Ivan: Hello uh hello all right so now i i today for it shall we.
Sam: Start and then you talk or yeah.
Ivan: No no no i today noticed accidentally i realized i've been lifting a lot of
Ivan: weights my arms used to be very tiny.
Ivan: And I just realized, I looked on the side and I realized, holy shit, my arm is huge.
Ivan: I hadn't really noticed that.
Sam: Congratulations on your huge arms.
Ivan: I don't, here's the thing. I'm not exactly sure I'm happy about that.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Okay i i mean i wanted them
Ivan: like say tone but not necessarily bigger and
Ivan: so a little bit like that's not really what i wanted i understand so i'm i'm
Ivan: kind of a little bit on but i i can't you could amputate oh yeah that solved
Ivan: the problem i would quickly yeah yeah i I mean,
Ivan: amputation, always a solution to a lot of problems. You know,
Ivan: you think about it, you know, you.
Sam: Don't like your arms, get rid of them.
Ivan: I mean, it's, it's the method of like, don't, it's problem elimination.
Sam: Yes. Yes.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, you don't look, I mean, head hurts.
Sam: Chop it off.
Ivan: Decapitation. Yeah. Yeah. Right away. And head's never going to hurt again.
Sam: No, no, it's not.
Ivan: No. So that never going to bother you again. Sure. There may be other problems. Anyway.
Sam: So shall we just jump right in?
Ivan: Sure.
Sam: Here we go.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, July 6th, 2024.
Sam: It is 2.13 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Materi, Von Boze here again. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Ah, aloha.
Sam: Is that right?
Ivan: Yeah, aloha. Yeah, no.
Sam: Every once in a while you go with the aloha greeting. That's fine. It works.
Ivan: I mean, aloha is a greeting. Yeah, aloha is a greeting, you know.
Sam: So we're just going to do our usual. Yvonne and I will do something a little
Sam: bit less newsy to start with, and then we will move on to the news stuff.
Sam: I think there are a couple of big, obvious things from this last week to talk about.
Sam: We'll see if I'm right. Because once again, as usual, we have not actually planned
Sam: or specified or done anything, but I just have a hunch a few things will come up.
Ivan: You know sam there were many years ago yes.
Sam: Many years ago.
Ivan: Where we lived in a happier time i i
Ivan: am going to flat out say that it was a happier time okay somebody was mentioning
Ivan: that maybe the perhaps the peak was in the 90s and i am like tending to agree
Ivan: that the late 90s were a hell
Ivan: of a lot better than this shit storm that we've got right now.
Ivan: Even if some things had not been legalized by then, even if some things were
Ivan: not perfect, the thing is, is where things were going and what the overall attitude
Ivan: was. We were optimistic.
Sam: Yeah. Well, here's the thing. And I think we've had this conversation before,
Sam: but like there is a conversation I had while we were walking the dog with a
Sam: The friend of my son's a couple of years ago, this just lived in my head ever since where they,
Sam: and look, this was like a couple of years ago now.
Sam: So they were, I don't know, 11 or 12, but, but what's the right way to say it?
Sam: They, they were talking about how things were in the world and how,
Sam: how bad things were right now. they.
Ivan: Were 11 and 12 and they were talking they were that young they were talking that way.
Sam: Yes and and like this is a person but i'm leaving them anonymous but leave them
Sam: anonymous they're they're anonymous but they're they're they're on the lgbtq spectrum okay yeah.
Ivan: Yeah yeah okay.
Sam: They're in that and they were talking about you know and specifically how it
Sam: was bad for or people like me.
Sam: And I wasn't fully 100% sure at that point of their identity,
Sam: but it was well suspected. Okay, let's just put it that way.
Sam: And I think it's clearer now. But the...
Sam: And I remember saying, well, no, you know, look, it was a lot worse like in
Sam: the 80s or whatever it was.
Sam: And it was. And then I realized shortly thereafter, and I ever since I've wished
Sam: I realized it in time to say it during this conversation, but I've said it on the show since then.
Sam: The difference is not the absolute level of how good or bad things are.
Sam: It's the trajectory. trajectory it's that for the first time in it it's it's
Sam: seems to be clearly getting worse yeah not the first time ever but like in in my sort of for.
Ivan: The first time in our lifetimes.
Sam: In in our lifetimes for up until i i you know i'm not sure i put the boundary
Sam: of the 90s i might go a little further under obama like you know i i i mean honestly no.
Ivan: No no it's not that the boundary was there but i think that listen people were
Ivan: there was there was more optimism.
Sam: There was confidence that things were getting better exactly.
Ivan: That we're going in the right damn direction.
Sam: And it felt like that like and on all kinds of objective measures that things
Sam: they felt like things were getting big, better.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, you had Obama talking about the long arc of history and all that kind of stuff.
Sam: And I know that was an MLK quote as well, but like you, you felt that,
Sam: that like, you know, yeah, things aren't great.
Sam: There are lots of things that could be better, but at least we're going in the right direction.
Sam: And now I feel like that feeling is gone.
Ivan: Russia and America were friends.
Sam: Well, and I just want to say this too, And it's not even like a,
Sam: you know, liberals feel this way because the right is winning.
Sam: The right feels like it's going the wrong direction, too. Too?
Ivan: Yes. They're even more, listen, they feel the way they feel because they're even, they feel worse.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, and so it's very frustrating,
Sam: you know, that, yeah, there's this fundamental pessimism around everything right now.
Sam: And I think it's, like I said, it's not even a left or right thing. It's society-wide.
Sam: Everyone's sort of like, everything's screwed up, and it's not getting better.
Sam: And, you know, and I feel like, you know, the big, to me, anyway, the big problem.
Sam: But discontinuity has to be Trump winning in 2016.
Ivan: I think that was, I think that, that definitely.
Sam: That was, well, and I guess for the right, it was Obama winning,
Sam: uh, eight years earlier, but, but like for, for me, you know,
Sam: it was like the Obama period was an optimistic period.
Sam: It was a, you know, things are, things are going well.
Ivan: But remember one thing, that during the Bush administration,
Ivan: not only did we have a war in the Middle East, but we had average Americans',
Ivan: living standards go down, more people without health insurance.
Ivan: You know, it was, I mean, at the end of that administration,
Ivan: it was horrible. I mean, the Bush administration, you know, did not create jobs in years.
Ivan: And the net was a loss of incomes, loss of jobs, loss of security.
Ivan: I mean, you know, in the world, where the hell were we, for God's sakes,
Ivan: you know, with the Middle East, it was a disaster.
Ivan: I mean, Obama inherited, I mean, the budget deficit, Sam, do you remember that
Ivan: in 1999, 2000, we actually hit surplus?
Ivan: We fucking hit a surplus.
Ivan: And I mean, you know, by the time that W walked away, it was a multi-trillion dollar deficit.
Ivan: Multi-trillion.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, Obama fights tooth and nail to bring this back,
Ivan: but all these fucking assholes on the right are so upset that how the fuck could
Ivan: our nation now be run by a black man?
Ivan: And this is the fucking reality.
Ivan: Those people were incensed that a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama was president
Ivan: of the fucking United States.
Sam: Period. Yeah.
Ivan: And so, you know what? You asked me about when we go and try to sit down and talk about topics.
Ivan: You don't even need to sometimes sit down to talk about topics because so much,
Ivan: you know, the shit storm that we're living under regularly now,
Ivan: it's just self-evident.
Ivan: We used to have to sit down to do the show and we're like, well,
Ivan: this week has been boring.
Ivan: What are we going to talk about? You know, I don't know.
Ivan: Nothing happened really. Right. I mean, you know, we're going to talk about
Ivan: this. Well, well, I always heard a good old days. Yes.
Ivan: And you know we're not in the good old days.
Sam: Yeah and and look there was a little bit of a slow period at the beginning of
Sam: the biden administration where we were back into sort of that mode for a little while well.
Ivan: Because we thought this rat fucker wasn't going to be back running for fucking president too.
Sam: Right like the the whole mood of things frankly like if if nikki haley had won
Sam: the goddamn republican nomination i.
Ivan: Mean we're like okay whatever We.
Sam: Would be having different conversations.
Ivan: Now, it's Nikki Haley. I mean, she's a bitch or whatever, but you know,
Ivan: yeah, but you know, whatever.
Sam: There's a lot of that. Look, there's a lot of evidence that the Republicans
Sam: are so far magified right now that Donald Trump could take a one way trip, a trip to the moon.
Sam: And most of these problems would still exist because because MAGA has gone crazy.
Ivan: But but it's but it's a different scale. It's always, man, this is like,
Ivan: man, these trumps of personality.
Ivan: And I was thinking about this. It's just, I mean, look, think guys like Mussolini, for example.
Sam: Trumps of personality. Interesting how you said that. I know you meant cult, but yeah.
Ivan: Cults. Well, it's close enough. You know, you got Mussolini,
Ivan: you know, Eva Peron, you know, like people like, you know, Pinochet, you know, Hitler.
Ivan: I mean, Stalin. I mean, all these fuckers, you know, a lot of what they it really,
Ivan: really carries a lot around that person.
Ivan: And so many times it crumbles once that once they're out there in large part
Ivan: because those people, those people keep everybody around them loyal,
Ivan: not because they're loyal,
Ivan: but because they fear him.
Ivan: So even though I know that all these people are right wing psychopaths,
Ivan: the reality is that so many of them off the record despise them.
Ivan: I mean, there's been so many. Just look at that Fox News case where they they
Ivan: they had to do discovery and showed all the text messages, all these fuckers
Ivan: that are on TV, you know, praising Trump, you know, in hiding.
Ivan: They're all talking about how they despise him.
Ivan: So, yeah, so we're at a different time, Sam. So, so we really don't need to
Ivan: do planning. We, we, we, those happy times are not here.
Sam: Well, I think certainly from now until January, it's going to be pretty obvious
Sam: what we're talking about every week.
Sam: I mean, it's, it's going to be related to the presidential race race.
Sam: What's going on? What's not going on?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And I mean, I guess you've got mixed in there, like Trump legal developments,
Sam: but that's still about the presidential race, essentially.
Ivan: It's all this shit.
Sam: It all relates to that one way or another. And yeah, look,
Sam: I'm sure we'll have an occasional something else to talk about,
Sam: but this is going to be dominating for the rest of the year. There's no avoiding it.
Ivan: I mean, why am I getting a hurricane? Well, actually, not right now.
Ivan: That hurricane's not coming.
Sam: Not to where you are, anyway.
Ivan: No, no, barrel is... It did hit Mexico, but it's not...
Ivan: It's either going to hit Northern Mexico or, or, or Texas. Who the hell knows? Yeah.
Sam: And who cares about Texas, right? It's not like it's hitting a real place, you know? Right.
Ivan: Exactly. Sweet Texas, right? We're kidding. We're kidding. Okay.
Ivan: But, but yeah, but, but you know, ah.
Sam: So I guess the whole first segment is less newsy is thrown out the window.
Sam: Anything else you want to talk about? Cause I'll have a, not,
Sam: I have a semi newsy thing to put in this segment too.
Ivan: Well, I had like, no, you know, once again,
Ivan: my holiday, my current work assignment makes it that the holidays are pretty much impossible to,
Ivan: to really have happen without me being bombarded with messages from work because they're not off. Right.
Sam: Cause cause July 4th is, you know, a U S holiday for obvious reasons.
Ivan: Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, I don't, I really spent most of yesterday and
Ivan: today for the most part doing a lot of work, not as much yesterday.
Ivan: I definitely did try to spend less time.
Sam: Now, I, I, even though I took the entire previous week off, I did not do anything
Sam: for work on July 4th. And I also took off Friday, July 5th. like i'm and i'm.
Ivan: I i actually worked i i worked some
Ivan: yesterday but today i had a full day today i
Ivan: had a completely full day i was just like fuck you know i mean can i get and
Ivan: you know a part of it is there there is this cyclical thing related to the to
Ivan: the business unfortunately when When I, when, when our fiscal year ended,
Ivan: they gave to me, assigned me one of the biggest contracts that we have that
Ivan: unfortunately expired actually five days ago.
Ivan: And I am in the process of trying to negotiate an extension to it,
Ivan: unfortunately, but it just basically hit me at the, you know,
Ivan: I've, I finished all this other stuff that I had in my previous assignment and
Ivan: it should have been a little bit less stressful.
Ivan: And I'm like, no, no, I wound up getting, you know, basically parachuted into a mess.
Sam: Oh, nice.
Ivan: Unfortunately. And, and I, I, and I'm like, man, it's just, so it's been sucking
Ivan: up many of my cycles and, and also I, I will have to travel on Monday for work again,
Ivan: like, you know, oh, so I'm not, I'm sick.
Ivan: But I did, you know, on just to leave it on a happier note before.
Sam: We get back into the disturbing stuff.
Ivan: In a little bit. Yeah, I have been binge watching Star Trek Picard,
Ivan: which I had refused to watch because I will admit that very stubbornly I had
Ivan: refused to to get Paramount Plus to buy Paramount Plus.
Ivan: I was just on this thing where I had signed up already for.
Ivan: I don't know. I got HBO Max. I got Amazon Prime. I got Netflix. I got Apple TV Plus.
Ivan: I'm just, you know, I have cable. I have you. I'm like, oh, come on, man.
Ivan: It's not that I couldn't afford. I'm just like, man, I'm I'm I'm putting my foot down now.
Ivan: And so it happens that my wife, my wife was binge watching NCIS for whatever reason on Netflix.
Ivan: And on June 30th, they pulled all of NCIS from Netflix.
Ivan: OK. OK, right when she was only on season three. And that show has like 17 seasons.
Ivan: And so my wife was like, but I'm like, oh, fuck, going to have to sign up for Paramount Plus.
Ivan: And so I'm like, OK, fine, because I didn't want to watch.
Ivan: Picard and I am finally look I've been watching enough that I I've been doing
Ivan: two things I've been reading a book okay actually I've noticed that I've been
Ivan: reading a lot of books lately I can't forget I was I'm reading a just a just a book nothing,
Ivan: very fluffy book not really anything like political or anything whatever it
Ivan: was just first I don't know why the hell I wound up buying it but anyway it's
Ivan: been good so far and and then I've been now all of a sudden binge watching Picard
Ivan: I am in season three and I will say that at.
Sam: Three out of three right three is the last one.
Ivan: Three out of three three is the last one I've loved every minute it's great
Ivan: the show's really good I really like it so far I'm just like damn this is really good very.
Sam: Very cool I I have let me tell you this is one of those ones where you know
Sam: I I mentioned in our commensal score slack I theoretically I'm I'm working my
Sam: way through the Star Trek universe.
Sam: But of course, being me, I'm doing it in order slowly over time.
Ivan: Oh, fuck. So what are you watching right now? Well, okay, let's.
Sam: Well, no, I'm not watching. I'm
Sam: not watching any of them right now because I'm on the movies right now.
Sam: And when I do the movies, it's not automatic that the next one comes right away. It has to come up.
Ivan: Wait, wait, wait. Oh, one second. You're on the movies. But but listen,
Ivan: I mean, you watched all the movies.
Sam: Well, no, I not all the I've watched all the original ones and some of the new
Sam: ones. I haven't watched all of the new set of movies.
Ivan: Wait, what?
Sam: Like the most recent one in the Kelvin universe I never saw.
Ivan: Are you serious? Yes.
Ivan: So, so which, what did you stop at?
Sam: Well, the, the, the, the Kelvin, the last Kelvin universe one,
Sam: the, the, the, so there've been three in the reboot series that started and
Sam: I've only watched the first two of them.
Ivan: Oh, you said, oh, but so, so it's only one that you're missing.
Sam: Yes. But, but what I say, when I say I'm doing the movies, I,
Sam: I'm, you know, I will intersperse all the TV series as well.
Sam: Well like so like be after i finish the the original cast movies i'm going to
Sam: watch all of tng and deep space nine and all of those before i do anything else
Sam: but the way i do movies is wait.
Ivan: Didn't you already watch all the episodes of tng.
Sam: No i did the original series and the animated series and now wait.
Ivan: Have you wait wait wait.
Sam: And i've done you've.
Ivan: What wait wait wait you you have I've watched Star Trek TNG.
Sam: Oh, you mean when it was on originally? Yes, of course!
Sam: When it was actually on TV and there were new episodes all the time.
Sam: I think I've seen all of them. If not, I've seen almost all of them.
Ivan: Almost all of them. Come on. Yeah, I mean, you watched almost all of those. Come on.
Sam: Yeah. Like, when they were new series, I watched, like, almost all of those.
Sam: Right! But see, the way I do the movies is, like, the last movie I've watched,
Sam: It was the 1979, you know, Star Trek, the motion picture. And we talked about it on the show.
Ivan: So, okay. I know we talked about it on the show, but I don't remember this right
Ivan: now. Did you not watch it originally when it came out?
Sam: Oh, no. I watched all of the original Star Trek movies. I not only watched,
Sam: I watched them all on opening night in the theaters.
Ivan: Yeah, because I watched some of them with you. Oh.
Sam: I don't remember that, but okay. I believe you.
Ivan: Dude, we went to Toronto.
Sam: Oh, I remember that. I remember.
Ivan: Now you remember. Thank you.
Sam: Well, I knew, I remembered going to Toronto. I didn't remember why.
Ivan: Yeah, we went to watch the damn premiere of Star Trek Undiscovered Country, damn it.
Sam: Oh, okay. Okay. I believe you. But yeah, I saw all of those on opening.
Ivan: Talk about Joe Biden. We got you, for God's sakes. Can't fucking remember anything.
Sam: Thing anyway but the way i do movies since i watched the next not the next generation
Sam: the motion picture the next movie wrath of khan which i yes i've seen before
Sam: yes i saw an opening day when it came out where way back when but like i.
Ivan: I saw that one that was great.
Sam: And i've seen i've seen a variety of i've seen it many times in between to be
Sam: honest but it goes on to my My list of movies is actually divided into several sections.
Sam: It's a big list of just anything.
Sam: It's a list of the AFI Top 100. It's a list of movies that I own but have never watched.
Sam: And then finally, it's a list of continuing.
Sam: And every time I roll a movie.
Sam: So I'm watching 10 things. I call it picking a one through 10 when my son and
Sam: I sit down to watch something.
Sam: And I have 10 things on the list, one of which is we're going to not watch a
Sam: TV show, we'll watch a movie.
Sam: If I pick roll a movie, then we will pick random number one through four to
Sam: pick which of those four categories. And then if,
Sam: we've picked a continuing series. One of the items on the continuing series
Sam: list is the next Star Trek movie.
Sam: So a number of things have to go right to get to that next Star Trek movie.
Sam: Once you get past a few movies and then like you get to win the TV series,
Sam: the next generation comes in, then the next generation will go into my list
Sam: of potential next series to add when one of the 10 gets finished.
Sam: So, so it'll be decades and decades and decades to get to, wait, wait, what.
Ivan: What what i what listen yeah what problem i have right now.
Sam: Yeah yeah i i just want to get i just want to get to this it'll be many many
Sam: decades probably until my third
Sam: or fourth like reincarnated lifetime in before i get to picard okay we.
Ivan: Gotta fix this somehow.
Sam: But but but but But here's the thing. Like when Picard was on TV.
Ivan: They did put it on TV.
Sam: What TV? Whatever, you know, Paramount plus. Okay.
Ivan: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Sam: I'm not, I'm not talking like broadcast TV.
Ivan: No, no, no. I'm like, wait, it was on CBS. Oh no. Okay.
Sam: No, no, no, no, no, no. But when it was on, when the new episodes were coming
Sam: out, people would be posting clips of it on TikTok all the time.
Sam: And TikTok figured out I like these clips.
Sam: So every time there was an episode, I would see all the highlights of the episode.
Sam: Out of order, random, like in between other things.
Ivan: So you wouldn't skip these to like follow some rule. You were watching them.
Sam: I was watching them. So I've like, I've sort of seen the highlight reels of
Sam: Picard, but not any actual episodes.
Sam: But I've seen like, you know, all sorts of clips, people reacting to the episodes,
Sam: people like being excited, talking about what they thought about them.
Sam: I've seen all that kind of stuff, but not the episodes themselves.
Ivan: Interesting. Well, to be fair, look, I am one that, I will say this,
Ivan: that I watched, look, the original series, Next Generation,
Ivan: but I have been reluctant to watch almost any of the spinoffs,
Ivan: like Deep Space Nine, any of those.
Ivan: Now, all the movies I've watched, okay, you know, all the movies,
Ivan: including the Kelvin Timeline movies, I've watched all of them.
Ivan: I mean, you know, I will say that, you know, the movies from the Next Generation
Ivan: cast were, eh, weren't that great.
Ivan: But, you know, I watched them all.
Ivan: I mean, you know, I can't say that I hated any of them, but they weren't,
Ivan: like, they weren't great, okay? Okay, I will say that I like from the original
Ivan: cast, their movies were better, except, you know, that one, you know,
Ivan: that we all know this sucks.
Sam: The Star Trek Let's Go Meet God one?
Ivan: Yeah, exactly. That one was just horrible. But, you know, that thing should
Ivan: somehow be scrubbed from existence. It's just so bad.
Ivan: But other than that, I mean, you know, we got.
Sam: Well, I've heard good things about a lot of the modern series.
Sam: The latest batch of TV series.
Ivan: Oh, oh yeah. This stuff is real. I mean, listen, the, the, the Abrams movies.
Sam: Let me say this on the, on the new TV series. Like,
Sam: And again, having not watched any of them myself, but having watched lots of commentary about them.
Sam: Lots of people like different ones of them. Like the different series are different styles.
Sam: So there's some people who love Picard, but hate Discovery, for instance.
Sam: And there are other people who love Discovery, but hate Picard.
Sam: And it seems like they've made a bunch of these different series that appeal
Sam: to slightly different kinds of people and slightly different audiences.
Sam: And there's a core group that likes all of them, but there's a bunch of people
Sam: who sort of like, oh yeah, I like these two series, but not these two series.
Sam: And because they have different styles, they emphasize different things.
Sam: They do different kinds of storylines.
Sam: Like, you know, they've got the cartoon one, Lower Decks, that's like a parody of things.
Sam: But some people absolutely love that thing and think it's one of the most brilliant things out there.
Sam: There's another series, that Prodigy, that's like aimed at more a younger audience.
Sam: But people it's, it's like second season just came out or something and people
Sam: are raving about it, you know? So like, you know, but, but I think it's that,
Sam: you know, I think it's, they, they have intentionally sort of splintered it out.
Sam: So there's like five different shows or whatever.
Sam: I haven't counted that. Like each sort of are intentionally stylistically different from each other.
Sam: So you'll find at least one of them that you like.
Ivan: So I'm looking at it here. So we've got the original series,
Ivan: the animated series, which I'm sure I watched, but I'm like having vague recollections of that one.
Ivan: Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, which I definitely did not watch,
Ivan: or did I watch Voyager, nor did I watch Enterprise.
Sam: I liked those three.
Ivan: I did not, but you watched, so you did watch those.
Sam: When they were new. I actually never made it to the end of Enterprise.
Sam: My wife did. Enterprise is her favorite of the Star Trek series.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: But like I somehow like I got out of I got out of the regular habit of watching
Sam: things while Enterprise was on the air and I've never gone back to finish it.
Sam: And given the way I do things now, like I said, it'll be a long time.
Ivan: Yeah, but OK, so then we've got Discovery, which is still ongoing.
Ivan: And then we got Picard and Lower Decks, which you got a few of you guys mentioned. It's really funny.
Ivan: Prodigy. I watched that one. Strange New Worlds. So the only one that I've watched
Ivan: basically does not. That one is Picard.
Sam: People have really said good things about Strange New Worlds as well.
Sam: But again, it's one of those, they've got a variety out there that each are
Sam: approaching things differently, and you might like one but not another.
Ivan: All right. So there you go. So that was my, my turning back,
Ivan: turning, turning misery into, into.
Sam: So you, you, you have not, you have not finished season three yet.
Sam: You have not wrapped it up, but so far thumbs up.
Ivan: Oh yeah. Yeah. Thumbs up. Season one, season two thumbs up. And whatever I watched
Ivan: the first few episodes of season three, all thumbs up.
Sam: Excellent.
Ivan: Across the board. I mean, yeah.
Sam: So yeah. Okay. I, yeah. Having not seen the show, I, I was like,
Sam: Like, okay, I won't give you any spoilers for how it ends because I know how
Sam: it ends because I've seen the clips of the ending.
Sam: But like, anyway, no.
Ivan: Shut up.
Sam: I haven't actually seen the show.
Ivan: Shut up.
Sam: Okay. I don't spoilers. No spoilers. Okay. So I guess we are doing the light stuff for this.
Sam: I guess I was going to do some election graph stuff, but I'll throw that in
Sam: when we're doing the politics stuff. I will go with a movie.
Ivan: Oh, okay.
Sam: And this is one that we have talked about before on the show.
Sam: Actually, we've talked about it multiple times on the show, I think.
Sam: But I most recently watched this movie in January.
Sam: And this is once again, I mentioned it last week on the show that this was coming up.
Sam: 2001 A Space Odyssey. I watched it again.
Sam: And, and here, here's my thought that I find interesting about this.
Sam: I have, I have reviewed this on the show before and I've given it a thumbs up
Sam: before as like a really classic movie.
Sam: It's holds up. Well, it's good. Blah, blah, blah.
Sam: But I will say, here's the problem.
Ivan: What's that?
Sam: I did not enjoy it as much this last time I watched it.
Sam: And I think the reason was I watched it again too soon. the last time i watched
Sam: it was in 2022 and i watched it again in 2024 how.
Ivan: Come okay i'm confused why would you wind up watching it twice like in such
Ivan: a short span when you've got so much other shit.
Sam: Because the first time it came up because i think it came up on its own and the
Sam: second time it came up from the afi list
Sam: when i was going oh okay so
Sam: i watched it so basically in august 2022
Sam: i watched 2001 oh because
Sam: it was on the owned list because brandy had bought it
Sam: because she had to watch it for a class so we actually had
Sam: like a purchased apple version of it and so i was like okay we have a purchased
Sam: version that i haven't seen the purchased version yet so i'll watch it and then
Sam: in january 2023 and we watched 2010 okay very different kind of movie also very.
Ivan: Totally different yeah.
Sam: Thumbs up thumbs up it was also good though and then a.
Ivan: Lot of people i notice hate that movie though.
Sam: I i liked i liked it.
Ivan: I liked it i thought it was really good.
Sam: Yeah. Anyway. And then January 2001 came up again, but because of the AFI list,
Sam: so I watched it again. And here's the thing.
Sam: I loved the movie, but I feel like this is the kind of movie that...
Sam: Has the impact and you can get really into
Sam: if it's been like 10 years since you saw
Sam: it last you know like you don't remember every detail and you can just sort
Sam: of lay back and experience the movie blah blah blah this when i watched it again
Sam: in january i was like it's too soon i feel like i watched it last week it's.
Ivan: Too soon it's too soon.
Sam: You know and i can recognize that it's good but But at the same time,
Sam: I'm like getting a I'm like, I'm kind of bored.
Ivan: Well, the thing is, you remember? Yeah, because it is a very long and plodding move.
Ivan: Let's be clear about this. So if you don't remember it because you haven't watched
Ivan: a long time, you're like, whoa, you know? Yeah. OK, sure.
Sam: And you're willing to just lay back and experience the movie and wash over.
Sam: It's really that kind of movie.
Ivan: Exactly. But when you watched it too recently, then you're like,
Ivan: oh, come on, hurry the fuck up.
Sam: You know you know it's like i saw this part so like we were doing things like,
Sam: when when when what's his name floyd or whatever,
Sam: is in the shuttle heading to the moon and goes to the bathroom yeah we paused
Sam: to read the instructions that were on the wall for how to use the bathroom yeah,
Sam: And so we read them in detail and went over every line and double checked it
Sam: with the internet to make sure because it was like parts of it were obscured.
Sam: So we were like, okay, what does it really say?
Sam: And stuff like that. And a little bit more talking through it because I don't know.
Sam: It's a wonderful movie. I still give it a thumbs up.
Sam: But it's not the kind of movie you can watch over and over again.
Sam: And all that i mean sure i mean i'm sure there are people who do who like this
Sam: is their favorite movie and they watch it every week or something but you know.
Ivan: But yeah no no no no it's it's very long and plotting no no you can't no i i
Ivan: yeah that that cannot be denied from that movie it's you know the the pacing
Ivan: is you know i don't care for what era because i've watched the movies in that
Ivan: era the pacing for that movie is slow so my conclusion is.
Sam: Two years is too soon and.
Ivan: It's It was actually.
Sam: Like not even two years. It was like a year and a quarter or something,
Sam: you know, a little bit more than a year and a quarter. Not long enough. Not long enough.
Sam: Like I'm sure like after a decade.
Sam: Okay. Ready to go again. You know, but like, and maybe even five years would be okay.
Sam: But like a year and a bit, not long enough, not long enough at all. Like, yeah.
Sam: So yeah. Okay. That's my movie for the week, 2001.
Ivan: Well, you've been stalling enough. Let's take a break, you know,
Ivan: that we can hit the heavy lumber.
Sam: I think the two things, just to be clear and put it out there.
Ivan: Copa America?
Sam: Yes, again, Copa America. No, the Costco chicken bag.
Ivan: Oh, the Costco chicken bag. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Ivan: And I got thoughts on that thing. Let me tell you. Although I will say that
Ivan: I understand it's very eco-friendly, but it's a lot more difficult to cut the chicken.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Because I shouldn't have taken a picture because I posted a story and we,
Ivan: you know, it wasn't the first time I bought one in the new bag.
Ivan: I got I got another one like this week and I'm like, damn it.
Ivan: This is a lot more work, but I
Ivan: am totally on board that it has to be done because it's a lot more equal.
Sam: OK, OK. No, I jump in if I'm wrong here.
Ivan: Four ninety nine for a chicken, whole chicken, big chicken.
Sam: Hot dogs. The hot dogs are cheap, too.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. But four ninety nine for a whole chicken. And listen,
Ivan: it lasts three or four meals at least, you know, for a few people.
Ivan: It's great. Great value. Highly recommend.
Sam: Okay. Anyway, I think the two topics are the Supreme Court on presidential immunity.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. That was this week.
Sam: That was this week. Yes.
Ivan: Jesus fucking Christ. Felt like it was like three years ago now.
Sam: And, you know, I was upset. like I intended to get our last show out before
Sam: the ruling went out, but I missed it by like 20 minutes.
Sam: Like I put the show out like 20 minutes after the ruling went out.
Sam: So I included in the description that we wouldn't talk about that,
Sam: but I didn't insert it into the show that we didn't talk about it.
Sam: Cause that was already baked. And I was just like doing the final thingy anyway.
Sam: Anyway, so presidential immunity and the continued travails of Biden is old.
Sam: And what do we do about that or not? And all of the drama surrounding that,
Sam: which has continued to spiral.
Sam: OK, so with all of that being said, it is time for a break.
Sam: Which one is this one?
Sam: We'll be back after this. Thank you.
Sam: Sort of add suddenly.
Ivan: Yes. Very abruptly.
Sam: It's okay. We just made a loop and made it run twice. Yeah. So.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. You may not have guessed, but I am not actually, you know,
Sam: a musician and composer.
Ivan: Well, to be fair, considering that you're neither of those. That's not terrible.
Ivan: I mean, I've heard a lot of other.
Sam: I like the beat. I like.
Ivan: It's got a decent beat. Look, I've heard other intentionally made music that is far worse.
Sam: You know, yeah, we, we, we banged some random notes and then did,
Sam: there's a, there's a tool in Logic Pro that like quantizes to sort of make sure
Sam: the timing is even and stuff.
Sam: And we added a couple of things to it and, you know, it's whatever,
Sam: you know, it was, it was fun to do whatever I, you know, I still.
Sam: One of those things that is still on my list to someday do but is not a priority
Sam: is switch out make some new breaks and switch out some of the existing ones
Sam: but you know or yeah whatever i i mean yeah.
Ivan: I mean i i i promise some and i've been yeah doing about as well as you have but.
Sam: Yeah exactly like you know i had several ideas i've forgotten what the ideas are at this point I.
Ivan: Had some ideas, too. I can't remember any of them anymore. Speaking of memory.
Sam: Memories all alone in the moonlight. Something, something. Anyway.
Ivan: The way we were. Scattered pictures.
Sam: Okay, let's do immunity first, since it was first, like, early in the week.
Sam: And the Biden stuff has just been ongoing the whole time.
Sam: Their new developments. So let me just say on immunity, first of all, the general outlines,
Sam: at a high level of what the court did was what I predicted and what most people
Sam: predicted was that they would develop some sort of definition of what is and
Sam: is not immune and then send it back to the lower court for the lower court to
Sam: go and figure out the specifics.
Sam: But the definition they provided and the guidance they gave around that topic
Sam: was much more expansive than what almost anybody expected them to do.
Sam: It wasn't a very narrow core concept.
Sam: Bit of presidential actions that were immune.
Sam: It was, it was basically the, yes, there was a core group that had absolute
Sam: immunity, but that core group was bigger than people thought.
Sam: And then they granted a presumption of immunity that was much, much broader.
Sam: Well, and wait, okay.
Ivan: Wait, hold on.
Sam: Yes. And let me finish.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And they also put into place some restrictions in terms of, Even if you're trying
Sam: to figure out something that is private and not in scope,
Sam: they put in major restrictions on using evidence that was presidential protected
Sam: in terms of proving that things weren't.
Sam: So they basically put lots and lots of obstacles in place here and made the
Sam: presumption just very, very broad and put the burden completely on prosecution
Sam: to prove that something is not.
Sam: I guess here's one way or some way. Well, they put the presumption on the prosecution
Sam: to prove that something was not protected, and they made it very hard for them
Sam: to do so by restricting what evidence could be used for that.
Sam: In case of Donald Trump's specific case, the one set of charges that were around
Sam: trying to convince the Department of Justice to do bogus investigations,
Sam: they said that is 100% protected and completely out, and you have to consider
Sam: the other stuff. Go ahead, Yvonne. Sorry, I keep interrupting.
Ivan: Well, here is the thing. I mean, I...
Ivan: OK, maybe, you know, I'm reading it because I also heard a couple of other people
Ivan: that didn't take it, that it was as expansive a protection as you as you're
Ivan: what you explained right now,
Ivan: because the one thing is that I thought what it did is it separated two things
Ivan: into what were official acts and non-official acts.
Ivan: Start off with that okay and then
Ivan: anything that is an official act okay is you know is
Ivan: presumed to be protected or not but but the one thing that
Ivan: they did is that they left it very unclear as to they i here's my problem they
Ivan: didn't explicitly say what the fuck an official act is they clearly define it
Ivan: well is what you said when they said that they jump about the torts They basically
Ivan: said the way that they wrote it was, well,
Ivan: you know, it could be an official act.
Ivan: But if a prosecutor brings it up to court and us as the courts look at it and
Ivan: we define that it's not an official act, then it's not an official act.
Ivan: And so I was like, so I'm like, wait a minute. And what I felt is what I felt
Ivan: is is basically because we saw this in the previous case that they did with
Ivan: the what the hell what they did with the federal agencies.
Ivan: Agencies, okay, and the regulatory power, where this was a judicial power grab
Ivan: on both sides, okay, all right?
Ivan: They basically went and said, you know, they took away from the executive,
Ivan: here's the funny thing, they took away from the executive the right to make, you know.
Ivan: Rules that were binding, any rules that an agency makes can be challenged,
Ivan: okay, all right? You know, so that was one thing.
Ivan: And then in this case, they basically created this definition of official acts
Ivan: that basically, well, if us as a judiciary would decide that it's not official, then it's not.
Sam: Well, it's more than that, though, because of the evidentiary stuff that they
Sam: put in there, which Barrett also...
Sam: Barrett broke from the rest of the conservatives on evidentiary part, but it didn't matter.
Sam: They still had the majority because they make the presumption essentially is
Sam: that it is an official act unless you can prove otherwise. wise.
Sam: But they highly restrict what evidence can or cannot be used in order to prove
Sam: it's not an official act.
Sam: And they specifically say you can't inquire into the president's motive.
Sam: And the president's motive is often the exact thing that would make it not an
Sam: official act because they're They're doing it for themselves rather than for the job.
Ivan: Well, the problem is inquiring. Well, the problem.
Ivan: Well, the thing is, of course, inquiring of the motive, unless,
Ivan: you know, he made it clear what the book it's what. And I get what the hell they're saying.
Sam: Well, but for instance, like you can't like one of the examples they brought
Sam: up essentially is that like you cannot interview administration officials to
Sam: find out like what the president was saying about why they did it.
Sam: And they're intending to protect that universe of presidential decision-making
Sam: from outside inspection.
Sam: But in order to prove that you were not doing it as part of your official duties,
Sam: but were doing it for personal reasons, that is sort of critical information.
Sam: Fundamentally, part of the... Well, let me back up one second,
Sam: because I know you and I disagreed about this when we talked about this case
Sam: months ago. But like to me.
Sam: Understanding whether the president committed a crime with their official duties
Sam: is actually more important than their unofficial duties.
Sam: It's basically the definition of abusive power is using your power to accomplish
Sam: things that are illegal or improper or whatever.
Sam: And to me, those require higher scrutiny, not less. like, yeah,
Sam: because you are using the official powers of the office for things that are
Sam: not for the public good, but are for your own good for whatever reason.
Sam: And basically this ruling made it near, not impossible, but nearly impossible
Sam: to look into that whole realm of things from a criminal point of view.
Sam: Basically what they've said is like the remedy for all of that kind of stuff
Sam: is impeachment. End of story.
Ivan: Impeachment. I think that, that, that I think is what they They were trying
Ivan: to to bring up is I think that and that's and that's the thing that I that I
Ivan: think that what they made.
Sam: And there and there are many problems with having impeachment.
Sam: The only way to deal with that.
Ivan: But the reality is that, can I be honest, that's what the framers of the Constitution
Ivan: really thought was the remedy for for for for in terms of.
Sam: Well, no, but the impeachment clause itself says that they could be liable in
Sam: the normal course of criminal actions after the impeachment.
Sam: It specifically says that the fact that they're impeached would not restrict that.
Ivan: But here's the point about that, and it goes back to, okay, so for example,
Ivan: You said that part of the investigation that needed to happen in order to uncover
Ivan: motives for something happening, okay?
Ivan: So say you're somebody from DOJ and the president hasn't impeached. You can't do that.
Ivan: However, an impeachment inquiry could do so.
Ivan: And if they take away that
Ivan: veil and reveal that all the actions were criminal then
Ivan: it would go back into criminal because the court can then decide oh yes here
Ivan: it's clear that it was criminal and because the damn stupid ruling gives us
Ivan: that leeway you could you could do that but here listen the reality is that
Ivan: what i felt about this when it came out is that basically said you know what But Congress,
Ivan: do your fucking job.
Sam: No, but wait, wait.
Ivan: It's what it screamed at to me at the top of its lungs because I do think that it's really weird.
Ivan: I will admit that it's really strange to have a DOJ that is directly under the
Ivan: president investigate himself.
Ivan: And listen, this has been problematic throughout,
Ivan: you know, I mean, going to Nixon, going to Clinton, going to,
Ivan: you know, what's happened with Trump. It's been problematic.
Ivan: Okay. Look at what happened with, what's his name? With, oh,
Ivan: the stupid dog guy, whatever his name was.
Ivan: You know, the guy that looked like a dog who was the attorney general.
Ivan: You see i can't remember the names of anybody either you know what i'm talking
Ivan: about right bar that's it bar bar okay what did he do when he came in first
Ivan: thing he did this is nothing shut it down bye see ya yeah.
Sam: So look the.
Ivan: Reality is that but but like people have pointed out that.
Sam: Under this current this current regime if it if this decision had been made
Sam: in the Nixon era, he never would have had to give up the tapes.
Sam: He never would have resigned. He never would have likely been able to,
Sam: you know, he would not have had to get a pardon because there would be no opportunity
Sam: to do it because much of the evidence against him,
Sam: was from White House staff who were acting in their official duties.
Sam: One of the charges One of the possible charges against him was misusing the
Sam: IRS and the CIA against his political enemies.
Sam: That would have been shut down because it was official acts.
Sam: He was telling the CIA to do stuff.
Ivan: Well, let me ask a question. I can't remember. I thought it wasn't Congress,
Ivan: the one that obtained the tapes. Or was DOJ?
Sam: Go look it up. I think it was DOJ. In any way, it went to the Supreme Court. I think it was DOJ.
Sam: But confirm for us. But I've heard a number of legal scholars talk about how this essentially,
Sam: in a stealth way, undid the Supreme Court rulings that were critical in the
Sam: Nixon administration in the Watergate case.
Sam: But look, the bottom line, though.
Ivan: It was the House Judiciary that got the tapes.
Ivan: Okay. Yeah, because remember, there was a Saturday Night Massacre where Nixon fired everybody.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And so he stopped the DOJ from looking at it. And once again,
Ivan: it wound up, like I said, it was on April 11, 1974, the U.S.
Ivan: House Committee and Judiciary subpoenaed the tapes of 42 White House conversations.
Ivan: Later that month, Nixon released more than 1,200 pages of edited transcripts,
Ivan: refused to resend the actual tapes. And what went to the Supreme Court was that,
Ivan: yeah, that he wound up having to submit to Congress to release the tapes.
Ivan: And I will, I think.
Sam: So maybe not, maybe I misspoke on the tapes, but a lot of the investigation
Sam: was, you know, all the White House staff who flipped on Nixon and talked about
Sam: what he was doing and blah, blah, blah, you know.
Ivan: No, I do get that. And I understand that that's what happened. But I do.
Ivan: But I think that what I'm what I'm what I'm saying, OK, is that I think that
Ivan: over the last 30, 40 years,
Ivan: OK, so I'm looking at that, that that the House and Senate have abdicated a
Ivan: lot of their oversight responsibility and and especially on what the president does.
Ivan: And and this we saw with trump specifically i mean you know i'm sorry but this
Ivan: should have been a slam dunk impeachment there is no reason why this guy but
Ivan: mcconnell himself relied.
Sam: On the fact for his no vote that he thought that trump was gonna be handled
Sam: by the criminal justice system and this ruling basically says that won't that
Sam: can't happen for most things.
Ivan: Well well basically well here's the one thing here well here's what i'm saying
Ivan: basically this is them telling telling these motherfuckers that,
Ivan: you know what, that that's not the avenue to fucking dilucidate this person.
Ivan: The first fucking avenue has to be you assholes have to fucking impeach this son of a bitch.
Sam: I think you are giving them way too much credit. I don't think the justices
Sam: who voted for this are like, damn it, Senate, you should have impeached him when you had a chance.
Ivan: I'm not talking about, no, I really do. No, I do think that as many have over
Ivan: the last few decades protected presidential power a lot, okay,
Ivan: over, you know, over time.
Ivan: And I do think that this decision wasn't just thinking about dickhead, okay?
Sam: All right? This is a massive increase in presidential power.
Ivan: No, I totally agree that it's a massive increase in presidential power.
Sam: This this makes it so hard to hold presidents accountable. And it is specifically for.
Ivan: Yeah, but but.
Sam: Well, well, it is specifically for things where Congress passes laws to restrict
Sam: what the president does or passes laws.
Sam: Just this case isn't even about a law that was passed specifically to restrict
Sam: the president, which would have other issues implied. This is just the president
Sam: violated a flat out law that applies to everybody.
Sam: And they're putting huge obstacles.
Sam: Like there's a portion of Jack Smith's case that goes away instantly.
Sam: The rest of Jack Smith's case becomes significantly harder than it would have
Sam: been otherwise with this.
Sam: It may not all be dead. Like there's going to be the hearings.
Sam: There's going to be back and forth. Like, one thing I haven't heard yet,
Sam: which I'm surprised it's been a week and we haven't heard yet,
Sam: is anything from the lower court on scheduling hearings around these issues.
Sam: Because now their job is going to be, okay, from everything that's left in the
Sam: case, what's official, what's not, how do we go forward?
Sam: Word, Jack Smith may adjust the indictment to try to get around some of these issues.
Sam: There's a bunch of that kind of stuff that may happen. I haven't heard dates
Sam: for that yet, which is interesting, but I suspect we very soon will start hearing dates for that.
Sam: But what SCOTUS has done for sure is
Sam: made Jack Smith's life a lot harder to
Sam: get to these same But I think more importantly is the broader thing that they
Sam: have just made it a lot easier for a president to abuse their power without
Sam: being concerned about being held responsible for it after they leave office.
Sam: They may still have to be concerned about the impeachment, but let's be clear on impeachment too.
Sam: Impeachment has proven itself to not work.
Ivan: Yes. How much, even going back to Nixon, how well have we done in terms of really
Ivan: holding a president accountable for their official actions?
Sam: Well, I think you could actually say that since Nixon, a lot of the kinds of
Sam: behavior that Nixon was doing that was commonplace before Nixon,
Sam: I mean, Kennedy and Johnson also abused the FBI to go after their opponents.
Sam: That's true. And I think for decades after Nixon, this whole culture in DOJ
Sam: of like we can't even talk to the president because we have to be independent
Sam: was directly a post-Watergate effect where people were like –.
Sam: FBI was being misused. We have to make sure that never happens again.
Sam: There, there, I think there have been all kinds of cases where presidents might've
Sam: been tempted to do stuff, but held back what this says is, Oh,
Sam: sorry, no need to hold back anymore.
Sam: And you know, if you got somebody like Biden in there, he's,
Sam: he's going to do the right thing anyway, but probably, probably there There
Sam: might be some edge cases where even he will be willing to push the envelope
Sam: now that this is the case.
Sam: But certainly if you get Trump in there, like any previous worries he might have had, all gone.
Sam: You know, the way they defined this, like this was actually something that Roberts
Sam: in the oral argument had concern about.
Sam: And then in the final opinion was like, I don't have to worry about that after
Sam: all, is that the way it's written, you can't even prove a fucking bribery case
Sam: because you can prove that they got money,
Sam: but the actual act of, say, appointing an ambassador or giving out a pardon
Sam: is unquestionably an official act and you can't bring in evidence about the official act.
Sam: So how do you prove that the bribery had to do with the official act?
Sam: You're screwed. It's a catch 22.
Sam: And so like, you know, and people have brought up like the scenario that people
Sam: keep talking about, about order seal to order seal team six to kill your opponent,
Sam: blah, blah, blah. They're like, well, yeah, that's still illegal.
Sam: Like you might not be able to charge the president for it because the president
Sam: is doing an unofficial act, but the general that he orders it to isn't going
Sam: to do it because it's an illegal order.
Sam: And, but it was pointed out, well, all the president has to do is pardon them in advance.
Sam: You know, yes, I'm going to give you an illegal order, but you are here with
Sam: a pardon for anything you do in order to,
Sam: act on that illegal order. And now some things might imply state or local crimes,
Sam: not just federal, but, but you get the idea.
Sam: There's, there's all kinds of obstacles that could be put in place there.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, still Tim six goes and murder, say Trump here in Florida.
Ivan: Yeah. Uh, you know, they're, they're liable for murder here in Palm state, football beach.
Sam: Well, and I, and I will, I will say this as well. Like people have brought in
Sam: all these examples of like, well, given this ruling, Obama can, no, Obama, Biden.
Ivan: You keep saying Obama.
Sam: I know. They look the same. I can't tell the difference.
Sam: Anyway, no, people keep giving examples of like, well, Biden could go kill Trump now.
Sam: Biden could go just put Trump in jail as a national security risk. Biden could do this.
Ivan: I've been saying that for a long time.
Sam: Biden could immediately just get rid of all the student loan debt with an executive order.
Sam: The Supreme Court said he can't, but what are they going to do about it now?
Sam: They just said, you know, they can't like hold them to it or anything. So just do it.
Sam: There are all kinds of things like that. But, but here's the thing.
Sam: I 100% guarantee you that with this court, what you just said is exactly what would happen.
Sam: Like if Biden abused his powers in the exact Exact same fucking way.
Sam: Donald Trump has already abused them and is in the J six case,
Sam: for instance. And that is.
Sam: That would immediately, it
Sam: would go back to SCOTUS and SCOTUS would be like, oh, well, not like that.
Sam: This scenario is different. And here's why.
Sam: You know, and because like, yeah, I know you still have some level of confidence
Sam: that these decisions are being made on a sort of let's think about the law and
Sam: the general implication for all presidents.
Sam: And I think it is
Sam: very clear at this point that a majority of the court in a majority of the cases
Sam: is simply acting to get the political result they want and is making up the
Sam: legal justification in a post-hoc way.
Sam: Like, what's the right legal justification that gets us to what we want here?
Sam: Because there's not even necessarily consistency between their own rulings. in some of these cases.
Sam: It's like, no, what we want here, we want to massively expand presidential power.
Sam: We want to delay this as long as we can for Donald Trump.
Sam: We want to make it really difficult for the prosecution to make a case.
Sam: So how do we justify that? That's what we're going to do.
Ivan: A great day for democracy, huh?
Sam: And, and honestly, this is the kind of thing where, you know,
Sam: even because of the way precedent works,
Sam: you know, even if Donald Trump loses, this puts in a time bomb for whenever
Sam: we get the next president who wants to massively abuse their power.
Sam: It just makes it very difficult to deal with it.
Sam: I mean, it's already difficult to deal with that situation. This makes it worse.
Sam: It almost gives them a green light.
Sam: Now, some people have said, you know, this is not the kind of decision that
Sam: I feel like will stand the test of time over decades and decades because it
Sam: will be sort of narrowed back down.
Sam: And I tell you, it'll be narrowed back down exactly in the way I just said.
Sam: A president that the court disagrees with.
Ivan: Well that's why that's what i that's what i would like with that's what i would
Ivan: love for a fucking you know honestly for biden to push.
Sam: The limits of this.
Ivan: Fuck yeah okay this is the way you guys think it should work okay let's start
Ivan: pushing the limits on this fucking thing i mean if it were if it were me if
Ivan: it were me i would i don't know that joe biden would but i guarantee you joe
Ivan: biden would but but me oh fun i would be listen i would be on day one okay bringing
Ivan: down all my my White House staff,
Ivan: how the fuck are we going to make, you know, we're going to push the limit on
Ivan: this fucking thing to see what the fuck happens. Period. Flat out.
Sam: Well, just one simple example. One of the,
Sam: Trump refrains for years and years and years now is how all this is a witch hunt.
Sam: It's all out to get him. And this was all driven by Joe Biden.
Sam: And that makes it improper.
Sam: Well, the Supreme Court just said, if that's what Joe Biden wants,
Sam: that's absolutely fine.
Ivan: I know. So let's sink in every fucking prosecutor on Trump's ass.
Ivan: Yeah. Oh, my God. Let's just, you know what? let's just blizzard him with fucking
Ivan: arrests and beat the subpoenas let's just let's just you know what let's just i mean.
Sam: Yeah dig into everything you've ever done in your freaking life ever.
Ivan: Ever i mean you know i mean yeah.
Sam: Because i'm it's a target rich environment as i've said many times before i'm
Sam: sure they can find more stuff on him.
Ivan: And everybody on his family.
Sam: And everyone on his and.
Ivan: Old fucking family let's just you know ivanka jared everybody we fucking go
Ivan: send it to the fbi and arrest them just arrest you know what are we being charged we don't know yet.
Sam: We'll figure it out later yeah no we'll.
Ivan: Figure it out later.
Sam: Well and this is exactly the kind of
Sam: stuff that is potentially enabled by
Sam: this because specifically to be clear it's be
Sam: you know the rest of the case and blah
Sam: blah blah aside they they specifically said
Sam: the president's directives to government agencies
Sam: are 100 100 official and 100 protected so like that scenario of joe biden directing
Sam: the department of justice to do xyz that that is 100 protected and immune right
Sam: according to like yes You know, yeah, you could go impeach him over it.
Sam: And frankly, you know, the Republic, this would actually give the Republican
Sam: house something to actually impeach him on that.
Sam: I would not disagree with, to be honest, but like, but the, the democratic Senate
Sam: could still acquit him and then you're done.
Ivan: Right. Yeah.
Sam: You know, that's it. And it goes back to the very early days of the Supreme
Sam: Court when, who was it, Andrew Jackson or somebody who said the Supreme Court
Sam: has made their decision, now let them enforce it?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But the fact that administrations of both parties have fundamentally felt like,
Sam: yeah, we have to abide by the law,
Sam: including the court's judgments on that law, has been sort of fundamental. pedal.
Ivan: Wow. Okay, well, wow, wow, wow.
Ivan: To be fair, look, there's a lot of people that said that there should have been
Ivan: criminal charges brought against a lot of people in the,
Ivan: including george w bush over the how the iraq war was run.
Sam: Well and i well i agree with them on the torture part like i think there were
Sam: there are actual statutes against what was done and the bush administration
Sam: should have been held liable for it yeah so we.
Ivan: Didn't do that either.
Sam: We should have damn it and also we and
Sam: and and you know doj should have
Sam: gone after the obstruction of justice on the muller report
Sam: issues as soon as they got into power too which by the
Sam: way also would be taken out
Sam: of play by this supreme court ruling as well oh yeah because the obstruction
Sam: of justice was around things like firing the fbi director telling doj to do
Sam: x y right yeah and all of those out out the window yeah and and like fundamentally
Sam: that this is where i i come back to like to me
Sam: official acts need more protection not less but you know but even if you're
Sam: going to have this back to the beginning of this but.
Ivan: Even even without this ruling it was very difficult to do anyway.
Sam: Oh no it was it was difficult anyway but this just makes it so much harder because
Sam: even with this sort of even if you agree which i don't this should be sort of
Sam: a core group of executive power that's protected and immune.
Sam: They have made it so expansive. The presumption of executive immunity is very expansive.
Sam: The way to burst that presumption is very, very hard.
Sam: They have extensively limited what kind of evidence you can or cannot use to
Sam: even make those arguments, or even to use as evidence for other cases that are clearly private. it.
Sam: So it's, it's just, it's a mess.
Sam: And I think this is one of those decisions that Trump or not,
Sam: I think it's much worse if Trump wins, obviously, but Trump or not,
Sam: this decision will have negative implications lasting the rest of our lives,
Sam: you know, in total, or unless,
Sam: you know, some future court overturns it.
Sam: But the problem is to get to the point where a future court overturns it.
Sam: You have to have a president who does very abusive things.
Sam: Well, actually, I'm not even sure who has standing in that case.
Sam: How do you even roll this back? Because like DOJ, it's not like DOJ can bring a court.
Sam: I guess DOJ would have to go after an ex-president anyway.
Ivan: Ex-president.
Sam: They would have to go after an ex-president anyway using
Sam: evidence and things that were considered immune by this case and it would have
Sam: to make its way back up to a some future scotus who would say who instead of
Sam: reaffirming the previous decision would say the previous decision was wrong and overturn it but we.
Ivan: Just need i mean i i keep saying it i don't and why don't we pack this fucking we need to.
Sam: Well, and this, this ties to another thing that, you know, has come up again
Sam: in terms of court packing, but I think has come up over and over again for the last couple of times.
Sam: Democrats have had control of either the house or the senate is that there's very much a,
Sam: if this if if there's not a path to this thing actually becoming law then don't even try,
Sam: you know so for instance oh in order to pack the court we would need to eliminate
Sam: the filibuster no we don't um and we don't have the votes oh.
Ivan: And we need to eliminate yeah we do yeah what am.
Sam: I I say yes the.
Ivan: Opposite right I thought for some reason I it's my age.
Sam: Yes it's it's your your bite yeah I know intellect yeah anyway you would have
Sam: to eliminate the filibuster and so we know since we don't have the we we don't
Sam: have the votes we're not even going to try and I think there's a,
Sam: a real case that even for first of all there are ways to be a first of all you
Sam: you potentially actually could eliminate the filibuster.
Sam: I know we didn't have the votes to eliminate the filibuster, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: But even the act of trying something that you know is going to fail makes the other side stop you.
Sam: And then you can say, look, I tried, but they stopped me. It's their fault.
Sam: If you just sort of start with the presumption of defeat and don't do it at
Sam: all, than what it looks like to your own supporters, especially low information supporters,
Sam: are they didn't even fucking try.
Sam: We voted for them so that they would do XYZ and they didn't even fucking try.
Sam: And that's what it ends up looking like.
Ivan: Yeah, well, it wound up looking like that, but the reality is that you had,
Ivan: the majority was super tenuous, and the two critical votes for that basically said no way in hell.
Sam: Well, I know, but what happened is- No.
Ivan: I know, that's what they say. Listen, I know that's what the low information voters say.
Sam: But- No, no, but what I'm saying is the difference is, the Democratic strategy
Sam: in that scenario is, we don't have the votes, therefore we're not going to push
Sam: this right now. Now, the alternative is push it anyway, lose.
Ivan: And they don't give you credit for that shit. Look, I mean,
Ivan: you know, how many times have Republicans pushed through these votes on bullshit
Ivan: that I know that, you know, even their base doesn't recognize that they tried
Ivan: to do anything related to that stuff.
Ivan: We'll bring up a vote 100 times. We'll, you know, we'll push to impeach whatever
Ivan: it's, you know, failed votes. Listen, we're talking about low-information voters.
Ivan: Low-information voters, they fucking don't even pay attention to the votes that actually happen.
Ivan: You think you're going to fucking pay attention to a failed vote?
Ivan: I didn't even notice this shit. People don't know.
Sam: At least you could make the story of it. You could cut the commercials that
Sam: say, we are pushing for blah and they stopped us.
Sam: Instead of saying, vote for us again and we'll do this, and then not do it yet again.
Ivan: Oh, I mean, you can do what the fuck we do. We just say that we're pushing for
Ivan: it, and it didn't happen. I mean, you know, you can just say it.
Ivan: They don't count the fucking, they don't look at the, listen,
Ivan: Sam, you're saying, oh, the fuck we could use it as a fact that they would look
Ivan: at what facts, what nonsense, what are you talking about? What the hell are you saying?
Ivan: Like, the fucking facts don't matter to these people. I don't know anything.
Ivan: I'm sick and tired of all these assholes.
Ivan: I'm so sick and tired of them. Yeah. And we're fucking like right now hostage
Ivan: to an entire class of idiots, Sam.
Ivan: It's a complete fucking mass of low information morons.
Sam: I think we have a title for the show. Class of idiots.
Ivan: I'm so sick and tired of all of them. They don't know shit about nothing.
Ivan: Every time I hear shit like I've heard like over the last, you know,
Ivan: I don't know how many years.
Ivan: Well, you know, the Democrats didn't, you know, could have passed legislation
Ivan: to protect abortion across the nation, but they decided that not to in order
Ivan: to fundraise over the issue.
Ivan: And I'm like, what fucking reality?
Ivan: Which planet do you live on, asshole?
Ivan: You know, the filibuster? What the fuck are you talking about? Are you, you know?
Sam: So and and and and just to be clear on that particular issue,
Sam: even when the Democrats had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate,
Sam: they did not have the votes on the abortion issue.
Ivan: I shouldn't issue because there were like conservative Democrats anyway.
Ivan: Yes. Fuck it. But Sam, this is the shit that they spew.
Ivan: Or how about this one? This one was a gem. I always loved this.
Ivan: Well, you know, because Obama has weakened the military. and right now our military
Ivan: is weaker than russia and china and i'm like fuck oh we.
Sam: Spend more than the.
Ivan: Next 10 nations combined and what are you talking about oh really and.
Sam: I've said this before but to like the vast
Sam: i shouldn't say vast majority but probably the
Sam: vast majority of people that the it really doesn't
Sam: go any deeper than when you're
Sam: talking about president or anything else it's like
Sam: did something bad happen if so who you know whoever's president is to blame
Sam: yeah basically period period period like and there's no further analysis any
Sam: deeper than that there's no No understanding of,
Sam: I mean, I heard someone, maybe it was a conversation on Mastodon a while back,
Sam: the last month sometime, somebody asking, like, do they actually teach like
Sam: civics in high school anymore?
Sam: Because nobody seems to understand how any of the basics of this stuff even works.
Ivan: No.
Sam: And I'm like, look, first of all, I think that is highly dependent on exactly
Sam: where you live. but frankly when I was a kid they did teach that in high school but,
Sam: Yes, there are wonks like me and you, but the vast majority of people did not
Sam: care, did not pay attention.
Ivan: They just want, you know.
Sam: It's like maybe they'll pay attention enough to like, you know,
Sam: pass the quiz this week. But then the second it's over, they forgot.
Ivan: It's like completely deleted.
Sam: Yeah, because they didn't care to begin with. like you
Sam: know meanwhile yeah i i've i've been
Sam: interested interested in the intricacy yeah
Sam: i've been interested in the intricacies of how
Sam: this stuff works since like seventh or eighth grade you know and like you know
Sam: i i loved like reading the goddamn constitution and understanding okay well
Sam: how how would the 22nd amendment play out if somebody actually had to use it
Sam: blah blah This is not most people, clearly.
Ivan: I literally met with a Palestinian group like 30 years ago to understand some
Ivan: of the issues between Israel and Palestinians at Georgetown for my amusement purposes.
Ivan: I went to a seminar where we were talking about Iran-Contra,
Ivan: where I was rightly so basically told that I was a moron and didn't know what I was saying.
Ivan: And that professor that said that to me was absolutely correct.
Ivan: And I did learn from that.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So anyway, let's take our second break. and then we will switch into joe biden joe.
Ivan: Good old joe.
Sam: Good old joe and his whole everything that's going on and so the the next break
Sam: is an election graphs break and so i will start out the next segment by talking
Sam: about some of the things i launched on there this last week and then we'll move
Sam: into the rest of the joe biden stuff back after this.
Sam: Okay. So election graphs, just real quick. I took last week off,
Sam: as I mentioned on the show, to add probabilistic estimates that actually take
Sam: into account the amount of time left before the election.
Sam: This was basically, for a long time, I've had probabilities that took the.
Sam: Final election graphs averages from 2008 to 2020,
Sam: compared them to actual election results, Did a bunch of mathematical analysis
Sam: that I won't bore you with here to use that to sort of on a state-by-state basis say,
Sam: if the candidate is ahead by this percentage,
Sam: either Republican or Democrat ahead or behind, what are the chances of them
Sam: actually winning? winning.
Sam: Basically, an easy way to think of that is say, it's not quite,
Sam: it's a simplification of the actual mathematics,
Sam: but one way to think about it is say, okay, let's say Donald Trump has a 3% lead in some state.
Sam: Let's look back at 2008 through 2020 and look at all the times the Republican
Sam: has had a 3% lead approximately, what percentage of that time did they end up winning?
Sam: And then using that information on a state-by-state basis to do a simulation
Sam: of national blah, blah, blah.
Sam: But all of that time, it's been an if the election was held today,
Sam: which alternately is the same as if the polls don't change at all between now and election day.
Sam: And obviously the election is not Not today.
Sam: And obviously, polls will change a lot between now and Election Day,
Sam: the up, down, sideways, left, right.
Sam: So what I did over the week I took off and a couple days after was basically
Sam: add in all the infrastructure to say.
Sam: To do that same comparison, but instead of always using the very last final
Sam: election graphs averages before the election, was to look at the averages X
Sam: number of days before the election.
Sam: So for instance, right now, as we're recording, it's 122.8 days before polls
Sam: start to close on election night.
Sam: So I would look at everything that's 122, 123 days before the election.
Sam: What were my election graphs averaged that far before each of the last four
Sam: elections? And how much did things change?
Sam: Now, it's still sort of modeling based on the actual last four elections.
Sam: And so you've always got this, you know, future results, or no,
Sam: past results may not be indicative of future results, right?
Sam: Yeah, I think the phrase in the market is on returns.
Ivan: That's correct. Yes. Past returns do not indicate future returns. Yes.
Sam: Exactly. And so you've always got that caveat that just because this is sort
Sam: of how it worked out for the last four election cycles does not mean this is
Sam: how it'll work out this time.
Sam: And specifically, the fact that's relevant here,
Sam: aside from the ups and downs within the time is also that for only one of those
Sam: last four election cycles have the polls underestimated the Democrats.
Sam: There was one where they were pretty spot on and two where they fairly significantly
Sam: underestimated the Republicans, specifically Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Sam: And so my odds kind of assume that,
Sam: The polls, if they're doing anything, are probably underestimating Trump a little bit.
Sam: They don't feel really secure that there's a 50-50 shot of who wins a state
Sam: unless the Democrat is ahead by like 1.5%. I forget the exact number,
Sam: 1.2, 1.3, somewhere around there.
Sam: And so anyway, the bottom line is that's been added. If you go to electiongraphs.com,
Sam: you can check out all that out.
Sam: I did a little redesign of how the pages are laid out. There's these views are
Sam: on both the state detail pages and also the national.
Sam: So just to, and I still have both the uniform swing and independent states version
Sam: of this, which basically, so they're now four probabilistic views to confuse everybody.
Sam: Because basically the independent states assumes that if there's an error in
Sam: one state, it doesn't affect the errors in other states at all.
Sam: They're all completely independent of each other, where basically the uniform
Sam: swing says if the errors are underestimating the Republicans by 2% or whatever,
Sam: then that's the same in every state.
Sam: But I honestly, I think the truth is closer to the uniform swing than it is
Sam: to independent states, simply because the same pollsters are often doing polls in all the swing states.
Sam: And so like if let's say if pollster A is tending to underestimate one party
Sam: or the other and they do polls in all the swing states where they're well,
Sam: they're likely to be making the same error in all the states.
Sam: So I think the states are probably more correlated than not.
Sam: So just as an example, I'm only going to talk uniform swing right now.
Sam: As of right now in the polls, and there are not a lot of state polls since the
Sam: debate, for those of you asking.
Sam: So this is sort of a right before the debate scenario.
Sam: There have been a couple polls, but not really any that have changed things too much.
Sam: If the election was now, Biden's chances of winning 15%.
Sam: Given the amount of time left before the election and current polling,
Sam: based on the history, Biden's chances of winning 24%.
Sam: So basically, the bottom line is he's behind. He's been behind for a while.
Sam: His chances are not zero because there's plenty of time to turn things around yet.
Ivan: Well, better chances than you gave Trump in 2016.
Sam: Yes. Yes. Well, I didn't give chances in 2016. I added that in 2020.
Ivan: Well, I believe that. Well, that's true. But I believe that you were asked the question.
Sam: In 2016, I tracked other people's odds and the median of everybody giving odds was 14% for Trump.
Ivan: Unfortunately, you faithfully went like the week. It's very close to the election,
Ivan: like before at some point a friend of ours asked you and you you told us that
Ivan: there that there was like a 99 chance that hillary was going to win.
Sam: Unfortunately you.
Ivan: Did say that.
Sam: To kathy i do not believe i said 99 i did yeah and and also i believe that was
Sam: a month out two weeks out at our two weeks out i was i was saying that we're
Sam: in the cone if we if this was a hurricane we are in the cone of danger were my exact words.
Sam: But anyway, the point is, 24% is not zero.
Sam: 24%, as you said, is better than the odds people gave Trump in 2016.
Sam: However, it's not good.
Ivan: Well, let's say, we're not, listen, it's not, all I will say,
Ivan: all I will say is, is in almost every recent election after 2020,
Ivan: we've been positively surprised by the Democrat turnout.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And it's turned into positive results.
Ivan: And so I know that it's still four months still to the election.
Ivan: So I'm optimistic that somehow, Somehow, especially because we have so much
Ivan: noise from a third party candidate.
Ivan: And one of the things, you know,
Ivan: We haven't had a third party candidate pulled as high since going back to,
Ivan: uh, what's his name? Peru, right?
Sam: Peru. Peru. Yeah.
Ivan: So I really think that that's also adding a measure of, you know,
Ivan: of, of noise to all of this.
Sam: Well, as I've said before, there are all kinds of reasons that you can come
Sam: up with for why this time, maybe the polls are underestimating the Democrat,
Sam: even though they haven't done that in the last couple of weeks. cycles.
Sam: And some of those may turn out
Sam: to be true, but the way I look at it is you have a, you have to be really.
Ivan: It's a stomach churning situation. Okay. You know, that's the reality.
Ivan: And I think that that plays into the freak out that we had this week.
Sam: Well, let me, let me finish my statement. You just have to be really careful.
Sam: I think about motivated reasoning that like you allow yourself to think about
Sam: all the reasons the polls may be wrong, but not the reasons the polls may be right.
Sam: And so I, the way I look at it is I'm going to take them at face value and I'm
Sam: going to look at what historically has happened, which, and look,
Sam: here's, and I also think it's healthier to think of that anyway.
Sam: Like we're going to talk about Biden's interview and other stuff in a second.
Sam: Like, I think there's a level of denial of the fact that yes, you are behind.
Sam: That's not necessarily healthy that, because the way to, I think the way to
Sam: play this is even if you are ahead, act like you're behind.
Ivan: I, I, I a hundred percent agree. That was my point. It doesn't, it doesn't matter.
Ivan: It should, it should be, don't, don't think, you know, you can't think,
Ivan: well, the polls are wrong and just not do anything.
Ivan: Now you gotta put, you know, you gotta to be all in on doing everything.
Ivan: I mean, think like you're completely behind. Look, it's kind of like the way
Ivan: I work in sales, which sometimes is a little bit like exhausting,
Ivan: which is, you know, I may have like last year, I was over a hundred percent
Ivan: of my plan and people didn't understand why the hell I was still killing myself,
Ivan: you know, chasing deals.
Ivan: And I'm like, listen, I, I, I, i could be at 130 i could be at 20 i'm going
Ivan: after everything like i've got nothing,
Ivan: Okay. Like I'm, I'm going after everything.
Ivan: Okay. You can't be complacent. There is no, there is no complacency,
Ivan: especially when the numbers aren't painting a rosy picture right now.
Sam: Right. And, and, and, you know, I said there weren't very many Nash or sorry,
Sam: there weren't very many state level polls,
Sam: which is what election graphs does since the, since the big debate,
Sam: but there've been lots of national ones and the consents there,
Sam: There's some are more, some are less, but the consensus seems to be on a national level.
Sam: The polls have cost Biden or not the polls have cost the debate cost Biden two
Sam: to 3% or so, uh, in terms of a margin.
Sam: And he had just in the, like in the national poll averages right before the debate,
Sam: he had just caught up with Donald Trump for the first time ever that the,
Sam: the, the, the The averages at 538 and other places were showing Biden with a
Sam: very, very slight lead for the first time since they started tracking them.
Sam: And now he's back to being behind several percent.
Sam: And so that's the immediate effect of the debate in terms of that.
Sam: Now, normally, I'd say, you know, the history of debates is that whatever effect
Sam: they have one way or the other is almost always short term.
Sam: Lasts a few weeks, and then you're back to where you were before.
Sam: But the pile-on on Joe Biden has been incessant. There has been no let-up.
Sam: Even after this interview today, there's more.
Ivan: By the way, the second one that he has done this week. Third.
Sam: Third. There were at least two radio interviews, maybe more,
Sam: before this one this week. since the debate before this big televised one.
Sam: But like, just to give you an example of like the pylon, I just saw this on
Sam: Mastodon, like literally in the last three minutes.
Sam: This is from a Jared White who's been watching ABC's new ABC's post interview
Sam: coverage of how Joe Biden did at his big interview with George Stephanopoulos on Friday evening.
Sam: ABC News has some expert on to comment on the interview.
Sam: And she's saying that a good interview performance is actually a worst case
Sam: scenario for the Democrats because it simply prolongs the inevitable.
Ivan: This guy basically can't, you know, they have all made the decision that Joe Biden is Yeah.
Sam: It's basically, Biden's interview went well here's why that's bad news for Biden.
Ivan: I mean, look.
Sam: Yvonne has been sputtering and angry about this on the curmudgeon's course slack
Sam: all week long. So let's let's go.
Sam: He's speechless now.
Ivan: The Republic. Well, here's the reason why I'm speechless. You didn't talk about the actual interview.
Sam: Yeah, let's let's do that real quick.
Ivan: All right. Which which you you you promise that you were going to give your
Ivan: thoughts about the interview, which I actually gave you a little bit.
Ivan: My thoughts about the interview as it happened because unfortunately sam due to certain issues.
Sam: Oh i wanted to complain about this i'm sorry tangent yes.
Ivan: Well it's an important tangent i.
Sam: Was all set up and ready to go to watch this damn interview because it's being
Sam: it's being all it's been all hyped up all this week that oh joe biden's giving
Sam: this big interview with george stephanopoulos and like this is where he's going
Sam: to show that he's you know it was all an aberration and everything's fine. Right.
Sam: I get everything turned on because this was going to be at 8 p.m. Eastern.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So that's 5 p.m. Pacific. I
Sam: get all set up. It's like 445. I've got up the TV. I'm like, I put on ABC.
Sam: Nothing. It's the local news. And they're talking about they give like a 10
Sam: second clip of the interview and say they're going to have it'll be on at eight.
Sam: And I'm like, what?
Sam: So apparently, and I look at my, you know, like online guide thing and yeah, it's at eight.
Sam: So there, look, the thing was not live anyway.
Sam: It was recorded early in the afternoon, but it was being aired on the East coast in prime time at 8 PM.
Sam: And apparently it was just being aired at 8 PM on Pacific too,
Sam: which is three hours later.
Sam: I'm like, this is not how you handle a big fucking news event.
Sam: And I'm like, okay, well, surely they'll just have it on abcnews.com or on abc.com.
Sam: No, no. Both of those places are like, no, dumbass. You're on the West Coast.
Sam: You have to wait three hours.
Sam: And I'm like, and look, I am sure, you know, Yvonne asked me if I had a VPN.
Sam: I don't have one set up. I should have even tried just like, I don't know.
Sam: I'm sure there are ways I could have fooled it. into giving me the East Coast feed.
Sam: But I was just angry at this point. And it was only a 22-minute interview,
Sam: so it was already halfway through the damn interview as I'm looking for this stuff. I'm like,
Sam: Okay. I understand primetime interview on your broadcast channel. Fine.
Sam: Put the damn thing at 8 PM local time, whatever, you know, but you,
Sam: I shouldn't be able to go to the website and see it.
Sam: I should be able to go to your stream. They're streaming news channel,
Sam: ABC live news, or whatever the fuck streaming news, ABC channel was in my package.
Sam: It was also three hours delayed. you delay a news channel three hours right
Sam: what the fuck right no no yeah this is it's ridiculous what what freaking decade is this no yeah.
Ivan: Uh yeah i know so we solved the problem.
Sam: I solved the problem yvonne facetimed me and like pointed his phone at his tv
Sam: TV and then, and then rewound to show it.
Ivan: Well, well, no, no, I, I, no, no. Well, no, no. Well, I, first I did the phone.
Ivan: I realized that that was bad. So I actually took my webcam.
Sam: Right. Right.
Ivan: And, and then, and then pointed it, then FaceTime you again,
Ivan: and then pointed it at my, my TV, which thankfully, because I do have that TiVo service.
Ivan: I like the other ones. I mean, I don't have to be watching.
Sam: You can re yeah, you can rewind and blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: I don't have to be. and it has well the thing the great thing about it is that
Ivan: it has all the live channels they're always on a buffer you.
Sam: Don't even have to be recording it right they're always yeah right.
Ivan: They're always buffered so i don't you know whatever any live channel i go to
Ivan: oh i missed the start of this boom go back whatever it shows so yeah.
Sam: The the other thing sort of technically on the thing at first i i was like telling
Sam: yvonne a few times i'm having trouble hearing
Sam: and i was and he improved the microphone and it was a bit better but then i
Sam: realized there were other people online comparing complaining about the audio quality as well i.
Ivan: Found the audio quality was fine.
Sam: Well because i after we were off yvonne i i saw some live some some better clips
Sam: of it and i still noticed the same problem there was a lot of background noise behind biden okay.
Ivan: Oh i did hear some background noise occasionally on the back it sounded like
Ivan: Like somebody dropped something, whatever, yeah.
Sam: Well, no, it was just constant sort of buzzing background in a bunch of it.
Sam: And so I heard some people online were saying, look, this is what probably happened
Sam: is he wasn't speaking that loudly and they boosted the mic up to get him and
Sam: it just got a lot more background noise and stuff like that.
Sam: So the audio quality wasn't great.
Sam: And if someone's speaking not that loud.
Ivan: I thought that they would have mic'd them up, though.
Sam: Well, it looked like they were using a boom mic.
Sam: I didn't see a laugh.
Ivan: Well, that's not the best. Yeah, that's not the best. Yeah, you're right.
Ivan: He didn't have a, he didn't clip a mic on him.
Ivan: Well, that was a poor choice of, I mean, boom mics are not, yeah.
Ivan: And the thing is that he was sitting back. Well, I think the problem is,
Ivan: as you have complained that I did, because Biden was sitting back,
Ivan: okay, with his legs crossed, okay?
Ivan: And if you've got a boom mic and it's in the middle over there,
Ivan: well, that's not exactly going to be great to pick up what the hell you're doing.
Ivan: So, yeah, they probably had to boost up the damn mic.
Sam: Yeah, and so you'd think they would work all. I mean, it's a fucking national news network.
Sam: Come on, figure that shit out. But whatever.
Ivan: I mean, I would have thought. I mean, I totally expected that he would have been mic'd up.
Ivan: But on my end, it sounded fine. I mean, I only occasionally heard a strain. I mean, I.
Sam: Had the sort of double effect of like going through your webcam, too.
Ivan: But well, yeah, you had the effect. Yeah, that that that. But on on here on the TV, it sounded fine.
Sam: I mean, when I watched real clips of it on on on replay after we watched it
Sam: over FaceTime, it was a lot better.
Sam: But there were still a few places where I was distracted and it was is a little
Sam: hard to get them at some points. But anyway, the bottom line,
Sam: I'll give you my impression since when we were watching it, I promised Yvonne
Sam: I would save my impressions.
Ivan: He saved it for the show.
Sam: He did fine, but I don't think fine is good enough given the scenario and the media pile on.
Sam: Like he he did not tank this he did not do badly but like he i don't think this was,
Sam: given the sharks that are circling i don't think this will make that go away
Sam: by itself now the thing that i think that joe is doing that if he sticks to
Sam: it everybody's just gonna to have to shut the fuck up is he's saying over and
Sam: over again, I'm not going anywhere.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Fuck you all. I'm not going anywhere. Now, I wish he'd actually said, fuck you all.
Ivan: I really wish at some point that he would have said that. But he's had Fetterman
Ivan: has said it for him. Okay.
Sam: Fetterman has said it for him. One of Stephanopoulos' questions was,
Sam: there have been reports just in the last hour in in the New York times that
Sam: Senator Warner is organizing a group of senators to come tell you to drop out.
Sam: What do you think of that?
Sam: And he was, and he, and he was like, well, nobody's told me anything yet.
Sam: And I don't think they will. They will. They're not going to.
Sam: That's the moment I really wanted him to say, fuck John Warner. You know?
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. I was like, come on. Now, I will say that I saw two different versions
Ivan: of this story. Okay. All right.
Sam: The Senator Warner story.
Ivan: Yes. There is. I've seen two versions of that story.
Ivan: Okay. And I, and I point that out because especially because a lot of the coverage
Ivan: that has been And this week, to me and to many that have observed what's been
Ivan: going on in the last couple of decades with the news media,
Ivan: I mean, look, the GOP has for the last couple of years, number of years,
Ivan: been saying that Biden is mentally ill and competent.
Ivan: Same fucking thing that they did with hillary that she
Ivan: was ill that she had schizophrenia that she had
Ivan: whatever the fuck and then everybody started questioning her health because
Ivan: she passed out from the flu like during the
Ivan: during the campaign and stuff and they were saying that she
Ivan: was dying or whatever and they they created a fucking
Ivan: mega cycle of this shit during that campaign too and you know and it's the same
Ivan: thing that i'm i'm in this cycle where the gop and all All of this information
Ivan: machine going on out there that we know also includes a lot of bots and a lot
Ivan: of stuff and whatever has been
Ivan: pushing the story about Biden being incompetent, Biden being whatever.
Ivan: And all the same stories are the same thing. Oh, my God, Biden was in a room with photographers.
Ivan: And I don't know. He wasn't effusive. And when he said hi, and I'm like,
Ivan: and then somebody made a joke about his age.
Ivan: And this was, by the way, the the evidence, the anonymous sourced evidence that
Ivan: cited his, you know, incompetent.
Ivan: And I'm like, what the fuck?
Ivan: And and the thing that with the Warner story, I saw two versions.
Ivan: I saw one where it said that Warner was putting together a group of senators
Ivan: to go talk to Biden about what to do with the campaign.
Ivan: Another news source said that they were going to go ask him to drop out.
Ivan: Now, those are two very different things.
Ivan: And I saw two, you know, respected. And I say that in quotes right now because
Ivan: some of the shit that I saw this week, news sources say it.
Ivan: And one of them categorically said it that differently. And so I was like, hmm.
Ivan: You know, and and there's man this week was just the unnamed source, you know, a thon of,
Ivan: you know, all these anecdotes of,
Ivan: oh, Biden went and like went into a room and couldn't remember,
Ivan: confused this guy's name.
Ivan: And oh yeah and Biden went in this meeting and you know he miss you know miss
Ivan: said the name of the country that we're talking about and I'm like.
Ivan: And it goes back to the standard you were saying about this interview with that
Ivan: interview, calm down anybody where I'm just like,
Ivan: I don't listen that there is an entire group of Democrats that are petrified
Ivan: at what the polling polls say. Yeah.
Ivan: And there has been chum in the water having been laid by all of these people
Ivan: related to Biden's ability to run.
Ivan: And then he look, he fucked up the debate.
Ivan: OK, and that was his fuck up, which he, by the way, took ownership repeatedly
Ivan: on the interview and said, look, this is this is on on me.
Ivan: And it's a fuck up that he did. And, and I, you know, I was remembering there
Ivan: was, you know, there was one time that I, that I went for a speaking engagement
Ivan: that I was supposed to do. Okay.
Ivan: That I prepared like crazy. And so I thought, and man, I, oh my God, I fucked it up so bad.
Ivan: I mean, it was just, it was just a disaster.
Ivan: I mean, it was a disaster. master and and
Ivan: i've spoken like to meetings events
Ivan: conventions presentations so many times but
Ivan: fuck man you know there's one
Ivan: of those days were and i thought that i was prepared and i thought that i'm
Ivan: going in there and i'm this thing and i just went in there and just laid a massive
Ivan: turd I'm like you know you know and man you know.
Ivan: I, you know, where we're talking about, he hasn't given interviews or whatever.
Ivan: I know he hasn't given press conferences, but he has given press conferences. I looked at the ratio.
Ivan: He's been, it's on the low end. This year hasn't done many, but he,
Ivan: you know, he's done close to like what some other presidents have done.
Ivan: It's not, it's at the low end of presidencies.
Sam: But it's not the lowest.
Ivan: It's not the lowest. Okay. So that's one thing. And look, he has actively avoided
Ivan: a couple of publications for interviews because you know what?
Ivan: I think he's pissed at him and with good reason.
Ivan: Okay. For a number of reasons. So the New York times has been.
Sam: I mean, yeah, a lot of people have been like the New York times has been going
Sam: after him so much just because they're holding a grudge because he won't talk to them.
Ivan: That's right. Okay. Because there have been several stories that have reported
Ivan: that the publisher or times is pissed that he has refused to grant them an interview.
Ivan: Okay. And so, you know, all of a sudden this thing happened.
Ivan: So many, let's be clear, more pundits freaked out. And it was just like,
Ivan: oh, it's a disaster. It's over.
Ivan: And it became this entire feeding frenzy cycle where all of a sudden all these
Ivan: examples of anecdotes of him like, you know, I realized maybe I was more conscious this week.
Ivan: Let me play devil's advocate for just a second. Wait, wait, wait.
Ivan: No, no. You can play. Let me finish this part. pardon you can be but it was
Ivan: an advocate later and i was like this week and i'm
Ivan: like i'm realizing that i've got this one very important customer
Ivan: that i deal with okay it's really has been my largest customer
Ivan: the last 18 months okay i have been in meetings several times with all these
Ivan: people and i still keep saying the wrong names for the people that are at this
Ivan: fucking customer okay and i have been and i have been and not just that but
Ivan: there is a solution that we are selling and I keep fucking saying the wrong
Ivan: name for what the fuck it is that we're putting in.
Ivan: And every time I'm going and I'm like, oh, we're doing the stupid thing called.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, yeah, the thing.
Ivan: Right, right, the thing.
Ivan: By the way, I called the guy. Shit. Look, actually, no, it wasn't on a call
Ivan: with the customer. Thank God.
Ivan: But I was on an internal call where they asked me what the name of the guy is
Ivan: of the customer. I gave the wrong name and somebody had to call.
Ivan: Oh, no. What's his name? Yeah, whatever. I'm like, oh,
Ivan: jesus christ i could not call this guy by the right name
Ivan: my life depended on it and and i'm
Ivan: like you know look if this is a
Ivan: sign of i don't know what the fuck it's a sign of it's a sign of that i've been
Ivan: very bad with names and i've historically been very bad with names and and joe
Ivan: biden has been a gaffe machine his entire life and i mean shit derailed his
Ivan: shit like 35 40 i mean the first time i remember running for president which
Ivan: is against dugakis it completely derailed that bid.
Ivan: And so, I mean, he certainly hasn't improved with age.
Ivan: Right. So, you know, so that's.
Sam: So let, let me, let me play the devil's advocate here for a little bit.
Sam: And I know people are like, you know, devil's advocates are hated for a reason.
Sam: Um, but let, let's, let's assume that a lot of the elected officials who deal
Sam: with Joe Biden have actually noticed
Sam: explicitly a significant decline
Sam: in his abilities since his presidency started and the
Sam: reason that the panic is here is not like oh this debate happened and he did
Sam: badly at the debate and maybe that's an indication of something else but instead
Sam: it's a yeah we've known he's not
Sam: been great for a long time, but we've been keeping it quiet.
Sam: This is what the Olivia Newsy story essentially said, which was one of the ones
Sam: with unnamed sources that you're mentioning. Right.
Sam: But we've known he's been bad for a while, but we were hoping that this could
Sam: all essentially be kept under wraps until after the election.
Sam: And, but now it's all out in the open. And so now that's why we're panicking
Sam: because we, we actually know he's in bad shape.
Sam: It's not Not just one bad debate. We know he really is in bad shape behind the
Sam: scenes. And that's why we're panicking.
Sam: And that's why they're driving this conversation now.
Ivan: I honestly, I mean, I know that that's what they're saying, but let me put it to you this way.
Ivan: It went with the shit that Trump had, you know, done when he with his inner circle.
Ivan: If, you know, Biden hasn't had a lot of turnover in his inner circle.
Ivan: OK, I mean, almost zero. I mean, who the hell has left the administration? administration.
Sam: Well people have said even aside from his administration his actual core group
Sam: of advisors is apparently the same people have been with him for 30 years.
Ivan: Yeah so you know so none
Ivan: of those people are actually you know the source for this
Ivan: stuff okay and that's part of the problem
Ivan: where because you know those guys are that loyal and
Ivan: the other guys around and haven't quit whoever the hell is
Ivan: sourcing this is not really getting direct
Ivan: information which is why it seems on almost every story
Ivan: it's so peripheral in terms of
Ivan: what they're referring to because i would expect
Ivan: for example that if he went to a meeting with a foreign dignitary and
Ivan: he really screwed the pooch okay man that
Ivan: would that would come out hard to hide it you
Ivan: know if you're meeting with with a foreign dignitary
Ivan: or something he's been meeting with a lot of those recently you
Ivan: know he was at the d-day event he was with salinski he
Ivan: was you know he's been on the phone that yahoo he's been been doing a whole
Ivan: bunch of this stuff and it hasn't come out from any of those folks and so i'm
Ivan: just you know what he's done a whole bunch of interviews that i've listed because
Ivan: you mentioned like about that when i was mentioning to you guys you spent over
Ivan: an hour with howard stern for example doing a fucking interview.
Sam: For like a couple months ago right recently.
Ivan: Yeah a couple of months ago it was recently this was not two years ago it sounded
Ivan: perfectly fine pro publica one and published one unedited that he had like in the last year also.
Ivan: He also sounded perfectly fine. Sounded no different than from when he was on
Ivan: this interview today with Stephanopoulos.
Ivan: And so I hear all this from people. And honestly, it all sounds like it's a
Ivan: lot of people from like unnamed sources.
Ivan: And mostly for the most part, it seems to be sourced on the same bullshit that
Ivan: we've been hearing on the Internet from everybody, by the way,
Ivan: from the fucking GOP that have been the people pushing this.
Ivan: And I I just think that everybody just because they are so afraid that Trump
Ivan: will win, that that was the panic. And but like I said, you know,
Ivan: I said last week, I'll say it again.
Ivan: No smart decisions come from fucking fear. OK.
Ivan: And what's happened this week has been with so many people, such a ridiculous
Ivan: fear freak out of fearing Trump that it's it's like indicates even like,
Ivan: for example, one thing that was some I know I did part of it.
Ivan: A number of people have done that if you read the transcript of
Ivan: the fucking debate instead of actually you know
Ivan: how he sounded that he sounded awful okay it it
Ivan: wasn't an incoherent bunch of drivel okay as many people are trying to make
Ivan: it be he did sound bad but you know he wasn't up there like some doddering fool
Ivan: just you know saying bunch of nonsense right it's just that it's just Just that
Ivan: the presentation was awful.
Ivan: And by the way, presentation is important. Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Unfortunately, which I have said on the Slack and I was pissed off that unfortunately
Ivan: his inner circle, they fucked up with him because they should have understood that.
Sam: Well, on the interview today, he talked about how exhausted he was and how when the doctor.
Ivan: Man, I can't imagine how the fuck would he not. Listen, I I I think about the
Ivan: schedule that he holds, Sam.
Ivan: Fuck. I've done those like executive like trips like that where there is a calendar
Ivan: that's packed one behind the other with public meetings and shit and whatnot.
Ivan: Not as often as Biden has to do it. man i
Ivan: wound up from doing one of those like two months ago okay
Ivan: i was so fucking exhausted by the end of it i was just i i i was getting to
Ivan: the hotel room and i am like i i'm like how the fucking you know i was i was
Ivan: literally thinking about this i don't know how he does it i mean now i well.
Sam: And and but again this this gets back to you saying you know his staff fucked him to a
Sam: degree well he says he did he didn't trust his own instincts on this stuff as
Sam: well but like the bottom line you knew the debate was coming clear the calendar
Sam: from as much as you fucking can for like a while before it.
Ivan: They should have well fuck well wait wait wait why the fuck did they schedule
Ivan: it that day they knew they had the d-day shit they knew they had the other stuff
Ivan: the week before what the fuck are you piling this into that there you need to have cleared yeah i.
Sam: Mean they agreed they They agreed to the date that whatever.
Sam: And I mean, you can't clear a president's calendar entirely. They've got a busy.
Ivan: But you didn't have to have a fucking trip to Europe and whatever the fuck and
Ivan: all this other shit before.
Sam: Although people have pointed out, it was a number of days after he got back from that trip.
Sam: But, but wait, there are a couple of things. One, two,
Sam: Yeah, he got back from Europe, but he made a couple of trips back and forth to the West Coast.
Ivan: The West Coast.
Sam: B, he was sick.
Ivan: And sick.
Sam: You know, so, yeah, I mean, it was badly handled. But, like, here's the other thing.
Sam: And I know we talked last week, so we won't rehash this. Like,
Sam: if something happens to Joe, you still got Kamala, right?
Ivan: Well, that's why I'm like, this is the whole thing that I understand the Democratic
Ivan: freakout. out i'm like listen the vp can.
Sam: You're buying the team you're.
Ivan: Buying the team so what i mean i'm like what's the fucking concern.
Sam: Well and i i wanted to point out i saw a clip on tip on tip top on tip top tip top tip top it's.
Ivan: A new app we should start that app.
Sam: We should start that one right away yes anyway i saw a clip on tick tock of
Sam: piers morgan who's a british interviewer guy guy.
Ivan: Asshole.
Sam: Yeah. Complete asshole. But he was talking to some guy and I unfortunately don't
Sam: know the person he was talking to.
Sam: He was talking to an American and he was asking the American about Joe Biden.
Sam: And the guy was like, look, I don't care.
Sam: Like Jill Biden could, could wheel him out in like a coma. I'm still voting for Joe Biden over.
Sam: And then like he went further, he said, But Jill Biden could come out holding
Sam: an urn with Joe Biden's ashes and I'd still vote for him.
Ivan: Exactly. I mean, I don't understand. You know, what the hell are we talking about here?
Sam: You know, yes. Yes. And because Kamala is there, and again, I know the whole
Sam: right-wing ecosystem would sort of love to just go after Kamala as well.
Sam: They've already started a few tentative things against her in the last week, just in case.
Sam: Because they think she's going to be weaker or whatever.
Sam: By the way, I didn't mention on election graphs, you can flip over to see Harris versus Trump.
Sam: At the moment, she is doing better than Joe Biden in my probabilistic averages.
Sam: But big caveat, there were never a lot of state polls on her.
Sam: And all of the data there is really, really old.
Sam: Because the primaries have been over for a while. And there wasn't enough to
Sam: have a good picture of her anyway.
Sam: So like, you know, there have been a handful of national polls that basically
Sam: hold her doing about the same as Biden.
Ivan: But by the way, let me read some of the health stories about Hillary that we forget.
Sam: Yes. Yes.
Ivan: OK. Carl Rove helped plant. This is a CNN story. Carl Rove helped plant the seeds in 2014.
Ivan: You know, he said suggesting Clinton had suffered brain damage in 2012.
Ivan: OK. OK, you also can see that, you know, and it said that she allegedly had seizures.
Ivan: The rumor that traveled the remarkable spleen through the pipeline connecting
Ivan: small conservatives or right wings that she was having seizures,
Ivan: a stroke that she I mean, this is, you know, and then the fall.
Ivan: OK, and then there was a syringe with fake medical records.
Ivan: It's the same fucking horse shit. OK, textbook, you know.
Sam: Look today, today, right before we came on the show.
Sam: Oh, Senator Mike Lee was spreading rumors about a medical emergency involving
Sam: Joe Biden on Air Force One.
Ivan: Air Force One!
Sam: Completely not true. By the time he even tweeted that, Joe Biden was already
Sam: at home. He was already at home.
Ivan: But this is the shit that we're talking about. This level of shit, Sam.
Ivan: And what I found, and I'm going to tell you, look.
Ivan: I'm sorry, but almost everybody in the media fell into a fucking,
Ivan: you know, fucking tornado with all this fucking Biden shit. You know why?
Ivan: The Washington Post is losing money. CNN is losing viewers. All these fucking people.
Ivan: And it's and they were like, no, no, no. But we're not trying to get Trump to
Ivan: win. No, no, no. It's not that you're intentionally doing drama.
Sam: Drama.
Ivan: You exactly. You want clicks. You want drama.
Ivan: And this thing gets clicks. And so that's why you're just like fucking like
Ivan: sharks to chum where, oh, there's this there.
Ivan: So let's just, you know what, make make a thousand articles that are super poorly sourced.
Ivan: Because by the way, right now, nobody gives a shit about this anymore. more.
Sam: Well let's talk about like some of the pilot first of all the media like you
Sam: said every single media outlet has been all over this non-stop it's drowned out everything else.
Ivan: I mean the new york times editorial board went like two days afterward calling
Ivan: you know but made fucking i mean they're a joke right now to me they have turned
Ivan: themselves into a joke calling for biden to withdraw why the fuck didn't they
Ivan: call for trump to withdraw you know make the same fucking thing when trump Trump
Ivan: was convicted of a felony.
Sam: Right. Well, because everyone expects that of Trump, right? Right!
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: But look, you have all the media pylon, and some of the things reported in the
Sam: media as part of that pylon.
Sam: We mentioned the senators potentially meeting. We just had a report within the
Sam: last couple hours that Hakeem Jeffords is also meeting with a bunch of House
Sam: leadership about what to do about the scenario.
Ivan: Yeah, what to do, Hakeem? Go in there, beat the shit out of all of them right
Ivan: now is the first move that you need to do.
Sam: We've got stories about donors going on a pause until Joe Biden drops out to
Sam: try to exert financial pressure for him to leave.
Sam: Apparently, one of the headliners there is Abigail Disney, heir to the Walt
Sam: Disney fortune, as one of the people who's like, you know, I'm a big Democratic donor.
Sam: I'm not going to donate any more until Joe's out because we have to do something in order to win.
Sam: And so there are a bunch of these things, which is where, and so a lot of people
Sam: continuing more conversations about,
Sam: well, what are the right people that can go to Joe Biden and tell him the hard
Sam: truth and make him, you know, make him go home so that we can get on with getting somebody else.
Sam: And that's why I said earlier, first of all, I mentioned there's potentially
Sam: a two to three point damage to Biden based on this.
Sam: And people have said, well, two to three points, not that much.
Sam: People have also pointed out though, that it seems like the window in which
Sam: people are able to trade votes back and forth is actually pretty narrow right now.
Sam: So 2% is kind of a lot, but, but also that 2%, like I,
Sam: that two to 3%, I feel like the debate itself probably had very little effect.
Sam: What's having an effect is the goddamn pylon. Yes.
Ivan: What is having an effect is the pylon because the debate itself,
Ivan: look, my wife, for example, she, she, I mean, she's not disengaged,
Ivan: but she's not, she's not like us. Okay.
Ivan: You know what she watched the debate okay and objectively
Ivan: and she not she hasn't been really you know
Ivan: she was like following like all these stories about biden this
Ivan: age and whatever and you know what her impression was like well
Ivan: she said look simple biden sounded tired okay all right and she heard him today
Ivan: and then remarked like geez he sounds a lot better because he sounded tired
Ivan: the other day but that's the only thing he didn't say he hasn't seen i was he
Ivan: said it sounded tired okay and he sounded sick okay but that oh my god that
Ivan: it was like She listened to Trump for two seconds, and it's like, wow,
Ivan: all these sputtering lies. Who the fuck can believe this shit?
Ivan: That was the impression from like, and she's not following this as we are on every day.
Ivan: I heard other people that unfortunately, you know.
Ivan: Their opinions were based more on the form function. Well, well,
Ivan: he sounded like, you know, a super old and I'm like, well, yeah,
Ivan: it was more to sound more than the content, but right.
Ivan: But I really don't, you know, once again, are these debates who watch who watches those debates?
Ivan: You would like, because we had a lot less viewers in this debate that we had
Ivan: on the last one that we had in 2020.
Sam: That's, that's true. Now, here's the thing though, with, in terms of how this
Sam: plays out, and then we should wrap this up.
Sam: Like, we are again at the point where people are talking about,
Sam: well, I don't think this interview stemmed all the concerns.
Ivan: Oh yeah, I've been listening to those people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ivan: You know, he didn't like, I don't know.
Ivan: He didn't solve, you know, quadratic equations live.
Sam: Well, and people are saying that, you know, they talk in their,
Sam: the reporters are all saying, in my conversations with Democrats behind the
Sam: scenes off the record, They're still very concerned, blah, blah, blah. Here's the thing.
Sam: It though, again, the only realistic way for the nominee not to be Joe Biden
Sam: is if Joe, if Joe Biden himself says, I'm out. Right.
Sam: His statements that are like, I'm in, I'm not going anywhere. I am running.
Sam: I am not leaving, have gotten stronger and stronger over the last 24 to 48 hours.
Sam: And if he keeps that up, then frankly,
Sam: like everybody else who's trying to figure out how to pressure him to drop out at some point,
Sam: they've got to realize they are causing
Sam: more damage without any chance of actually getting him to drop out.
Sam: And they are only hurting the cause. Yes.
Sam: And so they need to shut the fuck up and, you know, sorry, you may not like
Sam: it, but this is the candidate you've got.
Sam: So you are either helping him or hurting him. And right now you are hurting him.
Ivan: Look on on, you know, when he landed Biden today, I don't know where he was
Ivan: that he came to some reporters and they asked him about, you know,
Ivan: they threw him some questions, you know, and he was he was bantering with with
Ivan: with the reporters also.
Ivan: So he's doing this, which I think is helpful, by the way, also.
Sam: Yes. He needs to do this all the time, every day.
Ivan: He needs to be doing this more often. Even if he makes a gaffe or says something
Ivan: wrong, it's better to do this than to avoid it. Okay?
Sam: Yeah. They've been hiding him away, and that's part of the problem.
Sam: I mean, again, unless all the stuff is true and he's just got bad days and good
Sam: days, but his bad days are really bad, you know?
Ivan: No, they may not. I'm 100% convinced. Look, I'm totally convinced that his staffers are hiding.
Ivan: Because of what we know from Biden, because he's done this his whole life.
Ivan: Like you said, that circle of staffers has been around him for 30 years for
Ivan: a reason, because they know Biden's strengths and weaknesses.
Ivan: But he went and he was like, he threw out of the slide saying,
Ivan: you know what, hell, you all were wrong in 2020.
Ivan: You all were wrong in 2012.
Ivan: You all were wrong about me. You're going to be wrong again.
Ivan: Had just walked away which i that was a great 2022 22 well you know my my you
Ivan: know whatever one of those years again.
Sam: Your your biden-esque intellect is showing.
Ivan: You need to talk to my boss okay you know because i i i might need to step away from my duties.
Sam: Yeah exactly yeah yeah you're done you're clearly you're clint you're mentally fried the senility is.
Ivan: I'm done i'm clearly i I clearly need a neurological exam.
Sam: You do.
Ivan: By the way, which, you know, the whole question, like, Stephanopoulos asked
Ivan: this question more than it was.
Ivan: And actually, Biden did answer it. I wish he would have been a little bit more forceful around it.
Ivan: I'm like, listen, you don't go to a neurologist to get a workup unless your
Ivan: general doctor says that you have a problem.
Ivan: He can't diagnose it. Then you go to that for a workup. That's not something
Ivan: that's a normal fucking, like, thing. You know, if you're going to GP.
Sam: Donald Trump should not be like going, I passed it. I passed it.
Sam: Most people don't pass it.
Ivan: No, most people don't have to pass it because the only reason you get that test
Ivan: is because people really are questioning your sanity.
Ivan: And oh, by the way, nobody mentioned also, you know, that Trump got offered
Ivan: equal time by ABC and he declined it.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I'm surprised.
Sam: Well, he, I think he's actually following advice right now for the most part.
Sam: And there've been a few exceptions, but like, this is your standard.
Sam: If your opponent is hurting themselves, just step out of the way. Like if, you know.
Ivan: But he's not, he's, but he never listens to that advice. He likes the attention.
Ivan: I'm surprised. I mean, we're going to give him like 20 minutes in prime time.
Sam: I mean, so far, like there was that one clip of him on the golf cart that leaked out.
Sam: But like he is for the most part for the last eight days since the debate,
Sam: he has kept his ass quiet.
Ivan: No. Yeah, I know. He said, no, no, no. Well, here, listen, that's not good.
Ivan: OK, I will say that because in the past, when Trump has shut up.
Sam: That's when he does the best. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, that's right. That's what his poll numbers do the best.
Ivan: So that's not good news. No, it's not.
Sam: Like, like big part of his win in 2016 was Manafort or whoever took.
Ivan: Away his phone.
Sam: Took away his phone and got him to shut the fuck up for a couple of weeks.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: For the last couple of weeks before the election, got him to basically behave himself.
Ivan: You know, I will say that I think that he is shut up now for a little bit. But look, this guy.
Sam: He can't sustain it.
Ivan: Exactly. No, there's no way.
Sam: Well, he's got the damn convention coming up. Oh, oh, oh, we we we completely
Sam: neglected when we were talking about immunity that it is, in fact,
Sam: affected the New York case.
Sam: Because last week you were talking about, oh, don't worry, he's got the sentencing coming up. Nope.
Sam: Sentencing now pushed back to at least September, probably actually further
Sam: because there'll be appeals and stuff. And no, no, no.
Ivan: No, no, no, no. The sentencing will happen. but they'll appeal the sentence.
Sam: No, no, no, they will.
Ivan: Oh, they'll appeal the immunity decision.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Because somehow, well, even though there doesn't seem to be much of a reason
Ivan: why this should be, well, I do think, I understand why the judge is doing it.
Sam: Well, we don't have to dig into it. The point was that event is not happening.
Ivan: Yeah. Well, the point is that Trump decided to challenge the sentence based
Ivan: on the immunity decision. And the judge, instead of just dismissing it out of
Ivan: hand, said, okay, fine, send in the briefs, we'll evaluate.
Ivan: And I think that the reason why he's doing it is because, since we all know he's going to appeal,
Ivan: if he didn't consider it, then that would make it even a basis for an appeal. and so on.
Sam: Yep. Yep. Yep. No, I, I, I think that I,
Sam: I, I will predict right now we will not have a sentencing in the New York case
Sam: before the election because the,
Sam: you know, they'll make a decision on the, on the immunity issue at the beginning
Sam: of September, Trump will immediately appeal if he loses and that'll push they'll.
Sam: And then that'll go, that has to go through the New New York appeals,
Sam: and then after the New York appeals are over, then he can repeal it to SCOTUS.
Sam: Add all that in, you're next year.
Ivan: Well, the good news is that he can't stop that process. Okay?
Ivan: So he would have to be defending, even if he would, he would have to be defending
Ivan: himself from criminal charges in New York, even as president.
Sam: Yes. And, and, and also, well, they might, I could see it getting paused until
Sam: he's no longer in office, but, and also he is also put in earlier today.
Sam: He filed with judge cannon in Florida to also do things with that case because of the immunity rule.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: So anyway, and we don't have to get into details of those, but just to sum out and then be done,
Sam: I think we are at the point where there will be still, I think the amount of
Sam: pressure on Biden to get out is still going to increase for a little while longer.
Sam: I don't think this interview will stop at cold.
Sam: I think these things you're having play out with people in Congress and with
Sam: donors and with the media are still going to spiral for a little bit longer.
Sam: And the question is, as long though as nothing else big,
Sam: bad happens with Biden having a really bad incident of the same level as the
Sam: debate or worse, or some sort of physical problem,
Sam: absent something like that, if he just sticks it through and says,
Sam: no, I'm running, I'm running, I'm running, I'm running, Then this stuff has
Sam: to start dissipating after a couple more weeks.
Sam: It just, they have to back off at some point.
Sam: Now, if there is another incident, all bets are off again, you know,
Sam: off to the races. It happens all over again.
Sam: Now, how Joe Biden actually does between now and November, completely different question.
Sam: But there we are. And like, if we do get a scenario where he does drop out,
Sam: we can talk more about it.
Sam: That point, but like right now he and everyone around him are adamant that the
Sam: answer is no, he is not dropping out. He is running the end.
Sam: And as long as he sticks to that and is strong about it, they can't make him.
Sam: And so the question is, how long do they keep damaging him before they give up?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. We're done.
Ivan: All right. We're done.
Sam: Thank you everybody for joining us at curmudgeon's corner. Once again,
Sam: at curmudgeon's corner.
Sam: Is that the right way to say it? You know, if it was an actual physical corner
Sam: where people were joining us.
Ivan: Didn't like we, Oh yeah. That was like one of the stories that you got from
Ivan: chat GPT about, about the curmudgeon's corner movie. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. That my son made up for. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: In any case, go to curmudgeons-corner.com. You'll find our transcripts.
Sam: You'll find our recent episodes, how to subscribe, email, Mastodon,
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Sam: we will invite you to our, you see, I can't talk anymore either.
Sam: Just like Joe Biden can't talk. It's like, you know.
Ivan: We're terrible anyway, uh.
Sam: $2 a month or more. We, or if you ask nicely, we will invite you.
Sam: We will invite you to our curmudgeon's corner slack where Yvonne and I,
Sam: and a bunch of listeners are chatting throughout the week, sharing links, all that kind of stuff.
Sam: We would love to have more of you on there. So Yvonne, do you have a highlight
Sam: from, uh, this week's Slack?
Ivan: Fuck. I'm looking to see which one is, uh, uh, uh,
Ivan: Damn it. I mean, a good story.
Sam: I mean, I have to look to.
Ivan: You know, I actually already scrolled through it and I'm not convinced.
Ivan: Well, there was the the only the only funny there's two funny clips that I don't
Ivan: know if I mentioned the last last week and maybe I didn't.
Ivan: But there was in in Japan, a candidate in the Tokyo gubernatorial race.
Ivan: You see, we didn't have this happen in the debate. Now, this would have been something.
Ivan: OK, yeah. But Uchino Airi, a candidate in the Tokyo gubernatorial race,
Ivan: stripped down during her official public television speech, asking viewers that
Ivan: they thought she was sexy.
Ivan: She asked them to add her as a friend on messaging app line and pledged to respond to everyone.
Ivan: And we didn't get that at the debate.
Sam: Which one did you want to strip, Yvonne, Biden or Trump?
Ivan: Neither. But I mean, I mean, if I mean, that would have that would have definitely changed.
Ivan: I mean, listen, I will say this, that Biden given how badly he was doing,
Ivan: if he decided to strip down and ask for votes, that probably would have gotten a lot more attention.
Sam: Should we just decide the election through a mud wrestling match between the two of them?
Ivan: I think that would be something. I mean, that's an interesting option.
Ivan: You know, I don't know what other things that we could do.
Ivan: You know, I mean, a mud wrestling, perhaps arm wrestling. sampling you know how.
Sam: About a good old-fashioned hamilton style duel.
Ivan: Well you know i was thinking instead of a
Ivan: duel have you seen that there is this i i think we've
Ivan: talked about this on the show that there is this like slap league where people
Ivan: like stand there in a like a slap off duel and you know they go they slap each
Ivan: other that would be that would be a way but what i would suggest I think that
Ivan: obviously the candidates themselves,
Ivan: that doesn't sound like a great idea to do that, but that we should,
Ivan: you know, the Democrats should select a champion.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: A champion slapper to go against the GOP champion slapper and a slap off.
Sam: I'm left speechless. A slap off.
Ivan: You know, much better than our election process. You know, I envy the British.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Sam: Labor won by a lot.
Ivan: Yeah, they completely. I mean, the conservative. I mean, like, I mean, they're.
Sam: And like 12 hours later, the new prime minister is sworn in.
Ivan: Yeah, I would like that process. Can I be honest? And the thing is that the election is short.
Sam: Yeah, it was only a few weeks.
Ivan: I mean, all you've got is a few weeks of campaign and then boom, you're done, you're in.
Ivan: Honestly, I like that process.
Sam: You know, the other part that I like about the British process is that all the
Sam: people who are running for prime minister and stuff are also running for local seats in parliament.
Sam: Right, yeah. And they have this little counting ceremony at the end where all
Sam: the candidates have to stand there on a stage together while the results for that particular,
Sam: what do they call it, district writing, whatever, district.
Ivan: Whatever, are announced.
Sam: And so you always have the major parties.
Sam: And then all the kooks who run for office are standing right there on the stage next to them.
Sam: So you got like Lord Buckethead and you got the guy dressed as Darth Vader and
Sam: you got this guy, that guy, and they're all right there next to like the major candidates.
Sam: And it's just it's just amusing and it's humbling. You saw like,
Sam: what's her name? The one who was prime minister for five minutes.
Sam: What's her name? I've already forgotten.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. What's her? Fuck the lady, right? Trust.
Sam: Yeah. Trust. Like she lost. She lost her seat.
Ivan: Yeah, she lost her seat, too. That's right.
Sam: Like, and, you know, she was right there, right next to her opponent when the
Sam: official announcements were read.
Sam: And so you don't get that here in the U.S. But you see them right there together.
Sam: They have to, like, acknowledge the results, shake hands, go away, whatever.
Sam: And boom, right there. A lot of good things.
Ivan: Maybe they should have a slap off there.
Sam: Yes, Yvonne. you're all about the slaps.
Ivan: I mean, I, you know, I wasn't quite, I mean, I've saw people get concussed with
Ivan: one, like one slap. I mean, so hard.
Sam: Okay. Maybe that's not as good a night. Of course I was suggesting a duel.
Ivan: So
Ivan: I mean, I, I mean, I, at least I brought it down from guns. I mean,
Ivan: you're just giving a concussion. You want to kill him.
Sam: To, to be clear. I don't actually want to fight to the death between Trump and Biden.
Sam: I mean, Trump would probably just sit on him and that would be bad.
Ivan: That might be bad, but I will say this, that despite, you know,
Ivan: Biden being old, you know, Biden is in better physical, athletic condition than
Ivan: that unathletic dumbass.
Sam: I don't know. Like, I think what you say would have been true like two years
Sam: ago. I think it's less true now.
Ivan: I saw him bike riding like recently again. I was lonely a couple of weeks ago. He seemed okay.
Sam: Yeah. anyway he admits he's a little stiff these days.
Ivan: Well shit i mean who the fuck is i.
Sam: I know i like my back and neck have been sore like exact.
Ivan: I mean what the i mean you know the thing is that i hear these questions like
Ivan: wow have you lost a step i'm like well what the fuck you think.
Sam: Who asked.
Ivan: Anyway all right.
Sam: Okay we we are way over we're done thank you very much for joining us for yet
Sam: another curmudgeons corner stay safe have a great week i hope you didn't blow
Sam: up anything that you shouldn't have with fireworks and we'll talk to you again next week goodbye bye,
Sam: Bye. Thank you. okay later yvonne all.
Ivan: Right let's save this puppy come on baby upload yeah.
Sam: Don't be like christy No. Save the puppy.
Ivan: I won't shoot the puppy, and I won't eat it either.
Sam: Good job. Yeah. Not like RFK Jr.
Ivan: No. Yeah, and I won't try to rape, like, you know, to help or anything.
Sam: You're not going to rape the puppy either?
Ivan: No. Nor the nanny or anybody.
Sam: Probably. Good thought. Okay, I'm hitting stop.