The impeachment trial started and Maureen's book came out and you know what there's a lot going on here in SaysWhovia right now. Buckle up buckaroos, Dan is writing this at 2 in the morning.
Look, there's a lot going on. Today Dan was consumed by the impeachment trial which officially began and Maureen was consumed by the release of her new book The Hand On the Wall which officially came out. It's just a waves hands in all directions kind of day in a waves hands in all directions kind of week, month, year, take your pick.
Anyway, Maureen wants to talk impeachment and Dan wants to talk about her book and then actual breaking impeachment news happened in the middle of their conversation and they had to puzzle through it in real time.
Come, see how the sausage is made on this episode of Says Who.
And pick up Maureen's new book! It's very good!
PS. Dan wrote all this at 2 in the morning and has to keep one eye closed to see straight so who knows if it's actually understandable. Blue Apron!
Dan: All right. We're recording. All right. [crosstalk]
Maureen: Here we are recording. This is going to be a good one, Dan. This is going to be a good one. I feel it. It's going to be good.
Dan: Whoa, boy. It's a big day. This episode of Says Who is brought to you. Through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho you help make this happen on the easy days and on days like this, you are the one that makes us be here. Thanks.
Maureen: Hey. Hey, guess what? The Hand on the Wall is out today? The final book is really-
Dan: Out today.
Maureen: It's out. It's out.
Dan: Yeah, it is.
Maureen: It's just out. So if you want it, you can just go get it. That's it.
Dan: That's exciting.
Maureen: Same tweet. So if you've gotten it, I thank you. If you're going to get it, I thank you. If you've thought about it and decided against it, I still thank you, just appreciate you. Books.
Dan: Hey, this is Dan. This might be the last time you hear from me because the impeachment trial is about to kill me. But in the interim, I will keep you informed on what's happening during it at impeachment.fyi. Why not let me die so that you can live.
Maureen: (singing)
Dan: Impeachment.fyi.
Maureen: Oh, we're such broken people. I want to hear... let me hear the noise of impeachment, Dan.
Maureen: Yap. That about sums it up.
Dan: Welcome to Says Who, the podcast that isn't a podcast.
Maureen: It's a coping strategy. How's that going? I'm Maureen Johnson.
Dan: And I am Dan Sinker. Maureen Johnson, this is a day for you.
Maureen: It is.
Dan: The Hand on the Wall is out.
Maureen: It is. Today, I have record... I'm sitting on a hotel bed in Los Angeles. I've got the hotel-
Dan: Big Apple.
Maureen: That's right. I got the TV on in front of me with on mute because it's a big day and we'll get to that. But tonight I have an appearance at the Grove here in Los Angeles and I started the day doing like Skype recordings of interviews and things in the Skype just didn't work. So it was a lot of that in the morning and then people were coming to the hotel to record stuff and yeah, you know it's good.
Dan: It's happening for you Maureen. It's a good week. Let's just stay here. Let's stay here in the hotel room with you, with the book coming out. I want to be in that glow.
Maureen: Well, how about this, Dan? Last night... I have a rule basically. When I get to a place, if the weather permits, I go out and I walk and I see the neighborhood. And now I've done enough trips to LA in the last couple of months that all the hotels have been different. But they're all in the same kind of three-mile range so that I actually know where I'm going. And so I just walked to do some errands to get some stuff. Because I flew in. Coming in was bananas. The last three hours, the most turbulence I think I've ever experienced on a plane.
Dan: Oh boy.
Maureen: It was kind of fun and I watched this movie, Ready or Not, which is great. I don't know if you've seen it.
Dan: No.
Maureen: The whole premise is this woman, it starts, it's a wedding at a big rich family's House. The bride's from... she's from an outsider. The husband is the rich family. And you find out that this family is rich because they make games and they just have one weird ritual that on the night when anyone marries into the family, you have to go to this room at midnight and draw a card to see which game you're going to play with the family. And she draws this card that says hide and seek, and you can get like [inaudible] or whatever and like that's the game you play. But if it's hide and seek, you find out that this family, they think they've done a deal with the devil and that it means that they have to hunt the bride or groom down to the death.
Dan: Wow.
Maureen: And the whole thing is then her just running because this insane family is running around with her, like trying to kill her, and it's great. So, she runs around this gothic mansion trying to escape this crazy rich family. It's a lot of fun. It is genuinely pretty hilarious. But I was watching it on a plane that was vibrating in the sky. The plane vibrated so much that even the video controller was acting on its own, like it was flickering and changing channels. And so yeah.
Maureen: I'm in LA and so I'm walking around and I get kind of head spacey weird when I flown. And so it's like you're kind of goofed up. And then I was just walking around like, "I need some food." And I stopped at this like random Instagramable fast casual place. It was like, "We're adorable. Look at our pastels and our fuzziness." Dan, it was just some random place, but you could go in, you could order a couple tacos, vegetarian options that are really good. Three different types of vegan cheeses if you wanted them. So I got these adobe tofu tacos with all this delicious toppings, fresh guacamole with plantain chips, fresh aguas frescas and a big bowl of fresh fruit spiced with chili, all of that for like 16 bucks.
Dan: I love eating in Los Angeles.
Maureen: It was so goddamn good. And it was just some random like fast casual place, but it was super duper fresh and relatively cheap for the mountain of food that came out. So you know, just saying that's something nice. Isn't it?
Dan: That is nice. Everything about Los Angeles is nice. I'm going to be out there in like two weeks.
Maureen: Show off.
Dan: Well, you're there now. Who's showing off now? Huh? Huh? Huh? Oh, boy. I feel punchy, Maureen.
Maureen: Why?
Dan: I feel punchy. And this impeachment trial has not even begun, but I... Your book is out. I've been reading your book. Guess what I discovered, Maureen.
Maureen: What?
Dan: I discovered that I can't read things. So I got my eyes checked and it turns out my eyes don't focus close anymore.
Maureen: Oh, that's not good.
Dan: I got to get like readers and all that stuff. But anyway, barring the very expensive glasses that they want me to get, I went and bought a $9 pair of reading at the Walgreens and it turns out if you can focus your eyes that words are easy to comprehend. I have been plowing through your book in the last couple of days because I can actually read it now.
Maureen: I hope you like it.
Dan: I do like it. I'm almost done. I think I've got like maybe a quarter of the book left.
Maureen: You're like, "Oh, who's this-
Dan: Last night I was like, "Keep going."
Maureen: ...this fella it's dedicated to? Oh, that's me." It's going to be a strange Says Who isn't it?
Dan: It is.
Maureen: Because we don't really have notes.
Dan: Our timing couldn't be worse.
Maureen: Timing couldn't be worse. We are recording this. It is Tuesday morning. I think. That's the thing, I'm on West coast time, so by the time I woke up here, all kinds of nonsense was happening on the East coast.
Dan: We are recording this on the morning that they will be debating the rules that the impeachment trial will be held under, which will then begin tomorrow Wednesday, the 22nd which is when this episode will actually come out. So if you are expecting a lot of impeachment trial information, I can certainly talk about these fucking rules, Jesus but the trial itself... Here's the wild thing, Maureen.
Dan: There is a more than 0% chance that by the time we record next week, the trial will be over.
Maureen: That seems smart and good.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah. It all leads to this. You know what's funny is I was setting up this morning and I was looking around. I've been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing in my work area down here in the basement and I noticed that I had written on my write-on/wipe-off board smartly in permanent ink because I am brilliant. January arrow Maureen's prediction.
Maureen: Okay.
Dan: I'm not sure. I think that probably means at one point at the start of this impeachment process, when this impeachment process was simply a glimmer in everyone's eye, I think that you said he'll be gone by January.
Maureen: Wow. To be fair, my predictions did tend to roll a bit.
Dan: I chose to write this one in Sharpie for some reason.
Maureen: All right, well then that must've been the most firm one and I mean I guess that's... I mean, you never thought we'd get here.
Dan: No, no, but I think that the chances of this trial going anywhere but rapidly through its paces, the way a bad meal works through your body is I think fairly slim.
Maureen: Well, let's break it down though, Dan, because that's all we're really doing. This episode we usually-
Dan: Do we? I just want to talk about your book.
Maureen: Usually we have a set of notes with different things and topics and different... and this, today is going to be pure... Dan, I've got the TV on right now. Adam Schiff is talking and I just want to actually talk through what I see on the screen, and that is a giant black marble desk they've got in the Senate. It's like a mountain, just fills the screen. Yeah, it's big. And that's called a impeachment report for Maureen. There's a big... Okay, Dan. What is happening today? Tuesday a day that has already happened if you're listening.
Dan: So what is happening is... Well, let's back up to last week, which is when the articles of impeachment, which were passed back in December when they finally were transferred from the House of representatives to the Senate, the House investigates impeachment and passes articles of impeachment. That then triggers a trial of the president in the Senate and that trial has one of two outcomes. Either the president is removed from office or the president is acquitted. Removal from office requires two-thirds majority in the Senate and this will be the third impeachment trial to ever happen in the Senate. And no president has ever been impeached or ever been removed from office in an impeachment trial. So, there's that.
Dan: This past weekend there were a bunch of sort of legal deadlines that both the president's... Oh, boy, the president's defense team, Maureen. That's a whole another topic to discuss, but there were deadlines that the president's defense team and the House impeachment managers, basically the prosecutors of the case had to file. All that stuff got filed on time, landed yesterday with the final stuff. And then the trial is supposed to begin today. But until late last night, there were not actually any governing rules for the trial, which is a little bit odd.
Dan: Over and over and over again Mitch McConnell has said that they will follow the basic standards of the Clinton impeachment as rules. But saying that and actually making rules are a different thing. And so late last night we finally saw the rules that McConnell was going to put forth. And as we speak, those rules are being debated so that the actual trial trial, the making arguments part of the trial can begin tomorrow.
Maureen: They have to do all of the rule stuff today?
Dan: Yeah, yeah. And the rules only have to be passed by 51 votes. And so unless something goes real wild, the Republicans could pass the rules essentially immediately other than the sort of senatorial processes of allocated time for debate and amendments and that sort of thing. But the Senate has a 53 vote majority, so getting to 51 is pretty straightforward for them. So yes, it's going to be a long day, but the outcome is... Something very weird would have to happen for the outcome to not just be, these rules are accepted.
Maureen: Okay. But let's talk about potential other outcomes. So they would need basically four people to...
Dan: Yeah, Democrats would need for people to make any real change to these rules or to change... not just change these rules in little bits but also change the overall design of the trial as it stands right now.
Maureen: So what are the rules as they've...
Dan: The rules are, they are following the broad strokes of the Clinton impeachment trial. The Clinton impeachment trial gave 24 hours spread over a certain number of days for the House managers to make their case. And then for the White House to make their defense, 24 hours each side, and then they held votes on whether or not to have witnesses. In the Clinton trial, they voted to have witnesses, they had witnesses, and then they voted to... Then they held the sort of the real vote, the removal vote, the two-thirds majority vote, not obviously Clinton was not removed from office. So, that's the basic broad strokes of what they're following. But there are some real important differences.
Dan: The first being the 24 hours of the Clinton trial was spread over three days. So three, eight hour days for each side to make their case. This is going to be two-12 hour days for each side, and the trial starts at 1:00 in the afternoon. A 12-hour day with no breaks ends 1:00 in the morning Eastern time, but they will also have breaks. So we're really talking about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when these days will end and they're going to run at least as of now, four days in a row. So tomorrow and Thursday... so Wednesday and Thursday the House will make their case and Friday and Saturday the White House will make their defense.
Maureen: Can I ask a stupid question?
Dan: Please. It's a stupid process so all questions are stupid.
Maureen: All right. There's a lot of different ways you could start asking these questions, but one why?
Dan: Which why?
Maureen: Well, why breaking news, Senate revises rules to hold arguments over three days, is the chyron that's coming up on the-
Dan: What?
Maureen: That's just come up on the screen.
Dan: Oh, boy. Because this going to be a really stupid episode. What?
Maureen: So does that mean that the 24 hours is going to be spread over three days or they're going to somehow even truncate it further as opposed to four days and do it in three days?
Dan: I don't know.
Maureen: What does it mean? Let's speculate.
Dan: They can't possibly have voted on that at this point.
Maureen: I don't know.
Dan: What does it say?
Maureen: That Senate revises rules to hold arguments over three days.
Dan: All right, let me do this.
Maureen: Let's look.
Dan: I'm trying to figure this out.
Maureen: What is happening? I think we should all-
Dan: Changes to the McConnell resolution 24 hours over each side will be spread out over three days, not two. And evidence will be automatically admitted unless someone objects. Really? Says White House reporter for the Washington post. That's a big deal. Oh, this according to two GOP aides. That was few minutes ago.
Maureen: I like keep all this in the episode.
Dan: That's the Clinton. Yeah. So, that is the Clinton model. Because that was the other fucking thing about these... so the second part of this sentence. An evidence will be automatically admitted unless someone objects. The other part of the rules that came out last night was that the evidence that accompanied the articles of impeachment from the House... So everything the fucking House did from the end of September until mid December was not going to be admitted until there was a vote after all of the opening arguments and questions happened. And then it would still be voted on whether or not to even admit that evidence into this trial, which felt like a real fucking fixes in shit. This is fucking wild. Are you serious?
Maureen: What about the arguments thing?
Dan: Yeah. I mean that is a real change. Let's see.
Maureen: As you're listening to Dan and I process this news-
Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maureen: .... I think the thing about this is whole process is bananas. It's like we're in a 70s movie about a wacky car race and there's like a souped up VW bug and a van with a face drawn on it and someone's like taped three motorcycles together and they've called it, Hoopy: The Wonder Car. We're just all wacky racing our way through this... Okay. Let's see. Resolution, trial timeline. Arguments begin Wednesday at 1:00, three days to present arguments, 24 hours total, 16 hours to ask questions. They just flashed it up and then they took it the fuck away. They're like, "Did you get that? Go, we take it."
Dan: Wait, but that... Huh? No, that's even different. Hold on.
Maureen: That's even different. This is going to be a good episode.
Dan: So, yeah, last minute rule change. One minute ago, allows cases to be presented over three days, not two. I have a real selfish reason to be very happy right now, which is I'm supposed to be at a fucking conference this Friday and Saturday and I'm like, they're going to be fucking 12 hour days. I can at least attend some of it.
Maureen: Then I guess the question I was going to ask before this guy, Ron popped up is why would you start at... There's so many questions. Say we're going to do it as previously suggested, 12 hour days, why would you start at 1:00 PM and not say-
Dan: Yes, so this is why. I actually did some research into this because I had that same question. Chief Justice John Roberts presides over the trial in the Senate-
Maureen: And he has [inaudible] in the morning.
Dan: And the Supreme Court is in session.
Maureen: I prefer [inaudible 00:24:04].
Dan: They are actually, like today they like did fucking work on two different things, today. They're doing work all fucking week. And so basically this dude who is in his mid 60s which is not old, but it's not... I used to stay up for two days straight and was just like whatever that ain't happening now and I'm not in my mid 60s. He is going to be staying up super late. Then getting up and doing Supreme Court work and then at noon heading over for the actual trial.
Dan: My understanding is that the 1:00 PM start in addition to being how it worked during the Clinton thing, which again, that's sort of the model that everyone keeps following, is because the Supreme court actually has work it's got to do and they need a chief justice to do that work.
Maureen: All right, so that's-
Dan: So he's pulling double duty.
Maureen: You thought your days were low. Do you have to preside over the Supreme court then run across towns, shoving a sandwich in your face to sit in front of an impeachment trial for eight, eight to 12 hours?
Dan: I think it's only across the street, but no.
Maureen: He's stopping at Arby's. He's getting them meats.
Dan: Man. That was a very confusing moment in time, but we are through it. All right. That's actually a big deal. That's not just a big deal for my own personal sanity, but it's a big deal for the trial itself because obviously the other half of the question, which is why fucking do this in 12 hour days, right? Like why make this so fucking short is... I got to close. I have a window open now that's got a live stream. I don't know how you're looking at the TV and talking at the same time.
Maureen: Nothing's happening. He's just kind of standing there talking.
Dan: The reason to compress it is twofold. One, the president and by extension Republicans want to wrap the trial before the State of the Union address, which is February 4th and if they followed kind of to the letter of the law, the timing of the Clinton trial, that would be very difficult. It would probably overrun the State of the Union. The other reason, I think probably the bigger reason is it is better to have two days of... Well, actually there are two reasons.
Dan: So one is it's better to have two days where the headlines are going to be against you than three, right? And then vice versa, two days, they only have two days that the headlines are for them, but doesn't matter. They'd rather minimize the sort of the blast radius of the argument being made. And then the third reason is they want this to be happening in the middle of the night. They don't want the closing arguments and that sort of thing happening when people are awake and paying attention. They want it to be brutal and draining and awful because they want people to disengage.
Maureen: Right. Now, the witnesses. The question of witnesses, how would that impact say that they vote on the rules to allow witnesses? Because that is a possibility, right?
Dan: Yeah. It's probably a bigger possibility after the, what are called opening statements, but really is the meat of the trial. The opening statements are what we are talking about right now. What will happen now over the course of three days and then three days, it's basically it's making the entire case, but they're called opening statements.
Maureen: So basically they get 24 hours to make their statement?
Dan: Yeah. To make their case. Right. So the House impeachment managers will go first. Now apparently they'll have three days to do it and then the White House will go second and they'll have three days to make their defense.
Maureen: And if there were witnesses then there would be witnesses.
Dan: So not quite. At that point, there is 18 hours probably spread over... and maybe it's 16 hours ...spread over two days. I think it's 16 hours. Likely spread over two days with where the senators can ask questions. And now this is the couple of funny, weird ass things about this trial. So one, senators cannot speak at all.
Maureen: I don't hate it.
Dan: Yeah. And that includes this question asking phase. So they submit all of their questions to John Roberts in writing and he reads them out and they get answered by the impeachment managers and the White House defense. In fact, the reason why your muted on your screen right now, Adam Schiff is talking or someone from the impeachment managers is talking is because even now debating the rules of the trial, senators can't speak. So the debate actually happens between the impeachment managers and the White House defense.
Dan: Unless, the senators really, really want to debate the rules, in which case they actually have to shut the cameras off and they do it behind closed doors.
Maureen: I like that a lot.
Dan: This is some fucking arcane ass shit, Maureen.
Maureen: I watched that shit before and I had to listen to Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes-
Dan: That's the weird thing. Late last night it was announced that Jim Jordan Devin Nunes and about six other House members are on the president's defense team. That seems to be different than the actual legal team. And I don't understand it as of yet. I think nobody understands it as of yet. But the reality is, is we will probably see the-
Maureen: Dumb faces.
Dan: ...jacketless body of Jim Jordan before this is all done. But anyway, to go back to it, the most probable time that the vote on witnesses will happen will be after opening statements and after the question period. At that point there'll be a vote on witnesses on documents. And if those don't pass, then a final vote on the actual impeachment.
Maureen: Well, let's just count days. So if it starts tomorrow, that means Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, then it will be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday plus Thursday, Friday.
Dan: Yeah. Technically they work Saturday but I would gut that they will not hold it on Saturday or at least I really hope they don't.
Maureen: So at the conclusion of those two days, then there would be a separate day in which they had a vote on whether or not to have witnesses. So, that would probably be the following Monday.
Dan: No. So hold on, let me look it up. Yes. So I guess-
Maureen: 22nd, 23rd, 24th.
Dan: Man this is a real how the sausage gets made episode.
Maureen: You guys, this is really in real time. We're all cooking up to this. 23rd, 24th... two days. So the 3rd of February, but the State of the Union is the 4th.
Dan: Is on the 4th right. And the Iowa caucus is on the 3rd. Again, technically the Senate trial is six days a week. Sundays are the only day off. Obviously they can whatever [inaudible] whatever the word is. It starts with the name. My brain doesn't work. I would be very surprised if they were to work this Saturday because that seems weird to say, okay, have three days to make your opening arguments. Then White House have one day-
Maureen: Coffee.
Dan: ...have one day on a Saturday and then do it on Monday and Tuesday. That feels weird, but who knows. We'll know more probably by the end of this day, but they could, in theory. White House makes their defense on the 27th, 28th and 29th. The question period is the 30th and 31st. They could hold the vote on the 1st.
Maureen: Okay. About the witnesses?
Dan: The whole, all the votes.
Maureen: So if they say no-
Dan: They could do everything. If they say no witnesses-
Maureen: Then they proceed right on-
Dan: ...and no evidence, then they just roll right into the actual impeachment vote.
Maureen: What are the chances that four people are going to say, "Hey, let's have some witnesses,"?
Dan: Those chances are not zero but not enormous. So there are three people who most folks point to and say, "Okay, these three are the three that if there were movement in that direction would be the three." They are Mitt Romney who has said in the past that he would like to hear from John Bolton. They are Susan Collins who has said that she feels like witnesses are a good idea and they're-
Maureen: Can I just stop and say... Oh, Susan Collins.
Dan: Yes, exactly. And Lisa Murkowski who has had similar sort of, "Witnesses, what about them?" That's three. You need four. And that's assuming that all the Democrats are going to hold together, which isn't even necessarily given. Lamar Alexander has said, who is a retiring Republican Senator who I thought was dead but isn't. He has said sort of weekly that he thinks that witnesses are a good idea. And then there is like Cory Gardner who is the Republican Senator from Colorado and is in a very, very, very shaky re-election possibility. Most likely if he were to vote against witnesses, he will not be a Senator by this fall's election.
Dan: There is that. You can find a path to four, but I don't think that it is a particularly robust path, especially when folks like Rand Paul have said, essentially, I'm paraphrasing here. Rand Paul has said, "If any of you motherfuckers vote for witnesses, then you're voting for every possible potential witness and I'm going to make you fucking vote on Hunter Biden and I'm going to make you fucking vote on the whistleblower." And basically he has threatened to put people in potentially difficult votes if they decide to vote. His belief is, and he said it is, any Republican that votes against Hunter Biden as a witness is not going to be a Senator.
Maureen: Oh, Rand.
Dan: So witnesses are a double-edged sword.
Maureen: But who would the likely witnesses be? John Bolton.
Dan: John Bolton is the A1. Following again, the example of the Clinton impeachment trial. There was a similar sort of, we're not going to vote on witnesses at the start. We're going to vote on witnesses at the end of opening, and at the end of questions. They originally didn't want to have witnesses. Then they decided, okay, we'll do it, but they decided that they would be videotape depositions instead of immediate public testimony. And the rules, at least as of last night for this said that if witnesses happen, they would be deposed first and then there'll be another vote on whether or not to have them testify publicly.
Dan: In the Clinton trial, there were three witnesses. There was... Let's see, Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal, were the three witnesses and they were videotaped depositions. And then there was a vote. And the decision was, let's just use excerpts of these videotapes instead of having public testimony for any of these witnesses. So, that's what witnesses looked like with Clinton.
Dan: Certainly John Bolton is the number one, right? Every Democrat wants John Bolton. Schumer has repeatedly said he wants Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney. And then there are two folks whose names I can't remember right away from the Office of Management and Budget that he has also said he wanted. Republicans want to fucking honor Biden and Joe Biden and Adam Schiff and the whistle blower and Nancy Pelosi for some reason. And today one of these jackasses was like, "Well, if we're getting witnesses, I want Hillary Clinton."
Maureen: Sure.
Dan: Yeah. Essentially if there is a decision that witnesses could happen that's still a number of steps away from witnesses actually happening, including the potential of voting on each individual depositions that we never see or depositions that get videotaped. And then we see that. Like there's a bunch of things that could happen with witnesses but that's not going to happen until after this Q&A period.
Maureen: All right, Dan let's skip to the end then. We've heard the whole thing. Let's say we got no witnesses. What happens?
Dan: There's a vote. They're going to vote on each article. So two votes. You need a two-thirds majority. You need 67 members of the Senate to vote to remove him from office.
Maureen: So they acquit him and then what happens?
Dan: Then the 2020 general election really begins.
Maureen: Because that's what we're building towards. So this is all... I still think this is super important to do, even though they're going to acquit him.
Dan: Yes.
Maureen: The shit had to come out and be seen. Let's see. GOP to allow House record into evidence for trial. I don't know if that's news. It's says it's breaking news.
Dan: What that means is that other part where-
Maureen: They don't have to reenter...
Dan: There won't be a vote on what the House gathered, the evidence of House gathered. It will be admitted into the trial from jump which is good.
Maureen: Let's talk about how this impacts the life of a person writing a site called impeachment.fyi.
Dan: Well, what it means right now is that we are talking and I am not watching that. You are currently tracking it closer than I am, but I will get back-
Maureen: There's just nothing... Every once in a while a PowerPoint slide comes up.
Dan: Yeah. I mean, this debate is going to be weird though clearly there have been some changes already which is good. What does it mean for me? It means that I'm going to not sleep. Eight hour days I can wrap my head around a little bit better than where the 12 hours were leading me. Like I said, there's a conference happens here in Chicago every year that is happening this weekend. It is Friday and Saturday and last night I was basically like, "Well, I'm going to miss that." Which was a bummer because I was actually really looking forward to it. Now I'll be able to go to some of that.
Dan: But it's hard, you know? And yet it's also... The thing that I keep telling people about this because they're like, "Boy, it just feels like so much work." I enjoy it a lot. So long before this podcast, long before anything, I was a very young magazine editor. I have always liked editing more than I have liked writing. And the big reason for that is editing is a fun puzzle that you get to put together to tell a story instead of having to do the awful work of writing to tell a story. This is a daily puzzle, right? Like, I have a notes file that I'm fucking collecting all this shit in, including just now like I have, oh shit, three days. Arrow points changed!
Dan: At least in previous timeframes I would sit down at about 4:35 o'clock at night, my time with my notes file and put together the actual puzzle of what is the stuff that has bubbled up to the top, right? What you're saying is actually really I think really important to how we need to start thinking about news again, which is, I said to you, well, I'm not watching and I'm missing this shit and you're more on it. And you said to me, "Nothing's happening. There's some PowerPoints going up." We are so attuned to the idea that news is like this constant assault. And one of the things that is nice about impeachment.fyi is I have to keep on it, but at the end of the day, half the shit is not boiling into an update. So the work is figuring out what actually boils up to the update. What feels like to understand what happened today you need to have this three sentence thing, right? Two sentence thing.
Dan: It turns out, even though it feels like everything is fucking cresting and breaking on us every second, when you actually step back and say this is only happening once a day, what's still important? A shocking amount is not important. And so yeah, so I assemble that puzzle. The big differences now, I don't know when I'm doing that, like 5:00 PM even on an eight-hour day is halfway through. The House stuff that was 12, 14 hour days on some of the days that they did testimony and that would get done at like 9:00, 10 o'clock at night. That at least that's when the newsletter would go out. So maybe that's what it looks like. I don't know.
Dan: Last night I was like, "Am I really writing things at 2:00 or 300 in the morning or am I waking up in the morning and sending an update that I don't know?"
Maureen: Well, how in-
Dan: I just went into a fugue state.
Maureen: You did.
Dan: I don't know what I was just saying.
Maureen: I felt you go on autopilot because in two weeks time likely impeachment.fyi will be over.
Dan: Yeah. Somebody, a friend of mine last night was like, "So what are you doing after?" And I was like, "Dude, you know me. I have no idea." I don't know what happens after, but it will be-
Maureen: What if they impeach him again?
Dan: With all of the Lev Parnas stuff that has come out in the last week, and I think a lot of the arguments that are going to be made in the opening statements are going to center around the fact that there is all sorts of new fucking weird ass damning evidence that has been uncovered since the impeachment vote. The House included all that stuff in their brief that they submitted. This weekend they have excerpts and quotes and footnotes to Lev Parnas documents, which were not part of the original impeachment vote. The White House argument is, and what a lot of Republican senators have said is nothing should be considered that wasn't available on December 18th. One obvious remedy for that is you impeach the fucker again.
Maureen: Yeah. So if they impeach him again, I don't know if it... Will you then just... then impeachment. What...
Dan: Yeah. Sure, why not? It's just keeps going.
Maureen: The chances of them impeaching him again, they don't feel great...
Dan: No, they don't feel great.
Maureen: Because it's a lot of time. And by that point we are... He's going to get acquitted because of the Senate.
Dan: And listeners, that has been the known outcome from day one.
Maureen: It would be, I mean, it's not a zero chance that he would be removed for office. It's just very close to zero. Technically it's not zero.
Dan: That would be a seismic event to have that many, 17 Republicans be like, "Fuck it. Yeah, he's out."
Maureen: What would it take?
Dan: Who knows? I have no idea what it would take. I don't know. I don't know how you move 17 senators. Even finding four is hard.
Maureen: Yeah. Like what if something comes out? Something blows open. Now, admittedly at this point what the fuck does it take? It's hard to know because as the man said in his campaign, "I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. I could just kill somebody and you would do nothing." He's not wrong.
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: So Let's just say he's acquitted. What happens then? Then we get to the work of, I think pointing at this and saying, "Look, this is what these senators did. They listened to that and they did nothing," and I feel like that could move people.
Dan: Acquittal is going to mean that everything shifts to November, 2020. That the fight for the Senate, which is only, I think there are six seats in play that are seriously in play. That becomes a major battle. The fight again for the House I think becomes... So, I think the Democrats really focus on the Senate. I think Republicans are going to focus heavily on the House. The Democrats have an uphill battle to take back the Senate. Republicans have an uphill battle to take back the House, but neither is impossible. So I think that there is a lot of that, that will come immediately out of this.
Dan: And then of course you have the presidential race. Trump is going to wear an acquittal as a, "This was always a hoax. I did nothing wrong. Look, even the Senate found that I did nothing wrong." Like that's going to be, he's going to wear that like a badge. He is going to pretty much immediately claim that he wasn't even ever impeached. That's for sure. And then we've got... Keep in mind that the first primary democratic presidential primary is February 3rd and then it just starts coming fast. A week later is New Hampshire, I think a week or maybe weeks it is after that is South Carolina and then it goes from there. Super Tuesday is like the middle of March.
Dan: But yeah, I mean the reality is that once this is done, the fucking pedal is still all the way down on the floor and we'll stay all the way down till November.
Maureen: Fun. Fun. So Iowa is the fifth? Third, sorry.
Dan: Monday the third, the day before the State of the Union.
Maureen: When I first turned this on, they were waiting for things to happen and I learned a fact. Now someone else has come to the podium. Now this must be the Republican. He's got a red tie on and he looks very... Let's see. This must be a white guy. Sorry. It must be a white guy.
Dan: It must be a white guy.
Maureen: That was a Friday slip about Republican...
Dan: Oh yeah, I'm looking at it. That's Jay Sekulow, whatever his name is. Yeah.
Maureen: So that's the president's-
Dan: President's personal lawyer.
Maureen: Okay, so that's not. By the way, I'm going to read the points on, led Trump's defense team, host of a radio TV talk, show plays drums, guitar with Jay Sekulow band. Are the actual points on the screen right now.
Dan: He's in a band with the original singer of Kansas.
Maureen: I was about to say something... Oh, yes. So when this all started, they had time to kill and they said, "Here's the thing about those 12 hour days with the no breaks," or whatever. They said they can only drink two things on the floor of the Senate. You ready?
Dan: Yeah, I'm ready.
Maureen: You can have water. So there's a page that has a little note that's like, do you want sparkling or still? And then they'll bring you water, sparkling or still, whichever one you want. You cannot have coffee. There's like apparently a room in the back where there's coffee and sometimes-
Dan: Yeah, you can go to the cloakroom.
Maureen: For snacks and she's like, "Sometimes there's a pizza," or something, "but you can only have water." And she said, "Technically you can have milk." Just let you know what I heard on the TV.
Dan: Oh, my goodness. This is the thing-
Maureen: You can have milk, you can listen The Jay Sekulow Band because I bet that's pretty fun.
Dan: It's Christian rock.
Maureen: Is it?
Dan: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Maureen: Oh no.
Dan: Yeah, yeah. I made it about 20 seconds into their cover of Jesus Is Just All right for me or whatever that song is and then I that I didn't need to look at that.
Maureen: Dan, you edited a music magazine.
Dan: I did.
Maureen: You should interview him about his band. You've got the [crosstalk] you say, look.
Dan: Please no. This is the thing that I don't understand. 12-hour day, even eight-hour day. The average age of the Senate is in the 60s. Many of the senators are quite elderly. They are going to sleep through half of this. Like, you can't talk. Breaks are minimal. You can't drink coffee or anything. There is going to be so much snoozing in the galleries.
Maureen: Just sitting there and listening to people drone on and on and on. Sounds so boring. Good. Suffer. Hope it sucks for you.
Dan: I'll be right there with them.
Maureen: Do you think that some of them will have with those Stadium Pals on?
Dan: Yeah, that's a good question. I would be very curious to know what the bathroom strategies are.
Maureen: Yeah, can you just get up and go?
Dan: I guess. I mean, I can't imagine that you couldn't, but I bet there are some that just sort of strap a little pee tube on
Maureen: Because I'm worried about movies even. I'm like, "What if I have to pee in the middle?" I pee a lot though to be fair. I'm just one of those people. I know you didn't ask, but I do. I'm like, "Ah-
Dan: I didn't. [inaudible]
Maureen: ...it's a two and a half hour movie. Well, we're going to have to figure out a point where things look dull so I can zip off."
Dan: Maureen, I want to change the topic.
Maureen: Why?
Dan: I want to come back to the fact that this is a big day for you. The Hand on the Wall is out. This is the third in three books, the first three books that I have been at your side while you have written, and I know that they were a lot of work, so I want to congratulate you on getting through it, on getting them out. They're real good. It's a big day. I think we need to acknowledge that.
Maureen: Well-
Dan: Maureen, your book is out.
Maureen: I'm in LA.
Dan: Everyone listening should own it. You're in Los Angeles. Is it sunny there? I hope.
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: It seems like their weather has been kind of funky.
Maureen: Yesterday was extremely overcast and it turns out I don't even know what to make of LA when it's overcast. It's just confusing. Just looks weird. It just looks odd. I mean, it really is. I'm like, "This place was not built for this weather." Places are built to reflect... London looks good in the gray because it's built for that. Here is not. It's like... Today's a little more... there's some clouds, but it's more blue sky. I'll be at the Grove tonight with Billy Jensen.
Dan: You sure will.
Maureen: You be listening to this, it's done, but you can still come to Denver. You can come to Oxford Valley, PA over the weekend. To Wilmington, Delaware, then into Avid Bookshop in Athens on Monday.
Dan: Yep. Thursday, Denver. Saturday, Christiana, Delaware. Sunday, Oxford Valley, Pennsylvania. Monday, Athens, Georgia.
Maureen: Yep.
Dan: Be there.
Maureen: Oh, I hear little Spotty.
Dan: Yeah, I think the mail must be delivered right now. It was her birthday on Sunday.
Maureen: Spotty.
Dan: She is seven somehow. I don't know how that happened. That kind of freaked me out. Seven years old, we got her a bone that was filled on one side with peanut butter and the other side with jelly and she pretty much thought she'd died and gone to heaven.
Maureen: Oh, Spotty. Best birthday ever.
Dan: Yeah, she has been working that bone for like two days straight now. I had to take it away at night because she won't sleep.
Maureen: Just chews on it. When my husband, Oscar was away in Sweden last week, he flew back on Saturday and on Saturday night, Dexi woke up barfing as always happens before I go away.
Dan: Always.
Maureen: We think she like maybe got [inaudible] on her paws and licked it. That's my guess. And it kind of upset her stomach. We're not really sure, but so it's always happens that before I have to go away, my dogs get sick, without fail. So I was like check. So we did a lot of... we wrapped her up in a fuzzy blanket and we fed her rice and she was very snugly. I've been passing... we've been like ships in the night. He's in Sweden, I'm around the country, the dog's barfing. It's classy.
Dan: That is the high profile life of a bestselling author right there.
Maureen: People are like, "Book tour, what happens?" I'm like, "Well, you kind of fly around you. You spend time in hotels, your Skype doesn't work a bunch. You have to go down and be like, 'Do you have any food here?' And then the hotel will be like, 'We have like an eggs extravaganza in the morning.' I'm like, 'Do you have anything else?' They're like, 'That's it. That's all we do.' I'm like, 'What about the person that doesn't eat eggs, like yours truly?', and they're like, 'You're shit out of luck.' I'm like, 'Cool. That's a good story.' So then you go back up to your room and you fucking sit there and stare at the wall going, 'No one will feed me.' Then you have to wander the streets and you get some tacos from some Instagram shack. You eat them and you say, 'Why are these fucking tacos so good? So easy to get. Makes me mad.'"
Maureen: If you find yourself in-
Dan: Why does that make you mad?
Maureen: ...in my predicament then what you do is you probably need food brought to you, and that's why our podcast is brought to you by Blue Apron, and if you're in a hotel room and you need to make something to eat... This impeachment.fyi is brought to you-
Dan: Mother fucker.
Maureen: Sponsor of impeachment.fyi Blue Apron, you get packages. There'll be a container with a pinch of salt in it-
Dan: This episode of Says Who is made possible by you.
Maureen: ...you get single carrot.
Dan: Do not buy any of this shit. By you.
Maureen: Jay Sekulow just left. He just fucked off.
Dan: Well, they're all going to take turns.
Maureen: Now, there's another guy-
Dan: I don't know how you can have a thing on your TV and talk at the same time. That would make me just die.
Maureen: It's just interchangeable white dudes just standing in front of [crosstalk]
Dan: It's things moving. I would just be like... staring at it. Says Who.
Maureen: I know dudes for a long time just be like, "It's just the guy talking. It's just a guy talking. I don't have to pay anything."
Dan: Anyway, Says Who is made possible about you through your support of our Patreon. Patreon.com/sayswho. I have been keeping our Patreon out up to date on the success story of my bonsai tree, Maureen. I need to take another photo and get it up there. It is covered in leaves now. I did not kill that thing.
Maureen: You did not kill it.
Dan: It is coming back stronger than ever and it is never leaving my sight again. I'm going to just make a little pocket for it and carry it around all the time.
Maureen: Are you going to take to trips with you?
Dan: Yeah, I think we'll take it out this summer for sure.
Maureen: Oh, is it going to come-
Dan: Yeah, it's going to come in the trailer.
Maureen: It's going to come in the Airstream.
Dan: It's going to come along. We found homes for it the last two summers. But I think I want that thing closer. So yeah, I think it's going to come along. Anyway, you can find out the latest on our bonsai tree, maybe some updates from the road from Maureen and more at patreon.com/sayswho. If you join at any level, you can get access to posts on the page around, but if you join it at higher levels, you get more things. And I have been on a mailing frenzy to get all those things out.
Maureen: First of all, I brought all the equipment you sent me. So I have the little video [crosstalk 01:02:22]. I also brought Says Who prints, Says Who stickers and Says Who pins. I'll keep them under the table. So if you come up and say, "Hi," and say, "I like Says Who," I'll reach under the table and make you happy. Now that came out weird. You don't say that. You don't say that. What I just said.
Dan: No, but I will say that our theme music is performed by Ted Leo. Our logo was designed by Darth. We love you Darth.
ACS: I spent a lot of the time under the table.
Dan: Amy Carter's shoe!
ACS: [inaudible] How's it going?
Dan: It has been a while since we've heard from you.
ACS: That's right. I've been busy.
Dan: Yeah, you've been busy in Iowa?
ACS: I've been busy on the road with my man.
Dan: Your man, Joe Biden working-
ACS: Yeah. I go to door to door. I say, "Vote for my man or I'll fuck you up. I'll fuck you up. I'll come for you in the night." And they say, "What are you doing here?" I say, "I fuck you up. You vote for my man. You vote for my man. He's looking good. He's looking good."
Dan: Yeah. Is he? I feel like he's slumping in the polls.
ACS: Ah, they way he slumps. I know they way he slumps. Those balls, they hang low. You know what I mean?
Dan: Oh god. I do know what you mean. I do and I don't want to know what you mean but I do know what you mean.
ACS: The pendulum swings my friend. It's not the only thing. Tick-tock like a clock, like one of those grandfather clock, back and forth. You know what he does sometimes-
Dan: No.
ACS: ...he could kind of play racquetball with himself. That's how he keeps in shape.
Dan: I'm sorry. Everyone, I'm sorry.
ACS: You got to vote for him. He's so hot.
Dan: Oh, god. You can contact us at Says Who Podcast on twitter-
ACS: Did you hear his new interview?
Dan: No.
ACS: How he used to get in the pool and all the kids would come and comb the hair on his legs. I like it.
Dan: Is that true?
ACS: Yeah, it is.
Dan: Oh, god no. Why?
ACS: Because it's...
Dan: Why would he say that?
ACS: Mama like.
Dan: Oh, boy.
ACS: Bye.
Maureen: Yes. She's correct that he did and I don't know... It looks to me like it's taken from the Corn Pop interview because it looked like the same setup and also it's again a pool based story in which he's like, "I'm so hairy that I'd be a... and the kids would come and like comb the hair on my legs." That happened and that is a real thing that exists.
Dan: I don't want any of that to exist. I want you though to contact us that Says Who podcast on Twitter, to email at hey, that is H-E-Y @sayswhopodcast.com. You can join the discussion on Facebook where it is always a good time at /groups/sayswhovians. Our Facebook group is moderated by Janice Dillard, and had a lot of pets in the mix this week. That was fun.
Maureen: These fun Trump, Biden debates are going to be lit.
Dan: Oh my god. Please no. Spread the word, subscribe and please leave stars and reviews on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts and you can join us next Wednesday, January 29th, potentially the day the impeachment trial ends, but maybe not for our next episode, but before that this week, catch Maureen on the road, Thursday in Denver at the Tattered Cover on Colfax, Saturday in Christiana, Delaware at a bookstore-
Maureen: Barnes & Noble.
Dan: There you go. Sunday in Oxford Valley, Pennsylvania-
Maureen: Barnes and noble.
Dan: And Monday in Athens, Georgia.
Maureen: Yeah. Starting in what? September, August. When will these debates start? These Trump, Biden debates?
Dan: I mean, it is adorable that you think there will be debates, but if they start they will be... I think they will be in late September into October.
Maureen: They are going to be so goddamn weird.
Dan: No, I don't want that.
Maureen: Nothing will be weirder than these debates.
Dan: If they happen. Anyway, buy The Hand on the Wall from your favorite bookseller and from my basement in Chicago I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen: From Los Angeles, California recorded live, I'm Maureen Johnson.
Dan: And this has been Says Who.
Dan: I got to go watch this shit now.
Maureen: I'm off and I'll meet my publicist and then I got think.
Dan: You got to go do your shit. Your book is out. Go buy her book.