Lovett or Leave It - What a Weekday: Mike Johnson's Rumspringa

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Trump adds more haunted dolls to his cabinet of curiosities. Elon Musk is taking the government he purchased out for a joy ride. Matt Gaetz inspires us to ask the important questions like, “Where’s Nestor?” DNC members are pointing so many fingers, they’re going to put an eye out. And we lower P’Nut’s teeny, tiny coffin into the ground for a final goodbye.

I got a bunch of Mickey Rooney's personal effects this weekend. Oh yeah, what'd you get? What are you gonna do with those dolls heads, you think? No, I got a bunch of pictures, like candid photos. Oh cool. Wow. Oh you went. Wait, so what else did you see?

So just for those listening at home, if this is the banter we're surely using. But Kendra went to Mickey Rooney's estate sale. I did. Any Breakfast at Tiffany's paraphernalia? No, there was no Breakfast at Tiffany's stuff. I was mostly- Hashtag Velvet? No, there was no Breakfast at Tiffany's stuff. I was mostly... Hashtag Velvet? Oh, there was Velvet stuff.

But I was there specifically for MGM musical stuff. Oh, yeah. I'm not a big Mickey Rooney fan at all, but I wanted the stuff of him and Judy and like him and other studio people. Yeah, that's fun. Nice. So I wouldn't got like, I have some now, some like Fred Astaire candidates that I can't find online.

So like around. Well played. And I have some stuff of like some photos of him and Judy as well. That's awesome. You know, I bet there is room for a niche business that just says I go to these estate sales, I get a ton of the best stuff.

It's all that I do and I sell them online. I would back your estate sale taste. Let's talk about this when we're not on the show. What would we call it? They're the name. A state of. A state of the nation. A state of the nation.

I was gonna say a state of panic. A state of the union. A state of... A state of... A state of the nation. A state of... I was gonna say a state of panic, but that's alright. A state of the union. A state of... From their cold, famous hands. Okay, I like that. From their dead, cold, famous hands. Perfect. And we're back for another edition of What A Weekday I'm Here With.

I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt.

I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. I'm your host, Jon Moffitt. And we're back for another edition of What a Weekday. I'm here with Sarah, Halle, and Kendra along to cover, so let's get into it. What a weekday. After pouring $120 million into Donald Trump's successful re-election campaign, Elon Musk

is cashing in on that influence he purchased fair and square. America is a Nora and there are no Russian parents flying in to queer the deal. You see a Nora? I haven't gotten there yet. Everybody should see a Nora. Everybody should see a Nora. It's on the list. Really good. Fun for the whole family. I would not say that. I would not say that. Musk has been hanging out at Mar-a-Lago nearly every day since the election, with some members of Trump's transition team reportedly seeing Musk as the guest who wouldn't leave. Would it leave? That doesn't sound like him, said Musk's 11 children.

Just hours after the election, Musk joined Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, chiming in multiple times. But hey, somebody's got to make the Rick and Morty references. Said Zelensky, wait, have I been on speaker the whole time? Actually, I think Trump handed him the phone. Yeah, that's what I saw. Here. Musk's diplomatic efforts didn't end there.

Last week, Musk reportedly met with Iran's ambassador to the UN for an hour in a secret location. We have to presume it was an hour in a secret location. We have to presume it was an actual secret location and not just one of those annoying bars where the door looks like a refrigerator. Iranian officials said that the two men discussed how to defuse tensions between Iran and the US. After the meeting, Musk immediately got to work on the solution, a child-sized submarine.

Remember that? I do remember that. Remember that was the worst thing about Elon Musk? Oh, yeah. I remember it turned out of men. Remember that was the worst thing about Elon Musk? Oh yeah, I remember it turned on him then. But that was an interesting moment, right? Because it was a kind of collective, what's going on there? Wait a second, I thought this was some sort of a business genius. What's happening?

Why is he doing this? Why is he accusing a random stranger of being a pedophile on the internet? There were clues. Yeah, the signs were there. Also he never came out with the child size submarine. We're still waiting on that. Where is it? I'm going. Where is that child size submarine?

Any day now. That he was gonna build before they ran out of there. To go into a circuitous maze-like underground tunnel. Couldn't get me to go. No. In underwater caves. Couldn't get me to do. No, in the underwater case couldn't get me to do it. No, thank you. I choose life.

What am I going to find down there? Boy, that was fun. I don't know if I ever going to go in an underground cave. Now would be the time. Right, right. Is it filled with water? Not yet. Who cares?

Not yet. Maybe in an hour or so. Not on the way down. Caroline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump transition, said in a statement, the American people re-elected President Trump because they trust him to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world. When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary action to do just that. And continued, Levitt, and until then, we're letting Elon get his zoomies out.

There was a time when it was looked upon as scant and as a federal crime for a private citizen to conduct foreign policy outside of an administration. But those were the old days. Out with the old, in with the new. Hey, if we get her on the show, it can be love it and leave it. It could be love it and leave it. If we get Caroline, the first person and soon to be White House press secretary on the show, then it would be love it and leave it. If we get Caroline and soon to be White House Secretary on the show, then it would be love it and leave it. A future podcast perhaps. Something to think about.

Trump also tapped Musk to co-lead with Vivek Ramaswamy a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which for those whose brains aren't completely pickled, is an allusion to the dog meme, which became the cryptocurrency meme coin That's the hard thing about all this in addition to being terrifying It's also cringe my heart is racing because of what the second Trump term could mean But also I'm desperately trying to get out of talking to Trump's second term at a co-worker's birthday party Just days later doge began soliciting job applications writing on X We need super high IQ small government revolutionaries willing to work 80 hours per week on Unglamorous cost-cutting if that's you DM this account with your CV

You want into the vague will review the top 1% of applicants That's me gasp the saddest man alive rushing to pull both hands out of his sweatpants to work on a cover letter High IQ and willing to work over 80 hours a week for Elon Musk, good luck. You sound like men in 2003 who wanted girlfriends that ate burgers instead of salads but looked like Cameron Diaz. On Saturday, Musk sat next to Trump as the president-elect made his triumphant return

to Madison Square Garden for a UFC event. Trump made a deal and that deal said, you can be president again, but Elon Musk will follow you around like a duckling that imprinted on you for the rest of your life. At a meeting with House Republicans, which Musk also attended, Trump joked, Elon won't go home.

I can't get rid of him, at least until I don't like him. Hmm, interesting, interesting. I give this relationship 30 days, one month until Trump posts on true social, Cybertrucks are very bad cars and not so beautiful, though I hear that the gays like them, a car for the wonderful gays." End quote. Already the cracks are beginning to show. Musk publicly threw his support behind Trump's transition co-chair Howard Lutnick for Treasury Secretary and urged his

followers to weigh in as well. Please, at Nancy Pelosi killed peanut, the president awaits your input on this urgent matter. The pressure campaign annoyed some Trump advisors, according to the Washington Post, who suggested Musk was acting like a co-president. The man who allegedly offered to buy a flight attendant a horse in exchange for an erotic massage doesn't understand boundaries. Were there any signs we missed? Tensions between Musk and Trump advisor Boris Epstein spilled out into public last week,

with the two getting into a heated argument at a Mar-a-Lago dinner table in front of other guests. That must have been exciting for Mar-a-Lago's guests to overhear an argument that wasn't about whether to fire the nanny for dressing too slutty on the Greece vacation. Meanwhile, the rollout of Trump's MeToo cabinet continues. Trump's desired Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, has been accused of having sex with a minor, paying women for sex, using illegal drugs, misusing campaign funds, sharing homemade pornography on the House floor, all of which is so insane that we've all forgotten when Matt Gaetz announced that he had functionally but not formally adopted his ex-girlfriend's teenage brother and had been raising him as a son for six years. Remember Nestor?

Has anyone checked in on Nestor? What happened at Nestor? I had forgotten about that, but now I can see I remember they posted a picture together and I can now see it clearly in Yeah, I did see a headline this morning that I forgot to follow up on but apparently Matt Gates used Nestor's PayPal to pay for sex Good. Yes, that's good I'm on that covenant app. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Allegedly. We're just making jokes here, Mr. General. If you're seeing this in a couple months and you're the Attorney General, hey, good luck. We see things differently, but we're all part of the same team, the American team, yeah. Just goofs, just bits. Just goofs, just bits.

We're nothing here, we're just a bunch of nothings. We've got nothing, don't worry about us. Don't look at us, don't forget Just goofs, just bits. We're nothing here. We're just a bunch of nothings. We got nothing. Don't worry about us. Don't look at us. Don't forget about what Joe Scarborough said. Come on. Remember? Come on.

Why is your Venmo account public? Never set up a Venmo. Never did it. Never did it. I'm a cash man. I got cash in my pocket. You need money? I got cash.

That's good to know. Yeah. Not doing Venmo. So you're walking down the street in LA. We know you've got cash. These are good to know. Yeah. Yeah. Not doing Venmo. See, walking down the street in LA, we know you've got cash. It's your big pockets over here. I just want to understand the Venn diagram of someone who would mug me and someone that listens to the cash show. Well, good luck to me out there. Not that much cash. No libel, not that much cash. Everybody leave us alone. An attorney representing two women who testified in the House Ethics Committee investigation of Gates

has called for its report to be released and said that one of his clients told the committee that she witnessed Gates having sex with a minor at a house party in Orlando in 2017. But Trump is willing to look past all of that, giving Gates his incomparable resume of brief stint at a law firm in Northwest Florida after law school.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he opposes releasing the Ethics Committee report on Gates, saying this on CNN's State of the Union. What I have said with regard to the report is that it should not come out. And why? Because Matt Gates resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member. There's a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee's jurisdiction does not extend to nonmembers of Congress. Moses comes down from Sinai carrying the tablets,

finds Mike Johnson dancing around a golden calf. Oh, sorry, Moses. How the Ethics Committee's jurisdiction does not extend to nonmembers of Congress. I'm just noticing that Mike Johnson looks like Jake Tapper's evil twin. Yeah. The same glasses, same hair.

I like that joke because it implies that there could be a God. Yeah. I just also, just imagine Mike Johnson dancing around the golden cap. Can we add some drums or something in post? You know, like it's the little, there's some posts going on.

He's like, sorry, man, it's Trump town now. I'm worshiping a golden idol. That golden idol is Trump. Can't release the committee report. I used to have ethics, think they're important. I'm a very Christian man. Believe in the rules, love the rules. Sorry, sorry man, gotta love the rules.

Is he wearing a suit still? Yeah, he's wearing a suit. But it's like, but the tie's kind of ripped and there's lots of, you know, it's like he's got, like he's ripped his pants to make shorts. Yeah, yeah. He's kind of just dancing. Sorry Moses, I'm with Trump now.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. One big problem with all of this, as Fox News reported, is that there is actually a tradition of releasing ethics reports despite the subject no longer being in Congress. The committee released their findings into influence peddling by the late John Murtha, a Democrat, after his death in 2010 and the committee published a 699 page report on allegations of bribery by Bill Bonner, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee after he left office. So now what Mike Johnson? Now that the hammer of hypocrisy has fallen. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It doesn't matter. In the meantime, Trump has begun calling senators directly to ask for their support in getting Gates confirmed. Stay strong, Bill Cassidy. Don't let that sexy caramel voice seduce you off the path of righteousness. Trump is testing his strength. Like when I tell my team I want to book Ezra Miller just to see if they'll do it. They will not.

We've got to get Ezra Miller just to see if they'll do it. They will not. We've got to get Ezra Miller on the show. Okay, I have some free time later. Additionally, RFK Jr., Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, was accused of sexually assaulting a babysitter he employed in the late 90s and responded to that allegation by saying, I am not a church boy. Yeah, I wouldn't be a church boy either if God did that to my voice. We're making fun of the voice.

Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host that Trump has selected for defense secretary was accused of sexual assault in 2017. Hegseth also asked then President Trump to intervene on behalf of three buddies accused of or convicted of war crimes, which Trump did. So I don't know what could come out that would surprise me. He has an involved father, he recycles,

he smiled when he saw a little dog. Hegseth has denied that the encounter was non-consensual, but acknowledged paying the woman a confidential settlement to keep her from filing a damaging lawsuit. It's going to be a real money saver when these guys realize that there is no longer such a thing as a damaging sexual assault lawsuit. That allegation was not known to Trump's transition team when Hegseth's nomination was announced, but Trump has told advisors he's standing by his pick. Trump's team didn't know about it. It's just a happy accident. These various allegations are serious, but they're also interesting and drawing a lot of the

attention around Trump's picks, which means we aren't talking about what it means to have someone like Gates doing Trump's bidding, targeting Trump's enemies, charged with enforcing civil rights laws and laws protecting women's access to health care, or what it means to have someone like Hegsef conducting a purge of military commanders who were seen as disloyal to Trump and executing Trump's pledge to deploy the military into our streets? Or what it means to have an anti-science crank like RFK Jr. in charge of medical research or Putin and a sotapologist in charge of the nation's intelligence agencies? Or what it means to have a billionaire purchasing access and promising trillion dollar cuts

that would require massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits on top of the promise Trump has made to half education funding, if not outright eliminate the Department of Education. We may lose these fights, but we have to have these fights as if we can win. Speaking of losing, it's time to talk about our old friends the Democrats. The race for Democratic National Committee Chair is on. On Monday, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley resigned as head of the Social Security Administration, a job we knew he had.

And through his hat in the ring, other names in the mix include friend of the show and Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wickler, Minnesota Democratic Chair Ken Martin, former mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, and current U.S. ambassador to Japan, and Guy arguing at the valet stand because he's been standing here for 10 minutes from Emmanuel. Brewing, of course, is the blame game over the 2024 loss and how the election of this new party chair is a signal about the future of the party. According to Politico, who conducted interviews with over two dozen DNC members, centrist Democrats are accusing their more progressive counterparts of being beholden to identity politics, captured by interest groups, and out of touch with large segments of American voters.

The progressives are pointing out that Kamala Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney, talked tough on immigration, avoided distancing herself from Biden on Gaza, and threatened to shoot intruders with her own literal gun, all while Americans expressed increasing distrust that Democrats were fighting on their behalf. And now, it's time for Love It's Take. You're both right. You're all annoying. We're all annoying.

It's all of our fault. Why is the ACLU sending out a questionnaire asking about an extremely rare edge case scenario about undocumented trans prisoners? Is it because law-abiding trans citizens have it too good? And why is a presidential candidate bothering to answer? Why did we convince ourselves of the bigoted notion that you appeal to American citizens who happen to be Latino, a term that flattens a vast array of cultures and experiences by taking increasingly permissive stances on immigration enforcement as opposed to embracing

the politically popular position of enforcing border security alongside generous immigration policies? And at the same time, how are we the party taking on the establishment when we're the party of Liz Cheney and Oprah? How are we the party of working people when millions are fleeing the high cost of living in places where Democrats are in total control? How are we the party of change when one side promises big sweeping tumult across basically every facet of government and we reply, I know you're frustrated.

We are going to increase the small business tax credit. It's as if voters were saying, hey, life feels worse since the pandemic ended, like nothing was totally right again. Everything is expensive and everyone seems mad. And we replied, we're going to build an opportunity economy. Trump is Glinda running like an Elphaba. We're meant to be Elphabas, but we sound like Glinda's. Right now, I am skeptical of anyone who claims to know the answer and to know that the answer is what they've always said. The DNC chair race just isn't the place to wage our grand ideological battle. We need someone in that role who will get up every day thinking about how to build an

organization that can win in all 50 states in which everyone who wants to have this fight about the future of the party is welcome. That's all. I really like Ben Wickler though, just because, but I don't want to, you know, I just think you do a great job. I just think, just, we should all be thinking, what would they want us to do and then not do that? For example, hey, would they want us to rush to give away our own rights or cut out certain

members of certain communities before they can do it? Then let's not do that. That seems to be like a good orienting principle of let's think about what they want us to do and not do it. I also like this idea that like Kamala is on the hook for this answer that she gave to an ACLU questionnaire in 2020, that becomes a national ad campaign. Then that becomes a stand ad campaign, then that becomes a stand-in for the trans issue.

First of all, we can't go back in time and say to the dozen or so Democrats running in 2020, like, hey, we're gonna look back on this and realize that we were too acquiescent to certain positions of a few different groups, because we've already moved past those positions. Like Kamala Harris ran far to the center from those positions. We already, it's like, well, one thing the Democratic parties can't do is do what it

did in 2020, but it didn't do in 2024 what it did in 2020. That's the first point. The second point is, that ad, you can call that ad a trans ad, but really it was just an ad about like Democrats not fighting for you and using this really one, this one strange example, which is not really about whether or not trans people deserve basic rights or if Americans are somehow just uncomfortable with the idea of trans people using the bathroom that comports with their gender. It's about the government spending money on undocumented prisoners in

a way that seems strange to people. And it's like, I don't want that to be the stand-in for what we should do for trans people. We have to fight for trans people. That's what makes the whole thing so ridiculous. This is about two people. This was a fight about two people. No, we should not suddenly use that to mean we need to moderate on a whole host of other issues based on absolutely no evidence. Everybody is just going off without any data, without any evidence, just sort of confirming the priors they brought to the election in the first place.

We're like dancing on the head of the pin. Meanwhile, based on nothing, just because she wants the headlines, Nancy Mace is like putting up a resolution to stop Sarah McBride from being able to go to the bathroom in the Capitol. And it's like Nancy Mace puts out this thing. Sarah McBride puts out a comment basically trying

to avoid the fight with Nancy Mace that Nancy Mace is desperate to have. Nancy Mace is like quoting every, any person talking about this. She just wants the headlines. She wants headlines so badly about going after Sarah McBride. Sarah McBride is desperately trying to not take the bait. It's like, all of these sort of centrists

who are saying on background, by the way, like, oh, it's the progressives, they've made us too woke. It's the left, they've dragged us too far to the left. There is a massive operation to make these the focus of our politics. There was literally $100 million spent on ads to make this ACLU questionnaire from 2020, the centerpiece of voters' consideration as they were making their decision. Democrats are not responsible for every position every activist takes, and it is the role of activists to take the positions that are passed where current Democrats are currently on any issue. If they didn't do

that, they wouldn't be activists. They wouldn't have a purpose. If activists agreed with every position Democrats currently took, the activism would be complete. It seems strange to me there, again on background, someone's like, I don't want to be this party of freak shows the way they've branded us. It's like, well then get better at branding. It's not, it shouldn't be a policy response to them being better at storytelling. It should be us getting better at storytelling. Yeah, like, because if you concede on whatever issue,

they're not going to stop trying to win. Exactly. Republicans are going to do everything they can to make Democrats sound extreme We should figure out what we're for why we're for it to have the broadest appeal possible But there is no getting out of the fact that Republicans are gonna try to make us Seem like something we are not that is just part of. And the instinct that some have to blame the left for that every time. Does that mean the left is always right? No. Does that mean there are times when Democrats have been too beholden to some interest on the left?

Yes. But sometimes this really is not being willing to see that we are being called something that we're not. Speaking of pretending to be something that you're not, four people were arrested in California for staging bear attacks to commit insurance fraud after police reviewed security footage of a car allegedly damaged by the animal. Said the state's Department of Insurance, upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined that the bear was actually a person in a bear costume.

And yes, there is video. Investigators determined it was nothing more than a man in a bear suit. For those of you listening at home, we're watching footage of what is clearly a human being in a bear costume crawling around inside a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost. This just in, the man in the bear costume

has been named Trump's Secretary of the Interior. And finally, New York officials announced that Peanut, the Instagram famous squirrel, who was seized and euthanized in October Did not have rabies after all Justice for peanut his body will be solemnly smothered in Chipotle's queso blanco and delivered to our of Kate jr. For consumption He's like oh Chipotle Before we go I just want to do one plug with so many horrors coming over the the transom these days. It can be hard to keep up, but everybody you should check

out Crooked's What a Day newsletter, which comes out every night, and Crooked's What a Day podcast, which comes out every morning. It's a great way to start and end your day to keep up with the news. Jane Costin does an incredible job hosting the podcast. We're really proud of how we revamp both the newsletter and the show. If you haven't checked them out in a while, check them out for the first time, crooked.com slash daily. Gotta give these other shows a run for their money, you know?

And that's what 2025 is all about. That's it from us. Thank you to Kendra, Hallie and Lazarus. This will be our last Whatta Weekday before Thanksgiving. So you will have our show Saturday and then the next show will be the Whatta Weekday after the break. Uh, so, uh, see you slots Saturday and then again after the holiday. Bye. Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Straight, shoot, tie Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it

It's back to normal sex Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Straight, shoot, tie. Love it or leave it is love it or leave it. Straight, beat, up, up, sass. Love It or Leave It is a crooked media production. It is written and produced by me, John Love It and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer, Chris Lord is our producer, and Kennedy Hill is our associate producer.

Hallie Kiefer is our head writer, Sarah Lazarus and Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, Will Miles and Mahana Del Shiki are our writers. Evan Sutton is our editor, Kyle Seglen and Charlotteocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, Will Miles, and Mohanad El-Sheikhi are our writers. Evan Sutton is our editor, Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis provide audio support. Stephen Colon is our audio engineer, and Milo Kim is our videographer. Our theme song is written and performed by Shure Shure. Thanks to our designer, Bernardo Serna,

for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast, and to our digital producers, David Tolles, Claudia Shang, Mia Kelman, and Matt DeGroote for filming and editing video each week so you can I think I think it's like um like like the bongos that would have been played at I want to say biscotti park, but I know that's wrong Zuccotti Park during occupy. I want to occupy Wall Street drums. Oh, you know, that's what I'm

picturing. It's not Biscotti. It's not Biscotti Park. It's Zuccotti Park, I think. You know? Remember that? Occupy Wall Street? Yeah, I remember that. Just crazy enough to work. Yeah, my classmate was on the cover of New York Magazine as a, as a, as like the face of Occupy Wall Street. I know, he works for Raytheon. No, I don't. I should make that up. Do you think, do you think f*** works for Raytheon? Wow.

You know the person? You both know the person? Oh, he was a legend on the Oberlin campus. Oh god, what does it take to be a legend on the Oberlin campus? I hate to think. Exactly what you're imagining. Let's bleep the name. Where is he now? I would assume still doing chicken bone puppets in the subway. Oh, well, I think that'll change things.