Sam:
[0:00]
| Well you seem uh dressed.
|
Ivan:
[0:02]
| Up or is that like you just haven't done laundry.
|
Sam:
[0:06]
| Well remember i need i i only had button-down shirts left and i needed uh so oh.
|
Ivan:
[0:13]
| So you didn't do laundry so now you are down to the button does.
|
Sam:
[0:16]
| I i started i started laundry but the stuff's in the dryer right now so and like i i was gonna finish the laundry but then this happened and so i'm wearing shorts and a button down shirt. It's just nice.
|
Ivan:
[0:31]
| Nice.
|
Sam:
[0:33]
| Okay. Let me, let me kick this off. Okay. So, well, there's a whole show recorded that Yvonne and I did Friday evening us time, but then Saturday afternoon us time, Donald Trump got shot. So we are recording a, uh, an addendum, I guess that we're putting at the beginning of the show here. And then we'll, we'll play the show we had recorded after this it was already a long show this is going to be longer but i i think we're only gonna i don't know i i won't say how long we'll go we'll go whatever we need and we are still in sort of the uh it is about two utc on sunday july 14th about what has it been four hours since this happened maybe five it's been it's been a few hours.
|
Ivan:
[1:20]
| Yeah yeah and.
|
Sam:
[1:21]
| So we We are still in the realm where there's incomplete information. We don't know everything. Let me try to summarize what we know right now.
|
Sam:
[1:34]
| Basically, well, what was visible at the thing at the time was, you know, Donald Trump was giving a speech. He was a couple minutes in. All of a sudden, he grabs his ear and then falls to the ground or pulls down to the ground, something like that. And then Secret Service swarms him. A minute or so later, they pull him up and evacuate him. He does a fist pump, but he's got blood on his face. As we have learned more, it seems that there was a gunman who climbed up onto the roof of a building that was right outside of the Secret Service perimeter for this event, so it was not a roof that had been checked and occupied by Secret Service or anything like that. And there, Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet. The shooter was killed by secret service after he started shooting. There was one sort of event attendee that was shot in the head and killed. And I've seen mixed reports yet, whether there were one or two other attendees injured who are in, you know, are, who are being hospitalized and treated for injuries that are fairly serious. I saw one report that one of at least one person was shot in the hand or arm.
|
Ivan:
[2:51]
| It's one or two. The last report I saw were two critically injured.
|
Sam:
[2:56]
| Yeah, I have. I've heard both one or two. Two was the thing I heard most recently in terms of people who are injured but not dead at this point. And I guess that's the high level. I mean, we don't yet have identification of who the shooter is. By the time you listen to this episode, maybe that will have happened. I presume that's going to happen in the next few hours. But as we're recording, we don't know that yet.
|
Ivan:
[3:22]
| You know, my prediction almost came true.
|
Sam:
[3:26]
| Which one?
|
Ivan:
[3:27]
| Which one?
|
Sam:
[3:28]
| You predicted heart attack. This isn't quite a heart attack.
|
Ivan:
[3:32]
| I didn't predict the method. He would die.
|
Sam:
[3:36]
| Oh, well, and let's be clear here, too. His ear was grazed. We were an inch away from.
|
Ivan:
[3:46]
| I mean, it was like two inches, listen, two inches to the right and he was dead.
|
Sam:
[3:50]
| Yeah. Yes. And we would be having a, a different conversation right now. If that had been the case, even as it is, you know, this is, yeah. You know, in this particular scenario, you have photographs of Donald Trump emerging emerging triumphant from the assassination attempt and you know this is going to be all over the rnc over the next week you've got a whole bunch of republicans basically saying hey this is because of all the democratic rhetoric about donald trump being a danger to democracy all this kind of stuff, which you know i to some degree i understand right no you know i don't.
|
Ivan:
[4:37]
| No no no i don't because they have been threatening violence against.
|
Sam:
[4:41]
| Those that.
|
Ivan:
[4:42]
| Oppose them from day one. So, look, you can't go around and tell that you're going to round up all these people, that you're going to jail them, you're going to do what you have promised violence, okay, you've promised bloodshed, and then go and turn around and say, oh, you see, you guys, what are you doing?
|
Sam:
[5:03]
| Well, yeah, all I mean is that if if someone truly believes that Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, it is not a big leap to say, well, you. By any means necessary, you have to fight that, you know?
|
Ivan:
[5:23]
| Okay. Look, here is the thing. Is Donald threat? Is he such a threat? Yes. Is that the right way to try to end this threat right now? No, no.
|
Sam:
[5:34]
| I think it makes it worse. Like it makes it worse.
|
Ivan:
[5:38]
| Yeah, it makes it worse. I mean, that was what I was like, damn it, man. I've said this repeatedly. Don't make this guy a martyr for God's sakes.
|
Sam:
[5:47]
| Yeah. And this scenario, you essentially make him a martyr without actually killing him. And so later in the show that you're going to listen to, we talk about polls and the potential effects of the RNC and all this kind of stuff. This changes everything. That's all I'm saying.
|
Ivan:
[6:05]
| Oh, God. Come on. Look, look, look. Oh, come on.
|
Sam:
[6:12]
| Well, I don't mean permanently. I mean, I don't mean permanently. I mean, the narrative over the next week is going to be dominated by this over.
|
Ivan:
[6:21]
| The next week. Look, listen, now I will say this. Another thing I said that was correct. I said that in two weeks something would happen and we completely forget about what the fuck happened at the debate. bait.
|
Sam:
[6:31]
| Yes. I think, yeah, the narrative has now shifted away from Joe Biden and his issues, at least for the time being. I think this is going to dominate for at least a week, maybe two. I mean, obviously, if he was actually seriously injured, it would completely upend everything. everything but even with this it's a couple weeks.
|
Ivan:
[6:57]
| Listen i i will say this at being serious right now that yes, You know, we have been talking about the escalating rhetoric to violence. I mean, we had J6. Now we've, you know, we've had the Pelosi attack. We've had this.
|
Sam:
[7:11]
| And honestly, I've been surprised there hasn't been more of this over the last couple of years. I mean, there have been a few events.
|
Ivan:
[7:19]
| Well, I thought it could be more, but we've had, we've had, I mean, we had the Scalise attack.
|
Sam:
[7:25]
| We had, we had Nancy Pelosi. We had Scalise. We had, what's her name in Arizona? I keep blanking on her name.
|
Ivan:
[7:32]
| Gabby Giffords.
|
Sam:
[7:34]
| Gabby Gifford. So we have had a number of things. I'm just surprised there haven't been more given how much this is and and that there hasn't.
|
Ivan:
[7:43]
| But but look, I mean, this is this is at that level. Let me tell you something. I, you know, I was joking about you because you were saying, oh, is Trump going to get a boost from this? And I'm like joking. I'm like, oh, well, should there be a, you know, should we root for a Biden attempt on Biden? Biden.
|
Sam:
[8:03]
| Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
|
Ivan:
[8:06]
| I'm like, you know, if that's the way this works, I mean, I mean, you guys, that's what you're saying. Well, you know, you know, but, but, but the reality is, but, but more seriously, I'm worried that it is, that is going to, there is going to be a temp on Biden's life.
|
Sam:
[8:21]
| Oh, I think I was telling my daughter, Amy, she asked my thoughts on this like about an hour ago. And I'm like, look, these things tend to like, prompt more.
|
Ivan:
[8:35]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[8:36]
| You know, violence spurns violence. And so you're going to have, you know, you already have a bunch of Republicans blaming Democrats for this, blaming Biden for this. And, you know, there was.
|
Ivan:
[8:49]
| Already a Democrat, there was already a Republican basically saying that Biden ordered it.
|
Sam:
[8:53]
| Yes. No, there were a bunch of this stuff like this has been going around and And to various levels of specificity. But you're right. At least one said that.
|
Ivan:
[9:02]
| But those statements are so.
|
Sam:
[9:07]
| Inflammatory.
|
Ivan:
[9:08]
| Irresponsible. Yes.
|
Sam:
[9:10]
| And what you. I mean this is why you have spirals of violence. And once you have one thing happen. Then you're going to have two things. You're going to be like. On one hand you're probably going to have people saying they want to take revenge for this. Well they shot at Trump. Now I need to shoot at Biden. Or maybe some other Democrats, right? Like I know there are a lot of people worried about like people just taking revenge on random Democrats, like just, you know, for at whatever levels, not even necessarily even politicians, just the guy down the street that you know is a Democrat, right? Right. And so people are worried about that kind of stuff. Hopefully it won't happen. But like, this is how once you have one violent act, it's very easy to have another. And then once you have that second one, it's very easy to have a third and things can spiral. And so crossing fingers that everybody sort of stays calm and that doesn't happen, but it's clearly a risk. And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there are more attempts at something between now and the election. Now, an important thing to point out is we don't hear about like this one. We as actual global news, because it was very close to being successful, but like.
|
Sam:
[10:34]
| Secret Service is investigating threats every single fucking day for both of these guys, you know, and for a bunch of other people, too. It's just like the environment right now. I mean, you've heard journalists talk about it that cover like politics that they get death threats all the time. And some of them get investigated. Some of them don't. We've had, you know, SCOTUS gets threats all the time, too. Congressional leaders do. You mentioned like Nancy Pelosi's husband, but like anybody in.
|
Ivan:
[11:06]
| Well, and that guy was targeting Nancy.
|
Sam:
[11:08]
| Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, anybody in congressional leadership gets threats all the time. It's like part of being in the business of politics above a certain level. And that's unfortunate, but true. And like, luckily, most of the time it doesn't actually lead to anything, but sometimes it does. I think I think we would be like if like if if it's bad enough as it is if Donald Trump actually had been seriously injured or killed I think things would be so much worse I mean on the one hand it's like you'd be like well he was an existential threat you sort of eliminated the threat isn't that better no because of the reaction that would happen after something like that happened there's no way it would end up being positive it's just like that that's like it's like textbook how do you start a cycle of violence you know so i don't know i.
|
Ivan:
[12:09]
| Mean look the president went and gave a brief statement answered a question regarding this.
|
Sam:
[12:15]
| Yeah very.
|
Ivan:
[12:16]
| Intelligently where he was like look he he said that he's got he's got his own opinions but he He doesn't have the facts and, you know, he's going to wait to get the facts and, But I mean, this is I as much as I may be making some jokes about this, I felt I felt this this really churned my stomach. I mean, this was just it's I don't care how much I dislike him. I wasn't this. This wasn't a a high five moment of any kind. I mean, you know, we would have been dead. I realize that I just that wouldn't that wouldn't have been just because I predicted it doesn't mean I'm going to be happy about it. Even if I know, I understand, you know, I just, I'm not, I'm not pro, I am not pro assassination.
|
Sam:
[13:03]
| Right. There's a big difference between like he drops dead of a heart attack versus, you know, someone shoots him in the head, you know, in terms of everything that would proceed from that.
|
Ivan:
[13:16]
| It's it, and it is because of what you said that, you know, this kind of like violent, violent escalation we've already had. a significant uptick in the political violence in this nation and this is not a good thing yeah no it's just not you know so you know the guy did apparently what i understood is he fired adam with an ar-15 i will say this i'm going to speculate that he may now want trump of assault weapons ban i.
|
Sam:
[13:50]
| I don't think so.
|
Ivan:
[13:52]
| Because because trump is no no no because trump is inconsistent consistent that way he.
|
Sam:
[13:57]
| Is inconsistent but i think that's something that he knows would.
|
Ivan:
[14:02]
| No no no but but remember trump is listen trump is selfish but.
|
Sam:
[14:06]
| Remember after vegas he was pushing all kinds of gun control stuff and then got shut down in a week.
|
Ivan:
[14:12]
| Yeah but but okay yeah yeah yeah but this time they shot him well yes remember that i i i think that i mean look if a positive well i would honestly if nothing else happens if we would come out and say we need an assault weapons ban i i would be like oh thank god because that will save a lot of lives i.
|
Sam:
[14:36]
| Think that's unlikely i think instead he's going to be all about the blame game.
|
Ivan:
[14:39]
| I i think it's um it's a so so it's i think it's unlikely he's.
|
Sam:
[14:44]
| Got he's gonna blame democrats he i he may end up like another thing that's happening here I like I just saw like a map of like where the roof was that the shooter was on relative to where the stage was.
|
Ivan:
[15:00]
| And honestly.
|
Sam:
[15:01]
| You look at that, And really, they didn't cover that building? It's like, what is going on there, right? There were also reports, there was an interview of a witness by the BBC who was near that building who says they saw the shooter crawling up onto that roof with a rifle and tried to get the attention of the local police and the Secret Service. And the local police were like, basically, I don't know, what are you talking about? And that was a couple of minutes before the actual shooting. So I think there's going to be a big look into what went on with presidential security, because obviously there was a failure here or multiple failures here, or this wouldn't have happened. and and so and i guarantee you of course they are going to beef up that security from now through forever at least through the election for for trump biden kamala whoever trump's vp ends up being uh perhaps others as well because you know there's clearly a threat environment here and clearly whatever they had in place for this was not adequate and it looks like in this case it was sort of they had a perimeter but there were buildings right outside the perimeter within range of rifles and well.
|
Ivan:
[16:26]
| The thing is that also i mean i'm surprised because there was, I mean, they were obviously covering roofs and looking at it. There was a sniper. That's the one that it seems, according to the reports, took out the shooter.
|
Sam:
[16:38]
| Yes, a sniper did. And what it looks like from, from, from what I understand and from looking at this map as well, well, I can't tell exactly. exactly it's one of these things where there was you know a roof with a peak and this the sniper and the secret service at the venue had a view of one side of the roof but not the other and the other guy crawled up to the top right and so just peaked out over the top but other pictures i've seen look like it with the area he was on was a flat roof because there have been pictures published of like the dead shooter on the roof after this yeah but you can tell the.
|
Ivan:
[17:20]
| The The roof is at a.
|
Sam:
[17:23]
| Slight incline.
|
Ivan:
[17:25]
| It's not a completely flat roof. You don't get a completely flat roof. The water won't go down. They're all always a little bit angled.
|
Sam:
[17:31]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not enough to hide a person, right? Right.
|
Ivan:
[17:38]
| It's angle, but not exactly.
|
Sam:
[17:39]
| Right, right.
|
Ivan:
[17:40]
| Not enough to hide the person.
|
Sam:
[17:41]
| But here's the thing, though. Everything that we are saying right now is within a couple hours of this happening. we will know a lot more you know tomorrow let alone in a week in terms of exactly what went down here i'm sure we'll find out who the shooter was they'll dig through his social media they'll get to his motivations like yeah.
|
Ivan:
[18:06]
| Because you know all the people say i mean we don't even know why i i mean for you know look i mean we have no idea i mean we can speculate because of.
|
Sam:
[18:16]
| What we He said.
|
Ivan:
[18:17]
| But we don't know. I mean, we just don't. I mean, what if he is crazy, even ultra right wing guy who thinks that he's just not going far enough?
|
Sam:
[18:26]
| Well, I saw at least one person speculate that, oh, maybe it's somebody who's upset that they softened the abortion language in the platform, blah, blah, blah. Who knows? It's honestly like it could be that. But if I had to bet right now, it would be someone on someone on the Democratic side, someone on the left who does view donald trump as.
|
Ivan:
[18:51]
| Or it could be just somebody mentally ill for all we know well because we've got listen we speculate about all the damn assassination attempts for example i mean john hinkley he tried to kill reagan i mean i mean no rhyme or reason yeah it was john.
|
Sam:
[19:07]
| Hinkley wasn't political it was he was.
|
Ivan:
[19:09]
| Trying to impress.
|
Sam:
[19:10]
| Jody foster or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[19:12]
| Exactly so so who the hell knows what if this guy was trying to impress a girl i mean for all we know. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[19:18]
| Well, and that's the point is that right now we don't know. We will, we will, we will know more soon, but as we are recording this right now, there are still a lot of unknowns, but, and obviously this is going to be very intensely looked into both in terms of the shooter and their motives and how they got past security. And did secret service do anything wrong did local police do everything anything wrong you know all of this is going to happen and and that'll play out and in the meantime you know the campaign continues and we uh we.
|
Ivan:
[19:56]
| Don't look this is have i don't know who knows what effect this will have i don't know look i i was.
|
Sam:
[20:03]
| Mentioning yeah i guess i'm guessing a sympathy bump for trump but we'll see but.
|
Ivan:
[20:09]
| But who knows I mean, I go and I'm like, look, Gerald Ford still lost the fucking election. They tried to kill him. They tried to kill him twice.
|
Sam:
[20:17]
| Well, let me be clear. I'm predicting a sympathy bump, but I'm predicting a sympathy bump that'll last a few weeks, not something that will last through November.
|
Ivan:
[20:27]
| Oh, hell, I don't even think that I think by next week, you know, he'll start saying some crazy shit again and everybody will forget about this.
|
Sam:
[20:34]
| Well, I presume I will be shocked if the Republican National Convention does not like fixate on this for like the entire length of the convention. I mean, when Donald Trump comes up to speak, they're going to be like clips of this and that picture of him with the bloodied, but with an American flag behind him as he's being escorted out that that that's going to be projected. And he's going to be like, they tried to take me down and I'm not fighting. fighting you know.
|
Ivan:
[21:11]
| By the way they tried to assassinate for a lot like it was but 17 days apart sam right yeah 17 days apart all.
|
Sam:
[21:22]
| Right are you saying we should put a mark on our calendar 17 days from now to see what happens.
|
Ivan:
[21:27]
| Shit i mean i'm saying that you know i knew this year is going to be crazy but every damn every damn time it's just you know i mean what the hell it's just i I mean, now we're down to even including assassination attempts in the fucking election. God sakes.
|
Sam:
[21:45]
| Right. So anyway, I think we can wrap this up and let you guys go to the actual show we recorded before this happened. Because at this point, anything we say is pure speculation beyond the basics. By the time we record next week's show, I'm sure we'll know a lot more about what happened here. And we'll have the whole Republican national convention behind us and probably other developments too. Yvonne, like you said, like we're in crazy times now.
|
Ivan:
[22:17]
| Like, so what the hell, man? Just what the fucking hell. Just what the fucking hell.
|
Sam:
[22:24]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[22:25]
| Every fucking day. What the fucking hell, man.
|
Sam:
[22:28]
| Okay. Well with that, we will say goodbye for now. And in, in just a second, it you'll get the show that we recorded the day before all this happened bye folks bye, Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[23:01]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[23:03]
| Let me see here before we... I'm trying to test live streaming, so we'll see how this goes. Says, oh, you know, wait, wait. Oh, that's annoying. Okay, wait a second. Try something. Setting. Maybe we have to change this. blah blah blah blah.
|
Ivan:
[23:32]
| Blah blah blah blah blah blah audio.
|
Sam:
[23:43]
| There we go now let's see if i can find it hold on i'm gonna stop that because we don't need it and then i'm going to post in the slack just to see if anybody you don't mind right, mind what testing doing a live stream i'm gonna like i know okay i was.
|
Ivan:
[24:06]
| Like i'm like i mean i i was i was making sure i mean i i understood your live stream i was just wondering i'm like that i that i miss a meeting i mean why why would i mind like the hell am i minding uh send me.
|
Sam:
[24:24]
| Okay okay usual usual like just go go get them into the thing bop right okay here we go got that clear yeah very clear blah blah blah here we go, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, July 13th, 2024. It's just after 2 UTC as we are starting to record. I'm Sam Minter, Yvonne Boe is here again. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[25:21]
| Hi.
|
Sam:
[25:24]
| How you doing? You sound unenthusiastic, maybe a little tired. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[25:29]
| I am tired.
|
Sam:
[25:31]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[25:32]
| I don't know. I'm not super, I'm up a little bit, yeah. You know. Oh.
|
Sam:
[25:40]
| You've been traveling again?
|
Ivan:
[25:42]
| I was traveling all week. I was gone Monday through Thursday. And then some of my meetings got canceled, and I was trying to see if I could get on an earlier flight. But all the flights were, like, so full, they weren't even taking me on standby. I couldn't even standby on them. That's how full they were.
|
Sam:
[26:02]
| Gotcha.
|
Ivan:
[26:02]
| Because I am back at, like, maybe not top, like, top of, like, the elite status, but I'm pretty close.
|
Sam:
[26:12]
| Okay, right. You've fallen down a little bit from your previous highs.
|
Ivan:
[26:17]
| Yeah, because traveling to Asia made it easier. But I am near there still. I'm not that far off. Okay?
|
Sam:
[26:27]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[26:27]
| So I get priority if I want to change flights, I'm going to change it for free. Okay. And so I went into the thing and I went to look at it and all the flight, they wouldn't even take me as a standby. And I was like, shit to hell. It kept trying to tell me, yeah, you could change. Yeah, you could change your flight. You can fly tomorrow. Oh, I'll fly tomorrow. I want to fly earlier, not later. And then, so my flight was supposed to leave at eight 30 and then we left the gate sometime after nine 40. And I will say that I had the, I've had times that we've left the gate. We've had to go back to the gate, but never for the reason that we turned back yesterday. Okay. Okay, which was that all of a sudden the flight attendants come on the microphone and say, look, we're going to turn back to the gate because we have a major issue in the galley in first class. And oh, by the way, I was at a 737 max.
|
Sam:
[27:41]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[27:41]
| So, you know, look, look, look me. I'm alive.
|
Sam:
[27:44]
| Good job.
|
Ivan:
[27:45]
| By the way, which I actually like that plane very much. It's very quiet. Okay.
|
Sam:
[27:49]
| As long as it remains in control.
|
Ivan:
[27:52]
| A lot of the brains is control. It's actually very, it is, it is a very comfortable plan. The engines are a lot quieter. It flies very well. I do like, but anyway. We're going to have to turn back to the gate because the caterers came and they opened the door to put in the catering up here in first class, but it was pouring rain.
|
Ivan:
[28:15]
| Usually they will have like a hood or something or whatever to cover this. Well, they didn't do that. So they said, well, our galley is completely full of water and we can't go like this. We're going to have to go back to the gate. And I'm like, look, I've never heard of this. I'm like, what the fuck are they talking about? I mean, how full of water can the first class galley be? And I think it was, I think as we reached the gate, the person in the window seat where I was sitting, and I did get an upgrade. So I was sitting in first class where the galley you were talking about. And so they got up to go to the bathroom and then I look at the floor up there and I see, holy shit, it's I've never seen the front of an aircraft that wet in my life. And it had apparently taken out almost every damn paper towel and stuff that they could have out of the bathroom or wherever. And it wasn't enough. They could not get this damn thing dry. And so we literally had to turn back to the gate to get some people with like some mops and towels and shit and come in and dry out the galley.
|
Sam:
[29:39]
| Beautiful.
|
Ivan:
[29:40]
| And so that meant, so that made that my flight, it was scheduled at 830 that already had departed late at 940, then wound up taking off sometime closer to 11.
|
Sam:
[29:54]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[29:54]
| And so I didn't make it home until sometime past two o'clock. And, uh, and I had, I mean, I did stay in bed until a little later. I, you know what I mean? A little later, like eight 40.
|
Sam:
[30:12]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[30:13]
| Something like that. But I had a very full day. And so I, I, you know, I'm a little bit tired.
|
Sam:
[30:22]
| So, so before, before we do our normal, but first, cause I, I unintentionally got Yvonne started on travel again.
|
Ivan:
[30:30]
| Well, I had a wet galley, Sam.
|
Sam:
[30:33]
| I know.
|
Ivan:
[30:33]
| I had a wet, I mean, who the hell can you tell? Listen, I've been doing this for how long? I have never, ever had a flight delay that involved flooding. The galley being wet. Yes. Flooding.
|
Sam:
[30:49]
| Okay. Yes. So I will say like, this is not a me travel story, but my wife right now, she had been attending a conference in Portland and her next thing she had to go to is in, Pasco, Washington, which is a small town in like Eastern Washington. Okay. And she was going to go from one to the other via Amtrak. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[31:14]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[31:15]
| I mean, it seemed reasonable enough, but then her her train like just was listed as something happened all the times became tbd and she waited a couple hours for like a it was like i don't know an obstruction i don't know there was no explanation it just like wasn't there and there was no eta anymore so she didn't know what was going on so she had to like last minute reshuffle her plans cancel the train ticket and And instead, she's flying from Portland to Seattle and Seattle to Pasco.
|
Ivan:
[31:53]
| That's a beautiful... You know, my wife is having to go... Well, not having to go. She signed up to go to an event that's in... some town that is three hours from Seattle, which she was saying, she was saying, Hey, well, I can see Sam. Well, no, you're not. It's your, your three plus hours from Seattle.
|
Sam:
[32:14]
| It's, it's just a short little jaunt. She can, you know, come on over.
|
Ivan:
[32:18]
| Yeah. So it was closer to Portland. Okay.
|
Sam:
[32:22]
| So, so it'd be four hours to us. Cause we're North of Seattle.
|
Ivan:
[32:26]
| Yeah, exactly. It would be four hours to you. Right. Basically. And that's, and I, and I think I did, I did point that out to her if I remember. Yes, it's three hours to Seattle plus one hour there. Yeah. So no, no, you're not, you're not, you're not even close. So I am flying her to, uh, in order to get to that town, you know, those towns are not very accessible. Not a lot of flights. I noticed, I mean, I had to basically, there was no flight there. I'm having to fly her to Portland and then get her a rental car and she's going to still have to drive two hours from, from Portland to that town on the coast and, you know, Washington state, like near the border with, uh, with Oregon, Oregon, right? Yeah. Oregon, right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[33:14]
| Portland is in Oregon, unless you're talking about Portland, Maine.
|
Ivan:
[33:17]
| No, no. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not talking about the main one. No Oregon. So, yeah, I mean, it's, they're not very easily accessible. So yeah, that routing sounds, you know, like, yeah, what, what I'd expect is it's not, not very, not, not, not, not, not a lot of. Don't seem to be a lot of easier ways to get around.
|
Sam:
[33:37]
| Okay. So anyway, did you, did you have a real, but first, I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're, but first are very often travel related anyway, but you know, and, and just for everybody, we will hit the real news of the week.
|
Ivan:
[33:50]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[33:51]
| Our usual pattern here. We talk about non newsy stuff for the first segment, and then we do two segments of newsy stuff. So what do you want to talk about? I got a movie again. I got a movie.
|
Ivan:
[34:02]
| You got a movie. movie why don't you go with a you know what let's switch it up.
|
Sam:
[34:06]
| You want me to go first yes okay what do you got yeah there's some random non-movie stuff i could do but i figure i've gone a couple weeks without movies so it's well i did a movie last week i did 2001 anyway the next movie in order for me is uh one that i watched february 3rd race to which mountain so that's.
|
Ivan:
[34:28]
| A disney movie right.
|
Sam:
[34:29]
| That's a what movie it's.
|
Ivan:
[34:31]
| A disney movie.
|
Sam:
[34:32]
| Well the whole series is disney yeah but this is yeah this is the one like all of the others and i have talked about the older ones in the franchise on the show as i sort of watched through them like there was the 1970s series and then there was a a remake in like the 90s or something but anyway no this is the 2009 version with dwayne the rock johnson in it and this is sort of oh yeah yeah.
|
Ivan:
[35:01]
| Yeah they had that i i remember seeing those ads and always thought it was so weird right yes.
|
Sam:
[35:06]
| Yeah i mean and here's the thing i i you know right away i'll say thumbs sideways sideways it's.
|
Ivan:
[35:15]
| Got dwayne johnson.
|
Sam:
[35:18]
| Yeah yeah okay yeah i.
|
Ivan:
[35:21]
| Mean i know he's very popular but you know i just almost every movie that i've watched him in i've been like.
|
Sam:
[35:29]
| Meh right well you know he he's he seems like a nice enough guy i guess and i'm.
|
Ivan:
[35:37]
| Not saying he's not i'm not saying he's an asshole no no no i'm just saying that from an acting point of view i'm like.
|
Sam:
[35:43]
| Whatever you know but right yeah.
|
Ivan:
[35:46]
| Basically yeah whatever but basically yeah.
|
Sam:
[35:49]
| Yeah so what's the right way to to put this just to get to point as thumb sideways did i say that already thumb sideways yeah.
|
Ivan:
[36:00]
| Yes you started with the.
|
Sam:
[36:01]
| Thumb sideways so here's the thing this is sort of a semi but not really remake of the 1970s version uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[36:12]
| Yeah that's what i got that was the idea i got from it yeah.
|
Sam:
[36:16]
| It's sort of it it sort of takes the fundamental concept that there are two kids that are really aliens and they have to get back to like their spaceship and that's it that's like all that's similar to the originals i mean and they have powers you know and it just.
|
Sam:
[36:37]
| I don't know. It was adequate. It was a couple hours. It was like, okay, it's fine. It filled the time, you know, I watched it. I wasn't unpleasant to watch, but at the same time, it seemed kind of, it seemed kind of pointless, you know, it's, it's sort of like, you know, they, they try because it was the rock. It was, it was like more action adventure-y than the original, you know, the original, original yeah the kids went through a little adventure to try to get where they were going and whatever blah blah blah but it was you know it was a low stakes kids disney afternoon thing you know it was like for made for tv and i don't know maybe the original was theatrical i don't know but anyway it was made for kids it was low stakes blah blah blah and it was more about hey cute little kids with powers than it was about an actual like adventure with drama and you're You're worried about them. The, you know, and this is just sort of like, okay, some, some pointless car chases, you know, the rock being the rock, like there was a, there was a little romance where the rock met this scientist at a planetarium for some reason that helped them. Because of course, if you're like a scientist who works at a planetarium, you know, all about aliens, you know, right.
|
Ivan:
[37:58]
| Of course.
|
Sam:
[37:59]
| Yes yeah and and so and.
|
Ivan:
[38:01]
| That makes sense.
|
Sam:
[38:02]
| You know and it feels like it it sort of squeezed the charm out of the concept like the original movie is cute it's charming there are these kids and they have powers and they they it's sort of a sweet ending where they they find out that they were they were left on earth to sort of be protected or whatever and then they get to go go home to their real families or whatever. And this just had none of that, like sort of sweet, cute, a mute emotional resonance. And it was just sort of like.
|
Sam:
[38:36]
| Okay, you're running around having a little action movie and, you know, running away from the bad guys who are trying to keep you from getting there or whatever. And it is what it is. Again, I'm not giving it a thumbs down because I didn't, I reserve thumbs down for the movies that I have a visceral negative reaction to where I'm like, this movie is just horrible. I kind of regret watching it ever. And this wasn't that it was just sort of like, blah, it's like, like, okay it was a movie it wasn't anything like super worthwhile like and we're doing i was doing it because i was completing all of the witch mountain stuff and this was the most recent one but i think the last one was also a remake of the original but it was a much closer adaptation just redone 20 years later or 30 years later for whatever reason this was like not even a remake because they changed so much it's just like they took some of the high level conceptual elements and that's it and then tried to modernize it and make it more actiony and blah blah blah and i just it didn't work i don't think didn't work yeah yeah so.
|
Ivan:
[39:48]
| I mean what movies is the rocky i don't even you know the only one that i recall like for whatever reason and i don't like any of those movies.
|
Sam:
[39:58]
| Okay i guess i'm gonna i'm gonna click on his wikipedia page now yeah i mean.
|
Ivan:
[40:03]
| I was like I remember in the Fast and the Furious movies, and I don't, I remember, look, wait, okay, let me be clear.
|
Sam:
[40:10]
| And of course, he was a wrestler before that.
|
Ivan:
[40:12]
| Yeah, he was, now, let me be clear. I don't think I've watched any Fast and the Furious movie that he has been in. The only Fast and the Furious movie that I watched was the first one.
|
Sam:
[40:25]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[40:26]
| I have not watched, I don't, I think maybe I've watched some minutes of one of the first sequels. I have not I mean there have been so many of those movies I haven't watched any past that first maybe some minutes of the sequels I see that there is a nine nine, movies nine, jeez in.
|
Sam:
[40:51]
| The fast and furious uh franchise.
|
Ivan:
[40:53]
| Holy oh no 10 what am i talking about there was fast x the last one it's all let me see so he was in where the hell producer screenwriters, i know so.
|
Sam:
[41:08]
| Like look his his movie list is fairly long.
|
Ivan:
[41:11]
| Yeah his.
|
Sam:
[41:12]
| His first one on his filmography was The Mummy Returns in 2001. That was apparently his first movie.
|
Ivan:
[41:20]
| Well, I definitely didn't watch that. My wife made me watch, I think, a good chunks of the first Mummy movie. There was no fucking way.
|
Sam:
[41:30]
| Well, and this is the modern Mummy movies, which were, of course, a remake of the really old classic Mummy movies from, like, many decades ago.
|
Ivan:
[41:38]
| Yeah, and I hated Mummy movies. Yeah, I didn't see that.
|
Sam:
[41:45]
| Then Longshot, The Scorpion King, The Rundown, Walking Tall, Be Cool, Doom, Southland Tales, Gridiron Gang, The Game Plan, Get Smart, then Race to Witch Mountain, the one I was just talking about. Then a bunch of other stuff. I mean, he's known for, he's in the Moana movies. He's the, what's his name? I've never actually seen Moana. Well, okay.
|
Ivan:
[42:08]
| You haven't seen Moana?
|
Sam:
[42:10]
| I have not seen Moana.
|
Ivan:
[42:12]
| Okay. Hey, that movie is very good. And he was actually very good doing the voice of what he was doing in that movie.
|
Sam:
[42:18]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[42:19]
| I'll give that a thumb. Brief review. Thumbs up to Moana.
|
Sam:
[42:22]
| Okay. Okay. And he was also in Jumanji or at least some of the Jumanji sequels.
|
Ivan:
[42:28]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[42:30]
| Jumanji. Welcome to the jungle. And yeah.
|
Ivan:
[42:34]
| And so, yeah, I definitely I just looked up when he because all of a sudden he was.
|
Sam:
[42:39]
| He was Maui in Moana.
|
Ivan:
[42:41]
| Maui. He was Maui. Yeah, he did very good at that movie.
|
Sam:
[42:45]
| And Moana 2 that's coming out this year.
|
Ivan:
[42:48]
| Oh, shit, that's right. I forgot about that. So let's see. I definitely never saw him in any of the facet of furious movies. There's some reason I think I I've heard about this. Some people discussing this out. They brought him in as I mean, they had made like a fourth movie. They're going for number five. I mean, if you think about how ridiculous a French movie franchise is that has only existed since the year 2001 and they've made 10 movies. So basically, a movie every, what, almost like a little over two years, there's been a fucking movie for this? I mean, they've had people, and in that short span, they've had some of the main actors die.
|
Sam:
[43:30]
| Yes, I had heard that name.
|
Ivan:
[43:32]
| Okay. You know, but, yeah. And so they brought him in in like Fast Five. I think it may have been, I guess, because what's his name? Paul Walker died. Maybe. but but you know yeah i i i don't think i've ever watched them in any of the movies.
|
Sam:
[43:49]
| Okay so anyway.
|
Ivan:
[43:51]
| Thumb sideways.
|
Sam:
[43:52]
| For race to witch mountain that's.
|
Ivan:
[43:55]
| That's all i got sideways and that's all you got i don't know.
|
Sam:
[44:00]
| And that's for two it was a 2009 movie i think i probably said that but i'll say it again thumb sideways race to witch mountain 2009 and i said everything else i needed to say i guess so your turn yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[44:12]
| My turn so what happened this week i don't remember what happened this week.
|
Sam:
[44:18]
| We we do have a list you could look at of like there's there's some non newsy stuff on it.
|
Ivan:
[44:24]
| I did actually i did look at it but here is the one thing that i i will make an observation about something that happens to me every time i go to puerto rico okay oh i once Once again.
|
Sam:
[44:36]
| Travel-related, going back to that.
|
Ivan:
[44:38]
| Well, it's not about the travel itself. More about something interesting about Puerto Rico itself.
|
Sam:
[44:45]
| Okay. I've heard it's an island.
|
Ivan:
[44:47]
| Yes. Wow. Good call. Okay. So every time I rent a car and then I actually stop at this gas station that's on the way to the airport to fill the car back up before I return. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[45:03]
| It's just the most convenient thing is to get a car to move around in Puerto Rico. And so this gas station is actually owned. Funny enough, I've lived in this condo here in Boca Raton for 15, 16 years. And this guy that owned that gas station moved here right in a condo right by mine and lived there for about six or seven years. And that's a gas station I always stop all the time in Puerto Rico. And the freaking coincidence that this guy from Puerto Rico moved right across from me was just really, really hilarious. hilarious and i don't know if i told this but but one day i was at that gas station and i went to pump gas and all of a sudden i see on my phone where he's like saying hey what are you doing i'm like what the hell why is he texting me how the hell could he be to me now and i like he calls me up and i'm like what the hell you got cameras yes i do i just saw you i looked at him and i saw you like at the damn station laughing he lives in jacksonville for god's sakes of all places now it's so far and he's like yeah yeah yeah i just saw you walking to the damn i just saw you walk in and the reason he saw me walk in is because one thing that oddly i noticed in all puerto rico that they don't have that we have at all the gas stations here okay pay at the pump.
|
Sam:
[46:29]
| Wait they don't have that.
|
Ivan:
[46:32]
| No i i and i i don't understand why in the world you cannot pay at the pump in puerto rico.
|
Sam:
[46:42]
| Wow like i am so used to that at this point.
|
Ivan:
[46:45]
| I believe me so am i i.
|
Sam:
[46:48]
| Mean i can't i like at this point like if if i come up to a gas station and for whatever reason they have I have the little sign up that says you can't pay at the pump. I leave and find a different gas station.
|
Ivan:
[46:59]
| Listen, I've done that myself. Okay. You know, I mean, I, I have, okay. But none of the, I mean, gas stations in Puerto Rico, they're not using pay at the pump. For some reason, I was explained that whoever is the main credit card processor that they use in Puerto Rico. That I have seen in most places has some pretty sophisticated little terminals and shit.
|
Sam:
[47:27]
| Okay. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[47:28]
| They're not compliant and they can't use them at the fucking gas stations. And so I have not stopped at a gas station in Puerto Rico that has pay at the pump. And so this is a very weird experience every time.
|
Sam:
[47:44]
| And it's not like New Jersey where it's full serve either.
|
Ivan:
[47:48]
| No, no. I have to go.
|
Sam:
[47:50]
| So is New Jersey still full surf?
|
Ivan:
[47:52]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[47:53]
| I know Oregon got rid of it a couple of years ago. They were the last two.
|
Ivan:
[47:56]
| No, New Jersey still. Yeah. No, New Jersey is still a holdout. So it's just the weirdest thing where I just have to go over there and I have to remember what the hell the damn pump number I'm on and go and give my credit card and a form of ID, by the way. Okay. And, you know, and I have to get my driver's license so they'll hold it while I fill up up the tank and then come back out and then, you know, then come back into the thing and then sign and get a receipt. Well, not sign, actually, just that is one thing, tap, pay, whatever, with a turnable on it. It happens, but that is the one thing. You cannot, for whatever the hell or damn reason, pay at the damn pump. And I mean, you know, it's not like, well, no, I mean, we've got this in Puerto Rico, almost any technology that we've got here or anything whatever you get there i mean you know we've got this you know 5g coverage you know it's pretty good everywhere like it's not because of cell phone signals or data connectivity or or or some banking thing whatever i mean they got all the same shit but no pay the pump and so that that has just always been like one of these things that i have to that that i do that always like Like when I go there, it just always strikes me as the weirdest thing that I have to do is to lock up. pay at a pay inside a the store.
|
Sam:
[49:24]
| Yeah no i i don't like that anything where i have to interact with a human i mean screw that i i i don't want to i don't want to see anybody i don't want to talk to anybody like no like let me interact with the robot pump or whatever and it's enough that i have to push some buttons you know they don't don't make me talk to somebody that's just wrong and Now, however, my exception, my exception still is I resent self-checkout at the grocery store. I will always go to a human aisle, like if I have the choice. And a couple of times lately, I've gone to my grocery store and none of the human aisles have people. And the only choice is self-checkout. And I, I have checked out, but I've been sorely tempted to just leave my cart and go. Like, I just, I hate the self-checkout.
|
Ivan:
[50:17]
| I mean i i will go to i will go to self-checkout if i've got like one or two items okay you know like i grabbed a piece of you know i grabbed a pack of cheese or a little thing of milk okay fine i'll do that but if i got more than you know a couple like that the hell with that the hell am i doing i don't want to be i don't want to be doing all this work it's it's a pain in my ass yeah exactly you know and we're not very efficient at it you know i mean one thing Well.
|
Sam:
[50:45]
| I saw an article just in the last couple of weeks how there are some grocery chains that are pulling back on the self-checkout because of the theft rate.
|
Ivan:
[50:57]
| Oh, I can imagine. It's got to be through the roof.
|
Sam:
[51:00]
| There are just so many people who are swiping their groceries and then they'll be like, oh, well, this pack of cheese I can just put straight in the bag.
|
Ivan:
[51:09]
| Back in the car. Exactly. Yeah, it's just ridiculous. Ridiculous. I mean, I don't think it's that. I mean, it's not. I mean, if it's an order more than like two or three items, People are very slow at it. You know, they're not, they're not cranking through that. I mean, I remember when I, when I did check out on our store, you know, I mean, I'd be cranking through items like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean, I'm, you know, you give me like 10, 15 items and I knocked that out and, you know, less than 30 seconds. I mean, you know, boom, like buy a price.
|
Sam:
[51:41]
| Well, and, and that's pretty good. Cause if you remember like back then when you were like young, it must've been those, those big cash registers with all the buttons and the crank and the like.
|
Ivan:
[51:51]
| With the buttons yeah well we had the list i told you we had the crank one okay the crank one was a little bit slower the digital one i could do faster but listen believe me i actually got very fast with that listen the push button crank one i was i was i was pretty fast with that thing i.
|
Sam:
[52:11]
| Was actually thinking i was kidding and that would be too old for you but no.
|
Ivan:
[52:15]
| No no no at my at grandma's store we had the button button push crank push crank one you had the rows for the hundreds the ten yeah yeah the ones and i and i actually got pretty fast you know i'll go you know it's like two you know 275 was like you know you you hit the you you press the two dollar thing you press the 71 you have the five crank two you know whatever i actually got i i tell you what i was pretty quick i was pretty quick with that damn thing okay so yeah so so i yes sam i actually i used a you're.
|
Sam:
[52:55]
| You're older than i thought.
|
Ivan:
[52:56]
| Fuck you know i i you know yes i i used the crank cash register machine. Yes, I did. I will say that. And we had, and we also had, and I used a fully mechanical typewriter.
|
Sam:
[53:14]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[53:15]
| Not not electric it was fully mechanical that thing was loud like i mean holy smokes i i mean if you see these pictures of like old offices you know from like years where all these people had all these mechanical typewriters if you've seen like videos where everybody's like thwacking at those at those keys like non-stop you imagine a whole room with a couple of hundred of those machines going on at the.
|
Sam:
[53:40]
| Same time yep i.
|
Ivan:
[53:42]
| Mean that's gotta be like i mean holy smokes what to put like earmuffs or something i mean we're gonna think only smoke so anyway self-checkout.
|
Sam:
[53:51]
| Right good.
|
Ivan:
[53:53]
| Sometimes bad sometimes good at the pump not good at the supermarket.
|
Sam:
[53:57]
| Yes exactly and yeah and any other store but yeah i i just i that that's just one of the areas where i actually do appreciate the human doing it for me like and i don't know and just these alternate like you know a certain company who shall not be named has experimented with just walk out stuff where they track you the whole time you're there and that's okay i still don't feel like entirely comfortable with it it just feels weird but but it's not bad like you just grab the stuff and walk out after scanning yourself in i.
|
Ivan:
[54:35]
| I did go yeah i i did there there is uh at the train station over here they have one of those.
|
Sam:
[54:41]
| I always.
|
Ivan:
[54:42]
| Think it's weird.
|
Sam:
[54:43]
| Yeah i.
|
Ivan:
[54:44]
| I would i actually prefer that somebody go you know.
|
Sam:
[54:48]
| You know i bring me out i haven't done it as much there's one only like less than half a mile from my house and i've gone there occasionally from it's just a convenience store it's not like a full grocery store it's just a convenience store and it's okay but it's like it's not discernibly better from a regular convenience store it's just another convenience store it's not like something it's.
|
Ivan:
[55:14]
| Just another convenience store.
|
Sam:
[55:15]
| It's nothing special and and actually in some cases the selection isn't quite as good as the as the other convenience store across the street so it's it's it's fine it's all right okay shall we all right we've beaten.
|
Ivan:
[55:32]
| This to death yes let's go.
|
Sam:
[55:33]
| What have we beaten to death like we like everything we like beating things to death right listen.
|
Ivan:
[55:38]
| Everybody has been very good about beating shit to death the last few weeks.
|
Sam:
[55:41]
| Okay so let's take including.
|
Ivan:
[55:46]
| Dogs apparently to eat and other things.
|
Sam:
[55:50]
| Okay Okay, we're going to take a break, and when we come back, we'll be talking about actual news-related stuff, and we'll see how that goes. There's a couple topics, but there's probably one big one. So we'll be back after this. Okay, where do you want to start, Yvonne? Is it that big obvious one? Shall we start with the big obvious one or try to throw in some other stuff first?
|
Ivan:
[56:59]
| The iPhone replacement cycle?
|
Sam:
[57:01]
| Yeah, sure.
|
Ivan:
[57:04]
| I mean...
|
Sam:
[57:07]
| Basically, all that is is both my wife and my son had irreparable issues with their iPhones in the last week, so we had to replace two iPhones this week. So we got them all set up, except my son's iPhone, the last backup that it did automatically was a little bit too old. And so we may still take it to get it screen replaced to see if we can get into it and force it to do one last backup. Basically, the screen isn't broken, like cracked, but the screen is no longer responsive.
|
Ivan:
[57:44]
| Responsive why don't you uh could you plug it into a computer into a backup.
|
Sam:
[57:48]
| Yes but you have to when you do that you have to sign into the phone before it will talk to the computer and this and this because it needs to authenticate and say yes do you trust this computer all that kind of crap um and so the screen is not cracked but the screen does not respond to touch anymore at all and that's no bueno and so yeah so because he's missing like a few he's missing some pictures he's missing a few things that he did in a couple games we are going to take it to a screen repair place and say hey okay the screen's not cracked but it's not responsive we're doing a cheap ass screen repair on the old phone actually fix this problem too you.
|
Ivan:
[58:36]
| Have apple care still old.
|
Sam:
[58:37]
| It's really old this is like an iphone tanner this is way way way it's like three years past apple care okay like so because he was on my old phone he's now got a brand new current phone but he was on one of my old hand-me-down phones and it's like way way way past apple care and so it's like and so yeah like and and it's already had it screen replaced a couple times by third-party replacers because like you know once you're past apple care it's a lot.
|
Ivan:
[59:10]
| You made me check when the last last phone i've got last backup i i have okay it was it was 3 22 a.m so i'm yeah.
|
Sam:
[59:18]
| No i and i think it was because like he was he just wasn't like, he does not have the habit of automatically plugging it in when he goes to bed at night. And like the time that it likes to back up is a night. It likes to back up if it's plugged in on wifi and it's the middle of the night is it's sort of preferred backup time. It will occasionally try other times, but like if it's, if it's low on battery and it's not plugged in, it'll be like, I'll wait. And so like the last backup was like several days old, that it had done automatically.
|
Ivan:
[59:56]
| Oh, okay. Got it.
|
Sam:
[59:57]
| And it hadn't uploaded photos to the cloud even either. So we'll see. And I went and got him the new phone and I'm like, okay, you'll be all set. We'll restore from the backup. No problem. Blah, blah, blah. And then the backup was like four days old. It's like crap. So anyway, that was that whole topic.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:18]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:00:19]
| And my wife also needed to be replaced. And she's like, I don't know what happened. It started acting crazy. We take it to the Apple store and we were already going to replace it because hers was not as old as my son's and not as old as mine either. But I'm waiting for the 16 unless I break mine. But like they immediately were like, oh, water damage, huh? Yep. Definitely water damage. And so water damage. Yeah. And they're like, cause they are, they are by the way, and they made it this very clear. iPhones are water-resistant, not waterproof.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:54]
| They're not waterproof.
|
Sam:
[1:00:55]
| And even though they're...
|
Ivan:
[1:00:58]
| Yeah, but what? Was she swimming with the iPhone?
|
Sam:
[1:01:02]
| Well, no, what the, what the guy at the Apple store actually said was, Hey, like it's yes, they're water resistant, but it's really all over the place. Like some people will drop their phones into the pool and they'll be there for 15, 20 minutes and they'll be absolutely fine. Other people will accidentally splash their phone and all of a sudden it'll freak out and die. You know, it's, and they said it's sort of all over the place. and that's why even like like water damage isn't covered in the same way in their warranties as everything else and they've got a little water damage sensor so they can instantly tell if it got wet and blah blah blah yeah i know.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:41]
| They have the water sensor yes i've seen that yes.
|
Sam:
[1:01:44]
| Yeah yeah so like so anyway and and like she's like i swear i didn't drop it in the tub or anything i'm like okay yeah it got wet and she's like but they're water resistant they're waterproof they're nope Nope. Nope. Sorry. And I thought the same thing too. I was actually like, I know they're not waterproof, but I figured they're rated as water resistant to be at a certain depth for a certain amount of time. And so you don't have to worry about it if they're just like, you know, if, if they fall in something for a couple seconds or they get splashed or whatever, but apparently you do like, you should be careful. Like there's some protection, but you, you shouldn't like, just assume that it doesn't matter and you can get it.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:25]
| How old was her phone how old is her phone i.
|
Sam:
[1:02:28]
| Think hers was a 12 no mine's a 12 i think no hers was a 13 mine's a 12.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:36]
| It was a two years old yeah well also water seals yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:02:42]
| They degrade over time you.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:44]
| Know for whatever reason they degrade over time yeah i mean it's one of those Those things like with like, you know, my my my older watches where I know that I, you know, one of the reasons to take them for service is because, you know, they're older and it's like the water seals fail. And I I made the mistake already once with an old stupid me with an old watch that I had that I had not gotten serviced in years that I went into a pool and I went. It wasn't working right. And they were like, oh, water damage. I'm like, what? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You haven't gotten that service in like seven years. Yes, the water seals failed. I'm like, oh.
|
Sam:
[1:03:23]
| So, of course, this is the one opportunity that for the first time in a few years, I get to tell about the story of when I lived in Florida. And I was on my like third or fourth trio. And like I was walking by the side of the pool with the trio in my hand. And I dropped it and it went into the pool. And I just dove right in after it fully dressed into the pool, dove in, got the phone at the bottom, pulled it up. And I then, of course, I dumped it in rice. I did the whole thing you were supposed to, but the phone was dead.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:57]
| Well, I did something similar, I will say. Look, I went in, this was in Hawaii. I remember 2007. We went to Hawaii and I was sitting on a beach chair and I had a blackberry. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:04:13]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:14]
| And I'm like, and I was just, I wasn't planning on going in the water. And my wife was like looking at the waves and they were big. And she's like, no, no, no. Come on. You need to go into the ocean with me, please, please, please, please. And after she pestered me for a whole bunch of time, fine, fine, fine. I'm going into the damn ocean. And I went to the ocean and swam. And all of a sudden, I reached out of my pocket and I forgot to take out. Oh, yeah. And I mean, look, that thing just, yeah, forget it. Salt water. Yeah. I didn't. I mean, it was. When I took it out, it was it was making some really, really not good sounds. Yeah, it started to a really, really loud pitched sound. Yeah, no. All right, we've already dithered enough.
|
Sam:
[1:05:05]
| Yeah, well, let me suggest, can we figure out one other thing to dither on to finish out this segment? And then we'll just do the last segment on the Joe Biden crap, because that's the real topic, right? We all know. Is there some other non-Joe Biden thing to talk about to finish out this segment?
|
Ivan:
[1:05:23]
| Okay, well, okay. Okay, well, we did not touch this subject when it happened a couple of weeks ago, because I see that I think it's in the subjects that were held. Hey, we got to let go of Julian Assange. Went back to Australia.
|
Sam:
[1:05:39]
| We did mention that that happened, but we did not talk about it. Do you have commentary on this? Do I have commentary on this? sort of like there was a time where like Julian Assange was a big topic that everybody you know we talked about it numerous nobody cared but by the time this actually happened he was sort of like forgotten.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:01]
| A couple of things. One thing is he went home on a private jet. How the hell?
|
Sam:
[1:06:08]
| There are people who like him. That's all it takes.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:10]
| I mean, Jesus. Okay. I don't have the right people that like me. Put me on a fucking private jet. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:06:17]
| You got to work on that.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:19]
| Okay. I guess. And then the second thing is that I had no idea. I must admit. I mean, I know we've got American, you know, the federal court system is is expansive and so i believe we do have this federal district courts in like the u.s virgin islands i knew that but i didn't realize that we had a u.s federal court in saipan i.
|
Sam:
[1:06:43]
| Guess it makes sense.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:44]
| No it makes sense i it's i mean when they said it i'm like you know i realized yes i mean that like.
|
Sam:
[1:06:51]
| Of course we do.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:51]
| Of course we do i'm like i mean that totally made sense stupid of me not to realize that we had a federal, that we had a federal courthouse there. And so that's where he went and pleaded out his case. I guess he just, you know, pleaded time served and, and then they just went.
|
Sam:
[1:07:08]
| Cause he, cause he's been, he, between hiding out in embassies and officially being arrested in the UK, I mean, he's been detained or his feed freedom has been restricted for many years now for many.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:21]
| Many years.
|
Sam:
[1:07:22]
| And, and basically when you add all that It's way past whatever he would have been sentenced for for this stuff anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:30]
| I'm just wondering what triggered this happening. It just, you know, all of a sudden.
|
Sam:
[1:07:37]
| Well, there were a few things. One, it is just the time passed. But also, apparently, Australia has been lobbying for his freedom for a while.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:48]
| Oh, they had been. Okay. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:07:51]
| Yeah. And so Joe Biden was like, as part of, you know, working on the relationship with Australia was like, okay, fine. You can have.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:00]
| We'll send them out. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:08:02]
| And also his, you know, the, the, his, like, like you said, he had, he had served a bunch of time anyway. He wasn't necessarily going to be particularly useful in sort of any sort of plea deal to get more information out of him or anything else like that. So like, what are you going to do?
|
Ivan:
[1:08:21]
| I mean, we're going to lock them up and get moat together with Trump.
|
Sam:
[1:08:26]
| Oh, is Trump in Gitmo now? I don't think so, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:29]
| Well, I mean, no, part, well, part, well, no, I mean, part of Biden's like.
|
Sam:
[1:08:34]
| Oh, now that we have the new powers. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:36]
| Now we have the new powers. I was figuring that, look, I mean, Biden could do just a whole roundup of people to send them to Gitmo. And so, you know, we could just send them over there, you know, I mean, I, I, I mean, i'd add like let's see send send trump matt gates lauren bobert uh oh no that sounds like a party for trump what am i saying no um what am i what am i doing no no no uh lock him up with a whole bunch of people he doesn't like like i'll send like you know i said like jd vance and you know marco rubio and you know it's just a whole bunch of people like that that are just sniveling idiots that he just finds useful that he'll get really annoyed with and just call losers real quick.
|
Sam:
[1:09:24]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:26]
| Well, and Assange.
|
Sam:
[1:09:29]
| And Assange. Let's see. Yeah. If we're doing cleanup like that, we mentioned briefly the UK elections last week, but they hadn't happened yet, so we haven't mentioned the French elections.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:42]
| Oh, that's right.
|
Sam:
[1:09:43]
| And so...
|
Ivan:
[1:09:45]
| Forgot about that.
|
Sam:
[1:09:45]
| So, yeah, in a surprise, the right wing did not get the expected win that they thought they would get. Partially, this is due to... And this was percolating for a while, but even with this in place, the polling did not support that the liberals were going to pull it off. But there was the...
|
Sam:
[1:10:08]
| Left and center groups. This was a second round. Essentially, it was the runoffs. And basically, in most districts, the left and center picked one of them to drop out, to consolidate the non-right-wing vote to try to win. And there were some complaints heading up to the second round, that that wasn't happening in enough districts. And that specifically Macron's centrist party was holding off from doing that in certain areas. And why were they doing that? But apparently it happened in enough areas that the coalition of the center and the left managed to hold off the right-wing win that was expected. And yeah, so nobody got a majority, so they're still going to have to haggle out coalitions and all this kind of stuff. But yeah, so that happened. And it was unlike the UK, where we got pretty much the result that everyone expected given polling. In France, this was a surprise. This is not what people thought was going to happen.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:23]
| Well, I will say that there were some polling analysts that expected the conservatives to do even significantly worse. I think that some of the analysis that I saw expected the Tories to get- Let's not call them conservatives in this case.
|
Sam:
[1:11:36]
| This is further right than conservative.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:40]
| I mean, the Tories, well, I'm talking- Oh.
|
Sam:
[1:11:42]
| You're talking UK now. I mean, I'm talking UK. I thought you were talking France.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:45]
| No, no, no, no, no, not France. No, the conservatives in the UK, I mean, I saw a number of people that were doing analysis that thought they would get less than 80 seats. And they did get around 140, 150.
|
Sam:
[1:12:01]
| And they're still the second biggest party. They did not come in third.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:05]
| Yeah, they still, they are the second biggest party. But I mean, Jesus, I mean, it's what, 300 something to like 150. I mean, it's a ridiculous margin. I mean, they have no power at all.
|
Sam:
[1:12:19]
| Well, yeah. And I mean, in the UK system, if you're not the majority, you basically have no power at all, like even by one seat. But yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:27]
| Yeah. But it's not like, yeah, but it's like, it's overwhelming. I mean, it's not like, you know, it's not even close.
|
Sam:
[1:12:35]
| I know what you're talking about. But yeah, I was kind of hoping they'd come in like third. That would have been nice, but not quite. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:42]
| I mean, that was like some of the expectations, but no, it didn't happen. So, so anyway, yeah. And now, now Sam is moving.
|
Sam:
[1:12:52]
| I got this adjustable desk. Now I just, uh, for, first of all, for the first time I'm doing, I, so far everything in the show I've been standing up and I just like stood on my little balance board thing too. So I moved the desk a little further up.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:06]
| And Sam is wearing a being very Doug Emoff, uh, uh, being, uh, as, as you know, he, his shirt is a Brandy Donaghy, uh, campaign shirt.
|
Sam:
[1:13:18]
| It's a Brandy Donaghy campaign shirt from two years ago. Uh, she hasn't made new ones for this cycle yet. And I, but I will say though, I am wearing, I usually save this t-shirt specifically only for campaign events to, I just put it aside. So it's always clean. So if we're going to a campaign event, I can pull it on. But this time I am wearing this because this is literally my last clean shirt. So there, there will be laundry this weekend. So laundry will be happening shortly, but yeah, this is my last, well, not my last clean shirt entirely. I have some button up shirts.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:57]
| But yeah, you're not, well, you're not doing that.
|
Sam:
[1:13:59]
| Yeah, no, I don't want to do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:01]
| You know that you know speaking of things that was a conversation i had this week because i was at an i was at the office of all places and and man the office in san juan is okay we doubt you know a crazy thing you're gonna have to get a bigger office okay okay so many people are going to the office we can't fit okay so not by order okay just by choice so this is even crazier And the thing is, and I've noticed that the contrasting dress styles right now, especially post-pandemic, and I am definitely by far the most formally dressed person by a gal. I mean, by, by a fricking, you know, by a few AU. Okay. I'll use a cosmic metric. It's ridiculous.
|
Sam:
[1:14:56]
| I, I, why am I not surprised?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:59]
| It's like not even like fucking close and i'm not sure i i you know i i i'm not i i'm it's not an age thing either so i i thought maybe it's my age and i'm realizing nope it's not that i i don't know yeah i am definitely by a you know several galactic measures of unit to address way more problems, everybody i'm just like this conversation going to a customer what am i wearing what the fuck you think i'm wearing i'm wearing a fucking suit i'm not showing up the fucking customer the other than a fucking suit it's not happening over my fucking dead body wait.
|
Sam:
[1:15:43]
| Wait yvonne yvonne yvonne that seems underdressed no talks.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:46]
| No talks no talks i will say that i look i did this pens with the tie no time okay there is no time okay but i am not fucking going to a customer in anything less than a suit you.
|
Sam:
[1:16:01]
| Should you should like show up in cosplay like be like dressed up as like c3po or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:06]
| Oh that would be interesting that would be quite interesting showed up to a customer you know i'm trying to figure out what the reaction is when i get the security uh yes uh like, you're like looking at me. What the fuck? I mean, I will admit that that would make me quite an interesting thing to try to pull off one of these days, trying to get a seat at 3PO's.
|
Sam:
[1:16:30]
| You would stand out. You would be memorable.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:34]
| I'm sure that I would be standing out, yes. And I think probably at some point I would maybe take it away to some kind of mental institution, for evaluation. So anyway, hopefully not in Gitmo. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:16:48]
| I think it's time. Let's take another break and then we will talk about Joe Biden and everything surrounding that. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:01]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:17:02]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:03]
| Surrounding.
|
Sam:
[1:17:05]
| Surrounding.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:06]
| We're going to do it in surround sound. Dolby Atmos.
|
Sam:
[1:17:10]
| Yeah. Whatever. Here we go.
|
Sam:
[1:18:57]
| Okay, we're back. So let me, let me just start out by saying, for those of you who are on the curmudgeons corner slack, we have obviously like all week long been going back and forth on the Joe Biden situation quite a lot. I'll say, and there there's been, this is not a unanimous group here in our opinion on the curmudgeons corner slack. There's been a lot of semi heated debate and we will probably rehash some of that.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:27]
| Well, nobody, no. Okay. Well, let's be clear. Well, let's be clear. Nobody, nobody has said they're going to vote for Trump.
|
Sam:
[1:19:33]
| Yeah. Nobody's voting for Trump. Nobody's stormed off in anger. You know, no, no one's voting.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:39]
| For RFK Jr. or something. No, no.
|
Sam:
[1:19:42]
| We're, we're not at each other's throats, but how, but there is not, there's not a consensus on the right way forward. Let's say that. And so if, if those of you who are on the curmudgeons corner slack, Slack hear a little bit of repetition of things you've heard either myself or Yvonne say on the Commodions Corner Slack. Sorry. Now, Yvonne and I are kind of in somewhat of agreement, though, compared to somebody else, other folks.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:11]
| But yes, but but let me but let me but I wanted to mention one thing before we even started on this subject.
|
Sam:
[1:20:18]
| Oh, wait, one one more thing. One more thing. thing i just want to throw out there one more thing if you are not on the curmudgeons corner slack you should be so contact us we'll give all the contact stuff at the end and join us because like we had a really nice interesting healthy debate going back and forth talking about all kinds of stuff it would be great to have more people okay now we've on your turn.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:42]
| Well here's an interesting thing about this and i it started dawning upon me and it actually dawned upon me as as you mentioned, what our next subject is. One thing that's happened is that, you know, how many times have we been on this show that the topic of conversation has been Trump?
|
Sam:
[1:21:04]
| Yes. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:05]
| And for better or worse, okay, it isn't. It isn't. We're talking about Joe. Right. And and, you know, whatever discussion about about Trump has fallen to the wayside.
|
Sam:
[1:21:25]
| Like Trump has done all kinds of crazy shit in the last two weeks, just like he does every week. But it's gotten almost no attention because everybody is obsessed with the Joe Biden situation.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:38]
| Well, well, to be fair, look, he did spend about 14 days playing golf before he went to an event. well.
|
Sam:
[1:21:44]
| He did do that he did he took some time off but.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:48]
| Yeah but and and and i mean he yeah i mean he said things you know i guess what was he.
|
Sam:
[1:21:55]
| Said things he's done things he he's been confused about things he's lied he hasn't made sense but you know the thing is everybody.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:03]
| That's that's like but it's that the thing is that's.
|
Sam:
[1:22:06]
| Like every day so people are bored.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:08]
| Every fucking day for trump up and they just tune it out right every day for seven years of this shit you know yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:22:16]
| So you can't make news with like oh trump lied today or trump said something outrageous or.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:23]
| Or or trump confused someone's name i was remembering one that was like hilarious like what he called tim cook tim apple yep.
|
Sam:
[1:22:30]
| Tim apple good old tim apple.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:31]
| For example and and good old tim apple and like i don't know he He called Melania something else. Mercedes. He called his wife something else.
|
Sam:
[1:22:43]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:44]
| I mean, I'm like...
|
Sam:
[1:22:46]
| I do that all the time. I get my wife, my dog, and my son confused all the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:54]
| I get my mom. It happens to be more with my mom, where I call her my wife. I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ. I'm like, what the fuck?
|
Sam:
[1:23:07]
| Okay. I don't even mention calling my wife mom, because at this point, Once I had kids, I got used to calling her mom because I'm referring to her from my kid's perspective. Like, go talk to mom. But she's not my mom. My mom is elsewhere. She did stuff. She went and did stuff with my son today. But no, I am so bad with names. I get them screwed up all the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:41]
| Yeah. So, so anyway, so, so, so Biden has been getting all the attention, but here's the thing. You do realize that at the last week, especially the last couple of days, you know, the attention has been good.
|
Sam:
[1:23:55]
| Yes because you know the whole cycle of this thing obviously we had a really bad debate and there was the spiral of negative attention surrounding that but the last few times he's been on like the conversation about it like specifically right now we've got two things he did the press conference at the, well, he did Stephanopoulos, but that was a week ago. That was sort of mixed reviews on that. But like, then he did the press conference after NATO. And then just a few hours ago, he did a rally in Michigan. The, for both of those, well, some media criticism coming here in a second, but for both of those, it was like, wow, he did a really great job. And there was a lot of conversation about how he really did really well. He was articulate, blah, blah, blah. He knew what he was talking about. He was forceful, blah, blah, blah. And then rapidly pivoting to, oh, but he did do a few verbal flubs during it. And this probably isn't enough. He's in such a deep hole that, yeah, he gave a good speech. Yeah, he did a good press conference, but it's not enough to turn things around. He's still in deep, deep trouble.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:15]
| You know, as I and I, you know, the one, you know, I've done I mean, I've done a couple of things looking back through history about what's happened with presidents and whatnot. I mean, one thing that I knew factually was what's happened with incumbent presidents going back decades. I did that off. I went and I summarized it off the top of my head. And what's what's happened and who's won and who's lost and why or and so forth. So, so, you know, that's one thing, but the one that I, I really, I mean, I, we all remember that Truman, you know, one in 48. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:25:55]
| The, the famous newspaper photo, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:58]
| The, the famous newspaper, what do we defeat Truman? We all know that. But one thing that I, I guess I, I didn't remember, and I got a refresher from Peggy Noonan, who was a Reagan speech, speech writer who actually actively supports, but that Biden stay in the race. i didn't realize that the path for him to get the nomination was absolutely chaotic oh.
|
Sam:
[1:26:22]
| The the the one in 80.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:24]
| No no no no 84 i'm talking about truman oh.
|
Sam:
[1:26:29]
| Truman i thought you were talking reagan now you're confused.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:32]
| No i didn't jump back i said that peggy noonan wrote this article about about what what happened leading up to that election okay.
|
Sam:
[1:26:40]
| Go go for it refresh me because i don't remember off the top of my head either.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:44]
| Well i didn't remember and i and i and i shared the article in our in our slack but it basically talked that that i mean they were getting they were arguing they wanted truman not to be on the ticket they they went to the convention they were it was a mess they were trying to get him off the ticket and and he and everybody and every pundit said that he was going to lose and that that was the whole reason why at the end there was like that whole you know all the information no he's he's going to lose he's going to lose and they called it they they were calling it for for him and lo and behold it it it it wasn't the case you know and i'm trying I'm trying to find it, but we, you know, because I did share the, the, the article and it was, it was in the wall street journals opinion piece by Peggy Noonan and I'm trying to, uh, God, I'm trying to find it now. Hold on. Uh, okay. It is sharing on the Slack, but unfortunately, we talked way too much on the Slack.
|
Sam:
[1:27:50]
| I don't actually remember it. I don't actually. I might have missed it because there was so much other conversation happening.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:55]
| I think that it may have been or shit. I thought maybe I did send it and I didn't. I did send it right when I there was the I did share the image of of Dewey defeating truman and i thought that i shared the story but i guess i didn't no i did but i did not i did not i did not so so hold on once.
|
Sam:
[1:28:21]
| Again and i'm gonna keep repeating this phrase for the rest of the campaign season probably you are showing your biden-esque.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:29]
| The dementia yes and and the story The story was, if Democrats are wise, they'll embrace the chaos. Okay. All right. Okay. And she went on to summarize how that was completely chaotic. Okay. That it was just like this. You know, let's see. The real, you know, let me see. I'm getting to. Here is a story of a party that was a mess, destroyed, riven, and without hope. The Democratic Party of 1948 was a train wreck wrapped in a dumpster fire encased in the Marconi Room of the Titanic. Its left wing split and formed a progressive party whose leader, Henry Wallace, became the presidential candidate. The right wing, the mighty Southern Sucker Gingers, stormed out during the party convention and decided to run their own presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond.
|
Sam:
[1:29:23]
| Oh, yeah, Strom Thurmond. Yes, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:25]
| The New Deal coalition that lasted 16 years had fallen apart. President Harry S. Truman, 64, at the peak of his powers, was at the bottom of the polls. Party leaders couldn't help him make his convention a success because they were too busy trying to draft Dwight Eisenhower to take his place. The convention opened on July 12th during an oppressive heat wave. The huge crowds that were expected didn't come. David McCollum in the biography Truman noted local cab drivers complained they had the wrong convention. Riggs, they should have given us hearses. Floor fights broke out. The Dixiecrats marched. The convention was pathetically bogged down in its own gloom. Speeches were long and windy, the balloting long. Truman arrived at 9.15 p.m. for his acceptance speech. He didn't go on until almost two in the morning. To make matters worse, before he spoke, the convention had to watch a former senator's sister unveil a special treat, a six-foot-tall Liberty Bell. She'd construct it containing 48 pigeons designated as doves of peace. They would fly majestically through the air as the span truck up the hail to the sheath, but they had been cooped up in their heat for hours, and when the belt opened, some of them dropped out dead. The rest distraught flew wildly through the hall, smashing at the television lights, rafters, and drapes.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:37]
| Historian Dave Drewser writes, they died bomb delegates. Men and women shouted, watch your clothes. Some bitches went for the podium. Convention chairman Sam Rayburn frantically shushed them away. one nearly landing on his glistening ball head another headed straight for the plates this would be great if we got this a plates of a 36 electric inch electric fan saved from filleting only by rayburn's quick action get those damn bitches out of here he screamed over live radio and tv this was actually on live okay truman had prepared a formal speech and went from bullet points the The crowd loved it. I judge it the worst of his career, snotty, militant, and more than a little demagogic. But up against it, he showed plenty of fight. McCullough said critics on the left and the right found themselves grudgingly moved by such nerve and audacity in the face of odds. And so we know, and it talks more about it, but bottom line is that I had not realized how chaotic it was that year, and that somehow Truman wound up pulling it out and winning anyway. So what she is arguing is that— Is.
|
Sam:
[1:31:57]
| Have the open convention.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:57]
| This chaos is not bad.
|
Sam:
[1:32:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:01]
| You know, that it probably is a positive. And, you know, this isn't the disaster that people are thinking it is. The romantics are right and are seeing the situation clearly. They aren't innocent. They understand the chaos that will ensue. But they know what U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq used to say, embrace the suck. Open this up. Take a chance. You may electrify America. And so, you know, I did not realize that Truman's path to that victory was that was that fraught with that much chaos and with calls. And but no, but but yeah, with calls of drafting somebody to replace the top of the ticket, the arguments and the whatever. And you know what wound up? Still winning the presidency. I think, you know, but I had gone later through a list of practically you go through every you go through all the reelections. And, you know, the one thing is that nobody with the ones that lost for reelection, all of those had so many things going against them. that biden actually has as positives i.
|
Sam:
[1:33:23]
| Mean this.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:24]
| Is like a vibe session like somebody was talking about this there is no recession the economy isn't tanking.
|
Sam:
[1:33:31]
| There's this one historian i forget the one who has like the keys like yeah yeah yeah he he sort of lists like these 12 items that affect whether or not you know who wins or loses in presidential elections and he's like i've got got a better track record with these keys than any of these pollsters or anything like that. They're the kinds of things you're talking about. What people typically call fundamentals, like is the economy good during the election year? Are they an incumbent? Do they have X going for them, Y going for them, Z going for them? There's a whole list. And they're sort of the things that are not, they're not just measuring like, oh, who's up and who's down in the polls. But it's basically saying there are these factors that generally affect elections. And more often than not, you can guess the outcome based on.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:23]
| Well, Bloomberg also did a summary of like 10 factors, you know, going into this one compared with other presidencies. And like Biden basically had nine out of 10. And even the one that that that maybe Trump had a little bit of an edge on, you could dispute. beaut. I mean, it's just, you're looking at it and it's like, what are these things that, Then it's like, man, I mean, it's just the guys that have this just don't lose, even if there is infighting, even if there is whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:34:55]
| Okay. So the keys that I was talking about.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:00]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:35:01]
| The historian is Alan Lichtman.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:03]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:35:03]
| And it was co-developed by him and a Russian geophysicist named Vladimir Kelisborok in 1981.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:14]
| Wow. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:35:16]
| It is apparently modified off prediction methods that were originally used for earthquakes.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:21]
| Oh, nice.
|
Sam:
[1:35:23]
| Weird. But anyway, it's called the keys to the White House. And there are 13 keys. And let me read them off. Number one, a party mandate, which is based on after the midterms, the incumbent party holds more seats in the US House of Representatives than after the previous midterm. So Democrats do not have that one. No primary contest. Yes, on that one. incumbent seeing seeking re-election yes on that one no third party don't have that one well.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:52]
| We got the rfk junior dumbass.
|
Sam:
[1:35:57]
| He is a he is being he's a stronger third party position than we've had in years so he counts you know so that counts yeah but i.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:07]
| Don't know well here's a question i still don't have how many states is is he going to be on the ballot.
|
Sam:
[1:36:12]
| It's it's not gonna him i don't know he's he still says he's gonna be on a lot but like some of them are disputed and no.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:20]
| No no what does he says what's the reality.
|
Sam:
[1:36:22]
| I don't know i don't know the the thing is though here here's the he has no chance of isn't.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:27]
| He passed for a lot of isn't he passed already a lot of deadlines for for being on ballots.
|
Sam:
[1:36:33]
| Oh well here's here's the here's the thing is it's not like he's got a chance of winning but he's going to be on the ballot on some of the swing states Well.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:43]
| That's the question.
|
Sam:
[1:36:43]
| And he can make the difference. All it has to do is he has to take votes from one side or the other.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:50]
| Is he going to be on all the swing states? I mean, that's the question.
|
Sam:
[1:36:52]
| I think he might end up on all of the swing states, or at least most of them. Anyway, strong short-term economy, basically not in recession. We got that. Strong long-term economy, real per capita economic growth equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. I think that's going to be true. Major policy change that the incumbent did. You can argue that one. No social unrest, no scandal, no foreign military failure, major foreign military success, charismatic incumbent, uncharismatic challenger. Now, Biden does not have all of those, but he has more than he doesn't. And so I'm always a little bit wary of ones like this that try to aggregate everything into sort of these large factors rather than the specifics, because I think personality and stuff does matter. But anyway, the point is there are arguments like this, and you were hitting some of those.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:53]
| Yeah, and I mean, the one that Bloomberg had pulled up, there were 10 different metrics that they had pulled up. for example, healthcare signups, where, you know, right now we are at north of 90%, which is better than, I mean, it's better than ever, like right now, you know, in this century. You know, so that's one. Salary increases, outpacing inflation, that one's also one that is, I mean, that's also better than ever, by the way, in this century. Jobs created as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:30]
| That inflation has been coming down big time uh you know investment manufacturing a personal wealth narrowing inequality i mean you know stock market that's booming crime that is down i mean shit i mean it's it's it's all of those the only one that they were saying and i dispute a little bit like you know if this is a good metric is is the issues with encounters at the southern border. And the reason why that one, to me, I always say it's a little bit suspect is because, I mean, you're counting apprehensions. I mean, you know what? You could argue that 20 years ago, we just weren't apprehending a lot of these people. So counting the encounters is not really exactly a great metric of what the situation is on the border.
|
Sam:
[1:39:23]
| Right, because you don't know how many you're missing.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:25]
| Exactly. So I think that that metric is bogus. It's just not – it just may mean that you were doing a very good job at what they were supposed to be doing in terms of immigration. So I just – so that's the one that basically – but it's like you're looking through this. It's like you haven't had a president. Right. in in history with this kind of stuff lose i mean hell we talk about inarticulate man come on does anybody remember w yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:40:04]
| Yeah but like at the same time i want to let me just give the summary that everybody's putting out to counter that and why everybody's sort of freaking out about well one of many reasons people are freaking out about biden well people are.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:16]
| Freaking out basically because trump is the other candidate let's start off with that it's just.
|
Sam:
[1:40:20]
| Well as trump Trump is the other candidate. We had the really bad debate performance. Lots of people think the really bad debate performance is an indicator of underlying problems with Joe Biden that are just going to get worse over time, et cetera, et cetera. But specifically looking at polls, the fundamental situation is that Joe Biden has been behind in a long time, national polls. He's He only had a very narrow window where he was very slightly ahead on national polls before the debate happened and that reversed. And on state level polls, he has been behind consistently in the swing state polls, you know, for months and months and months. From my point of view, he, from looking at election graphs, he's been behind since roughly October of last year.
|
Sam:
[1:41:13]
| And you know when i like and i'll do my election graphs and thing like last week i introduced my like amount of time left probabilities that has gotten a lot worse in the last week as new state polls have come out uh first of all my tipping point where he had gotten it down like right before the debate, he had gotten the tipping point down to Trump only being ahead by 1.1%, which was the best since late October. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:41:51]
| It is now up to Trump being ahead by 4.9% in the tipping point state. That's a big difference. It's a four point swing over the the course of like a couple of weeks. Now we can dispute like how much of that was the debate itself versus how much of it was the reaction to the debate. But either way, it's a big swing in that direction. And percentage wise in my uniform swing, accounting for time left before the election that moved him from. Right before the debate, a 43% chance of winning to now an 8% chance of winning, according to my thing. Now, here's the thing here.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:37]
| You know, I just pulled up here. I'll put I'll put up your I'll pull my counterpoint here. Twenty six. Twenty sixteen.
|
Sam:
[1:42:45]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:46]
| You know what? But on this day, on this day, 2016, in FiveThirtyEight.com, July 12th, Hillary Clinton had a 77.4% chance of winning and Donald Trump had a 22.5% chance of winning.
|
Sam:
[1:42:59]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:00]
| And the whole thing about it is that the election doesn't fucking happen today.
|
Sam:
[1:43:07]
| Well, no. Well, my odds were not if the election was held today. It takes into account.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:11]
| But listen, the thing is that your data isn't a crystal ball. You can make all the financial...
|
Sam:
[1:43:20]
| No, no. Well, and that's the thing. Very famously, very famously, and I've said this over and over again, if you took all the people who are giving odds in 2016, the average for Donald Trump was 14%. 14% is not zero.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:34]
| 14% is not zero.
|
Sam:
[1:43:35]
| You just have to have the right set of things happen. The polls are wrong in the right direction. You have last minute moves. You have whatever, like 14% is not zero. Neither is 8%. And there are a variety of ways that you can potentially come back from that. It's just, if you had to bet right now, you would bet on Donald Trump. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's not.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:02]
| I guess it's not, I'm just, I, you know, look, I, I don't, look, I don't agree. And I'll tell you why. It was the same reason why, for example, when I was like in 2020, you know, I'll tell you what, I mean, I felt even though Biden had a lead the whole fucking way nervous about it. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:44:27]
| Well, here's the thing this time, like by last time and in 2016, Trump never had a lead in the polls ever. ever like in either one of those years.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:39]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:44:40]
| This time, uh, Biden has barely ever had a lead. And yet we know the poll errors could go the opposite direction than they've gone the last two years. But the last two years, they underestimated Republicans.
|
Sam:
[1:44:55]
| But let me back off, because I also think, well, I think we should step back just a second and go over what's happened this last week. Yeah. And then we can sort of make our predictions about the future and what's going to happen. But basically, when we last spoke, Biden had done his interview with, what's his name? It was Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos. um and sort of everybody agreed that he did okay but there was a lot of talk that well yeah he did okay but not necessarily good enough and so this stuff is going to continue i believe i actually said that i thought this was going to linger on for at least another week before it got closed down in one way or another monday tuesday of this last week there were actually lots of reports about how the people in Congress who were pushing for Joe Biden to get out were demoralized and feeling like they'd lost because Joe Biden had stated fairly forcefully that he was staying in. He sent a letter that he was staying in, and they felt like their efforts to convince him were fizzling. Because everybody sort of realizes, by the way, there is not a mechanism to push Joe Joe Biden out if he doesn't want to go.
|
Sam:
[1:46:21]
| You know, basically all of the ways that result in something else involved Joe Biden specifically saying I'm out. I released my delegates, you know, and he said no. And so Monday, Tuesday of this week, like.
|
Sam:
[1:46:37]
| There were numerous reports that this was sort of fizzling out and people were resigning themselves to Joe Biden. They weren't necessarily happy about it, but they were resigning themselves to the idea that, yeah, this is what's going to happen. But then a couple of things happened. One, Nancy Pelosi went on Morning Joe and was like, you know, I will respect Joe Biden's decision. It's really up to him. And the host pointed out, well, he's already made a decision. And she's like, well, yeah, I'll respect his decision when he makes it. You know, basically like not acknowledging or recognizing that he, I saw the video. At first I saw the quote and I'm like, ah, is she just like, what did she mean here? And then she sort of walked it back later. But looking at the whole like sequence of events and knowing that Nancy Pelosi has a history of being very, very deliberate with her words, I think she absolutely knew she was throwing a grenade back into things and saying like, you know, and basically pretending that he had not made a decision yet and indicating that he still had time to change his mind when, in fact, he'd already come out and said, I made my decision. I'm staying in.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:53]
| Well, I have seen that both her and Hakeem Jeffries have been very coy with the language they have been using.
|
Sam:
[1:48:00]
| Yes, they have. But here's the thing. If they wanted to be supportive of Joe Biden.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:05]
| Oh, yeah, yeah. They could have just. Yeah, they could have just done that.
|
Sam:
[1:48:08]
| They are very.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:09]
| I agree. And instead, they're being very coy.
|
Sam:
[1:48:12]
| Yeah. And this whole thing with what Nancy Pelosi said was very specifically like Joe Biden had closed the door. He said he'd made a decision. And then she goes on TV and is like, well, he, he, we, he, we need to give him time to make his decision and we need to respect his decision. And, and, you know, they're like, but he already made a decision. He needs, he needs time to make his decision it's like okay and then within hours after that we had the george clooney editorial in the new york times saying that hey he he he was out of i held a big fundraiser for him it was one of the biggest biggest fundraisers ever and when he was there well.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:57]
| It wasn't it was wait wait wait wait.
|
Sam:
[1:48:58]
| Yes he.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:59]
| Attended that fundraiser i believe that it was jimmy kimmel.
|
Sam:
[1:49:02]
| Oh okay fundraiser so But he has made very high dollar fundraisers before, but he attended this one. But his point was that- He saw.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:14]
| That he was old.
|
Sam:
[1:49:15]
| Well, he said, I saw Donald, not Donald Trump, I saw Joe Biden there.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:21]
| You said Donald Trump?
|
Sam:
[1:49:24]
| Yes, Biden-esque. You know, people were complaining that he called Kamala Harris Donald Trump the other day and.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:36]
| I do it all the time.
|
Sam:
[1:49:41]
| You know, you called me out last week for calling Biden Obama, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:46]
| More than once, and you keep doing it.
|
Sam:
[1:49:49]
| I keep doing that.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:50]
| You keep, I mean, man, you have a, man, that's been a consistent one.
|
Sam:
[1:49:56]
| It has been.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:58]
| You calling Biden Obama. Boom. I mean, it just always rolls out as Obama for whatever reason.
|
Sam:
[1:50:04]
| Hey well at least it's not clinton or carter well.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:09]
| Yeah good point yes yes.
|
Sam:
[1:50:10]
| But but anyway the he he basically said look the biden i interacted with on that night was like the debate biden like that was it was right before.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:24]
| The fucking debate mate. Of course it was. He was tired. He was sick. I mean, yeah. I mean, I'm like, why the hell are you surprised?
|
Sam:
[1:50:40]
| Yeah. Was that actually during the week that Biden said he was sick?
|
Ivan:
[1:50:43]
| It was the week right before. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:50:46]
| Yeah. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:48]
| So I'm like, I'm like, um, I, I, I.
|
Sam:
[1:50:57]
| So between Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney, like what looked like it was starting to dial down, die down, whatever, just blew right back up again. And we got more and more congressional people starting to say things and starting to come out against him. There was just this ongoing trickle. And then Nancy Pelosi also said, though, that we should wait till after NATO's over. After the NATO thing is over. So then there started to be reports that on Friday, there were going to be a few dozen congressional people coming out.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:35]
| Well, he said, I believe a number of you had quoted yesterday was 40.
|
Sam:
[1:51:40]
| Yeah, I, I, I, I'd seen multiple people. Some people said 40, some people said a few dozen. It was all over the place, but, but a large number of congressional people.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:50]
| I did count it today. I did count today. day. I did count the, there was a list.
|
Sam:
[1:51:55]
| Wait, wait, let me get to there. I know that I know the numbers lower, but let me just say, then Joe Biden had this press conference at the end of the summit. And I mentioned this earlier, but almost everybody universally talked about how he was absolutely masterful on the facts. He knew all the details of what was going on. He, he was basically did a tour de force in his expertise on foreign policy. And, and, and everybody started out their reviews of the press conference that way that he showed expertise. He knew what he was talking about and, and, and he was forceful about what he said.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:38]
| And by the way, over 20 million people watch that damn thing.
|
Sam:
[1:52:42]
| Yes. Lots of people watch that about 40%, 44% of the numbers that watch the debate, but still a damn healthy number for a press conference.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:52]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:54]
| You know, how many people People watch your normal presidential press conference. Like a handful of news geeks.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:01]
| Exactly. That's it. Basically. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:53:04]
| You know, but, but then all of the reporting almost immediately always followed up with, oh, but at one point he called Kamala Harris Trump. At earlier in the day, he called Zelensky Putin. And these are the things that'll be remembered.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:20]
| And that one was fun. That would turn, and that would turn funny because he was like, you know, he realized it.
|
Sam:
[1:53:25]
| Because he recognized it and went back.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:27]
| He recognized it and went back and Zelinsky was laughing about it. I mean, they had a joke about it. It was just like, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:53:33]
| Zelinsky said, I'm better.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:38]
| You know.
|
Sam:
[1:53:41]
| But the coverage was all about, yeah, he was really good, but, and then listing all the buts.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:47]
| The buts were two, basically.
|
Sam:
[1:53:50]
| Right. And then what What I guess though, and you have the number in front of you, the 40 or slash a few dozen that were going to come out on Friday did not materialize. It was a smaller number.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:02]
| No, it turned to like 18.
|
Sam:
[1:54:04]
| So 18. Well, 18 is still more than one dozen, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:08]
| Yeah, but it's not several. You know, they said several dozen. There were 40.
|
Sam:
[1:54:12]
| That can't wait. No, wait. Is 18 the total or the new new from Friday?
|
Ivan:
[1:54:18]
| No, 18 was a total. I counted everybody, including that, that guy from right.
|
Sam:
[1:54:22]
| So how many new and Friday, how many new on Friday? Cause there were already like a.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:27]
| It's like a, Oh, like a, Oh, like a, like eight or nine. Maybe that's it. Something like that. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:54:33]
| Okay. Yeah. So like, it was not the huge, like people were talking about, well, as soon as NATO's over, the dam's going to break and there will be so much opposition to Joe Biden in Congress that he'll have no choice. Now there are a few things with that. First of all, from everything I have read about this. The people pressuring Joe Biden is backfiring entirely. Like every time somebody tries to pressure him on this, him and his closest long-term advisors are all doubling down. And like, first of all, they had no intention of dropping out anyway, but with all these people trying to pressure him like this. Yeah, absolutely. It's like, fuck you. If there was any chance of that before there's zero.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:18]
| Now I have to say that. And I'm noticing that, you know, I think that there is a substantial group of people back at Biden that actually like this.
|
Sam:
[1:55:34]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:35]
| That is what's becoming evident as time is progressing. I think I think there was a there was a first phase of like just overall freak out. And as as the time has progressed and has and as Biden has actually done a number of things. publicly to allay concerns, the people who, who were, were maybe had some questions of Biden and saw him and they're like, and, but the, he was a guy, but then they were concerned. They went, they saw, no, what the fuck am I talking about? Yeah. He's the guy I voted. He's the guy I want. What the fuck are you guys talking about?
|
Sam:
[1:56:15]
| There was, I forget immediately after the Wisconsin rally on Friday, there were a few talking heads on MSNBC. see i was listening while i was driving home from work so i i don't know who was said what i probably was driving wait.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:29]
| Wisconsin was it a michigan.
|
Sam:
[1:56:30]
| Today today oh yeah you're right it was michigan i've been saying wisconsin the whole damn show you should have corrected me earlier they're all the fucking same those like states up there in the corner like a thing by the lakes you know i.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:45]
| Mean that's that's what biden needs to start telling these people they're all the fucking save you know he's.
|
Sam:
[1:56:49]
| Like whatever you know michigan wisconsin they're all.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:54]
| Up there on the lakes.
|
Sam:
[1:56:55]
| Yeah whatever they're all the same right maybe it should be.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:58]
| In canada anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:56:59]
| Yeah that'll do it, Anyway, after the rally, they were talking about it, and one of the people basically responded to, if there's one positive about all of this stuff, all of the pressure on Biden about this and all of the criticism of this seems to have woken Biden the fuck up.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:22]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:57:23]
| You know, they didn't say it in exactly those words, but like he is revived. He is energized. He is mad. He is showing passion about what he's doing, you know, and some people argue that there's still like, okay, there's some, there are troubling signs about his ability and okay. But like he has been at these various events showing like the active Biden that people were attracted to before and showing the kind of qualities that you might want. Now, it's still not enough for a bunch of people and it probably will never be. But the other thing that's in play here, and I can't say this enough, the way things are structured. The only way you replace Biden is if either Biden dies or Biden actually wants to leave. And right now he does not want to leave. And the events of the last three weeks have made him want to stay even more. You know, I don't think Biden's going, Biden's going anywhere. I, maybe I'll be proven wrong, but right now I don't think Biden's going anywhere.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:34]
| I don't think, I don't, I don't think so either. Unless he has some major health event or something.
|
Sam:
[1:58:39]
| Right, right. Now, that's the one caveat I'll say. And a lot of people who are really pushing that we need to replace Biden, part of that narrative is like, hey, that thing at the debate is not going to be a one-off. It is going to happen again. It's only a question of when. and if you had another major meltdown i could see things going downhill fast because like he's trying to rehabilitate after that one bad event and as long as every time he comes on he does great then maybe he can survive if he has another sort of meltdown where everybody is like Like.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:21]
| Well, all he has to do is like, look, if he, you know, man, people let, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:59:29]
| Let alone another health event of an entirely different type. Like if he has a heart attack or whatever, a completely different story.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:35]
| You know, shit. I still remember the, the meltdown people had when Hillary passed out.
|
Sam:
[1:59:42]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:43]
| I mean, I'm just, you know, I mean, you know, I was looking back, but there's been a number of candidates that on the trail have had over history medical events. I think if I remember correctly, Lyndon Johnson, okay, in the 64 campaign had a really hard attack. Yeah. Yeah, he did. Okay. And so he was very, I mean, or it wasn't.
|
Sam:
[2:00:11]
| Oh, wait. I was also thinking Eisenhower. Eisenhower had a heart attack a few months before the election.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:16]
| Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there has been, like, it's not like we have not been, let me check, because I think, I thought.
|
Sam:
[2:00:24]
| I think it was Eisenhower, not Johnson, who had the heart attack.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:27]
| I thought Lyndon was appendicitis. I think, no, but I think Johnson had appendicitis, I think it was.
|
Sam:
[2:00:33]
| Oh, okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:34]
| Something along those lines. And yeah, and like, I think Eisenhower had a heart attack. tag so so you you know you've had hillary had that cold oh my god do you remember that time that hw bush vomited all over the uh yes yes the prime minister of japan yes i mean that was yeah i mean we have had like fuck w i mean didn't w choke on a pretzel yeah in the oval office this i i don't know you know we've had so many medical scares with with the president fuck trump almost died from covid right you know so i'm just like i don't know i i'm just like is it possible that biden could have a major medical event yes it's pot i mean it's possible yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:01:36]
| And that That changes everything again.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:38]
| I mean, but here's, and I think, but I think that what it reveals maybe with a lot of people is that they're not comfortable with Kamala as a vice president. Because I keep, in my head, I have always been, since this ticket got put together, I'm like, yeah, I know Joe's old, but hell, we got Kamala, so we're good.
|
Sam:
[2:01:58]
| Right. If something happens to Joe, we're all set.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:01]
| We're all set. What's the problem? You know, that's been my thought the entire time. And I guess I keep thinking that a lot of these people don't want Kamala.
|
Sam:
[2:02:13]
| Well, but also, I guess there is the concern of if you have somebody who's not mentally with it, but not dead, you don't get the automatic transition to the vice president. And the process of using the 25th Amendment against them is untested and contentious and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I look at that as well and say, like, We now know, in retrospect, Ronald Reagan was not really with it for most of his second term.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:42]
| No. And you know what? And Reagan, listen, this is the thing. People are acting like, oh, we've never had these age and health concerns, blah, blah, blah. Man, that 84 campaign, that's all that everybody was. One of the things that everybody was talking about. Biden was old, his health, he's still there.
|
Sam:
[2:03:05]
| Reagan.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:06]
| I mean, Reagan, whatever. Who the fuck did I say?
|
Sam:
[2:03:08]
| See, you did it too. Look at you.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:11]
| Fuck. Jesus. Whatever. Exactly. Reagan. Yeah. You know, I mean, they were all like, you know, worried. I mean, that was like the biggest thing in that campaign. And fucking Reagan went one in a landslide.
|
Sam:
[2:03:24]
| Well, and then also like just for the presidency itself, and you can argue this is not an ideal situation, but of course, it's not just him. He's got an entire staff. He's got a cabinet. Lots of negative things to say about the Reagan administration, but they kept everything running. You know, it's not like the.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:46]
| Cabinet was not incompetent. I mean, you know.
|
Sam:
[2:03:48]
| You know, they did what they needed to do. They continued to execute Reagan's policy agenda, whether or not.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:55]
| Whether you agreed with it or not.
|
Sam:
[2:03:57]
| Yes. So like, I feel like these are all things that could be dealt with. Like, is it ideal? No, absolutely not. And I've said also, like, you know, do I really believe if Biden is elected, he's going to go through the whole four years? Maybe not. I actually think the ideal scenario would be to for him to resign like the day after he gets to the two year mark to let let Kamala have a nice head start for the next election, you know, but.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:23]
| But that's of course. But listen, here is one thing I will say, you know, right, that also we talk about, you know, having cogent discussions on on policy. Yeah, look, Biden at this age. Has far more intellect in terms of complex matters than Reagan did back then.
|
Sam:
[2:04:46]
| Oh, yeah. Despite being older than Reagan was back then.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:50]
| Despite being way older than Reagan at this point. Yeah. So that's why I'm like, I'm like, well, you know, he's not cognitively there or whatever. I'm like, yeah, look, you don't go through a fucking press conference, a NATO meeting. all of this shit that he just went through and are just, they're like a blubbering idiot. You can't fake through all of that. You could fake some of it, but you can't fake all that.
|
Sam:
[2:05:14]
| Well, and you can argue like, what else would they say? But there were interviews with a number of the world leaders who were asked specifically, what do you think about Joe Biden's mental state? And they were, they all said positive things about how great he was, blah, blah, blah. And I, I get the argument of like, well, what were they going to say? Well, no, Biden wasn't with it. Like, yeah, but still, you know, that you, you could sort of dodge the question. I didn't hear them dodging the question. No, I heard them like praising him.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:44]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:05:45]
| So the point, the point is though, like at the end of all of this, I think we are still somewhat in limbo because the people who are calling for Joe Biden to go away have not given up yet. But Joe Biden is still like, I'm not going anywhere.
|
Ivan:
[2:06:02]
| Listen i know that listen there there is no limbo he's not releasing his delegates.
|
Sam:
[2:06:07]
| No and i want to say i want to say too like the you said michigan not wisconsin the michigan rally this afternoon he was in detroit specifically that.
|
Ivan:
[2:06:18]
| You got the right city wow.
|
Sam:
[2:06:19]
| Yeah i'm impressive i know i know what i'm talking about i fuck.
|
Ivan:
[2:06:25]
| You press it you got command of you got command of all your knowledge you know things.
|
Sam:
[2:06:31]
| My faculties are with me i know the city it is detroit in the great state of wisconsin yes yeah right anyway anyway like this rally was the best performance from joe biden since the state of the union yeah he was he was and you cannot yeah okay the rallies you you have the the teleprompter he's it's a speech it's not completely impromptu but he did the impromptu thing at the press conference the day before, right? But as a speech, this was rousing. He was energetic. He was active. He was passionate. Also, I heard- Funny, but the thing that was also mentioned, and this one I do remember, it was Chris Hayes on MSNBC, said that this was actually the first really clear to him anyway, articulation of the the Biden campaign because what he did is he had three clear themes.
|
Sam:
[2:07:34]
| In the speech that he gave. Number one was accomplishments that he's done in his administration so far and really banging them home, going through the list. We've done this, we've done this, we've done this, and here's why it's good. And here's why it has affected you in a positive way. Number two was an actual forward-looking list of what we will do in a second term. Because people have criticized Biden in the past for just looking backward and not forward. So it was a whole bunch of like, yeah, here are things we're going to do. Here's a policy wishlist. Now, whether or not any of them are realistic completely depends, even if he wins, what happens in Congress, blah, blah, blah, all kinds of other stuff. But the point was articulating a vision. And here are the things we would do if you put us in power for another term.
|
Sam:
[2:08:23]
| And then third, Donald Trump is dangerous and articulating why and directly Directly attacking Donald Trump on all of the key issues you can imagine on, you know, he's a criminal, he's a danger for foreign policy, he's a danger for democracy. He's, you know, all of the things that you would think about and going directly at him on all of these things, including various things where Donald Trump himself has been confused about the facts. He went after Donald Trump about the shark versus electrocution thing. He went after Donald Trump. It was pointed, direct attacks on Donald Trump in a way that we've rarely seen Joe Biden do before.
|
Sam:
[2:09:06]
| And it's also one of the things that people have criticized Biden for is not directly attacking Trump. And so he did that absolutely. Absolutely. So it is a it is a really I'll tell you one.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:18]
| Thing that is a positive. Sam, you do realize and I think Trump at this point has to be seething that that that that Biden has taken away the spotlight from him.
|
Sam:
[2:09:30]
| Yes. Yeah. And now we've got the we've got the Republican convention coming up in a few days.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:36]
| But forget about the election. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but Biden has completely dragged away the spotlight from him.
|
Sam:
[2:09:42]
| Well and for the first part of that i mean we talked about like trump at the golf course was probably very much intentional just because of the general advice when you when your opponent is self-destructing let them get out of the way and let them right.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:55]
| But that's not what's happening in the recently.
|
Sam:
[2:09:57]
| What's not what's happening now and and i want to throw this out about polls as well let me let me pull up the summary i put on the curmudgeons course slack earlier earlier. It's way earlier today. There was really a lot of conversation on the curmudgeons corner slack this time around.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:17]
| Oh my God.
|
Sam:
[2:10:20]
| Like normally we share a few articles. We have a couple little discussions, but like there was like hours of back and forth with people debating. And I'm, I'm looking for one thing I posted like middle of the day sometime.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:35]
| Yeah. Yeah. No, I was struggling to find them. Like, holy shit. Where the hell? Good Lord. Lord, we really averaged it out today. And I was working. I was at meetings. I even interviewed a guy.
|
Sam:
[2:10:49]
| Yeah. Okay, here we go. I found it. And I had noted something about this on the Slack a couple days ago, but it's more real this point. If you look at the national polls, because I've got the state poll thing, and like I said, tipping point has moved quite a bit. But state polls are slower. You get fewer of them and it takes a while for them to incorporate into averages, blah, blah, blah. So like you really need to look at the state polls to understand the electoral college, but to get a sense of the ebb and flow, national polls will get you a lot faster. And so right before the debate, Biden had just barely pulled ahead of Trump for the first time since 538 had been tracking. They only started tracking like six months, not even six months ago. But Biden's peak was being ahead by 0.3% on June 23rd. And the debate was what, the 27th?
|
Ivan:
[2:11:48]
| Something like that. Yeah, something like that.
|
Sam:
[2:11:50]
| Something like that anyway that was his peak after the debate it moved to trump ahead by 2.5 so that's a total move of 2.8 percent and he got to that 2.5 on july 5th but since and first of all 2.5 percent like it's not it's not 10 right it's not 15 it's not even like seven right you know It's not even five. It's- Still within the margin of error.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:22]
| Basically.
|
Sam:
[2:12:22]
| It's a 2.8%. Yeah, for a margin, because like, yeah, you're right. It's still within margin of error.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:30]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:12:31]
| Because when they give a margin of error on a poll, and it's usually three or 4%, it's on, you know, Trump has 45. Right. Not on the margin between the candidates. The margin of error on the margin is actually usually about twice as much.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:44]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[2:12:44]
| So like 6% or something. Yeah. But anyway, it's within margin of error. Now, people argue like, yeah, but the sort of range of wiggle room that the candidates have when you remove everybody who's definitely made up their minds is only about 5%. So two and a half is actually pretty big in that context. But here's the thing.
|
Sam:
[2:13:07]
| It started to reverse. July 5th was Trump's peak there. It's now back down to Trump ahead by 1.9.
|
Sam:
[2:13:15]
| And I think there have been a number of close national polls. There've been a number of polls showing Biden leading. There are a number of polls where they've pointed out specifically, they did a poll now and a poll before the debate, and it shows no change and or Biden actually even ahead of where they were before the debate. I still prefer looking at the aggregated average, But things have started moving back in Biden's direction again. And so will this continue or not? Who the fuck knows? You know, but one of the people on our Commissions Corner Slack, Peter, who co-hosted a couple weeks ago, said something similar to what Yvonne said earlier, that this, all of this drama may, may, may actually end up helping Biden. Biden in the end, if he, if he gets through it, like if it damages him so much that he actually does drop out whole different story. But if he is now showing his passion, showing his determination, standing up to all the people who are trying to like knock him out of the race and basically saying, you know, they can't get me down. I'm going to do my damn job. I'm going to continue you, blah, blah, blah. He actually is looking strong out of that.
|
Ivan:
[2:14:38]
| Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:14:41]
| Like the whole thing out of debate, the debate, who, who is the quote on this? Oh, this was from George Conway posted. I wonder if in a weird way, the internecine battle among Democrats could actually end up helping Biden. His problem at the debate was ultimately he looked weak, but standing up to the calls for him to stand down makes him look kind of ornery. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
|
Ivan:
[2:15:11]
| Let me put it to you this way. Headline of Washington Post right now online. Yeah. Biden delivers newly fiery speech declaring Trump unfit to be president. Now, that doesn't sound weak.
|
Sam:
[2:15:24]
| Right. And so, now Bob responded to that. That's disingenuous on Archimedes Core Slack. Bob responded, that's just disingenuous. The debate was no gaffe because he's very, Bob and several other people, John as well on the Slack, are very worried because, you know.
|
Ivan:
[2:15:44]
| What if it happens again?
|
Sam:
[2:15:46]
| What if it happens again? What if this really is a sign of a progressive condition that's only going to get worse and he can't handle it? And if we don't replace him and it gets worse and worse and worse and there's another incident, then we're completely done. There's no chance. I mean, there's a lot of thought that it's already completely done. He has no chance of winning.
|
Ivan:
[2:16:07]
| Oh, yeah. There's a lot of people saying that. But this is this is ridiculous horseshit to talk. I, I, I, I.
|
Sam:
[2:16:14]
| I mean, election, election graphs put some at 8%, which is low, but not zero. And I, and actually if I have to do my gut feel, you know, Pete, Pete predicted just a little while ago, also on our commissions course slack is he thinks Biden is now actually set up for a comeback narrative. And I, I actually, right now I'm thinking, I agree. Like I, I don't have huge confidence, but I have some confidence and I feel like right Right now, well... partially this goes to like well what happens at the rnc next week like usually candidates get a bump out of their convention but i'm like if they just show themselves to be complete whack jobs they might not get a bump american.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:02]
| Carnage sam american carnage i.
|
Sam:
[2:17:08]
| Mean if they had a normal convention and seem sane they'll they'll probably get a bump out of it but if the republicans because they've got like yeah they've have you.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:19]
| Seen the guest list at this fucking shit show.
|
Sam:
[2:17:22]
| I know the guest look at guest the guest list is crazy there are delegate guests.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:27]
| Looking we're not we're not licking guests nobody's looking nobody is licking any guests.
|
Sam:
[2:17:33]
| There are delegates going to this convention who are convicted January 6th people. Like, you know, there is lots of opportunity for, for it to go nuts. And so I have a big open question of, do they control this and like, keep it sane? If they control it and keep it sane, they get a regular bounce out of it. If they don't, they, they could get hurt by the convention.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:02]
| Sam, Sam, this is going to be, this is going to be like a regular Trump rally right now. That's what this is. Look at the people. I mean, the people that are organized that are all convicted felons. The fuck are you, you know, forget about the people attending. Who the hell are the organizers? This is like a fucking like mob meeting. oh.
|
Sam:
[2:18:28]
| And by the way i should say also this is intended to start monday right it starts monday do i have the date right monday monday monday confirm i.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:38]
| Don't know i actually got startled while i was watching a a copa america soccer game okay by an ad for this and i it just the thing is that you know i'm watching this soccer game and then all of a sudden i hear trump yelling and And, you know, I'm like, what the fuck is this? I'm like, oh, the RNC Monday or whatever day. And I'm like, motherfucker, Jesus Christ, the thing startled me. I really, you know, so what day is it?
|
Sam:
[2:19:11]
| Yeah. So, so as, as we were recording 2.8 days from now.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:19]
| So, you know, who is the.
|
Sam:
[2:19:21]
| Uh, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, month. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:26]
| What, what, what is the hit list of what is the, uh, primetime list of luminaries who will be speaking at this fucking.
|
Sam:
[2:19:36]
| I haven't looked it up. you tell me i.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:39]
| Don't fuck you the convention speaker list there we go uh in the shithole of milwaukee which by the way which he had complained.
|
Sam:
[2:19:50]
| Okay it it's it starts it where it starts july 15th that's monday right that's.
|
Ivan:
[2:19:57]
| Sun yeah monday.
|
Sam:
[2:19:58]
| Yes monday monday monday july 15th monday.
|
Ivan:
[2:20:02]
| Let's see who are the uh.
|
Sam:
[2:20:04]
| That's what i thought i just wanted to be sure while you're looking up speakers i will say donald trump has said he will announce his vp candidate and he wants to announce it on monday yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:20:16]
| He's been listen he's been saying this for months.
|
Sam:
[2:20:19]
| Well yeah but the convention well the convention is starting he's not going to hold it off fast that the what all the people People who are reading tea leaves say it's going to be J.D. Vance because they have the two speakers scheduled immediately before the slot that's been penciled in for the VP candidate are Donald Trump Jr., who's been advocating for J.D. Vance this whole time, and some local guy from Ohio that would be related to J.D. Vance. So the tea leave readers say it's going to be J.D. Vance, but it is Donald Trump, so they could be wrong. It could change up to the very last second. So go ahead. Who else is talking?
|
Ivan:
[2:21:00]
| Well, it says here, nobody really has a good list. They are saying, though, that one of the featured speakers is going to be Governor Kristi Noem. That, I'm sure, will fire up people. Okay. You know, having the dog killer on first. Who is speaking at the Republican? Here we go. Reuters. David Sachs. I have no idea who this guy is. Yeah, he's an investor. Yeah. trent conaway does that ring a bell no.
|
Sam:
[2:21:33]
| Not at all i have no idea.
|
Ivan:
[2:21:34]
| Amber rose oh this one oh this was a hoot look i i you know i i have no problem with people doing only she is an only fan star, okay nothing wrong with it but i'm like amber rose a biracial millennium model the reality television personality who once dated rapper kanye west is making her art scene a few of the next week and yeah and they've got dana white the ufc guy who is about no idea, donald trump jr i mean he's gonna be all coked up as usual i you know well they don't i mean honestly nobody has a good speaker list of what the hell's gonna happen at this shit show is what i'm realizing right now i've looked through things and you know nobody knows, Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:22:28]
| So getting back to the point that I was making, I think if they go weird and crazy at the Republican National Convention, I could see Biden getting back to where he was before his speech before the end of July in the polling averages. damages um if and and by the way getting back to where he was before is still behind but i could see him like getting back to where he was before so undoing whatever damage happened from all this rigmarole assuming that he goes nowhere and continues to because if he continues to insist he's not going anywhere there's nothing they can do about it and at a certain point people have to realize that they're causing more damage. Also, the deadline for doing anything about that is not the Democratic National Convention. They are having to do a virtual roll call vote earlier to make sure they declare an official candidate in time for the deadlines in all the states. And I believe I heard earlier today that is scheduled for July 21st. So at most, we really have like one more week of this shit eight.
|
Ivan:
[2:23:48]
| Days eight days.
|
Sam:
[2:23:49]
| Yeah yeah like so one way or another this this shit has to be wrapped up like like if you get past the 21st the democrats have a legally a legally selected nominee at that point and things become much much harder after So, like, okay, let's continue this, but, like, I mean, I'd rather you don't, but...
|
Ivan:
[2:24:16]
| Okay, by the way, I... Speaking of data we're talking about and how difficult this election is or not in third party candidates, I went to Ballotpedia to see where RFK Jr. is officially on the ballot. Okay. Okay. And according to Ballotpedia right now, he has, he's only on, he said he's on 22 ballots, but really officially he's only on four right now. And none of these matters. Illinois, New Mexico, New York, and Utah. None really matter. None of those matter. He, I did see that he filed for Pennsylvania recently. Um, so, but, but that, that's a, that's the only one that I saw additionally that he filed. Now it says here that, you know, yeah, they'll update it as filing daylands passes, you know, updates, but, but right now that's, he's only on four and, and none of these matter. And so a lot of those polls that are considering.
|
Sam:
[2:25:17]
| So are the other, the other, are the are the other ones are the other 18 that he talks about ones where basically he's like we've submitted the paperwork it's just not official yet or nothing.
|
Ivan:
[2:25:29]
| No no no as far as i can tell those are ones that he's targeting to do so but as far as i can tell the only one that he's done that i saw are those on are those four and that he filed for pennsylvania okay that that That's it, basically. That's all I could find.
|
Sam:
[2:25:50]
| Oh, I realized I didn't finish my prediction. I was like, if the Republicans go complete, yes, pain. If the Republicans go nuts and just seem like completely insane at their convention, I could see Biden catching up by the end of July in the poll averages. If, on the other hand, the Republicans present as sane and like normal, you know, Trumpy but as normal as you can make Trumpy and not like completely out of control then I see us probably being then I see us probably being at about the same place by the end of I.
|
Ivan:
[2:26:25]
| Think it could be at the same it's just these conventions the effect that they've had on anything has diminished substantially you know.
|
Sam:
[2:26:35]
| Well and even in sort of the good old days of conventions the effect usually only it was.
|
Ivan:
[2:26:42]
| A short bounce a week or two yeah that's it.
|
Sam:
[2:26:46]
| Yeah it lasted a few weeks yeah two two weeks maybe two three at most um at most and then you basically reverted to where you were before the convention i think at this point like just just like debates i think the upside is really limited but there is potential downside so like i don't think you're gonna get a big boost in anybody's numbers out of a convention, but you might get damage if something bad happens at the convention. That's my gut. I mean, maybe that depends on a little bit where you are. Like maybe Biden could get a boost out of his convention if he overperforms. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[2:27:30]
| Now, by the way, I have found, I did, now, Ballotpedia has, you know, those states I mentioned, okay? However, the New York Times has a different one about ballot access, and they say that RFK Jr. is also in Minnesota and Michigan.
|
Sam:
[2:27:49]
| Okay. And those two states do potentially matter.
|
Ivan:
[2:27:52]
| Those two states do potentially matter.
|
Sam:
[2:27:54]
| Michigan more than Minnesota.
|
Ivan:
[2:27:56]
| And that everything else is that he's trying to.
|
Sam:
[2:28:00]
| But even – let me say this too. One of the trends that's happened in recent weeks, even before the debate but accelerated by the debate, is states that were not swing states before suddenly becoming close. Like Virginia was considered fairly safe Democratic. Now, like my average on election graphs, has Biden just barely ahead.
|
Sam:
[2:28:24]
| Same thing for Minnesota. even like New Jersey, like there've been a couple of coal, a couple of polls showing Trump ahead in New Jersey. It's, I still don't have it as a swing state, but like it's been moving in Trump's direction in recent polls as well. That's one of the trends that's been happening is, you know, states that had been safe blue are becoming a little bit less safe blue. And that's something you'd want to see reversed as well as like, like this election we've said forever, like, you know, So really, we got Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That is the core to any Biden win. And by the way, if he pulls those three together, but not Nebraska first congressional district, you get a 269 to 269 tie. And that would be nuts and probably end up in Donald Trump getting it in the House of Representatives. So he also really needs Nebraska's first. so like we should expect to see like biden showing up in fucking omaha like omaha nebraska like.
|
Sam:
[2:29:32]
| He needs to go there. He needs to be spending some time there. Do not sleep on Nebraska's first because you need it. Unless things change completely and you bring in like Arizona or North Carolina or something again. But at the moment, those seem out of reach. Or Georgia.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:49]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:29:51]
| Any other last thoughts? Can we wrap this up? We're once again long.
|
Ivan:
[2:29:58]
| No, I think that's it. But by the way, I am finding that the information on this, on where he's on the ballot, is inconsistent. New York Times has, for example, Ballotpedia believes that he's in New York State, but not the New York Times, for example. Which says it's in progress. So it's really very fluid where he is right now. But I will say that the only consequential states that he's trying to, according to your times to get on the ballot is, you know, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, um, and Georgia, North Carolina. So, but, but yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:30:43]
| We'll, we'll see where he ends up. And the other thing is, as we've always said, like third parties tend to collapse as you go into the homestretch.
|
Ivan:
[2:30:52]
| Oh, very quickly.
|
Sam:
[2:30:53]
| You know, so he's already got less support than he did a couple months ago. He's going to have even less a couple months from now. And then you start asking, like, where are those people? Like, you know, going back to an older theme, the third party votes plus the undecideds are much larger than the margins in all the swing states, including Pennsylvania, which which is the tipping point state right now. Let me just give Pennsylvania as an actual data point here. Bring up Pennsylvania. Hold on. Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania.
|
Sam:
[2:31:35]
| Pennsylvania, 6,500. Okay. Right now, Trump leads Pennsylvania by 4.9% in the margin. It was basically tied in the middle of June. Now Trump's ahead by 4.9%. But you add up third parties and undecided, that's 11%. What? 10.9. So like, you know, the number of undecideds and third parties are still bigger than the margin, even in a state like Pennsylvania. So like a big part of things is going to be those people who, for whatever reason, are on the fence or actively considering third parties. How many of those stick with the third parties and how many of them end up breaking to Trump or Biden and then what happens there?
|
Sam:
[2:32:33]
| And yeah, and, and I think like, yeah, and, and, and I think we just to circle back before we finally close up, I think we are in a situation where, you know, lots of people can be unhappy about it, but we got Biden. Biden is not, he has to cooperate with any scenario that does not leave him as the nominee and he is digging in and not considering leaving right now. Now, if he has another major flub, incident, whatever, maybe that changes. But absent that, we got Biden.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:09]
| We got Biden.
|
Sam:
[2:33:11]
| This is, you know, people have been, this last few weeks of like media and democratic freak out about like everything is just the latest symptom of this thing that we have have had for over a year where everybody is like, really? It's going to be Trump versus Biden again. We don't want either of these guys.
|
Ivan:
[2:33:37]
| I know.
|
Sam:
[2:33:37]
| Can we please have somebody else to pick from? And sorry, no, it is what it is. You may not like it. Like if in an ideal scenario, you can argue that Joe Biden should have like a year and a half ago said he wasn't running and handed it over, blah, blah, blah, maybe. But he didn't. And Trump is running for his own reasons.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:01]
| Let me just say this. George Conway, the other recently, and he was, people misunderstood what he said.
|
Sam:
[2:34:09]
| Yes, about being retired on the beach or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[2:34:12]
| Yeah, I mean, what he was saying is that, you know, in an ideal scenario, and I agree with him. Yeah. You know, Joe Biden would be in this retirement with his family and just, you know, President Hillary Clinton would have been in office for her second term like right now and all of these things. But the reality is that, Biden ran in 2020. The candidate field was wide open. There was every candidate of every stripe of every kind, you know, you wanted. And, and I didn't even in the primary vote for Joe Biden, but I, and it wasn't because I didn't like Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden. I always liked Joe Biden. Damn it. But I, you know, I was thinking about the future and I'm like, you know, we.
|
Sam:
[2:35:05]
| Were both with kamala fans kamala let's pronounce it correct.
|
Ivan:
[2:35:08]
| Yeah let's go with kamala you know what the heck you know let's go with her come on you know this looks you know this is fine but but you know, hey most of the people pick joe and i and i was like to me it's the same thing like with her i'm like i mean i like joe too what the hell all right so you know that's the guy though that everybody picked i mean you guys want to go with the old white guy i mean i love the old i love joe he I mean, I love that old white guy. Okay. All right. So I'm, I'm good with that. And so like right now to me, I'm just like, guys, it wasn't my top choice either. When we went through this the first time, but everybody else didn't win. And guess what? He fucking beat Trump. Right. And by the way, everybody said that he wasn't going to beat him.
|
Sam:
[2:35:59]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:00]
| A lot of people didn't think he was going to pull it off. And he did.
|
Sam:
[2:36:04]
| Well and and like cross our fingers maybe something like that happens i mean like a lot of people think that you and i and others who speak like this are being delusional and that it's it's inevitable that joe biden will will melt down again he will fail and it'll be too late to recover and we should be changing courses right now yeah so you.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:28]
| Know i'm going and you know ed in our slack, quoting somebody that not none of us like all right but but that said something very wise mr.
|
Sam:
[2:36:41]
| Rumsfeld i believe.
|
Ivan:
[2:36:42]
| Yes it was rummy himself and let me see if i can find that vote ed so i may i'm gonna make you justice because you you you sent it in and i i i i was totally with you on this oh my god we've said a lot of man we really we really hammered this slack today say holy smokes jesus christ we gotta we gotta hang on hang on hang on there we go no no no why can't i find it now should.
|
Sam:
[2:37:16]
| I look too to help.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:17]
| Oh god uh help me you know with my senility like right now your.
|
Sam:
[2:37:25]
| Your biden-esque senility every everything's got to be biden-esque.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:29]
| Yes yes my my my my badge of honor you know you know where the heck is it here it is all.
|
Sam:
[2:37:39]
| Right you found it first go.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:40]
| Ed i thought biden was too old in 2020 i am the same age in pretty good health no that's not the one is it no no okay no you.
|
Sam:
[2:37:51]
| Found the wrong thing for mad Ed.
|
Ivan:
[2:37:53]
| I found a wrong Ed one. I'm sorry, Ed. What am I doing?
|
Sam:
[2:37:59]
| There's such a failure.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:01]
| I, yeah, well, you know, come on, Ed. We're here. It's a great quote. I'm not doing very well with this. You know, this is what happens at this age.
|
Sam:
[2:38:12]
| Wait, I went, I went too far back.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:15]
| So, oh, I was looking at the quote.
|
Sam:
[2:38:17]
| I was looking at the wrong place. Okay, go ahead. You did. Did you find it?
|
Ivan:
[2:38:20]
| No, I mean, no, I haven't found it, but I was going to try to by memory.
|
Sam:
[2:38:25]
| Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, don't do it by memory. We can do this. Like, yeah, we can find it.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:31]
| We can do this like adults.
|
Sam:
[2:38:33]
| Yes. Sort of like, Okay. Almost there. Almost there.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:40]
| Wow.
|
Sam:
[2:38:41]
| There we go. I've got it.
|
Ivan:
[2:38:42]
| Okay. Go ahead. Read it.
|
Sam:
[2:38:44]
| From Ed, who has often hosted the show or co-hosted it anyway. Donald Rumsfeld, far from my favorite human being, was absolutely correct when he said, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. the democratic party chose their leader as joe biden it's time to quit the bullshit and campaign on issues djts on fitness and the need for a democratic congress amen i i mean this is why like even if you believe a switch would be better and i i don't i don't i i think like the switch which would be, I think people are underestimating the downside of what it would take to switch to a new candidate at this point.
|
Ivan:
[2:39:37]
| Totally. 100%.
|
Sam:
[2:39:39]
| Because it would be contentious. There'd be people with hurt feelings. The people who want Biden would have their feelings hurt at best. And even if you end up with somebody else, it seems like more people want Kamala Harris than anybody else. But even if you pick her, they'll people will be disappointed that it was her. If you pick somebody else, certainly there'd be lots of people upset that it wasn't Harris. I think there are major downsides of doing a switch at this point, but like even without that, I, I feel like, look, the reality is, at the moment. And from all indications, Joe and his team are digging in. They are not thinking anything otherwise. And people pointed out, of course they have to act like that because any sign of weakness would be, they would immediately be interpreted as he's getting out and it would spiral. So of course he has to like double down on this, uh, certainly publicly, but like we would be getting leaks from his inner circle if if he was thinking about like if if he was wavering blah blah oh.
|
Ivan:
[2:40:49]
| Yeah oh no oh it would be it would be leaking like a sieve.
|
Sam:
[2:40:54]
| Yeah so like the fact that we're not hearing that the most we've heard is that there are some biden insiders who say that they've thought about a few things they were polling some harris things to see what they they looked like. But from everything I can tell from the reports, like those are lower level people who are, you know, having some doubts thinking about it, but Biden and his core group seem to be digging in. And as long as that is true, then the longer this discussion goes on, the more damaging it can be. I mean, we talked about how maybe he'll get a bounce from just having pushed through it, but it's still like, you know, at a certain point you have to say, Say, okay, he's not going. Pushing him further on it is hurting more than it's helping. So the army you have time to get on board.
|
Ivan:
[2:41:48]
| Yep. Time to get on board.
|
Sam:
[2:41:50]
| You know, like I believe it was Bob who said we have a very short window to change. And I'm like, no windows already closed. Yeah. Closed a long time ago. Yep. Anything that we did now would be an act of violence. It would be breaking the window back open. You know, the window is closed. The window is already closed. Anything that we do now would cause more damage than it would help. And I know like a lot of people earnestly disagree with that and think like if we did a switcheroo and suddenly had Harris at the Democratic Convention, that would be great. And like, I like Kamala Harris. I think she'd probably be a better candidate than Joe Biden if you had started that way. But I think the act of changing itself would be harmful and hurt her chances and anything. And, and of course you substitute Biden with anything, then all the attack dogs are going to go after whoever's new anyway. No, yeah, they're they're they're not that. I think a lot of people have the idea that if you magically substitute Biden with somebody else, that the Democrats are going to get a boost and all of a sudden we'll be in much better shape. And I just think that's hopium, as people are calling hopium.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:10]
| There is only one that showed that maybe that could be. And I'm saying maybe. Yep. Michelle Obama. But that's not happening.
|
Sam:
[2:43:19]
| Yes. She has said so many times she has no interest whatsoever in that.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:24]
| No, not one bit.
|
Sam:
[2:43:27]
| And I think there's some polling that shows that Harris might start out almost even with Joe Biden. But anybody else other than Harris starts out in a worse position than Joe Biden.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:38]
| In a way worse position.
|
Sam:
[2:43:40]
| And yeah, so I guess we'll see by the time we next talk on this show.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:46]
| The RNC will be RNC.
|
Sam:
[2:43:49]
| We will have a Republican nominee. The RNC will have happened or be almost over. If not over, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[2:43:58]
| Somebody would, you know, somebody was, was making mention about all this drama around Biden said that and him getting, not getting the nomination, like some people, whatever.
|
Sam:
[2:44:09]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:10]
| Making Trump nervous.
|
Sam:
[2:44:13]
| Who's making nervous? What, where some.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:15]
| People were saying that, I don't know if it's true or not, but that, that, that Trump wasn't enjoying watching. He was like, could they take nomination from me?
|
Sam:
[2:44:25]
| Oh, well, but also I've heard that the, the Trump camp actually, the Trump camp is amongst the folks that think Biden is their easiest target. So there, they, they don't want the scenarios where they swap out bride Biden. And I'm not sure, like, I think it's more.
|
Ivan:
[2:44:43]
| I, I, I, I, well, look, listen, I really, you know, taking any analysis from the Trump camp is, is like, taking all these drug-addled idiots i mean i just whatever i i don't.
|
Sam:
[2:44:57]
| Know yeah anyway the rnc goes through thursday so it will be done by the time we record again which will you know so anyway we'll know a lot more all.
|
Ivan:
[2:45:09]
| Right let's end this like we're done.
|
Sam:
[2:45:11]
| We're done we're done and we've gone over long enough ivan i i suggest we skip the the slack thing we've talked about slack so much already this show. Like the, the feature that people could have missed on the Slack or you have something you really want to say. Okay. Well, let me, let me do the thing. Go to curmudgeons-corner.com. Find out how to contact us. Look at our archives, look at transcripts and go to Patreon to give us money. And if you give various amounts of money at Patreon, we'll, we'll send you a postcard. We'll send you a mug. We'll mention you on the show and at $2 a month them more or if you just ask please ask we would love to have more people on there we will invite you to our curmudgeon's corner slack where as we've been saying we've had robust discussion on the biden thing all week long what else you want you want to highlight something.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:02]
| German navy to replace asian eight inch floppy drives.
|
Sam:
[2:46:06]
| With an emulated.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:07]
| Solution for its anti submarine frigate so apparently their their anti-sub frigates still rely on the good old 8-inch floppy in order to load some information and like run systems and whatever but apparently they're going to be able to do this do away with it with some kind of emulation.
|
Sam:
[2:46:27]
| Okay excellent 8-inch.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:30]
| Floppies I had 8-inch floppies I love 8-inch floppies.
|
Sam:
[2:46:33]
| Don't copy that floppy copy that floppy yeah you don't remember that that was a whole advertising campaign about.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:43]
| The software pirating anti-software pirating thing.
|
Sam:
[2:46:46]
| Yeah. Yeah. Don't copy that floppy. It was a whole thing.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:49]
| I, I fuck, I copied the floppies.
|
Sam:
[2:46:53]
| Yes. I think we all did.
|
Ivan:
[2:46:55]
| I think we all did. All right. We're done.
|
Sam:
[2:46:58]
| Yeah. Okay. And one other thing I want to say, you know, this episode we were testing doing a live stream. The reason I was doing this was because like recently I listened to the election night live stream we did in 2020 and it was actually kind of fun. We had a whole bunch of people on and it was fun. And so I wanted to test the technology, see if we could do it well. and this worked really well. I did send the link to our curmudgeons corner Slack and also to a group text with my family, but absolutely nobody showed up to watch the live stream. It will be on YouTube after we finish, but yeah, no, nobody showed up. We, we, we had, you could have seen us live video. You could have chatted with us while we were like doing a thing. I don't, you know, maybe we'll do this again. Maybe we won't. I don't know. Like if, if anybody's interested let us know and but certainly like i don't know like even election night i would love to do it on election night but depending what's happening with my wife's race i might have to be at a victory party somewhere or something instead so right i might not be able to do a live stream of the election so we'll see anyway thanks everybody for joining us stay safe have a good week. Enjoy the Republican National Convention, I guess, and enjoy any additional drama around what happens with Joe Biden that happens in the coming week and any other news that's interesting.
|
Sam:
[2:48:27]
| Anyway, goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[2:48:29]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[2:48:56]
| Oh now i have a concurrent viewer is it you oh.
|
Ivan:
[2:49:00]
| With me i was just.
|
Sam:
[2:49:01]
| Just testing it.
|
Ivan:
[2:49:03]
| To see how it worked.
|
Sam:
[2:49:04]
| Okay and with that it's i'm gonna hit stop and goodbye and all that stuff bye yvonne Bye.
|
