Look. Mistakes were made.
Maureen and Dan are fine. Just fine. Once Dan duct tapes this mic, and Maureen makes sure she hasn’t taken the dog’s medication, they’ll get right to it. Because things are great. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Because today’s SaysWhovia is RETRO. Russian interference? Check. Steve Bannon arrested on a boat? Check. Weird tapes with people talking shit about Trump? Check. Kellyanne Conway ripping her go bag from under the floorboards and disappearing into the night? Check!
It’s everything we thought 2017 would be, but now with a crunchy outer layer of 2020! And again, Dan and Maureen are fine.
Get into this boat. We’re beating on against the current events, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Dan:
All right, we're recording.
Maureen:
Have you already started? Let me see. Started.
Dan:
Yeah, started.
Maureen:
[inaudible 00:00:08]. I like ... You have to keep this, Dan, because I want everyone to hear our real Dan this week.
Dan:
My microphone just fell off. I caught it as it was falling thankfully, but it ... I still don't understand how it fell off. It's like there are holes in this thing that shouldn't be there.
Maureen:
We just want to thank our patrons right now for keeping us duct taped together.
Dan:
I literally just zip tied another microphone to my microphone stand, so that's great. All right, this episode-
Maureen:
The image I have of you right now is you're in your basement, but you've created your own little space inside of a box. You've got microphones duct taped to your face, and your eyes are like little pin points from sitting in the dark, and just the glow of the screen is lighting up your glasses.
Dan:
I'm going to DM you a picture of my rig right now.
Maureen:
Oh.
Dan:
There.
Maureen:
I'm excited.
Dan:
It's coming your way.
Maureen:
Let me look here.
Dan:
It's coming your way.
Maureen:
Dan, are you a mad scientist?
Dan:
The other thing that's fun is this microphone stand is just too high for my face. This microphone stand is for a much heavier microphone so it keeps going up.
Maureen:
Dan, I mean this in the nicest way possible, you look like you're recording from inside a meth lab.
Dan:
It's sort of. I mean, mostly what you're commenting on is the normal state of things here. I like this. This is good. This episode of Says Who is brought to you by you-
Maureen:
It's brought to you by meth.
Dan:
... through your support of our Patreon, and something. Through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho, where every Sunday of quarantine you get an extra episode of Says Who because we are smart people because quarantine is never going to end, patreon.com/sayswho.
Maureen:
See you tomorrow.
Dan:
God damn it.
Maureen:
Oscar said that to me in the middle ... just out of nothing he just smiled and said, "See you tomorrow," and I just busted out laughing. Oh, no. Books, have we talked about them before? Yes. Will we talk about them now? Yes. Do you need them? Yes. Books are so good for you, and I write them, and you don't have to read what I write. You don't have to. God, if you did, oh, I'd appreciate it, and let me tell you something, I'm writing right now a new book called The Box in the Woods. It's going to be out next year.
Maureen:
It is a new mystery, a new stand-alone mystery featuring Stevie Bell, the detective from the Truly Devious Series. You won't have to have read Truly Devious. I mean, if you have you'll have that extra something-something, but you won't have to, and I hope that's going to be it, because it takes place in a camp. So it's a spooky camp murder story. I'm getting in the mood by thinking about outdoorsy stuff, but books are good. Thank you for reading them. Thank you for leaving reviews about them because that really helps, and just thank you for being you.
Dan:
And-
Maureen:
And ...
Dan:
... if you would like things, we have things for sale for you at merch.sayswhopodcast.com, where you can get things like coffee mugs and fanny packs, and shirts, and an apron, and other things, things at merch.sayswhopodcast.com. I'm going to go turn off the buzzing thing behind me real quick. Hang on.
Maureen:
I don't know what he's got back there you guys. He's got something. Oh, here he comes.
Dan:
All right. Here I am. I had to adjust this microphone.
Maureen:
What was the-
Dan:
What was the buzzing thing?
Maureen:
Yeah, what was the buzzing thing?
Dan:
I'm in a basement, Maureen, that was a dehumidifier, because it's a dank basement unless the dehumidifier runs.
Maureen:
Again, it's just ... I'm not saying you run a meth lab, but ... because I know you don't run a meth lab.
Dan:
I don't run a meth lab. It would be a lot cleaner in here I think if I run a meth lab, that's for sure.
Maureen:
If I run a meth lab, (singing).
Dan:
The thing that I am thrown off about now is that I just broke my microphone stand while trying to make my whole situation better, but instead I just made it a lot worse.
Maureen:
Let's just-
Dan:
I'm going to get a backache. I have to be on my tiptoes to record.
Maureen:
Let's just cut it there, Dan. We don't need an intro this week, it's just time to play the music. Let's just admit that this is how things are, and go forward.
Dan:
Welcome to Says Who, the podcast that isn't a podcast.
Maureen:
It's a coping strategy. I'm Maureen Johnson.
Dan:
And I am Dan Sinker. The last five minutes of my life, Maureen, has been a pretty good analogy of the last five months. I was going to say days, and then I realized why short sell everything.
Maureen:
Yeah, we got on to record, and then suddenly Dan's voice was gone, apparently it was because his microphone just broke off in his hand or something, and rolled away.
Dan:
I had moved it very slightly, and apparently it was just on, teetering on nothing, and when I touched it, it just came down and my back was to it, and I just saw it at the corner of my eye, I saw it fall, and with cat-like reflexes I was able to catch it on its way down. That would have been an expensive fall otherwise.
Maureen:
Dan, it's so much-
Dan:
That's kind of how it's been this week, Maureen.
Maureen:
Yeah, I have had a week too. I want to hear about your week, and then I'll tell you about mine. Let's do exchange of weeks.
Dan:
It's just mainly we are now in ... Schooling has either began or is about to begin, and the reality of it is not good, I would say. The reality of just now. There are a lot of demands on everyone's time, and there might ... I think perhaps too many, is I think what it really is. Today I feel like I have been sort of on a rolling anxiety attack today, as the number of things that are all coalescing across the course of these last week, and this week, and next week really coming to full focus, and it's not pretty. It's not pretty, Maureen. It's not.
Maureen:
Do you have to teach any high school?
Dan:
Thankfully I don't have to teach any high school, with the high schooler I mostly just have to be the like, "Come on, of course it's going to be work. You can't complain about it being work," kind of thing.
Maureen:
Oh, boy.
Dan:
Because the kindergarten starts in two days so we just got to look at the schedule, and it's going to be a lot. It's going to be a lot more than we thought it was going to be, and that is not great. It's not great.
Maureen:
Tough to hear.
Dan:
It's just like suddenly schedules went crumbling in front of my eyes, and with it my sanity.
Maureen:
You said, "Oh, no."
Dan:
Oh, no. Yeah, I did. Basically I did. What about you, Maureen?
Maureen:
Well, Dan, maybe about six days ago this little medical condition I have had been pretty chilled out largely, and then six days ago it was like, "What if I came thundering back in a real old school kind of way, in a way that's like the beginning when you first had this? What if I just did that?"
Dan:
Oh, God.
Maureen:
Randomly, one day I couldn't really walk very well. One day I was just like every time I stood up I was like, "Whoop, well, that's not for me. Standing up is not for me today." My body has just gone bananas.
Dan:
Oh, no.
Maureen:
Yeah, it hasn't been great. The physical stuff I kind of deal with more than the ... in fact to that end I'm turning the air back on. You're going to hear it, you guys, I apologize.
Dan:
It's okay. Why does anything matter anymore?
Maureen:
True. Sometimes when all of these things converge at once, so it feels like I've been injected with something all of a sudden. And then I almost feel like a hot thing running through my body and then all the systems go crazy at once. I have muscle trouble movement, pain, I'll get really nauseous all of a sudden, sometimes my vision will get blurry. And really fun one it brings with it is the sudden drastic mood change. And I don't mean just like ... I mean a complete conversion.
Dan:
Oh, man.
Maureen:
It just sends you off. It's like someone's drugged you, and you're like, "I don't understand anything. Everything's terrible." Things change color almost. It's still weird. And then when it's done, it's like it never happened. It's fucked up. And so I use a lot of multiple sclerosis checklists because I don't have MS, they've checked me for it, but it behaves like it. I use a lot of those kinds of tricks and tips and hacks to deal with it. And one of the things they wonder is they had adjusted my Plaquenil prescription. Oh, you remember that Plaquenil stuff that's still bouncing around.
Dan:
Otherwise known as hydroxychloroquine. Is that the same thing?
Maureen:
Yeah, it's that same thing. I may need to be increased back up on that again. I have had a week where I've been trying to ... It's probably all stress-related that I have three projects I'm trying to land at once while we're doing the COVID, the election, two hurricanes are coming, California is on fire. It's just too much. It's too much. You know what I mean? I want to say it again. I want to say it again. It's too much. I was like, "Well, time for some radical changes," and by radical, I mean the first thing I did was just delete Twitter off my phone.
Dan:
Oh, wow. That Is radical.
Maureen:
I do that every once in a while. That way I can't pick it up and immediately look to see anything that's happened.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
But all the things I would normally do to be able to treat it, physical therapy, going to the gym, places like that, I can't do. There's no ... It's very hard to get kind of treatment, so I just have to kind of make shit up at home. It's fine. But I just haven't felt very well this week.
Dan:
Well, yeah.
Maureen:
And that's okay.
Dan:
It is fine. All of it is fine. Everyone, we are all muddling through as best we can, but it's a lot. I am feeling the accumulated stress of many, many months this week I can tell. And there isn't really a let-up from it.
Maureen:
One night I was having a hard time. Oscar is really great, he's very, very helpful. When he sees I'm not well, he's like, "Maybe you should go lay down." Or he'll walk the dog instead of me. Or he'll help me up and help me walk around. I was like, "It's just too much." All of this stuff that's going in the world is too much. And he said, "Well, maybe don't look at some of it." And I was like, "I have to." And he's like, "Why? Why do you have to? What are you doing right now by looking at it all? How is it helping?" And I had no answer. I was like, "Ah, you got me." I'm like, "I know what I'm doing to help. I'm destroying myself."
Dan:
That part is definitely true, the like, it is okay to look away. That is 100% true. I have for months now, I leave my phone outside the bedroom when I go to bed. And that has certainly helped. I think I would just be a little pile of ash if I had not done that months ago. I think I would have just-
Maureen:
Yeah, mine is next to my bed.
Dan:
Yeah. It's not the right way.
Maureen:
Oh, it was not, it is not. Because then I just sit there as we're falling asleep, reporting COVID numbers, I'm like, "Well, here's what's going on here." And then I text them to my mom.
Dan:
Oh, gosh.
Maureen:
Just a thing I do now.
Dan:
Couldn't she just do that?
Maureen:
Well, she's a nurse and we've started to exchange a lot of very home truths, text messages. I'm like, "Well, here's the numbers in Alabama. We'll get there." I think that this week, Dan, we got to talk a lot about taking care of the Says Whovians.
Dan:
All right, am in.
Maureen:
Because we're in this condition, you can bet your ass they are.
Dan:
I am just marveling at my current mic set up and realizing just how much it is a metaphor for my actual personness right now, just zip tied and loose ends. And the whole thing slowly creeps upwards as I talk. So then I have to stretch my body up as it goes.
Maureen:
You're in the Millennium Falcon.
Dan:
I am sort of in the Millennium Falcon.
Maureen:
You're in the Firefly, you're like, "Ah, I know how she flies. Let's go through that star gate."
Dan:
I think that's a different show.
Maureen:
Is it?
Dan:
I mean, it's literally called Stargate. There's a show called that. I think so. I think so. Maureen, how do people hold it together? I don't know. I don't know how to give advice on that because I think that it's all slipped. I think it's all slipped out of reach.
Maureen:
I think one important way is just really saying, because these things are fleeting and that when you feel incredibly terrible saying, "Okay, it's a feeling and it's happening." This is a meditation technique, but it's very helpful to kind of recognize it and be like, "Okay, this is what's happening right now. It's doesn't mean this is how I'm going to feel an hour from now or tomorrow or a week from now. This is just right now." And then also really to not only be okay with putting things away for a while, but to aggressively, not aggressively, we'll do it aggressively, just in a relaxed way, just do it. Turn the shit off, make it a practice more than a permission because it's bad. Every once in a while I have that very simple thought, I'm like, "This is bad for us."
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
It's bad for us.
Dan:
It's not good for us, that's for certain.
Maureen:
Then why am I doing it? I should maybe not do the thing that's bad for us. Also I'm a little worried, I took the dog's medication this morning and I'll explain that.
Dan:
I'm sorry, what?
Maureen:
Every morning Dexy gets two medications, because she goes to the special vet. And so every morning we have a routine, she follows me into the kitchen because she gets them in a treat, so she comes in for her treat. And I take like a vitamin D gummy and my own meds are ... everything's in a very separate, marked, counted out containers, I'm very ... I was raised by a nurse, Dan, so there's a rigid way to do these things. And I put the little pill pocket, I took my vitamin Ds which are sticky. And then I put the pill pocket down and I was sort of doing two things at the same time with one hand and the other, but they're two entirely separate things. Somehow something got ... I looked down and there was only one pill in the pill pocket, I'm like, "Where's the other pill?" I'm looking everywhere, Dan. I am very careful about pills. I really was raised by a very, very, very detail oriented nurse.
Maureen:
I lifted everything off the counter. I checked the floor. I checked everywhere. I mean, it's like where the hell did it go? Eventually I went and replaced the pill from the main supply in the cabinet. And one of two things, is it somehow I just didn't put a second pill in there. There's this third possibility, it's dropped somewhere. It also won't hurt her if she takes an extra one, it's harmless. She takes a low dose of this, it's not going to hurt her. I don't see where it could possibly be because I crawled around the floor, I lifted everything off the counter. I looked, I rolled down the sink. The only third thought I had was did it stick to my palm somehow while I was picking up-
Dan:
Okay. Like a magician.
Maureen:
... vitamin Ds. [crosstalk 00:18:59]. It just stuck there. And when I popped the vitamin Ds I accidentally took it with it. I think I would have known. But the thing is, it's also safe because it's a human medication that can also be used for dogs. And it's this stuff that the nickname is the stage fright medication. It just like chills you out and lowers your heart rate a little bit and makes you more relaxed. Even if I took it, which I truly don't believe I did, it was a freebie, it's not going to hurt me.
Dan:
Do you just feel great now?
Maureen:
I definitely felt a little bit better this morning, but I did get enough sleep last night, and sometimes a lot of sleep, sometimes when I have bad flares I literally have to ... they're really, really bad. I have to do what I call a reset sleep, where I take something and I sleep 12 hours or something. You have to be really intentional about it. Usually have to take like some ZzzQuil or something and just really, really sleep hard to kind of reset all the circuits, and that seems to cut, it'll stop them. I don't think I took the dog's meds Dan. But I'm paranoid, and I don't understand what happened.
Dan:
Well, Maureen Johnson, do I then have a treat for you. Because the Republican National Convention is in full swing. Cops are still killing black people. The virus is still spreading unchecked. Why wallow in the horrors of 2020 when we can enjoy a series of news events that let us revisit some of our favorite characters from the past.
Maureen:
All right. I like that.
Dan:
It's throwback week, Maureen.
Maureen:
Oh.
Dan:
Throwback. There has been a remarkable amount of news that has hit this week, Maureen, that every time it has hit I'm like, "Wow, it's 2017 again." Like, "Oh, hey, look at this, it's like we're in 2018, what a great time. Let's go to a packed movie theater and lick popcorn together." We could do anything back then. But this week, Kellyanne Conway, Maureen Johnson, finally plied up those floorboards in the white house, grabbed her go bag and leapt out a window.
Maureen:
It's been there so long that bag of passports and various currencies.
Dan:
It's been years since she put it under there.
Maureen:
Yeah, really has.
Dan:
She's gone. One of the OG advisors to the president. One of the people that ran the tail end of the 2016 campaign, a true mercenary.
Maureen:
I remember it because we used to talk about who's going to bail and largely most of them have in those discussions. I remember you saying that Kellyanne will never bail, that she'll ride or die.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
And what a moment.
Dan:
Yeah. Two months before election day give or take a week or two, is not the normal time that your chief strategist, one of your main people would jump ship. But she has in addition, her husband, George, who we have discussed their weird, gross private life. He announced that he is stepping down from The Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump Republican project that he was one of the co-founders of and is also leaving Twitter. Both of them cite the need to take more care of their family. A remarkable moment to find a conscience for either of them. But it all comes on the tail end of their daughter, Claudia, who we discussed a few months ago I think, who had taken to TikTok to kind of shit talk her mom.
Dan:
She went on to Twitter this weekend and gave a series of tweets that included as for my dad politically we agree on absolutely nothing. We just both happened to have common sense when it comes to our current president, so stop standing him. My mother's job ruined my life to begin with, heartbreaking that she continues to go down that path after years of watching her children suffer, selfish, it's all about money and fame ladies and gentlemen. I have been using social media as an outlet to express my passions, individuality and to shed light on some hardships. I've been vulnerable for a reason. Thank you for supporting me. And I'm officially pushing for emancipation, buckle up because this is probably going to be public one way or another. Unfortunately, welcome to my life.
Maureen:
Wow.
Dan:
That was on Saturday. On Sunday, they both announced that they were stepping away to spend time with with their family. And Claudia then announced on TikTok that she found out from Twitter.
Maureen:
Jesus Christ. I hope she gets emancipation.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
I hope she gets away from these terrible fucking people. Her parents are awful, and I really feel for her. Her parents are monsters.
Dan:
Both of them are terrible people. For those of you that don't know George Conway before his current anti-Trump act, he was a major piece of shit during the Clinton impeachment years. In fact he is the reason that we know that Bill Clinton has a crooked penis. That is George Conway's doing. Both of them are terrible humans. Both of them are running a con. I would expect the reality show is already inked or will be inked soon. I refuse to watch it.
Maureen:
Yeah. I mean, good for Claudia. I mean, this is ... I don't know what ... How old is she? Do we know how old she is?
Dan:
I think she's 15, which is the same age as my teenager.
Maureen:
Jesus.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
If you get emancipation, what happens to you? Do you have to find another adult to ...
Dan:
I would assume if you are 15 and you get emancipated, you have to have a ... you are still a minor. I would imagine that you would have to be in the care of another adult human. I don't think you are suddenly advanced into not being a minor anymore. I just think you are no longer in the care of the terrible parents, but I also don't know.
Maureen:
Do you think that they did this ... this is a hard, difficult, and slightly cynical call to make. But you think that they both stepped away because they actually care about their daughter or they care about how terrible it looks that their daughter's trying to get emancipated?
Dan:
I think at my most cynical I would say their daughter didn't factor into it other than being a helpful excuse, that Kellyanne Conway is a mercenary. She was anti-Trump. She was running Ted Cruz's campaign up until Ted Cruz fell apart. Then she was brought in at the very end of the Trump campaign. And she has stood by it ever since. By most white house reporters own admission, she is one of the main sources of people close to the administration say type rumors and things like that. She's a 100% playing both sides of the fence at all times. And I think that she has enough sense to know that the next few months are going to not go her way and that the election may well not go her way.
Dan:
And so she needed something to grab her go bag, and this is a useful moment. George, I think was always kind of half in on whatever con it was. And now that she's out, he's out. They're off chasing another bag of money.
Maureen:
It makes a lot of sense that they're like ... I could see them writing a joint book.
Dan:
Oh yeah, joint book, fucking reality series about them learning to love each other again and blah, I mean just pick your con and they'll be running it next.
Maureen:
Or they're going to get maybe not a reality show, but like a Fox show where they go Kellyanne and George are on two sides of the fence, the Conway files.
Dan:
Right, like a crossfire.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Speaking of con artists, Maureen, our throwback week has only getting started.
Maureen:
Oh.
Dan:
Because Steve Bannon, the former head of Trump's 2016 campaign took over alongside Kellyanne. One of the architects of his darkest moments of his early presidency, Steve Bannon, that Steve Bannon, the man that wears multiple shirts at the same time, with collars was collared. See what I did. Did you see what I did there?
Maureen:
Oh, I see what, oh.
Dan:
See. See it. He was collared on a yacht, he was arrested, as if we weren't familiar with a police procedural terminology on a yacht by postal inspectors, which is an inspired choice, this week for his part in a $25 million GoFund me scam to privately build the border wall.
Maureen:
Okay. All right.
Dan:
Indicted along with Bannon, though I don't think they were also on the yacht, were three others who sound awesome in this New York Times description. There was Brian Kolfage, fage, whatever. A decorated Iraq war veteran and motivational speaker who had created a string of pro Trump websites using bogus stories to draw clicks and sell ads. Then there was Timothy Shay who sold a Trump themed energy drink.
Maureen:
Sure.
Dan:
That he marketed as containing liberal tears. And Andrew Badolato who had a trail of failed businesses, unpaid tax bills and sexual misconduct allegations. The Times went on to say that the unsealed indictment said that the men swindled donors treating the more than $25 million they raised as a private piggy bank, Mr. Bannon, through an unnamed non-profit organization received more than $1 million from the group. Mr. Kolfage got a total of $350,000 that he spent on quote, home renovations, payments towards a boat, a luxury SUV, a golf cart, cosmetics surgery, personal tax payments, and credit card debt. And others collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal expenses. That boat that they mentioned, Kolfage named the war fighter, and people very quickly surfaced pictures of it in the July 4th Trump boat parade.
Dan:
I'm not sure if that's the same boat parade that one of the boats sank, but could be. Overall they raised $25 million and built just five miles of wall some of which has already fallen down. Kolfage was actually in the news very recently because he has started another crowdfunding project for quote, the victims of Black Lives Matter, whatever that means. Bannon is currently out on $5 million bail.
Maureen:
I have a couple of points and questions here, Dan.
Dan:
Yes.
Maureen:
Okay. Now the day before this happened, I had just tweeted, I propose nothing, I think it's time to steal a boat. And the next morning I woke up to find that they had arrested Steve Bannon on a boat which made me for a second think I had weird psychic powers. So if I say it, just keep watching my tweets, I may be on some wavelength. Two, people correctly pointed out that this is the plot of arrested development. The blues-
Dan:
Literally.
Maureen:
... keep getting arrested on their boats.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Three, she was arrested not far from New York, right? He was out kind of-
Dan:
Yeah, I think it was off the coast of Cape Cod or Connecticut or something. Connecticut's not on a coast, is it? Rhode Island, somewhere, Northeast.
Maureen:
I think that it's more close to here. I thought he was more in this area.
Dan:
All right. From where I live, Maureen, that's all close to where you are.
Maureen:
Okay. Because I sometimes there's ... I can walk to the East River where there's a path along the East River. And I sometimes go there, it's a nice place to walk the dog. You can bike along there. I haven't biked for a while since COVID, but it's a really nice walk then. And sometimes you go out there and you look over the water and you see all these people on jet skis, people jet ski around New York, Dan, and I just need to talk about it, because I see these motherfuckers on jet-skis all the time. And I don't know if I hate them or on some terrible level I want to be them because they're free. They are free from the land and they're on their little jet skis.
Maureen:
Sure, they're assholes. Sure, they look stupid. Sure, you shouldn't be jet skiing in the East River, surrounded by trash, barges and giant Russian freighters that could mow you down because you're a little speck on this very deep and rushing and complicated channel of water. This major body of water, the major shipping point next to a major city that leads to the sea. And you're out there on your little goddamn jet ski, there's Chet and there's Chad and there's [Tofa 00:34:51]. What's the guy from the Kavanaugh hearings? Tobar, Tobin, they are all out there.
Dan:
Tobin.
Maureen:
They're all out there on their fucking jet ski, jet skiing around [inaudible 00:35:02], look at me, am jet skiing, [inaudible 00:35:06]. And I am mad at the kind of people that jet ski around New York city, are the kind of people that go over to a goddam Trump boat parade, and are the same kind of people that are maybe, they're jet skiing off the back of the Bannon boat. I'm on a fucking jet ski [inaudible 00:35:25], look at me, free. And they're so free and I hate how free they are, because I'd love to be on a boat then. I'd love to be on a boat, I fantasized about it recently. I was like, "What if I got a boat? Put Oscar and Dexy on it. And we just went and we just drifted down, down the coast, down, down past Florida, wherever the wind took us. Then what if I got a boat, a boat and a jet ski, and that's me and fucking Steve Bannon and Carter Page is out there on some kind of scooter thing.
Maureen:
We're all fucking going because we're free. We're free in the see. And I just envy the fuckers with their boats. And Steve Bannon is arrested by the fucking post office on a boat. It's all coming together in my mind. And I just, Dan, they're so free on their boats, they're free, but they're not free because they're being chased by the post office. I don't know what any of this means, Dan, I just know I see a lot of ... I see more jet skiers than I should be seeing.
Dan:
Also aren't those rivers really, really gross.
Maureen:
Yes.
Dan:
They're basically just like jet skiing on shit water.
Maureen:
Do you want to jet ski on water that is just full of industrial waste and the sludgy remains of mobsters?
Dan:
Doesn't sound good to me.
Maureen:
There was a video last of the other, couple of days ago of a woman who jumped off a boat and just started swimming in the Hudson. And she came out all covered in like stuff, stuff, just stuff, don't swim in it. It's not good for you. And it is a major channel, I can't really ... If you don't live in New York or you've never seen it, the East River is not a gentle little river, it is massive. It's like a major artery of the body and it's got deep currents, and it's a thing. And that's why it is full of coast guard boats and barges and giant, giant ships go past. Fucking cruise ships can come down here, and you're on your little fucking jet ski. I'm jet skiing around New York. I don't know if I'm okay, I may have taken the dog's medication.
Dan:
I'm just letting this one go.
Maureen:
I don't know what's happened.
Dan:
I don't really have anything to add to this conversation. I appreciate it though.
Maureen:
Do you?
Dan:
Yeah, I do.
Maureen:
Am I okay?
Dan:
No, none of us are.
Maureen:
Okay.
Dan:
As you are doing that, I was once again feasting my eyes on the ramshackle situation that I put together to record. Were you ever familiar with the band Motorhead, Maureen?
Maureen:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Dan:
The main singer Lemmy-
Maureen:
Lenny.
Dan:
... also played the bass. Lemmy with a M. Also played the bass. He had a microphone set up where the mic stand went up and then came down and he would look up into the mic and sing as he played. And that's essentially what I have to do. I'm going to have the worst crick in my back by the end of this recording. It's not great.
Maureen:
As a former editor of Punk Planet, are you familiar with The Dead Milkmen?
Dan:
I sure am. A friend of mine is good friends with those guys.
Maureen:
They have a song called Stuart. Do you know the song Stuart?
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Stuart is a song, it's not a song. There's kind of a riff that goes under it, that's like (singing). And it's just a guy standing in and it's told in the perspective of a man who's screaming from the center of a trailer park at a kid named Stuart. And he's just telling Stuart all his thoughts. And I suggest you all listen to it because it's just kind of like, I was looking for a burrow owl, I was looking up in the trees, and I said, "What are you doing looking up in the trees?" A burrow owl lives in a hole in the ground. Why the hell do you think they got a burrow owl anyway? Anyway Stuart. That's how I feel right now. I'm just screaming at jet skis. And you're over there with your Motorhead taped up in your meth lab Motorhead set up just duct taping more and more microphones to your face. And I'm just yelling at nothing.
Dan:
We're doing great. I realized that the mic thing that broke, I purchased early into our time doing this episode, doing Says Who. I just recently this week had to replace the headphone, like ear pads for the headphones that I bought when we started Says Who. Everything apparently had a four year shelf life. It's all coming apart at it seems, including our own sanity. But Maureen Johnson-
Maureen:
And then don't edit any of this. I don't care how long this runs, they get it all, the Says Whovians get it all, they need to know. They need to know.
Dan:
Maureen Johnson, our 2017 throwback, we didn't just end with Kellyanne Conway. It didn't just end with Steve Bannon. It continued with the release of nearly 1000 pages by the Senate Intelligence Committee. And they're concluding their investigation into Russia's connections to the 2016 Trump campaign. Despite that committee being run by Republicans, they found a lot of connections. The report didn't go so far as to say there was conspiracy between the campaign and Russia, which of course then meant all the usual suspects said there was no collusion. They did connect even more dots around campaign head Paul Manafort and Russian intelligence. The guy named Konstantin Kilimnik.
Maureen:
Kilimnik I think
Dan:
Yeah, there you go. You know what's up. It's okay. You're good. You're on it. I can barely see, I have to stand so far back from my screen because of this weird mic stand situation that I can barely read it. It did connect even more dots around former ... Oh, I already read that part.
Maureen:
Okay.
Dan:
Oh God.
Maureen:
Oh no.
Dan:
There's a moment now every episode where I just ... it's like the rubber band in my head just goes [inaudible 00:42:35]. That was it. It identified even more Russian intelligence assets present at the Trump tower meeting with Manafort, Kushner and [Dojo 00:42:45]. This is such a throwback. This is such a throwback. I feel like we should be wearing whatever we wore in 2017 for this, like what? We were like there's sunglasses, there's just a little strip and a hyper color. I don't remember what we wore in 2017. It was a long time ago, [inaudible 00:43:08] pants.
Dan:
The investigation was originally held by North Carolina, Senator Richard Burr, who stepped aside this spring because of an ethics investigation into profiteering off of coronavirus. Mark Rubio took his place. The white house of course called the whole report a hoax. It's a good thing though, that we're finally putting the 2016 election to bed two months before the 2020 election blows up in our fucking faces. But Maureen Johnson there's more.
Maureen:
Yes, Dan. Oh.
Dan:
This throwback week would not have been complete without a leaked tape of someone close to Trump shit talking him, and this week supplied a good one.
Maureen:
Pee tape, pee tape.
Dan:
It's not a pee tape, I'm sorry to say.
Maureen:
Dan, I just have to say one thing.
Dan:
Okay.
Maureen:
The Michael Cohen stuff the other week where he kind of floated that there was a golden shower party. I had to explain what a golden shower was to my mother.
Dan:
I bet an enterprising Says Whovian could find the tape of the episode where you had this conversation with your mother once before.
Maureen:
I thought I did, but she had no memory of it.
Dan:
I'm positive you did.
Maureen:
Yeah, I feel like I've had. Because I was like, "You know what this is." She's like, "I've never heard of it." And I was like ...
Dan:
Oh, no.
Maureen:
I had to do it again. Oh no. You know what? This time, because I didn't do it, I sent an expert. Hey, hi there, you want to talk about it?
Dan:
Oh boy, [crosstalk 00:44:56]. I don't really, no, not really.
Maureen:
All right.
Dan:
Not really. It was mentioned in a excerpt of a chapter for Michael Cohen's forthcoming book, which I will point out-
Maureen:
That fucker.
Dan:
... he did not invite Maureen or I to ghost write.
Maureen:
Fuck that guy.
Dan:
Exactly.
Maureen:
I take care of him for you.
Dan:
Okay.
Maureen:
The shoe knows, shoe knows.
Dan:
Okay. All Right.
Maureen:
I don't know what that means. Dan, we've got to do Says Who-
Dan:
I don't either.
Maureen:
[crosstalk 00:45:27] stop stalling.
Dan:
We do. Because Maureen Johnson this week, a leaked tape where Trump's own sister Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal judge talking with his own niece, Mary Trump, the author of a recently released family tell all, where she says things. And that brings us to today's edition of Sayswhosterpiece Theater. Playing the role of Maryanne Trump Barry is Maureen Johnson. Playing the role of Mary Trump is Dan Sinker. We join this illicitly taped conversation in progress.
Maureen:
And his goddam tweeting and lying. Oh my God, I'm talking too freely. But you know, and the change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying, Holy shit. But he's appealing to the base what they're doing with the kids at the border. He's always been this way, I mean, I guess.
Dan:
But he was a tough kid, right?
Maureen:
It was a brat.
Dan:
Yeah. I mean, that's what I meant. I don't mean tough at all.
Maureen:
Hey, they sent him to reform school. I drove him around New York to get him to college. He ended up at Fordham. I got him in somehow before I had any real Catholic roots. I mean, I didn't get him in, but I know he didn't get into college. And he went to Fordham for one year. And then he got into the University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams and cheat.
Dan:
No way, he had somebody take his entrance exams?
Maureen:
SATs or whatever.
Dan:
Oh Jesus. You're kidding.
Maureen:
That's what I do believe. I even remember the name.
Dan:
Oh man. I mean, that's just ...
Maureen:
Well, now when he does stories he never mentions Fordham.
Dan:
Of course not.
Maureen:
No. Oh my God.
Dan:
No. He went to Wharton school, which also isn't true. He didn't go, he went to the University of Pennsylvania and he took a couple of classes, I guess at Wharton. Oh, that's insane.
Maureen:
That's him. And I did his homework for him. He once tried to take credit for me. "Where would you be without me?" I said. "You say that one more time, I will level you."
Dan:
Jesus.
Maureen:
Because in 1981 he had Roy Cohn call Reagan who had a woman appointed in New Jersey to a federal court because Reagan's running for re-election. He's desperate for the female vote. I said, "You had Cohn make one phone call and I've done everything since then. Did you make chief justice Rehnquist appoint me to the head criminal judge?" No, he didn't. I said, "You ever mentioned that one more time, any, and I will wipe you out, and I would." But anyway, Donald is out for Donald, period.
Maureen:
When he started to say something to me, "Look at what I've done for you." And I said, "You've done nothing deliberately. I have never asked him for a favor since 1981 when I was being highly considered to go on the federal court on my own merits. I never used the name Trump. It was never part of my make-up until John and I got married and I had to the transition." But a long story being short Reagan was the president and can you ask Cohn, Roy Cohn to call Reagan because they were like kissing buddies. The next day I had the nomination, I probably would have gotten it on the merits anyway. Reagan was running for re-election, he needed a woman.
Dan:
A woman. Yeah.
Maureen:
And I was the top government prosecutor in the United States. Yeah. He calls and said, "Did you watch Fox news?" I said, "No." "Why not?" I said, "Because I don't watch much television at all." Pause. "What do you do?" "I read." Pause. "What do you read?" "Books." "You don't watch Fox?" 100% Dan, that's exactly what my Trump loving relatives.
Dan:
What do you do if you don't watch Fox News?
Maureen:
He doesn't watch Fox, he watches a One America News, but he doesn't-
Dan:
Oh, perfect.
Maureen:
This is a person who publicly stated over 10 years ago now that he no longer read.
Dan:
It's good.
Maureen:
So you know.
Dan:
It's good. It's good. They're a good family. They're just good wholesome family all around.
Maureen:
I do like how much they hate each other.
Dan:
They really do.
Maureen:
They really hate each other.
Dan:
They really do. That reminds me, Robert Trump, Maryanne Trump Barry's brother, Donald Trump's brother died. And they just held the funeral at the White House. And later that night, DC gossip came out that members of Trump's funeral party punched a server at the restaurant that they went to after the funeral. They're just good people.
Maureen:
Just to run through the week he's had, or more or less a week. Or let's go back a couple more weeks. His campaign manager was fired because they had a COVID rally that actually killed Herman Cain. I don't mean to laugh, but Jesus Christ. Now he's freaking out. He's trying to shut down the post office. His brother dies. His main staff person quits. His niece releases a book about the fact that he's a psychopath or a sociopath or a path. I shouldn't be talking mental illness terms. Please forgive, I shouldn't have said any ... You know what I mean? That he's got real problems and bad ones. And his sister is shit talking him. Steve Bannon gets arrested on a boat. And the RNC line-up, I mean, I feel like a well run county fair has a better line-up.
Dan:
It's heavy on Trump family, that's for sure.
Maureen:
It's heavy on Trump family. It's got Scott Baio, a racist kid and a bunch of people to try to shoot protesters, that's the line-up.
Dan:
Yeah. And the whole thing, I don't value myself a lot, but I value myself a little, and I'm not watching it. But I have seen enough clips, the set dressing. The overall aesthetic is it was a quickie job done by the night events crew at a holiday inn somewhere in Nebraska. Like a convention had just signed in and they were like, "Well, okay, we can pull that off." It's like you can still see the creases in the American flags from the packaging that they pulled them out of. And doesn't have a lot of high quality attached to it, it feels-
Maureen:
And it's also during the day.
Dan:
I mean, I think that's also true. One of the things about conventions that we forget about is that they are a lot more than is on TV. There is all the day shit that happens, but just the whole thing feels very haphazard. There was a photo of the guy that produced the DNC. I ended up watching the kind of the last couple of nights of the DNC. And the thing that I kept being struck by was how difficult that production must have been to pull off, because it was a million live feeds and Zoom calls and pre-taped stuff and live things. And video packages and all this stuff that all needed to be put together kind of simultaneously and seamlessly.
Dan:
And the wife of the guy that was the producer of it, who produces the Tony Awards and things like that. He was set up in his house, in the living room of his house in LA, just him with giant monitors everywhere, a control thing. LA has been having massive heat waves and power outages. So she said that they had had a generator delivered to their backyard in case the power went out, so that it wouldn't disrupt it. It was a real feat of logistics. And thinking about the Republicans who could barely pull off an in person one last year. It looks cheap and like they don't know what they're doing, which I think is true in both respects.
Maureen:
This is some real Titanic shit.
Dan:
It is some real Titanic shit. Just not sure who the iceberg is.
Maureen:
Shit. Oh no. Says Who is made possible by you through our support of our Patreon, at Patreon/sayswho, where every Sunday you get a bonus episode. Every Sunday of quarantine, you get a bonus episode. And starting on November 3rd until we know who wins the election.
Dan:
Oh, no.
Maureen:
Oh, no. You'll be getting Says two, our third bonus podcast.
Dan:
The best thing is I was about to say people don't know if we're joking or not. And then I realized I don't know either.
Maureen:
That's the beauty of it. Says two.
Dan:
The exciting thing is, as we've been talking, I have been zip tying the mic I want to be using together. And I will be able to be back in action soon.
Maureen:
Think of how well you'll be doing by the time we get to that, Dan.
Dan:
Not well, Maureen.
Maureen:
Half your beard is going to be-
Dan:
Not well.
Maureen:
Here are couple of things I just want to point out. We didn't even go through the COVID stuff this week, which frankly I'm glad about, because I can't.
Dan:
Because it's throw back week.
Maureen:
Yeah, it's throw back week. Here's how I picture, okay, I want us both to predict what we look like by November, 2nd, and I'm going to do you. You're sitting in your basement where you're kind of maybe laying on the floor, hunched over. Your pupils are very small. You are producing five podcasts while doing your day job, while writing articles, while teaching kindergarten. Half your beard is gone, no one knows why. And I'm not saying which half. And could even be the part from your chin down to halfway, we don't know. Half of it is gone. Upstairs you hear the noise of kindergarten. The 15 year old has built a machine, you don't know what it does.
Dan:
None of this feels implausible by a lot.
Maureen:
You're laughing a lot and you don't know why. You accidentally ate pieces of roller staples earlier, and you were fine with it. And you just keep saying, "I can do another," maybe there was your podcast about it. I don't know. Maybe I'll do, I don't know. You haven't been out of the basement for a while. You just go to the top of the stairs. You crawl to the top of the stairs on all fours and you peek out and you say to your little guy, daddy's here for kindergarten. And then you teach from there and then you crawl backwards down the stairs to continue working.
Dan:
Sounds right.
Maureen:
That's where I see you.
Dan:
Right, let me do you.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
You are asleep. You've been asleep for weeks. Oscar has tried to wake you for the first sort of feudal couple of days. And now he's just sort of cocooned you around with pillows as he steps over you and he continues his day. He'll sponge bath you occasionally to kind of keep the mold at bay, but otherwise you're just asleep.
Maureen:
That has been another feature of the flares this week then, because it comes with a lot of exhaustion, which meant that I was just randomly falling asleep.
Dan:
See. We are on our way.
Maureen:
I would come in to view stuff. I was like, clearly my body is going down, I would just fall asleep and I would twitch.
Dan:
We are on our way.
Maureen:
Accurate, genuinely very possible. And you know what? You'd be jealous if I was like-
Dan:
I would be so fucking pissed. I feel like she's sleeping, she gets to sleep?
Maureen:
[crosstalk 00:59:37]. Halloween, this is what I do. Halloween, I get a bunch of candy, I eat it. And then I take all the dog's medication and I say, "Wake me up on the fifth. Goodnight." Just put on like real Snuggie pajamas, get in there and just wrap myself up like a little tortilla, like a little burrito. And then I just pull all the shades, and that's it. It's nighty nighttime until the fifth or the 6th of November.
Dan:
Well, the good news is by the fifth of the sixth, we still won't know who won. You'll be right where we all are when you wake up.
Maureen:
See you tomorrow.
Dan:
Our theme music is performed by Ted Leo. Our logo is designed by Darth. You can contact us at Says Who podcast on Twitter. You can email at hey, that is H-E-Y@sayswhopodcast.com. Join the discussion on Facebook, it's slash groups slash Says Whovians. Our Facebook group is moderated by Janice Dillard. You can spread the word, subscribe, and please leave stars and reviews on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And you can join us next Wednesday, September 2nd, for our next episode. From my basement in Chicago, where things are falling apart and held together by zip ties, I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen:
From a goddam jet ski I'm Maureen Johnson.
Dan:
This has been Says Who. I really can't describe just how rapidly things fell apart here in the seconds before we recorded.
Maureen:
We believe you, trust, we believe you.
Dan:
But I have stitched it all together remarkably well with zip ties. And I think I'll be able to use it for the actual work call that I have to do in an hour.
Maureen:
It'll be fine, Dan.
Dan:
It will not be fine.