What a Weekday: Caught at McDonald's

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Gifts are inherently irrational because it's like, okay, I'll buy you something for $50. You buy me for something for $50.
But why wouldn't I? If there's something I would want for $50 for myself and you would want for yourself, we should all just go to the store and buy ourselves something. But we do an exchange.

And in the exchange is inherently like,

there are things that you would like,

but you're too careful or thoughtful or frugal to buy for yourself treats.

Yes.

But you'll be glad to have it

and wouldn't wash it

and wouldn't prefer $50 once you do have it.

Like that to me is what a gift is.

And what is that for yourself?

I think it's a puppy.

No. And we're back.
I'm here with Sarah Lazarus, Hallie Kiefer, Kendra James for another edition of What a Weekday. And a lot to cover.

Trump perfumes, hot shooters.

I don't know why I said it.

Syria?

Syria.

Let's get into it.

What a Weekday.

Donald Trump sat down with Kristen Welker

on Sunday's Meet the Press

in his first broadcast interview

since winning the election.

Seems to be pretty much the same guy from before the election, which is too bad, but glad we checked. Trump outlined his plans for day one of his administration, which included trying to end birthright citizenship, a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
But we have to end it. We're the only country that has it.
Through an executive action. You know, we're the only country that has it.
You know, if somebody sets a foot, just a foot, one foot, you don't need to on our land. Congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America.
Yes, we're going to end that because it's ridiculous. Through executive action? Well, if we can, through executive action.
It's beside the point, but imagine giving birth with just one foot across the border. Imagine how many things would have had to go wrong.

And also right.

Trump is lying, of course, if you can believe it.

Dozens of countries and territories have birthright citizenship, including Canada and Mexico.

Also, many constitutional scholars and civil rights groups have said that Trump can't, in fact, end birthright citizenship by executive action.

It would require amending the Constitution.

I'll be the judge of that, said Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito as he texted Martha Ann to lower his fuck the 14th Amendment flag. The language in the 14th Amendment is plain.
It says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. The subject to jurisdiction language is clearly about ambassadors and foreign dignitaries.
Or must I remind you all of the plot of Lethal Weapon 2

again? Diplomatic community.

just been revoked i love that that movie builds up to basically just like an extrajudicial killing of a foreign devil. He earns it in the film.
Okay. The movie play.
And that was just the episode today. Yeah.
I love that. I love that.
The weapon too is good. Kendra, do you like the weapon too? I have to admit, I have not.
No matter how many times you've mentioned it, I just. It comes whenever diplomatic immunity comes up.
Yeah, the two comes up. And if you don't like that, well, go with an Ezra Klein or something.
I'm sure it's great. In addition to saying that he planned to deport every undocumented immigrant during a second term, Trump said this when asked about children who are U.S.
citizens who have undocumented parents. Your border, Zara Tom Homan said they can be deported together.
Is that the plan? Well, that way you keep the, well, I don't want to be breaking up families. So the only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.
If only there was another way you could keep a family together in which the undocumented parent or parents have lived in the U.S. for years, if not decades, while having kids who are American citizens because we built by intent and neglect an economy dependent on undocumented labor as a kind of perma underclass and whose crime was responding to the incentives we collectively created.
If only if only there was some other way's this throughout this interview, like there's not a criticism of Welker. You will never get Trump to be circumspect when the question is, did you really mean this? He always says yes.
He always says yes. But throughout this, he kind of evades like this immigration section is interesting.
He makes this comment about birth rights citizenship. If you listen to the language Trump uses explicitly, like directly, he says, if we can do it, he kind of, there's always outs to what he's saying.
What happened? Actually, this is upside down. Oh, that's okay.
It's part of it. It's definitely part of it.
But Trump, Trump, like, like, if we can, we'll do it by executive action, right? He's leaving himself out throughout this conversation. And even in this immigration section, after he says this, this strident stuff about birthright citizenship, this embracing what Hohman said about deporting families, he also is very generous about the Dreamers, which matches rhetoric he's used when he was president, like a while ago, occasionally, but obviously not what he was saying during the campaign and it's like so much of what it is to interview trump is to basically kind of ask him to repudiate or double down his most extreme comments but like what's interesting in this interview is like he's leaving space to be more moderate.
He clearly wants, I mean, like we will, you know, there's a portion of this interview where he talks about jailing Liz Cheney, right? You get all versions of Trump in this conversation, but like victorious popular vote winning Trump is a Trump that feels less insecure. And so you're getting a less strident version of him.
And like, I don't know, like Trump saying he's open to a deal with the dreamers. Like we should take him up on that.
We should push him on that. Like Trump is saying he doesn't want to deport people who have started businesses, been here a long time.
That's how he's describing the dreamers. That describes millions of undocumented people that he would surely recognize in the same way, right? That have basically the same exact circumstances where he basically talks about dreamers.
Well, they've been successful. They've done good things in this country.
So I don't know what to do with that, but like, it's a bundle of contradictions right now. And as is in the past, when Trump is saying a bundle of contradictory things, the end result is you get the kind of the extreme version on the policies that affect marginalized people.
And you get the moderated version that appeals to corporations, like he kind of moderates when he thinks it'll affect the markets. But social media took from this interview the most extreme parts of it.
But that is not what this interview was. Like if you, I watched all one hour and 16 minutes of this interview and I don't recommend anybody else do it.
But if you watch that full thing, he gets baited by Welker into saying we should jail Liz Cheney.

Now, you know, he wants to say it. It's right there.
But what he tries to say up until that point is, I don't want to look into the past. No, I won't direct Pam Bondi and Kash Patel to investigate my opponents.
He leaves the door open. He's open to it.
He wouldn't be mad if it happens. He's holding space for it.
He's holding space for it. but just like I don't

I don't have any grand conclusions about that, but like Donald Trump is trying to project moderation in this interview and he sees value in that. So I also watched all of it at 8am on Sunday morning.
I don't know what I was thinking. Classic Kendra.
She's either in or she's out. I was awake.
I was just I was awake. And I was going to bring up the jailing thing, too, because he very clearly at the top of the interview, like you said, he's trying to avoid saying, I'm going to direct anyone to investigate Biden.
But then by the time you do get to the end and he's baited into saying more extreme things, it just continues to remind me that he is very good at tailoring what he is saying to the people, to whoever he's speaking to. And so, yes, we should take him up on this more moderate stance on immigration, but he's going to change it depending on what crowd he's speaking to next.
Well, right, also, he's like, he says we should end birthright citizenship, which means that people that are born here would no longer be citizens because their parents were undocumented while saying dreamers who weren't born here but came here as children ought to be respected because it wasn't their fault. And that contradiction really can't be squared.
He's just it's just an emotional appeal. He knows that like he was close to making a deal on the dreamers when he was president that Democrats walked away from, uh, over the border.
Uh, and he also knows that he wants basically to be able to give carte blanche to, uh, immigration officials to start mass deportations, but doesn't want the bad headlines and the bad stories he got around family separation. So it's like, it's not, it's an emotional, it's a, it's a, there's a, he doesn't resolve the contradiction because he doesn't have a clear policy stance.
He has a kind of an ideological bent against immigration, but he hasn't thought about resolving these complexities. He doesn't care or understand it.
He also like knows on some level, whether it's conscious or not, that like he doesn't actually have to do any of the things that he said. So that is both what we have to use and then his power which is like he has an obligation to no one like everyone will bend to him ultimately and he knows that and he also i don't know if he really cares like about any of this or like what his actual desire for his second administration is but there will be no consequence if nothing if anything he said happen, it doesn't matter.
And also the voters didn't care to begin with. Yeah.
The, yes, he wants to declare victory. He wants to celebrate wins and be able to say that he succeeded in securing the border, bringing like, you know, bringing back a good economy.
Like he wants to declare victory however he can, but he will regardless. Trump told Welker that his day one agenda also includes pardoning rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6th and getting those guys straight into the recording studio.
We can pump out an album the better. That's another section where he left himself space to have it be limited to a few people, to being blanket, to not letting out people who assaulted the police.
But we really don't know. He left himself open pardoning everybody involved while leaving.
It sounds like they are thinking about how to pardon as many people as possible while not pardoning everybody. And we'll just have to see.
But that to me is like, we talked about this yesterday on Potsdam America. Donald Trump pardons people who assaulted police while trying to storm the Capitol.

Like that is not something you just talk about.

Like, yes, democracy as an abstract concept did not. We got those voters.
We have those voters. But people are not consistently vast majorities of Americans have not wanted Donald Trump to focus on pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists and are not happy with the idea of pardoning people who, uh, broke into the nation's Capitol and assaulted police officers, several of whom died.
Like that is not that, that Donald Trump, the gravity still applies here. And like, we need to make that a big issue if he does that anyway, or it'll happen and then we'll move on in five fucking seconds see that's that's more what i'm afraid of i'm curious how many americans at this point know or remember or believe what january 6th was and also this what would the spin then be on the officers that they assaulted like what would were the you know i can just see them saying just see them saying something like, well, those officers, like, yes, they're police officers, but because they're Capitol police officers are not the same as the boys in blue with the, of the NYPD.
They just denied the whole, I mean, they don't, they just pretend it all didn't happen. I mean, they just didn't, like they were invited in.
That's what Trump said in this interview. Well, some of them were invited in, like he, they're just going to make it a kind of morass.
But yes, a third of the country is fully captured. There's a big the vast majority of Americans like Donald Trump's lowest approval rating moments.
They were attempting to overturn Obamacare and the insurrection. Those will always be the two signal moments in which Donald Trump was at his lowest.
And I think that tells us something about the politics of this. Trump said this of former Congressman Liz Cheney and the other members of the House January 6th committee.
For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail. Sounds like Joe Biden may want to do some pardoning of his own whenever Hunter's done taking him on a thank you tour of D.C.
area strip clubs. But don't worry, Trump said he would leave it up to hardcore loyalists he appointed to decide whether to prosecute.
Are you going to direct your FBI director and your attorney general to send them to jail? No, not at all. I think that they'll have to look at that.
Will I direct my bloodhound to hunt down Adam Schiff? Of course not. I'll simply give him a piece of Adam Schiff's clothing to sniff, and then it's entirely up to my highly trained, fervently loyal bloodhound what he wants to do next.
Trump also left the door open to Kash Patel as pick for FBI director, prosecuting his other political rivals. Is it your expectation, though, that Kash Patel will pursue investigations against your political enemies? No, I don't think so.
Do you want to see that happen? If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably they went after me. You know, they went after me and I did nothing wrong if they uh have broken the law probably they went after me you know they went after me and i did nothing wrong again crooked media funnier idea eight years ago we're rebranding innocent little babies innocent little angel babies media that's what we are now that's us yeah in that atlantic profile of cash patel a line that sticks out is Kash is the kind of person I'm paraphrasing.
Kash is the kind of person you don't have to tell to break into the Watergate. He'll just know that he's supposed to do it.
He's already in there. Yeah.
So that's so like that's the that's the chilling part about this. Trump said he was open to repealing the Affordable Care Act and repeated this banger of a line from the September debate.
Sir, you said during the campaign you had concepts of a plan. Do you have an actual plan at this point for health care? Yes, we have concepts of a plan that would be better.
I hardly ever say this, but Trump should consider lying about health care. Just say you have a plan.
Has this man never had a general meeting? It's Los Angeles. People are pretending to have written things down all the time.
Yeah, we'll get you the script. The once and future president also told Welker that he would have RFK Jr.
as HHS chief investigate the debunked link between vaccines and autism. Going back 25 years, studies show that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
And yet, it sounds like you are open to the possibility of him looking at getting rid of them. I think somebody has to find out.
I mean, something is going on. I don't know if it's vaccines.
Maybe it's maybe it's chlorine in the water. Right.
You know, people are looking at a lot of different things. You know, childhood vaccines.
I want them to look at everything. I think vaccines are certain vaccines are incredible.
But maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out.
First of all, he said chlorine in the water. He meant fluoride.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He meant fluoride.
Here's the problem. We have found out massive studies looking at hundreds of thousands of vaccine recipients.
I mean, just as broad a group of people, as big a data sample as you could find, no link. And I just feel like if I keep trying, we can change the mind of a swing voter two months ago.
I think it's possible. If we fucking try hard enough, we can get those people.
I feel like this is the same. Remember when they were having like the beehive collapse? And they're like, we don't know why this is happening.
It's not the pesticides. And then years later it's like it turns out it was the pesticides solely with ADHD and autism like all these things where it's like there's a recently a study that came out basically linking it to like um like leaded gasoline like pollution historically it's like it's gonna be everything else like the idea that we're so fixated on vaccines at this point when there's so many factors that are entering into play and will enter into play as climate change continues to get worse.

Like, it's just, I don't know.

I don't know what there's anything to do about it, but it's like, that's like the one thing we're pretty sure it's not.

Can we just try the one thing we looked into?

Yeah, we looked into that.

We ruled that out.

That's helpful.

Let's do air pollution next and then we'll go from there.

The null hypothesis is valuable.

We've checked it out.

Yeah, vaccines are amazing.

We have other problems, but vaccines are amazing.

Thank you. We'll do air pollution next, and then we'll go from there.
The null hypothesis is valuable. We've checked it out.
Yeah, vaccines are amazing. We have other problems, but vaccines are amazing.
It's a strange thing to fixate on. Pick something else.
Pick something else that's horrible. I think leaded gasoline is a good one.
Focus on that. Meanwhile, Trump on Sunday announced a new line of fragrances on True Social called Fight, Fight, Fight.
So named because it did elicit a strong aggression response when tested on pit bulls. The French perfumer, L'Unie.
Is that how you say it? How is it spelled? It's, I think, L-E-N-E-Z. Can you make this up? What? Is this a real person or did you make this up? L'Unie is the name for the nose.
Oh. It's French for the nose.
So you did make it up. Well, that's what you would call the French perfumer, perfumier, I don't know how you'd say it, but the people that are kind of, they have those extremely well-tuned noses and they can both smell and then make the perfumes.
They're called noses. That's cute.
Le nez. Le nez.
The French perfumer, Le nez, who concocted the fragrance, said in a statement, et paid me in cash, and they made it smell like le farts. Le farts.
Le farts. Le farts.
Le farts. Nailed it.
Sorry. That's more like Luigi Mangione.
We'll get to it. The announcement post featured a photo of Trump seated near First Lady Jill Biden at the reopening of Notre Dame in Paris with the caption, a fragrance your enemies can't resist.
There's no coming back from this, sadly. Time to burn that church again.
Burn it to the ground. Over the weekend, the big story was the ongoing search for the person who murdered United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in broad daylight last Thursday.
NYPD revealed that they found what they believed was a backpack the killer left in Central Park, and it was filled with Monopoly money. Said Mayor Eric Adams, given the amount of Monopoly money in the backpack, we believe the killer is one of those people that plays by paying taxes and other fees into the center of the board and then uses free parking as a means to recoup those costs before the spokesperson of the NYPD could get Adam Smith.
He's a free parking

guy. You guys free parking people?

I hate Monopoly more than any

other game. I love Monopoly.

That also tracks completely. No one

would play with me.

It wasn't like a childhood game for her.

What were your childhood games? We were

a Scrabble family. Yeah, I bet.
Of course.

And my brother and dad played chess, but I was

too bad at it, so. Wow.

Wow.

You like Monopoly. I love Monopoly.
You like being a banker.

Yes, I was the banker. I also love

Stratego. I got into Risk.
Oh, Stratego's

great. Stratego's a great game.
Risk

is a great game. Love Risk.
We're of an Uno

family. Yeah.
Huh.

Candyland. Authorities released

photos of the suspect sans mask, which the

internet immediately began thirsting over.

If you people were cats, I'd be spraying you with a

water bottle. No, don't enjoy that too.

Thank you. Candy land.
Authorities released photos of the suspect sans mask, which the Internet immediately began thirsting over.

If you people were cats, I'd be spraying you with a water bottle. No, don't enjoy that, too.
Stop liking it.

Then on Monday, the police released the name of a suspect they arrested after he was recognized eating at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where an employee called authorities.

And that employee, humble fry cook Donald J. Trump.

That's the employee? Come on.

They did say he was elderly.

The assassin was careful, disciplined, but couldn't resist a reckless trip to McDonald's.

I've never related to somebody more.

According to the NYPD, the alleged shooter is Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old man who attended the University of Pennsylvania.

Mangione was captured with a gun and suppressor, id and it says here several loose meatballs added mangioni upon his arrest i shooted a guy mama mia is this allowed david i think famously italians and irish the last groups were allowed to really go hard on if If we're not allowed, put it in the comments. Mangioni also has a document that expressed frustration with the healthcare industry and contained the line, the parasites had it coming.
Okay, but 90% of people out of Pennsylvania McDonald's have a manifesto in their backpacks too. This proves nothing.
Speaking of manifestos, on the suspect's Goodreads, he allegedly gave the Unabomber manifestoesto four out of five stars. So close to perfect, but could use less blah, blah, blah and more boom, boom, boom.
He gave five to the Lorax. He gave five to the Lorax.
He gave five to the Lorax. He had Anne Ryan on his watcher read.
What a strange book to review on Goodreads. As an adult.
I'm sorry, I think you might be so kind of a weird guy. The second I saw the story that like, oh, the CEO had been killed in an assassination.
I was just like bracing for the inevitable people praising the killer because of the depravities of the insurance industry. Then people criticizing the people praising the killer, then people criticizing the people criticizing the people praising the killer because they don't have enough empathy for the pains caused by the insurance industry.
And then that would lead to Republicans blaming the left for people celebrating the killing of a person and this whole kind of cycle of different groups of people performing a lack of empathy for either the victim or for the victims of the insurance industry. And I'm opting out of the whole thing.
But did you think he was hot? Well, yeah, I mean, I have eyes. I have eyes.
Yeah, the other part of it that I find like, okay, this person's now been arrested. It seems like based on what people have gathered online and who knows that like this person has had some kind of injury and there have been interviews in the Times about this, that he had some kind of injury.
It caused some kind of a downward spin. He's had some kind of mental health crisis.
Like, okay, this person has killed this man. That man's family is in mourning.
That person now is going to be charged and tried for murder. A bunch of people on the internet are going to have a good time talking about how hot he is and everyone bending over backwards to be kind of, I don't know, edgelordy about how hot they find him and all that.
And then we'll all move on. Politics will move on.
The story will

move on. But this guy is dead.
And this person who was in crisis is going to spend probably the

rest of his life in prison and will to spend probably the rest of his life

in prison and will stop talking about him. But his life is forever over.
And I find the whole thing kind of glib and uncomfortable. That's where I'm at.
And we won't have Medicare for all after this. And we won't have Medicare for all after this.
And I went and looked and the United healthcare stock dropped like 8% to 10% after the killing. Um, but it's still up over the last six months because of a great earnings call from July.
And it's like, okay, so, uh, the, the murder of the CEO and the attention on the ways in which UnitedHealth is particularly bad about claims is not as destructive as a positive earnings call from July. And the system will careen onward.
And like some insurance companies are better than others. Some treat people more fecklessly and cruel than others.
Some choose to exploit the system with little regard for the people that are relying on their health insurance to keep them alive and protect them at their moments of greatest need. The whole industry is like fundamentally depraved because they exist to create a delta between how much people pay in premiums and how much they pay out.
All of that is true, but that is the system. We have to change that system.
And I am fine and largely agree with a politics that points out that these companies are greedy, that they exploit people, that they deny coverage when they know they should cover it, when they deny coverage and then eventually relent because people fight it, that part of their business model is denying more than they should because they know that a certain percentage of people will just give up. Like that is all sick and twisted for sure.
But this person will be replaced. That company is one of many insurance companies providing a service in the gap between what people need and what our government provides.
We had a fight, a big fight about trying to build a better public system.

The American people consistently, when polled about this, say they like their private insurance.

And now that is in part because of propaganda from the health insurance industry, that is in part because of propaganda from right-wing media. But that is the reality.
And having gone through the big healthcare fights in the Democratic Party, having written speeches for President Obama when he was desperately trying to get as many people into better insurance and as many people into a public option, into Medicare, into Medicaid as he could at every step of the way. the challenge was the need to to to make clear to millions of people that if they like their

plan they could keep their plan because Because if you look at the latest polling just last year from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 80% of people say they are happy with their insurance. That number drops a bit for people that have had problems with their insurance, but not a lot.
More people are happy with Medicare. More people want the government to help protect people's access to care.
More people want an expanded role for government in healthcare. But one of the biggest political blowbacks Barack Obama ever faced is when after saying, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, certain plans were being canceled because they didn't provide certain amounts of coverage, because they didn't meet the new criteria, because insurance companies were exploiting the passage of Obamacare to claim that because of Obamacare, they were ending policies.
And villainized insurers point out their inequities, point out their failures, but providers also charge a lot. And when insurance companies try to lower the fees they pay to providers, they face public blowback.
Also, when the millions of people who have been victimized by insurance and who have cancer and are not getting the coverage they need and are fighting on the phone with their insurance company while trying to get covered.

These stories that happen over and over again, those stories become public.

Millions of Americans who've had these terrible experiences clamor and say, hey, the system

is broken.

We should all come together and do something different.

The 50% of the country in private health insurance through their employer, the 10% of the country

who buys private health insurance, that group of people have said, we are fine with you expanding coverage, but don't fuck with my coverage, right? That is the politics of this. And that is not just about the depravities of the health insurance.
That is a collective lack of empathy, the collective will to imagine doing something better. And I am all for, again, like I villainize insurance companies.
Like I, there is value to that. We should be pushing these companies to treat people better, even in this fucked up system.
Plenty of them. It's not just the system.
Plenty of them break the law and break the rules to try to get around coverage. Then I have to apologize and deal with the ramifications after.
But if we are going to change the healthcare system, if that's really something we want to do, and I want to, then we have to reckon with the actual politics, which is about insurance companies.

It is about the doctor's association. It's about the hospitals.
And it's about persuading millions of Americans to expand Medicare, to create a public option, to do the things that will put us on the road to a single-payer system, talking to people about the administrative costs of private insurance versus the health insurance industry, talk to people about the incredibly high costs that people pay, even outside of insurance for health care in America. There's a lot of problems we have to talk about, but I find there's something counterproductive and morally easy in scapegoating just the insurance companies because they are an easy villain and they are villains.
So who should we be murdering? And that's the question. And all this is about figuring out who we should be murdering.
Because if there's one thing I know, we are going to shoot our way to single payer health care and we just got to figure out the right people to shoot. I have a PSA while we talk about this, because as you point out, it's not only insurance, it's providers who are charging crazy amounts.
When you get a scary hospital bill, I think most people know this, ask for an itemized statement. I had to go to the ER for a kidney infection earlier this year.
Shout out kidney infections. And my original bill insurance did cover most of it, but my copay was was still scary and i asked for an itemized statement and the total that i owed at the bottom of that bill was exactly half of my original bill and that just i don't know if it's an honest mistake but like this happens a lot where they'll just accidentally charge you for things and you just have to ask them for the itemized version and it's different terrific it It doesn't always work, but give it a shot a shot yeah i think in your your i don't want to call it a rant that wasn't a rant it was a speech something whatever you just yeah whatever you just did i think you hit on a problem that is the common denominator of a lot of the issues that we have in america which is a lack of empathy and i don't know how you that that is the thing that we actually have to work to solve.
And I don't know where we, how we get there. My, like, I do think that part of it is like, people have conflicting ideas about this and, and people are more empathetic and generous in spirit when they're less, they feel less personally threatened.
So that's, I think the value of saying saying if you like your plan, you can keep your plan because it's saying, hey, we're going to. And by the way, like we did Obamacare, which is now very popular, did a big expansion of Medicaid, made it possible for a lot more people to afford health insurance, capped a bunch of costs, kept a bunch of out of pocket costs, covered a bunch of preventative care.
Part of why some plans were being canceled is they didn't cover things like mammograms and other regular necessary treatments. Like all of that was very, very positive.
But like when inside of the Democratic Party, it becomes a debate about Medicare for all or not Medicare for all, you miss what are actually very big and good policy solutions that would have a huge impact that are less complete, like a public option, or just lowering the Medicare eligibility from 65 to 60 takes a bunch of high risk people out of the private insurance pool, lowers our collective healthcare costs instantly because Medicare pays a fraction of what private insurance does on administrative costs, and lowers costs of private insurance because all of a sudden the private insurance market doesn't have 60 to 65-year-olds, which are some of the most expensive people to insure because they're about to be seniors or they are getting into the age where their healthcare costs more more. So like part it, too, is I think people really like Medicare, but they have been convinced by fear mongering that says that, oh, if you expand Medicare for everybody, Medicare will get worse and the system can't handle it.
And I think the way you deal with that fear is by just doing it in pieces and trying to slowly get more and more people into the system. But no, I agree.
Like part of it is just, it is empathy, but it's also like a kind of collective lack of a kind of positive imagination that we can do big things and those big things will be good. Like that, that is just, I think, lost right now.
There is no kind of collective positive vision or a collective ability to come together and say, hey, we're going to do something big and make a big change and it's going to be great. And I do think it's worth talking about because as we figure out the politics of the next two years and how we respond to Republicans and then get into the primaries for 2028.
Like, we're not going to be talking about Trump anymore. And so what are we going to be talking about? And I do think it has to be this bigger vision of a future and it has to be more concrete than opportunity economy.
And I don't know what it is, but I'm excited to find out. Hey, don't go anywhere.
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Exc like Syria, you later, you corrupt butcher. But in all seriousness, Assad did terrible things.
In all Syria-ness-ness. In all Syria-ness.
Got him. Assad and his family arrived in Moscow the same day, having been granted asylum in Russia.
Enjoy Moscow in winter, you fucks. Bashar al-Assad is an ophthalmologist-turned-dictator who killed half a million people.
Edward Snowden is a former NSA contractor who leaked thousands of classified documents to journalists. And now, they're roommates? Which one do you think left dishes in the sink? I think it's Assad.
I think Snowden's fastidious. I think Assad's a mess who's been had every whim cater to for years.
Now he's got to do his own dishes, do his own laundry. How's that going, Snowden? Now you're feeling like a nag.
Now they're fighting. That's the show.
That's the show. Sold.
Moscow and Winter. That's a good name.
Let's get on it. I actually don't think it's a bad idea the show? yeah like an actual scripted comedy about Bashar al-Assad and Edward Snowden oh I think that's a bad idea oh yeah okay now that I think about it you're right it's a terrible idea it kind of reminds me do you guys ever watch That's My Bush which was the sitcom about George W.
Bush it was great it did not it was guys who did south park but i imagine it's like that's sort of a uh naked gun animated live action i'm open i'm open sort of a bojack situation yeah they are also horses speaking of the white house president biden called the sudden collapse of the syrian government a moment of historic opportunity for the long- the long suffering people of Syria, but also a moment of risk and uncertainty. In conclusion, Biden continued in a distracted monotone.
Syria is a land of contrast. Then he went back to stuffing neckties and silverware into a suitcase.
Continued Biden. We're clear eyed about the fact that ISIS will try to take advantage of any vacuum to reestablish its capabilities and to create a safe haven.
We will not let that happen. Until at least mid-January.
Joe Biden's looking good. I think he could have done a second term.
Trump's foreign policy is an incoherent, contradictory jumble. He's appointed a series of national security hawks.
He's appointed a series of national security hawks like Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz. But he's also planning to nominate for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who spouts Russian propaganda and who in July urged Trump to avoid Rubio, saying that he represents the neocon warmongering establishment, a team of rivals.
But they are being chosen for these roles because they all believe in something more important. Donald Trump is mommy.
Gabbard also had two secret meetings with Assad himself, making an unannounced trip

to Syria in 2017 while a sitting congressperson. Tweeted former Rep Adam Kinzinger on Friday,

wonder if Tulsi Gabbard will offer Assad safe harbor at her house. They are great friends.

I've been to worst friend's giddings. I just got chills imagining for the first time what Tulsi

Gabbard's house might look like. There's a coffee table made of a surfboard, but no rugs,

no rugs at all. The only art is a gray abstract painting from home goods.
Just that pre-frame shit. Ship lap.
Oh, there's probably ship lap. This is all a reminder that Trump can claim every failure was avoidable and every success inevitable when he's campaigning.
It's more difficult when he's governing. For example, you said you can end the war in 24 hours.
You've even said you want to try to end it before you're sworn into office. Well, I'm trying to.
You're actively trying to. I am.
Have you talked to President Putin? No, I have not. You haven't talked to President Putin since you've been elected? No, I mean, no.
Well, I don't want to say that, but I haven't spoken to him recently. Trump, like a woman at brunch whose friend is trying to find out if she's still talking to the ex because the last time they had brunch she said she was fucking done and she's not going to go through that again she's like i haven't talked to him recently well how recently since the election well i mean obviously i'm not gonna say not since the election uh buddy if you spoke at him since the election that is recently i have friends i haven't talked to since ron de santos was running for president these are good close friends putin isn't a what did you eat for lunch today inner circle level guy okay fine but that doesn't mean you haven't talked to him recently anyone you've talked to in the last month is your best friend yeah donald trump saying he can end the war in a day even before he becomes president.
Not possible. Like people have been talking about whether the collapse of Syria is going to turn people against Tulsi Gabbard because of her conversations with Assad.
But I also think it's about the reminder that these are serious jobs that require people like that aren't fucking kooks like john we we talked about this on ponte america yesterday but like john bolton has been one of the people leading the charge against tulsi gabbard and then it becomes a kind of hawks versus uh doves debate because john bolton is obviously a neocon but like the point that he made which is a good one it's like hey like it's not about ideology like she has terrible fucking judgment like she has kooky shitty judgment that's a dangerous thing in a job like this regardless of the ideology anyway so hope that works out.

A few weeks ago, this interview without magazine went viral.

I've seen this week people are taking the lyrics of Defying Gravity and really holding space with that and feeling power in that.

I didn't know that that was happening.

I've seen it. Yeah.

That's really powerful.

That's why I wanted it.

I didn't know that was happening.

I've seen it on a couple of posts.

I don't know how widespread, but, you know, I am in queer media.

I know what you're thinking.

This can't be why Trump won, because it went down after the election.

This is my hundredth time watching this clip. And I just realized how funny it is to be moved while wearing that hat.

It's the yes that people have been reluctant to talk about the looks as being part of the silliness. It's part of it.
Yeah, no big part.

The Internet also latched on to the fact that Ariana Grande reaches out and grabs Cynthia Riva's one finger like a baby.

Which I keep trying to do at the office, but nobody will let me.

Kendra, let me hold your fingy.

Fingy?

That went about as well as we thought.

Now, in a follow-up interview,

Ariana and Cynthia admitted that they have no idea what the hell that conversation was even about.

So I didn't know what any

part of it meant. I didn't

understand the first

sentence, and then I

Thank you. how that conversation was even about.
So I didn't know what any part of it meant. I didn't understand the first sentence.
And then I definitely didn't understand what was happening, how you responded. I was like, oh, what did she say? What did you hear? And I just wanted to be there because I knew something big was happening.
And I didn't know how to be there. But then after a while, I didn't know how to be there.
Once again, the hat. Yeah.
Are we there? Are we here? What is happening? It also like does, it does fit with what it felt like it was going on, which is that Ariana Grande is just an incredible, like she's incredible at like reading a room and matching the energy. She'll yes and all day.
Yeah. And so she's like, all right, we're having an emotional moment.
I don't really know why, but I'm here for it. Here's what Grande went on to say.
I remember in the moment asking myself, am I okay? Did I not hear something? And I was like, am I? I was like, because she looks like she's about to cry again. It's also, like, for Cynthia Erivo To be saying she also doesn't know What was going on she's the one who had the Emotional reaction She's the one who started it But they were crying this whole time like when she said cry again It's like they've been tearing up in every single one of these interviews So I think she was automatically was like I'm already crying The press tour for Wicked was such an emotional emotional roller coaster they they were going through it out there but yeah i think there's something about like there's a little bit like of ariana grande being like trying to take herself out of it and be like yeah i was out i was on the outside of it with the rest of you and cynthia riva was like well don't leave in me in here alone i want to be out there with you, too.
So I also didn't understand what was happening. Nobody understood what was happening.
And then I saw that the woman who did the interview did a makeup commercial around holding space. And I'm glad she's getting that money.
Like a full commercial for cosmetics of some kind. I like that the Gay Men's Choir sang a song about holding space.
And that was my favorite part of it. She had said that she was singing it because she was in queer media, and I was like, I honestly didn't know what that meant.
And am I also in queer media, maybe? Yeah, we are great. What? It's actually, I thought about this.
I was like, well, any media Cynthia Erivo is in is queer media. Any media that I'm in is queer media.
What does the term mean if you're in it? And it's not. She also, like, you're sitting down without magazine.
You know what queer media is. You are in one of, like, the most known queer relationships that you broke up with another.
Like, you broke up a queer marriage and are now in a very prominent queer relationship.

You know what this is.

Hmm.

Then how do you explain it?

Kendra, how do you explain this?

Explain which part.

Then why is she saying this?

Because I think at this point,

they're just talking.

Yeah, they're just talking. They're just talking.

Yeah.

I'm not going to answer all this.

They've done so many interviews about what kid. They're just talking they're just talking yeah i'm gonna answer all this they've done so many interviews about wicked they're just broken to be fair if any one of us was interviewed about like anything like i just feel like if i were to be interviewed at any point in time i would have no idea what's going on i could lose a thread like that so i i empathize with them because if somebody said i'd be like oh well okay like i okay.
Like I have no idea. To not know what's going on and not ask.

You can just say, hey, what are you talking about?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Instead of sounding like that's what I hoped would happen.

Like, also, you're not Stephen Schwartz.

You didn't write this song.

This song has been being performed since 2003.

She's so good in it.

No, I'm not talking about quality.

For people watching, like, obviously, Kendra has been critical of Cynthia Erivo and Wicked for a long time. About the casting, the staging, all of it.
Not a fan of the musical, not a fan of Cynthia Erivo's. And that's all coming out.
I mean, if we want to talk about Cynthia Erivo's comments during the Harriet Tubman era, we could. Oh, yeah, I guess we could.
But maybe not today. No.
She was great in The Color Purple on Broadway. It's our phenomenal.
The important thing is to go see Conclave. Conclave, Conclave, Conclave.
I feel really relieved that the world had the same experience with this moment that I did, because I felt like, oh, I'm not broken you're broken we're all broken we're all broken babe welcome to the club I guess that's it yeah the vibes just feel weird what I know I just like here today no no no just like imagine being in their presence it just feels like it would be a very weird time time vibe wise. I just I think they're both amazing.
They're incredibly talented people. They are being lauded for hours and hours every day to talk about how did you do this amazing thing? How are you so amazing? And it has to be just brain warping to do this for a day they've been like i can't believe we even have this interview because this is in a produced white room where they're being asked to react to other promotion from what a week or two ago i think it's like this was genuinely camp like i think as a queer person it's like it is nice to have a sincere moment that we all looked at and said what and then And then everyone just started making a meme on it.
And that was fun. And I think, like, that's what they should take away is like, you did a good job.
People needed something silly like this. Thank you, ladies.
Yeah. And I am just, I am so excited that we get a whole nother round of Unhidden Press.
For now they get to go out and start promoting a movie that is a fucking guaranteed hit. They have a second movie.
Do you know, like, there's a guaranteed hit. They are so lucky.
This is the fucking musical MCU now. So when do we have to do this again? Is this next year? November.
Next November. Same time next year.
We'll have for Conclave 2. Conclave 2.
But that's not the only thing you can look forward to next year. We are announcing today that Love to Relieve It has a bunch of dates in Los Angeles through spring of 2025.
And whatever happens next year, we'll love to see you. So join me every Thursday starting January 9th if you're in Los Angeles.
And some exciting changes coming. So you won't want to miss these shows.
We have some very big guests lined up for you. We have some very fun new segments coming your way.
We're going to Trump-proof this show yet again. So come by if you're in Los Angeles.
First up, we have Joel McHale and Rachel Bloom. Those are great guests.
So check it out. Cro crooked.com slash events to see the dates and grab some tickets.
See you there. And that is our show.
I want to thank Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Sarah Lazarus, Hallie Kiefer, and Kendra James. Just so everybody knows, we are doing one more What a Weekday next week, which will be our last What a Weekday.
We have loved doing this, but we want to really focus on doing the absolute best Thursday live show and Saturday podcast recording. And so we have a lot of plans to really focus on that and try to give you just a one hyper-concentrated dose of love to relieve it.
But that starts in the new year. So we have one more show Saturday

and then we have one more show Tuesday

and then we will see you in the new year.

See you slut Saturday.

Conclave.

Conclave.

Conclave.