Lovett or Leave It - What a Weekday: Ties, Lies, and YouTube Guys

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

What a Weekday! returns to debate the pros and cons of this week's new battleground polls, Kamala Harris’s policy roll out, rightwing propaganda about pets, and, of course, for better or for worse, the most important man in America, Nikocado Avocado. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

It's the hottest it's ever been and it's so fucking hot. 118 in Topanga. It's disgusting. My lights have been flickering ominously for a couple days. Where are you in? Hollywood. You're here. Yeah. Yeah. The central air unit, a roof, and a water heater are the three things, while I

desperately want to be a homeowner, they're the three things that I dread about home ownership. I dread bugs. That. I dread bugs. That's a good one. It's leaks, a leak, a leak. Just a leak will change your whole week. ["Sweet Homework"] And we're back. I'm here with producer Kendra and writer Sarah Lazarus.

Halle had a scratchy throat, so we locked her in her isolation cell. We sent her home. Yeah. Let's get into it. What a weekday. Nice. Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris

will face off in their first and potentially only presidential debate this evening in Philadelphia. At this very moment, city officials are greasing down the lamp. I think you grease them up. Yeah, grease them up. Yeah, you can grease them up or down. Anyway, city officials are greasing up the lamppost to make sure an overhyped Doug Emhoff

can't shimmy up them. I guess that's why you were greasing them down, because he was going to shimmy up. Oh, it's the writing. It's the writing. It's that balance. It's that balance. Isn't that a funny thing about writing that we don't like hearing the same word too close to it?

No, it makes us upset. It makes us upset. It doesn't make sense. It really, reading yourself out loud, even if you're not performing it, it really does help. Well, for sure. Oh, is that a dig at us? No, no, no, I'm saying that it's something

like I've always told myself, you should read it out loud, even if you're not, it's not to be read out loud. No, I, oh, absolutely. Anything you're ever, any, if you're writing an op-ed, if you're writing a book, whatever it is, read it out loud. But it is a funny thing, like almost like, like a evolutionary memory of being sung, of like singing, like, or like making noises that like we don't like to hear the same grunt sound too close to itself. Like it doesn't it doesn't change the meaning.

It just sounds like a mistake even when it's not. Yeah. Right. But even that like just using the same word twice, there's nothing substantively wrong with it. It just rings poorly in our ears. It's a melodic thing. It sounds like a mistake. And so now we but but because we know customarily you don't do that, it usually is a mistake, and so we judge it as a mistake. But I wonder if we could change that, you know? We'll be pioneers. It starts on this very show. I mean, sometimes repetition, like if it's purposeful, people...

It has to be purposeful, then... Something to think about. While the mics will be muted, unlike this one, our campaign official told reporters that a pool would be there to report on whatever the candidates say into muted mics and that the network may unmute both microphones if there's significant crosstalk or, in a less likely scenario, banter. Harris has spent most of the last four days at an intensive debate camp at a hotel in

Pittsburgh. In the mornings, hours of high-pressure debate practice. In the afternoon, archery and s'mores. Trump, meanwhile, spent most of the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster participating in policy sessions with his aides rather than traditional debate practice. Trump is at Montessori Debate School,

learning how to debate through hands-on activities like yelling at the help in golf. The idea that he's in policy sessions. Give me a fucking break. He's just posting all those aides watching him post. Yeah, it's, at the same time though, there is like an Expectations game that they play well, which is like, he doesn't do traditional debate prep.

He does Policy Sessions. Everybody knows that's a joke. The people saying he's in Policy Sessions knows it's a joke and it lowers the expectations on him even further. He's such a, such a sour grapes guy that like, if he doesn't study so that when he, if he fails the test, it's because he didn't study and if he succeeds, it's because he's brilliant. Anyway, ahead of the debate,

the New York Times and Sienna College released a new poll that found Harrison Trump to be neck and neck as the enter the home stretch. It was I believe 48 Trump 47 Kamala. These numbers are about these numbers are all about how you look at them. If Joe Biden were still a candidate, being within the margin of error would have been great news. We'd be carrying him around our shoulders very very carefully. The time Sienna poll found that 28% of likely voters said they need to know more about Harris while only 9% said they need to know more about Trump.

I will say that that only though is doing a lot of work because imagine being part of that 9%. Imagine not knowing enough about Trump. Imagine not hearing his voice in your head more clearly than that of your own father. That sounds incredible. 9% need to know more about Trump. Two thirds of those voters who said they needed to know more about Harris, that 28%, wanted

to learn more about her policies specifically. Hey, have you tried looking it up? No? Okay. Look, I won't dwell on this for the next seven weeks because there's no point. But just amongst us girls here, everybody treats the I need to know more crowd with undue reverence because the media impundence don't want to be seen as elitist and the campaigns and politicians want the votes.

And practically speaking, we just need to figure out how to persuade these people. So everybody kind of skips the step of pointing out that she's a mainstream Democrat, Trump is a far right nationalist Republican, and whatever interesting policy proposal she offers, whatever way she can win the news cycle by speaking to specific concerns, and she should do that, and I'm glad she's doing that.

The vast majority of these undecided voters, or voters considering whether to vote at all, would be far better off under Kamala Harris, even if Trump were a normal Republican, and he's not. And basically what politics is right now is a Democratic apparatus trying to explain this, a Republican and right-wing apparatus trying to explain this, a Republican and right-wing apparatus trying to deny this, and nonpartisan media teaching the controversy in a way that turns the simple and static into complicated and dynamic because complicated and dynamic is more interesting to talk and write about.

But the very idea of complexity and nuance when there really isn't creates space for rationalizing a vote for Trump when it is indefensible. But that's for another day. For now, we need to help these people understand that Kamala Harris will cut middle-class taxes, make housing more affordable, cap drug prices, create opportunities for young people to start small businesses, and protect access to abortion. We must be the Google we want to see in the world. And we're just going to be very nice.

And we're going to be very welcoming. And we're going to keep these less helpful thoughts to ourselves for seven weeks, right? We're gonna be very nice. We're gonna be very welcoming. And we're gonna keep these less helpful thoughts to ourselves for seven weeks, right? Mm-hmm. Also she has a policy page on our website now. And good news, we now have this tool as Kendra points out to help these information hungry voters. The Carers Campaign added that policy page

to our website on Sunday. Let's check it out. Oh, come on. For those listening at home, we've reached our free policy page limit. Kudos to whoever did that. A little joke about how you have to subscribe to every website now. The page titled A New Way Forward outlines

Harris's agenda on the economy, foreign policy, and reproductive rights, among other planks. The economic portion details Harris's plan to cut taxes for more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans by restoring an expanded child tax credit among other planks. The economic portion details Harris's plan to cut taxes for more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans by restoring an expanded child tax credit

and the earned income tax credit. Compare this to the economic plan on Trump's website, an AI rendering of Elon Musk giving a cyber truck to a crying barefoot orphan. And I think we have a photo of that. Oh, come on. That's just a parakeet with balls. It's a songbird.

Taking that in. AI gives us so much. What'd you say? AI gives us so much. I'm glad it's blowing the oceans. It's worth it. Look at that. Sure, to make this image,

you have to use the energy of Denmark. That is beautiful. The page also outlines Harris's policy to provide down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers and extend Biden's cap on insulin and out-of-pocket health care spending. It's great to have this information in one place, but all of it was previously available. There are no surprises on the Kamala Harris policy page.

She didn't suddenly announce a ban on leaf blowers like I specifically asked her to. Meanwhile, as Kamala Harris is rolling out her economic policies, Donald Trump has been laying out his second term agenda, destroying his enemies and vilifying immigrants. On Saturday, the former president promised to oust undocumented immigrants from the U.S., said Trump. And you know, getting them out will be a bloody story. They should have never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them. Nobody checked. Were they criminals? Were they from jails? Okay, sure. But does Kamala Harris's policy page go into enough detail on tax deductions for small businesses?

On Monday, JD Vance ramped up the racist propaganda and publicly accused Haitian immigrants in Ohio of eating people's pets. Excuse me, I'm not Haitian, replied an irate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Said Vance, months ago I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where's our borders are? Vance continued, cats and dogs are here to be eaten by decent, hardworking American citizens.

As an aide, tried to grab the phone out of his hands. This is a completely manufactured story. Basically, there was a news report about one woman in Ohio who seems to be an American citizen with some serious mental health problems who did kill and eat a cat. That does seem to have happened. OK. It's Ohio. It's not the craziest thing I've heard. There are people, it's not tied to their ethnicity or background, whatever her ethnicity or background may be, this person did something terrible and there was news about it.

Then right-wing influencers took that story and decided to say that Haitian immigrants in a very different part of Ohio are eating pets. It's like pure racist propaganda against a community of legal Haitian immigrants whose only crime was coming to a town in Ohio to find work in the wake of turmoil and the earthquake in Haiti. I've seen people compare this to how we made up that JD Vance fucks couches. These claims are in some sense equally unproven, but one stokes anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia, and the other is funny and true. Lots of Republican elected officials jumped on the bandwagon. Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz. During a hearing Monday, Marjorie Taylor

Green also leapt onto the dog pile. Can we add in that there's Haitian illegal migrants taking over towns, eating people's pets. But yet there's not a government show of force against that. Look at these people spreading this rumor. It's a real who's who of people who give off the distinct vibe that they know what cat tastes like. Does it surprise me that some random right wing asshole on the internet found this story decided to

Make up a connection to Immigrants in Ohio or that sleazy outlet like the New York Post would jump on it in some Disgusting way like that doesn't surprise me. It does surprise me a little bit that people like Ted Cruz and JD Vance would start explicitly saying specific immigrants are eating pets. Not because I think it's beneath them, but because I thought they were a little more, I thought they recognized the value of being a little bit more subtle in their racist politics. Do you think it's a panic thing that they're worried about the election generally and so they're just going as extreme as they can?

The Haitian American community isn't, doesn't seem to me to be large enough. I mean, it's certainly there, there are quite a few Haitian Americans in the country and the West Indian population, when you expand that, is like much larger. But this just doesn't, they weren't even on my like bingo card of people to target. I mean, I think it's that they're in Ohio, the story was in Ohio, they are a convenient stand in

for immigrants as a whole, and so it's just an anti-immigration. Yeah, it's interesting to me because I've never heard them so specifically be able to like sort of delineate different groups of black people. Usually we're just a monolith. Well they have like there are some politicians who have said versions of they're turning Minneapolis into Mogadishu right going after like African immigrants. I think we see the connection between Haitian immigrants and African immigrants. And then a lot of xenophobic propaganda about people coming from Central America.

But yeah, this is not a group that's been specifically targeted before. I do think there's something happening with their filter. The Republican filter is breaking a bit because it's both a strength and a weakness that they have this right-wing propaganda apparatus because obviously it is immunity against losing any of these people, right? Like anyone inside this bubble is protected against learning facts that are bad about Donald Trump, good about Kamala Harris. But that conversation

is so closed off. I think not realizing that JD Vance had all these liabilities around what he'd been saying about women, it's whether, look, is it possible that they're so incompetent they didn't have it? Sure. But I do think more likely they're aware of some of it, but didn't understand the cost of it. And this too feels to me like a conversation amongst a group of people who are only talking to each other.

Like Ted Cruz sharing the article with like, ha ha ha, this is so funny. Like the Republican parties posting pictures of Donald Trump protecting a cat. Like it's for no one. Most people won't have heard this story. Most people find this story hard to believe. It's just not plausible to people.

So I do hope that like, this is the downside of their bubble, which is they end up speaking in a language that doesn't really make sense to people outside of it, but I don't know. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. But it wasn't just immigrants that Donald Trump promised to target in his second term. In a true social post, the former president promised to prosecute any enemies he finds guilty of, quote, rampant cheating and skullduggery this election season, including lawyers, political operatives and donors.

Sorry, but skullduggery isn't in Trump's voice. I can't picture him saying skullduggery, neither can you. But he's accountable for the post, even if he didn't write it, just like me with this joke. All right, which one of you cock-a-lorems wrote this? Is it funny if it's like, which one of you girly pops, just like some other word that you would never say? Yeah.

Skullduggery feels very Roger Stone for some reason. It's very strange. Continued Trump, it was a disgrace to our nation. Therefore, the 2024 election, where votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny. And when I win, those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,

which will include long-term prison sentences so that this depravity of justice does not happen again. Guess we'll just have to cheat enough so he doesn't win. Am I right? I mean vote. I mean vote and so forth. In the post, he talks about how this will unfortunately involve prosecuting a lot of people.

And there's just been this online debate about like, is the media talking about this enough? And maybe that's true, but also like, it is amazing to me the way in which like, we all collectively shrug at this kind of rhetoric from Trump right now that we've like grown accustomed to it. And because he basically didn't do this during his first term,

I think people don't truly believe that he would do it during his first term, I think people don't truly believe that he would do it in his second term, either because he doesn't mean it, or because even if he does, he lacks the competence to enforce it. But I don't know, doesn't seem like a risk to me that's worth taking. No, it's definitely not a risk that's worth taking.

Is part of it possibly because he is talking like this on outlets like Truth Social, which we don't necessarily see as, A, I don't see it because that's not a space I inhabit. And then when it does get reported on, there's still enough people who are like, what is this platform? But it doesn't feel like a real place where he's talking.

I don't know. I don't know. It just sits strangely next to media complaints about Harris not having enough policy available on her website. It's just a strange contrast of like, this is what we're talking about. And this is what the other candidate is saying on a daily basis. Yeah, I think it just goes back to what we were talking about earlier, which is just the politics of this moment are simple and obvious and not changing.

He is a dangerous clown. She is a competent mainstream Democrat. Which is boring if you're an op-ed writer who has to churn something up. That's what it is. Yeah, it's tough to make something of it because he shows us who he is every single day without fail. And the other part of it too is like in terms of media bias, like no, I do not believe the mainstream political coverage is biased towards Kamala Harris, but it does, and I made this point before, treat Kamala Harris as the protagonist and Donald Trump as the antagonist.

And so she has agency and her decisions and choices are scrutinized because she is the main character and Trump is the villain. And so the villain is expected to be villainous and so his villainy is not treated as interesting. And then she is expected to be perfectly heroic. So Trump can say these things aren't true social and it is expected, she is expected to do far more interviews, to be much more straightforward, to lay out our agenda as specifically as possible. And any failure to, any, like if the polls are showing them tied, it is her fault that the polls are tied.

It is not the fault of us as a collective as, and I don't even just mean like the media, right? Like because political coverage is around strategy and tactics as opposed around strategy and tactics, as opposed to outcomes and policy, even if those policies are covered and people will come to find out what they are, but they're really a means to securing votes

and seeing how it's playing. If Kamala Harris is down in a poll, that is seen as a strategic challenge to her. It is rarely imagined like if you went on CNN and a reporter said, due to a collective failure of the American people to understand the stakes of the election, Kamala Harris remains down by one point. It's inconceivable that anybody would talk about politics in that way, even though I think it's a reasonable way to view what's happening. Due to a kind of solipsistic and cynical view of the world, like whatever you would want to say.

Like that just isn't, that isn't the cultural language of politics right now. What's interesting is that is how we talk about elections in a historical sense. When we talk about things happening in the past, we talk about what the country as a whole was thinking and the mood and the misconceptions of the public. We don't talk about that in the present

or in the future tense. Right. And like, I think that in the present or in the future tense. Right. And I, and like, I think that's a mix of pragmatism. I think it is also a fear of being arrogant and wrong, which I think is reasonable. Yeah, but here we are. Meanwhile, in the realm of old men who people actually liked, James Earl Jones, the iconic voice behind Darth Vader and the Lion King's Mufasa, as well as the star of dozens of beloved films and the voice of CNN... and the voice of CNN, died this week at the age of 93.

Congrats to the new voice of Darth Vader, Glenn Powell. Come on. That sucks. He doesn't need that. Nobody with abs should get voice work. That sucks. And congrats to the estate of James Earl Jones for their lucrative contract to generate an AI version

of James Earl Jones to be used in perpetuity by Disney. And thank you for the few days of consideration about whether it's right or wrong so you can feel better about ultimately getting to the inevitable yes because, kaching. I wonder if he is, his voice is in the Mufasa movie that's coming out. That's interesting, I don't know.

Yeah, I, no idea. It's actually Glenn Powell. I think. Glenn Powell's Mufasa, that's crazy. But I bet he's good. But we can't help but like him. So charming. And in a new video, YouTuber Nekokado Avocado revealed that he had lost 250 pounds, but

concealed it by secretly pre-recording content for two years. You can lose weight without incessantly talking about it. Uh oh, looks like I have some every single person I know to apologize to. The YouTuber is best known for making mukbang videos in which he eats a tremendous amount of food on camera, which is way less dignified than what I do on YouTube every week. Stick my head into the swirling clogged toilet

of American politics and take a fat swig. Let's take a look at the video titled, Two Steps Ahead. Two steps ahead. I am always two steps ahead. I am always two steps ahead. This has been the greatest social experiment of my entire life. Just so everybody understands, what we're looking at here is a thin man wearing a panda hat to cover his face. This is a social experiment that does finally answer the age-old question,

what's on YouTube now? Is this what's, thought it was makeup tutorials. In the reveal, which has over 31 million views, Nikocado said he had enlisted other YouTubers in his ruse strategically uploading videos across social media platforms and shaving his head so his fans wouldn't recognize him in public. But again I ask, what is the experiment? Let's take a look at this video, which again is about a YouTuber hiding his weight loss

from his viewers. And you will continue to consume these stories about me, year after year after year for as long as I tell the internet that I am the villain stories that permeate and linger and infect the minds of the ants Influence the ants. Brainwash the ants. You are the ants. I do think we should be arrested. I don't know for what yet. I was going to say I would hate his opinions on the last Jedi.

That's the only footage I've seen of this man and I know that he has bad opinions on that. Are we just all gonna be a society of fucking jokers? Is everybody gonna be the Joker now? We're all just becoming the Joker? That's how people drive. Everybody's driving like they're the Joker. I don't know. Am I jokerfying?

Are we all jokerfying? Is that the future? No Batmans, jokers all the way fucking down? What is this? We don't have the energy to be the Joker. Unfortunately, our billionaires aren't doing the work. No, they're's jokers all the way fucking down? What is this? I don't have the energy to be the Joker. Unfortunately our billionaires aren't doing the work No, our billionaires, they're becoming jokers too. Elon Musk is a fucking joker. They're all jokers. It's jokers all the way down It's jokers all the way fucking down. It's all jokers. What is this? What is the experiment? What's the null hypothesis? What's?

What is it? What are the fucking... who got the placebo? I'm happy that he... Give me the fucking placebo. I'm out. I'm out. I don't want... whatever this experiment is, I don't want to be a part of it. Well, we weren't... had you heard of this person before two days ago? You brought this up. You brought the star attention. We weren't part of the... I was not part of the experiment. I could have gone my whole life never seeing this. Never heard of this person before.

People need to know this is happening. We're covering this. We're not part of the experiment. We're covering the experiment. We're the New England Journal of Medicine. This is a peer review. This is a, yes. What, I get like, there is something.

The experiment is that if you don't show people a current video of you, they won't know what you currently look like. Which is perfectly, more people actually should invest in that, I think. Less people on the internet. I think everyone should stop making videos, period. I do think, like, there is something about, like, so he makes videos that are about, he was heavy, and he makes videos about eating a ton of food, and he wants to make a change. I have to imagine making a big life change in front of all these people over time would

be awful, just awful, because you have people who think they know you, try, like, I think obviously he must be getting all the time, terrible, mean, awful comments all the time. But even putting those aside, I imagine even worse are the people who claim to be fans saying they want to help him, telling him why he needs to lose weight, how he can lose weight, what they tried, what they did. Then if you start losing weight, you start hearing encouragement that's also kind of discouraging. Like I imagine that would be very difficult. So I suppose it's an experiment in losing weight without having to do that. But I really, it's more like the word

experiment I think is not really fitting here. I think he chose to lose a bunch of weight without having to do it in public, which is, I think, an interesting decision to make. But to reveal it like your Dr. Evil is insane. But it does seem like he has a lot of issues with his viewers. He seems quite angry. Yeah. And again, I know nothing of this man's history, But it does seem like he has a lot of issues with his viewers.

He seems quite angry. Yeah. And again, I know nothing of this man's history, so maybe they did something to him. I don't know. But also you can just log off and do something else. And that's also part of it. Well, right, but can you? Because this is a great job market out there.

Yeah, that's true. It is a white great job market out there. Yeah, that's yeah, it's true. It is a white hot job market. But I think that like when you're making YouTube money from eating fast food, that's a great gig. That's a great gig. It's also kind of strange to think about because part of what his videos were about

were consuming a lot of food was he, how is he eating? He's making videos where he's eating a lot. It's Was he, how is he, how is he eating? You know, he's making videos where he's eating a lot. It's just a pit bucket. That was really interesting to me. The fact that he made, he said he made two years of content and then took the two years offline.

That period of filming the two years of content must have been disgusting, right? To fit all of that into a, into a, assume not a two year period of time. Yeah. I mean, he's sort of just been on sabbatical. That sounds nice. Yeah. Was he on the island?

Ha ha ha ha. Before we go, Ha ha ha ha. Get out your terrible towels if you guys still do that, because Love or Leave It is coming back to Pittsburgh. Join us on Friday, October 4th at the Roxy and just one month out from the most important elections of our lives again. We'll be joined by playwright R. Eric Thomas. He was on our Philly show

the last time we were in Pennsylvania and he was awesome. We have a congressional candidate Janelle Stelson and lowly favorite comedian Matteo Lane joins us. Grab your tickets now at crooked.com events. Also very exciting news, Crooked's Daily podcast What a Day has a brand new lead host, former Vox senior politics reporter and New York Times opinion contributor, Jane Kostin. Everybody, do me a favor, subscribe to What a Day. It's a quick listen.

It gives you curated headlines, in-depth reporting, analysis about the stories that shape how you live, work, and you know, fuck around. Tune in Mondays through Saturdays to get the top news and stories that matter most, all in just 20 minutes. It's on YouTube, it's in your podcast feed. So search for what a day to watch it or listen to it and subscribe everywhere so you never miss an episode, whether for your ears or for your face, you know?

And that's our show. Thank you to Sarah, thank you to Kendra. Sorry to Hallie. Hope you feel better soon. Feel better, Hallie. She's gonna be good. Thank you to Sarah. Thank you to Kendra. Sorry to Hallie. Hope you feel better soon. Hope you feel better, Hallie. She's gonna be good. She'll be fine. Yeah.

Coming up this week, we've got Jane Fonda, Zachary Quinto, Kumail Nanjiani, and Louis Vartel joining us for a big show. So check that out this weekend. See you Slut Saturday. Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Straight shooter

Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Respect it or no sex Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Straight shooter 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 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. ["Dissolve It or Leave It"] ["Dissolve It or Leave It"] And finally, in a new video, YouTuber Nicocado, YouTuber Niccato Avocado, hold on, let me do it one more time. YouTuber Niccato, Niccocato, Niccocato Avocado. Niccocato Avocado.

That already sucks. Like I wanna pronounce it right, but also it just doesn't matter. And in a new video, YouTuber Nicocado, Nicocado Avocado, Nicocado Avocado.