my high school prom photo, right?

Is that not your headshot?

Look at that baby.

You think you're young in that picture?

I think you look the same.

That's not, I've done what?

I would say I've done a 180 on checking luggage.

Oh, yeah.

So when I met my wife on our first date, so I'm

33.

She's in her late 20s.

We both travel a lot for work.

And I thought, like, this is an important question to ask someone who could be your spouse.

And I asked her, I said, how do you feel about checking luggage?

And to me, it was like a DQ.

Like, I never want to wait at a carousel for luggage, right?

I just want to like get on the plane, land, and you're off.

And in my job, like you just kind of like build that in as a habit.

And so you don't want to be slowed down at all.

I have three kids now, eight, six, and three.

All I want to fucking do is check as much luggage as possible because going through an airport with little kids is impossible.

I don't know if any of you are.

I'm going to tell you now.

I have a nine and an 11-year-old, and now we've determined, we called ourselves this year.

We're saying, we are the no-check baggage family.

That's a good one.

We went to Europe.

And now that the kids can carry their own thing,

life is better again.

But yes, in your moment right now, forget about it.

I want to check the kids, right?

Yeah, like one.

Get them in.

But they don't mind.

I put on, I got like these cheap dog costumes on Amazon.

You put them in a little crate and they go right under.

It's cheaper, it's easy, and they don't mind the cold.

They don't mind.

My kids are always hot.

That's my my middle.

Get them in a little dog costume.

Yeah.

And go right under.

If the kids are small enough, they can go under the seat.

Oh, yeah, you could get them in there.

I agree.

Like, I sometimes, like, the feeling of once you've checked the bag and you're kind of loose at the airport, oh, it's nice.

You're loose.

But I also, here's the other thing, too.

I don't get this complaint where people are like, oh, I don't want to wait for these bags.

I'm like, it's like, how long is it?

It's like five, ten minutes?

Like, what are we doing?

Like, people make it out.

Like, I never check.

Not in this economy.

Not with this administration.

Sean Duffy's in charge of yourself.

I don't know what's going on.

I mean, I get.

I mean, look, I know that things are bad, but I feel like my bags are getting there roughly.

It gives me a chance to take a pee, go, you know, get, you know, maybe get a coffee, and then I'll wait for the bags.

I get them, and I go, and I'm happy, and it was great.

But when you travel with kids, you're also like the very back of the plane.

Oh, yeah.

So you don't give a fuck when, like, by the time you get off the plane, the bags are there.

So I,

I've completely changed my tune on that.

Yeah, you're not moving anywhere quickly.

Once the kids are going, because they're stopping five more times than you would normally.

Yeah, you can't just like bust off.

Our hack is to sit at the very

farthest back as possible so that you're disturbing like the least amount of people.

Right?

As a Middle Eastern, I have different priorities than you guys at any airport.

And

this is like, this is like, this is like first world country shit problems.

First world problems.

Back, luggage.

I'm wondering if I'm going to go through.

I mean, just that's...

Let's spin it again.

It has landed on Paul Shearer.

All right, here is my, I'm going to keep it light.

And, well, that was light.

So

the thing that I have made a 180 on is the movie Talladega Nights.

When I first saw it, I was like, I don't think this is very funny.

I think Anchorman is way better.

And when I've watched it, I'm like, I actually think that this is like an amazing, like kind of

look of America and how we get very,

you know, jealous and uncomfortable.

It's like there's so many layers in there.

My favorite scene.

Oh, gosh, my favorite scene.

I mean, the two kids are the best.

Walker and Texas Ranger.

They're pretty amazing.

Anytime kids are telling they're going to kick an old man's ass, I'm ready for it.

But the baby Jesus, right?

Baby Jesus.

Yeah, the prayer scene.

The dinner table scene is amazing.

And I just think, I think in re-watching it, I appreciate, and you can tell it's like Adam McKay, who has this point of view about, yeah, this is all like, it's, I think in cap, like putting it in a NASCAR world and showing like America for great things and weird things and all of our

weird things that we were scared of, I thought it's actually way smarter than I ever gave it credit for.

So that's my 180 on Talladega.

I think I just stuck my nose up at it because I don't like NASCAR.

This is dumb, whatever.

But it's a much more layered movie.

I'll have to go back and re-watch Talladega Nights.

Yeah.

Well,

there's definitely like an ethnophobia there because, you know,

Sasha Baron Cohen plays a French guy who wants to hold hands.

He's gay, and that's very upsetting to Will Farrell's character.

It's interesting.

There's some good stuff in there.

Let's spin it again.

Well, we know where it's going to land.

Oh, no, yes, we don't.

We have two options.

It's landed on Bosnia.

What's something you've done a 180 on?

I used to have, like, my dream car used to be a Tesla.

Not anymore.

No, but

even before the

thing.

Even before that,

I think it's like hyped up, overrated.

And

you lose an arm and a leg with any scratch with it.

I think the whole, we shouldn't be investing that much money in cars.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, half of you have Teslas.

Fuck you.

I have a bumper sticker on mine,

which says, this is for the politics.

So

I had a Tesla.

I bought it in, I believe, February of 2020.

At which point it sat in my driveway for whatever,

an incredible length of time.

I really liked it.

Then the news happened, and then it started to really rattle.

You know, it would really shimmy, and it would rattle, and it would make a lot of noise.

It always sounds like there's a screw loose that's rolling back and forth, and I ultimately got rid of it.

Man, maybe it was

already bad, but you were blinded.

That could be.

That could be.

It could have been bias.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Could have been biased.

I always say this about the Tesla, too.

It's like, it is a, take away everything about like Elon, whatever.

It's, but it's a relatively new car.

Like there's very few like new cars that like, hey, we figured it out.

Like, no, like that, like these companies have been around for decades.

They figured out like, oh, yeah, that's how the steering wheel doesn't make a creaky noise every time.

You know, I feel like it, like, any new car is going to have this.

And it's surprising when you drive the tester, oh, these are sounds I've never heard a car make before.

But I, I got rid of it and I like didn't know what to get.

And I got a Mercedes, which I've never had before.

And I've never had an Arab.

That's a very Arab thing to do.

Mercedes let me tell you something let me tell you something Mercedes I'll tell you something

so you know what let's spin it again it's landed on me

it's rigged

so

I always thought that like when I was a kid as a Jewish kid like Mercedes were like not allowed like they were Nazi sleds like you did not get a German car like these were you did it you did it and by the way like I still think it's kind of crazy to have a Volkswagen because, like, who named that company?

Change the fucking name.

It's right there on the thing.

That's crazy to me.

Always bugged me a little bit.

But I was like, you know what?

I'm going to get, I'm going to get rid of this Tesla and just fucking eat shit on the price because that's what happened.

Getting rid of it.

I'm going to get this thing.

I fucking hate this car so much.

And it is the most, and it really like makes me.

Tesla, the Mercedes.

The Mercedes.

I miss the Tesla, to be honest.

Deal with it.

i feel the same way i really like driving my tesla

again politics well this is how you got to get paid in return

i hate that now i will say now you've made me second guess my other car which i want to get is that volkswagen bus

and i can't get that now either now you know what you're never going to be young again don't get that bus all right

why do you hate the mercedes it feels very german in that it seems like it was just

it's

trying to kick you out of it.

I'm in it.

I just, I always feel like, yeah, I always feel like when I'm in it, like, you can just hear a little voice being like, Akham!

It's very like, it's very clearly some very smart engineers were deeply involved in every aspect of it.

But the one thing they didn't think about was the fact that a human being at some point might need to drive it.

It feels like it's completely over-engineered by like a, by like a deeply methodical and inhumane people.

And maybe that's projecting

because they seem like they've really kind of lightened up over the last 68 or 80 years but when i drive this car i feel like i don't know i think it's still in them

when you turn it up and when you get in it it's it automatically nick fluentes' uh podcast is on right yeah yeah it's yeah it just goes

yeah it's always playing uh uh a deutschland uber alice whenever i turn the car on it's super weird it's super weird um i do love the lenny reefer install commercials for it.

Yeah, no, you know, because here's the thing.

Because here's the thing.

The Trump administration puts out these sort of like snuff films on whitehouse.gov, and it's like, hey, man, like Lenny Riefenstahl knew the rule of thirds.

You know what I mean?

Knew about

light and dark, you know, the angles, beautiful shots, right?

If you're going to make a beautiful piece of right-wing propaganda, fucking shoot it well.

Speaking about the ads, did you see this, like the White House ad for the we are now called the Department of War?

Like, we're going to do the business of war.

And they're like, this is, did you see that?

No, I didn't even know that these films existed.

No, it's like on the White House, like, officials, yeah, how, like, and they're giving like Hecketh, you know, like Hexeth,

that guy, and he's saying, like, you know, we're we're like, we're not the Department of Defense, we're in the business of war, and like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And then at the end, Department of Defense, and then

war.

Wow.

This is like a dystopian thing.

I mean, that's like something you would see in a movie.

Yeah, it's like, but I like it.

There's no masks anymore.

Yeah, we're war.

We're going to fuck you up.

It's just,

it's just like

there are confident people with tiny penises.

And there are, there are insecure people with big penises.

I'm sure they exist.

Which ones, Hexa?

There's insecure people with nuclear weapons.

Right.

Well, I just, there's such a projection all the time.

Like, I just,

therapy.

And this, let's end by saying, I hope a lot of these Republicans do a 180 on therapy.

These people can all benefit from just sitting down and talking to somebody once in a while about why they're so sad and mad, or maybe admitting that they're not mad and that they are sad.

And with that, we will end it.

Thank you so much to Congressman Eric Swalwell, Paul, Shearer, Boss, and Musa.

We'll see you in two weeks at Dynasty Typewriter.

We're off next week for Yom Kapoor.

There are 402 days until the midterms.

Have a great night, everybody, and have a great weekend.

If you're already scrolling endlessly, which we know you are, don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media, on Instagram, TikTok, and all the other ones for original content, community events, and more.

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