Tuesday was a long week. It's naptime.
*yawns*
*blinks*
Oh hello, SaysWhovia. Have you been there all this time? Dan and Maureen have just woken up. They are in separate places—separate times, in fact—but neither seems to have left noddy-noddy-slumberland. Can you blame them? It’s 2020. Let’s all go back to bed.
But we can’t, can we? There is too much to discuss. The New Hampshire primary! The end of the Yang Gang! Joe Biden’s Wild Ride! And Iowa…what even happened there? No one knows.
Also, criming! So much crime. It’s open crime season. Just get out and do your criming in the full light of day. Trump is now all puffed up with power and is going about punishing the people who tried to defy him. You know, like an autocrat! It’s really bad! So let’s all get into the SaysWhovia napping yurt and have a nice snooze.
Don’t hog the blanket. We all need the cover.
Dan:
This episode of Says Who is brought to you by you-
Maureen:
You.
Dan:
Through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho. You make this happen.
Maureen:
Hi, it's Maureen. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, have you noticed that the news is a real drag? Why not choose an alternate reality such as Truly Devious the mystery series which is concluded with the hand on the wall, so you need to start with Truly Devious, but there's three books. Truly Devious, Vanishing Stare, The Hand on The Wall. I have built an imaginary place for you to go live in and solve crimes. Go there. It's safe. Books. Dan, are you alive? Dan?
Dan:
Hold on.
Maureen:
Dan?
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Get up. Oh, no.
Dan:
Maureen are you-
Maureen:
Oh, no.
Dan:
Are you awake?
Maureen:
Kind of.
Dan:
Okay.
Maureen:
So we got... oh my God if you-
Dan:
What?
Maureen:
When you do that-
Dan:
Sorry, my headphones slipped off.
Maureen:
When you do that it makes... oh, no it's really happening. Stop yawning, I swear... Oh, no. Oh, no don't do that. Stop it.
Dan:
[crosstalk] anything.
Maureen:
We got to record Says Who, we've got to get some energy up, got to get some... okay. Dan? Come on this is not podcast [crosstalk 00:01:51].
Dan:
Okay.
Maureen:
Says Who. Welcome to Says Who, the podcast that isn't a podcast.
Dan:
It's a coping strategy. I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen:
And I'm Maureen Johnson and we are both... oh, someone's woken up.
Dan:
[inaudible] it's not me, that's for sure.
Maureen:
It's Dexy. She was sound asleep and then suddenly, all four paws went up in the air and the stretching happened, and then she found a toy, and now she's awake. Dan, I'm on the very, very edge of being asleep.
Dan:
Yeah, well, I literally am. It is 07:00 AM in Los Angeles, California, where I currently reside. And it is... What day is it today? I'm thrown off in multiple ways, Maureen Johnson. So first of all, we are recording on Wednesday instead of Tuesday because my flight got so delayed Monday night that I didn't get into my hotel room until about 02:00 AM in the morning. And I wear one of those Fitbit style watch things not like a fancy watch just like the little LED green, LED type things.
Maureen:
Dan is this just like a 1978 calculator taped to your wrist?
Dan:
Basically, it's like one of those Casio calculator watches.
Maureen:
Wow, I didn't know that you could have a time with a cosine in it?
Dan:
You know. But anyways, so I already knew because we had to record very early because I have a big day of work. And I knew when I got in at 02:00 AM that I was not going to get much sleep, but that I would get some sleep. And I did that kind of sleep where you're sort of fitful because you know you have to wake up soon and I kept looking at my watch to see what time it was. And I kept being like, okay, cool. It's 04:00 AM in the morning. Great. All right. Okay. And then finally it was 06:15, which is what my alarm was set for. And I'm like, why didn't my alarm go off? Must have been like synced to my headphones and it's playing through my headphones or something. And so I get up. I drink water, go to the bathroom, start getting dressed, grab my phone, and I'm like why does this say 04:15? And I realized, oh, my watch never synced to pacific time. So I had gotten about 90 minutes of sleep at that point.
Dan:
And then I was like, okay, well, I'll go back to sleep for another hour and a half or whatever, and that didn't happen. So we had to call it yesterday, and so we are doing it now today. I did thankfully sleep last night. But this is the thing that I... when I asked what time it was or what day it was or whatever, I looked at my computer. The other thing that I have going on Maureen is I got new glasses right before I left for a trip, which is a real galaxy brain move. And they are progressive lenses, which means that they change from the top to the bottom on what they focus on. And what it basically means is that I live my entire life now like I'm drunk. I can't really see anything, I spent a lot of money to get the pleasure of not being able to see anything at any time.
Maureen:
Cool.
Dan:
Yeah, smart. But anyway, so I actually can't see the clock because also my eyes are blurry because I'm still tired so I can't actually see the clock on my computer.
Maureen:
This is going to be a good episode.
Dan:
[crosstalk] fine. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine, Maureen.
Maureen:
I don't-
Dan:
It's going to be fine.
Maureen:
I don't have those excuses. So I have a little bit of a medical condition every once in awhile rears its head and goes, look at me, look at me. I'm a dancing fairy child. And it doesn't really tell me why it's arrived. But it all of a sudden feels like someone's put a needle in your arm and you could feel something kind of suddenly get injected into your system because it's in that-
Dan:
Oh, God.
Maureen:
You could feel like something coursing through you. And all of a sudden it'll feel like a lot of things will happen at once. But I would say sort of like you're being wrapped in boa constrictors, which are slowly squeezing you and then everything kind of shakes, and you can't breathe right. And you can't see, it feels like anxiety, but it has more than that. It's a whole little... Anyway, I was having a bad one last night, which was fine, because it doesn't hurt me, it's just... But I'm still having one this morning or I'm hanging over. So I'm half asleep like my whole body is like just sleep, so the two of us are-
Dan:
We're a good pair. We're a couple of professional podcasters here.
Maureen:
Look Dan, the whole point of us is that we're not professional.
Dan:
Well, mission accomplished.
Maureen:
Dan as I was-
Dan:
I am tired. What?
Maureen:
As I was walking yesterday and I can walk to a point every once in a while I'll get dizzy, but it's fine. But I felt this thing kind of squeezing, squeezing, squeezing me and it feels like a lot like anxiety does when it kind of grabs your throat. But it's not, so I'm like whatever, I'll get home and I'll sit down. And then I kind of had a little... I allowed myself a couple of sensible thoughts, and a couple of these sensible thoughts are, but why would I be anxious at a time like this? And then I laughed and laughed and laughed like a God damn drain Dan, because I have been watching myself this week, because I have two books to write. And I've been watching what I do, I feel like I've been trying to observe myself as if I'm sitting beside myself with a notepad. And I noticed my habitual clicking of Twitter or news... like it's so automatic how my hand just slides there. Like, I don't even see myself doing it.
Maureen:
And I'm trying to watch myself, do it and really make a note that okay, why are you doing that, look at when you just did it. And I have that thought where I'm like, this is only me, and this only happens because I am weak. And then I'm like, no, it's all of us. And we've made this neural pathway that says click this button, find out what's happening. And it was a pretty newsy day yesterday, so I was watching all of this stuff happened while I was like [inaudible] like a jellyfish. I will say I've been using as therapy Stardew valley, and I can finally do a little bit of fishing.
Dan:
Hey.
Maureen:
I even caught a squid. A midnight squid which apparently does not count when you have to give someone a squid.
Dan:
Yeah, midnight squid is a newly introduced thing that I believe has a role in a later part of the new end of the game, but I don't remember-
Maureen:
What? So I should be saving my midnight squid?
Dan:
Yeah, hang on to your midnight squid for sure.
Maureen:
Oh shit. I've been selling my midnight squid. Never sell your midnight squid.
Dan:
Well, I mean, just hang on to one and then sell the rest if you're so good at fishing that you've got multiple midnight fish Maureen Johnson.
Maureen:
I'm not good at fishing, I just eat a lot of [Karatsu] but this has been Stardew talk. What is she doing? I hear chewing on something.
Dan:
Yeah, I can hear her chewing on something.
Maureen:
Really? Let's look. Hold on. Let's see here. Oh, good girl. She's chewing on an appropriate toy. Today is her first birthday.
Dan:
Oh my goodness, Dexy.
Maureen:
She's one year old.
Dan:
That is wild.
Maureen:
I know my little baby is one.
Dan:
[inaudible 00:10:42].
Maureen:
She's doing pretty well. She has started some medication just to kind of settle her a little bit, not the full one. But just... there's two medications, she started one. So we're very slowly introducing a little bit of medication and... Dan, what am I talking about? I am rambling like a loon because my brain is a great flat plane and my thoughts are tumbleweed blowing across them. Dan [crosstalk 00:11:11].
Dan:
I just keep looking at our notes and trying to even figure out which thing to talk about first.
Maureen:
It is probably good that we delayed today because starting late in the day yesterday, a lot of things happened but soft-
Dan:
Everything happened.
Maureen:
Let's do it.
Dan:
Let's do it. Let's start. So certainly, if people were smart planners, people named Dan were smart planners, they would have delayed to begin with considering that the New Hampshire primary was held last night, and it would have been funny to come out before that, yes.
Maureen:
Can I ask you a question?
Dan:
You sure can.
Maureen:
I'm going on vacation/honeymoon on Saturday.
Dan:
Throw your phone out the airplane window as it goes down the runway.
Maureen:
All right, like DB-
Dan:
Just unroll your window and toss the phone out.
Maureen:
Should I D.B. Cooper myself into my own vacation?
Dan:
Just your phone.
Maureen:
Okay. Do you think a lot of stuff is going to happen when I'm... because last time I went to this place, because we're going back to a place we've been before. The last time we went a huge snowstorm hit.
Dan:
It's the Swedish chef, hello.
Maureen:
And we got stuck there for four extra days.
Dan:
Wow. Was that last year?
Maureen:
No, that was four, five years. I don't think it happened during sissu.
Dan:
Oh, wow. It was that long ago.
Maureen:
I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I feel like I would have said something if it had.
Dan:
I know, but it's less about you saying it and a more about me remember it.
Maureen:
Maybe it was like three years ago. Anyway, we're going back to a place we've been before, because we were like, we like that place. So we know where all this stuff is. And it's a beautiful beach to swim in if the water is not too rough, and I'm just going to read and swim and have a notebook.
Dan:
Sounds amazing.
Maureen:
No computer, but a notebook.
Dan:
That sounds great.
Maureen:
It is great Dan, but-
Dan:
But you're going to miss a lot.
Maureen:
Well, no, Dan we're not because first of all last time like I said, we got trapped there for four days, which sounds really fun being trapped on a tropical island. You're like, oh, I can't get out of Antigua to get back to the snowstorm. But here's the thing after like a day or two... the first day you're like, wow, snow day and then you're like, how are we going to get home? And where are we going to stay?
Dan:
There are those small considerations.
Maureen:
So they found us another room and they have what's called an emergency rate, so we had to move into a different room, and they charged us less.
Dan:
Wow, that's very thoughtful.
Maureen:
Yeah, they have a contingency where they're like, if there's an emergency, you can stay there for like half price or something like that. But they'll move you to whatever room they have free. And they were great, but I would spend... I remember this very vividly walking up and down the beach trying to get a cell signal to call the airline. And then you'd wait for four hours on the hold with the... this is like such a first world problem, I'm just saying this is what you I ended up doing. Because I was like, can we get home and they're like, there are no seats. Basically, everything had been whited out up and down the eastern seaboard, and nobody could get anywhere. And I ran out of medication, and they were like, oh, we have-
Dan:
Oh, shit.
Maureen:
We have a doctor, and I was like, okay, and so they literally called him from the front desk, and they handed me the phone and the guy's like, what do you want? And I was like, well... and I listed my medications. And he goes, okay, anything else you want? It's like no, that will do. I could have asked for anything. And what I asked her was some pretty likemy normal medication, but he was like, yeah, what else you want? Sure. And then the hotel was like, oh, and we'll send a taxi to the pharmacy in town. And I think the whole thing was like, $40.
Dan:
Oh, my goodness.
Maureen:
And they brought me a bag of medication. I was like that was easy.
Dan:
Yeah, what could go wrong?
Maureen:
I don't know why I'm telling this story. Except that I don't think my brain is firing it. So I'm thinking about going on vacation, and when we were away in Greece, all I did was I would have... I had the TV on the whole time because that's when the Trump Solinsky stuff broke and the Brexit. So I just had a TV on constantly Dan, because I know how to have a good time. You keep that TV news on and then you walk in from the beach, and you go back, and you say, what's happening? And then you go back to the beach, Dan what's wrong with us?
Dan:
No. No, go have fun, bring your microphone, I'll catch you up and you'll finish recording next week Says Who, and you'll just shutter for a little bit. And then you'll go back out onto the beach.
Maureen:
I feel like I've done a lot of this Dan recording from various spaces.
Dan:
You have. I've done a lot of this recording way early in the morning in a hotel in Los Angeles.
Maureen:
Remember that time [crosstalk 00:16:46].
Dan:
This is all a way of us avoiding-
Maureen:
No. No, Dan, I want to remember that time over the summer that you recorded from a hot car were you were sweating and you were parked by a pyramid and the police were trying to get in your car, because they're like there's this creepy, shirtless guy sweating and talking to himself and staring relentlessly at our pyramid.
Dan:
That one of the two... I think I did two car recordings this summer while we were traveling. That one was scary in the police side of it. The one that was truly scary to me in the I-think-I-almost-died-part-of-it was the one in... I think we were in Santa Fe, and I remember I was listening back to the edit and my speech was audibly slurring by the end of it in a way that I think was really not good.
Maureen:
Yeah, you were I think perhaps about to go into heart failure.
Dan:
We're scrappy, Maureen, that's the thing about me and you, we're scrappy.
Maureen:
I should point out Dan that when I get flares, it is a little bit like I'm drunk. It's not 100% of the time I'm pleasant, sometimes it is, but I will stagger I kind of walk into the wall and my vision is a little blurry and I'll just start chatting like I'm doing now, I'm just like remember the time that this happened. So what you're hearing today is a little bit of flare brain where it's just like I'm very pleasantly telling you about some stuff that I remember happening once.
Dan:
Other than the chatting part you've described exactly my experience in these glasses where I am constantly staggering around, missing things as I reach for them. It's a good time, I'm glad I made this... I make good decisions Maureen. The New Hampshire vote happened last night [crosstalk 00:18:40].
Maureen:
No, Dan, that's all that happened this week. Thanks for tuning into Says Who, we appreciate having you, our theme song was written by Darth. Our logo was made by Ted Leo.
Dan:
Look Maureen Johnson of the three things on our notes, this is the only one that is not going to leave a mark I think.
Maureen:
Fine.
Dan:
Let's at least pull this band aid off. The New Hampshire vote happened last night Says Who-vians. You probably know this they actually were able to count it this time. So this is we're a week away from the Iowa Caucus, which still has not had its final count finalized. So we're doing better than we were. We held an election and we know who won.
Maureen:
One of my favorite moments of this week was when the head of the Iowa Democratic Party got up to a podium to make an update. And then as soon as he got to the podium, the sign in front that said Iowa fell off the...
Dan:
Sounds about right.
Maureen:
It was so good.
Dan:
Anyway, Bernie Sanders wins. But not super commandingly, he is Pete Buttigieg continues to hold on, up and near the top. He came in second by about 1.5%, there is 0.1% that separates them in Iowa still, so they're neck and neck. Biden finished way behind in fifth place. But disappointingly so did Elizabeth Warren who finished fourth. Both of them I think only got single digits of percentage wise and [crosstalk 00:20:29].
Maureen:
[crosstalk 00:20:29].
Dan:
In fact, Amy Klobuchar who finished in third place won more votes than Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren combined.
Maureen:
Yeah. Okay. Well, this is where we're at.
Dan:
This is where we're at. It is certainly pretty unexpected I would say.
Maureen:
You mean the Amy Klobuchar part?
Dan:
I just mean the whole thing.
Maureen:
The Bernie part doesn't surprise me.
Dan:
The Bernie Part, no, I agree. The Bernie part everything below Bernie is surprising to me.
Maureen:
Yeah, I guess, I don't know when you look at it, maybe it's not that surprising. So we had a debate this week on Friday night.
Dan:
Yeah, I did not watch that shit. Did you?
Maureen:
Yes, I watched some of it.
Dan:
Oh my God. That was a very guttural reaction.
Maureen:
Yeah, it really was.
Dan:
Physically left the... I hunched inward for a moment there.
Maureen:
I don't know if you know this Dan, but I'm on a political coping strategy called Says Who, and so...
Dan:
Oh, man, you should probably watch something like that, I guess.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Man, what a mistake to sign up for something like that.
Maureen:
I mean, Amy Klobuchar's number one favorite thing to do is smack the crap out of Pete Buttigieg. And the fact that she is there to punish that boy, and so the fact that she's right behind him it checks out in terms of story, because if I were Pete Buttigieg I would run and hide if I saw Amy Klobuchar coming down the hall.
Dan:
One of the more fascinating things if you look at like the exit polls, so Pete Buttigieg is 37, right? And Bernie is I believe 77 there's 40 year spread-
Maureen:
I thought he's 78, yeah. But [crosstalk 00:22:44].
Dan:
Okay. All right, he could be. I guess, people do a birthday so I could very well have the last time I looked into Bernie Sanders age he's actually celebrated a birthday since, but 40 years, separate the two of them and their base of support is exactly inverse proportional of their age. If you look at exit polls, Bernie is winning all of this stuff because he is commanding like 18 to 30 vote by over 50%, right? Every young person is voting for Bernie. In Iowa Pete's young backing was like 1% it was more in the 20% range here in New Hampshire but it's all kind of 50s and up is Mayor Pete's space. And it's just a very... like here is a quite elderly Boomer with a massive young base and here is a barely old enough to qualify to run for president with a massive elderly base. I find it fascinating Maureen.
Maureen:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there is a giant wave of Bernie enthusiasm.
Dan:
There is?
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
I mean, the dude did spend four years kind of building out his support base and we're certainly seeing that in full effect now. And I think the big question is can that support base grow and can it win in a general election versus run the table in primaries? I don't know. But we've got more to find out because there are two more elections before this month is over Maureen.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
You've got South Carolina on the 29th, which if you want to sign of just how poorly Joe Biden did in New Hampshire, he delivered his concession speech from South Carolina.
Maureen:
Yes, he left.
Dan:
He left. They fucking streamed him on Skype to his New Hampshire team. So that's not good. But before South Carolina, which is I feel like the primary that everyone talks about is Nevada, which is on the 22nd which has gotten very little attention now suddenly is going to get a lot of attention because will it have a result that is not burning in Pete, you know jocking for first and second? Literally the last time Nevada was polled was a month ago, so nobody has any idea about anything right now.
Maureen:
If you were guessing right now Dan, who do you think the nominee is going to be? Come on? Be a sport. Dexy is awake.
Dan:
Yeah, I'm with Dexy. I'm with Dexy. It's early morning, it is really early in the morning for that question. I will tell you this, Maureen.
Maureen:
She wants to know.
Dan:
I am in Los Angeles, California right now and-
Maureen:
Hold on let me just stop. Hey, Dex come here.
Dan:
There's danger in the Johnson household. Dexy see she did not like this question, I didn't either.
Maureen:
She heard something in the hall.
Dan:
Yeah, it was your question in the hall?
Maureen:
Come on, Dan.
Dan:
I will tell you this.
Maureen:
Don't be scared of the question.
Dan:
I am definitely scared of the question. I am here in Los Angeles, which the primary is next month, they moved the California primary up specifically so that California could play a larger role in this process. And Maureen, I went yesterday and got some delicious breakfast tacos, which I will be going back to get once we're done recording today. And then I walked over to the Seventh Street Metro Center to take the train to work. And I passed an enormous Michael Bloomberg storefront, and then I was waiting for the train last night off the USC campus, and there was a young college student. She was wearing a Biden T-shirt, and I realized-
Maureen:
Weird.
Dan:
And I realized we don't know anything about anything right now because we're going to get maybe the same results in Nevada and South Carolina in which case we may know more. But all the reporting I'm readings it says that we won't see Bernie, Pete and everyone else in those. And then we start moving into many states going and big states going and we don't know anything. Like Bloomberg is polling nationally quite high at this point, and has put a lot of rocks in the California box. I don't think that's as expression, but it is now.
Maureen:
Yeah, I mean, the Bloomberg he's out there like Jost. We haven't seen much-
Dan:
He has spent so much money.
Maureen:
We just see the fin, just [inaudible 00:29:08]. And then we're going to need a bigger boat because I've started to see commercials here for Michael Bloomberg, I've started... And I heard a really interesting thing last night somewhere, it was probably on some cable news show, but it was just this thing that one of those things that once you hear it, it sticks in your head of people that will just say, we need to get rid of Trump and who's the kind of person that... Republicans who don't like Trump are like look we'll take that guy.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
He seems like he's not Trump. He's not crazy. He's also a billionaire. He's basically a Republican, he'll be fine.
Dan:
Yeah, I mean, I think that is... it dawned on me the other day, that this year, the Democratic primary is functioning as both the Democratic primary and the Republican primary which isn't sustainable.
Maureen:
No.
Dan:
But absolutely, there is a calculus of who's the person that Republicans will support, which is not the right question to ask in a Democratic primary, but that is, I believe, a big reason that-
Maureen:
Mayor Pete is-
Dan:
That Mayor Pete is doing pretty well, and that Bloomberg is looming in the wings is because he literally was a Republican.
Maureen:
Man, we're so lost if that happens. I say that with a smile but I'm not smiling. Oh, Dan.
Dan:
Well, we could move on to a more fun... no, they're not fun.
Maureen:
Come on.
Dan:
I tried.
Maureen:
Don't be a chicken.
Dan:
I tried to sell it Maureen, I tried to put a positive spin. Anyway, we're a week out from the impeachment acquittal and Maureen things are... well, I was going to say things are out of control and then I realized that they're going pretty much exactly as I would have expected them to go.
Maureen:
Yeah, yeah.
Dan:
When we sat down to record last week, we have been in a real run of you and me having travel and complications that has thrown our regular release schedule off a bit. We have been coming out on Thursdays three weeks in a row now. Anyway, when we recorded last Thursday morning, Donald Trump was getting up to the podium to give his acquittal speech. Which I did not watch live but boy oh boy, Maureen Johnson. It was 52 minutes long.
Maureen:
I did not watch that.
Dan:
I went back I did not watch the whole thing, but enough clip circulated that I was like, I need to watch some of this. It was what I would imagine the mafia don would give as a speech at his daughter's wedding.
Maureen:
I was laughing with a mouthful of coffee, so it got very strange.
Dan:
It was just as one would expect the first 10 minutes or so was gloating, he called the whole thing bullshit from the White House, which of course made a bunch of people be like, oh, the decorum. He went on rants against all the people that testified against him and all the people that prosecuted him and all that, but then most of it was him just... because they had stuffed the room with supporters, folks from congress, his defense team, all of that. Most of it was him just being like, hey, Jim Jordan, you piece of shit. Look at you. Oh, I remember this guy back when he couldn't pee in the pot, but now look at him. Now he's peeing all over the place, right? Like it was just like that kind of weird I'm ribbing you, but I'm complimenting you. And really what I'm doing is sort of A, re-establishing that I'm dominant over you while also kind of calling you out as being loyal to me.
Dan:
The weirdest being he gave a good 10 minute long play by play of when a... Do you remember when a sniper shot at a-
Maureen:
State police.
Dan:
Yeah at a congressional softball game and Steve Scalise got shot, he gave a 10 minute play by play of that softball game, and how bad a player Steve Scalise is, and then into a... then a bullet enters his body and rips through his flesh. And then he's like, I'm at the hospital and his wife is there and you know, most people's wives they'd be happy if you got shot. But she was really concerned.
Maureen:
Yeah, this is was the kind of jokes that my family members in Philadelphia tell, that is 100% the wheelhouse of-
Dan:
But yeah, it was just that for 52 minutes. It was something, and that then kicked off the purge, right? So Jennifer Williams who testified against him... not really even against him, actually, but who testified in the house investigation, she's out at the VPS office. Alexander Veneman and his twin brother who didn't even testify are both out at the National Security Council. Gordon sundaland, the ambassador to the EU is now out as ambassador to the EU. In each case, various people along the chain tried to explain that they weren't fired that they were just transferred, or that sort of bullshit. Dow Joe gets on Twitter and says were it not for his crack investigating skills real Donald Trump might have had a tougher time unearthing who all needed to be fired in thanking Adam Schiff for basically outing the people that are disloyal to Trump.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Trump yesterday said that the military should take a look at Venneman. And now, there's also an attempt among that sort of fever dream, fever swamp right wing to connect Mitt Romney now to Ukrainian energy company Burisma. It's been a week Maureen since his acquittal.
Maureen:
Yep. Dan, this is a man that was elected after a tape was released of him saying, you just grab them by the pussy, they let you do it.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
And I know we think about that a lot in general, but I was thinking about that quote a lot this morning about... that he isn't wrong about how people have let him do things. Those women didn't let him do things. But I met Kermit like in terms of banking, in terms of criminality in general building violations. He's been allowed to do things.
Dan:
Yeah. No, absolutely. And continues to be.
Maureen:
Yeah, so he's not wrong, but he has been allowed to do things and you just do them. You don't have to go to a lot of lengths to try to pretend that you're not.
Dan:
No, not at all. There's no part in his entire life's feedback loop that says there is consequences for action. None. But Maureen, it's funny that you mentioned the access hollywood tape because if you remember way back... And nobody can because it's before the beginning of time, but to October of 2016, when that tape was sent anonymously to David Farenthold at the Washington Post. It came out within hours of that tape being released, WikiLeaks dropped their cache of DNC emails, right, that happened simultaneously. Well, yesterday, Roger Stone, who was the go between, between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, this is proven in court. He's up for sentencing. He's up for sentencing because last fall, he was found guilty on seven counts for obstructing a congressional inquiry line to the Mueller investigators under oath, and trying to block testimony of a witness who was going to expose him. He's up for sentencing this week, the prosecutors put in a recommendation based on government sentencing recommendations of seven to nine years, right. which he probably fucking earned it, right. Earned it.
Dan:
Yesterday morning, Trump tweets out this is horrible about Stones' sentencing recommendations. This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice. And then a couple hours later, the Department of Justice announced that they found quote the recommendation extreme, and excessive, and disproportionate to Stones' offenses.
Maureen:
Right.
Dan:
And they have now filed a brief with the court making that same case. And this is the fucking wild thing. In that brief the Department of Justice the actual American fucking Department of Justice is arguing that federal sentencing guidelines are unfair.
Maureen:
Sure.
Dan:
In the brief, they pull a few different court cases, quote from them and say that federal sentencing guidelines shouldn't really be followed. This is not an argument that the Department of Justice ever makes.
Maureen:
Generally not, I would imagine, I would definitely-
Dan:
No, there are plenty of examples that you can pull out that federal sentencing guidelines are a fucking nightmare, right, specifically around drug arrests and things like that. The Department of Justice does not file briefs with the court saying, you know what these are unfair. I would assume that every defense attorney in the United States is currently citing this today as they appeal whatever sentencing their client got. This is all to get Donald Trump's buddy Roger Stone out of jail. That is how much they just throw everything out the window.
Maureen:
Yeah, well, and there were some knock on effects from that.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
In that, so the prosecutors associated with that case one by one over the course of something like two hours yesterday pulled out and one flat out resigned.
Dan:
Yeah. They all left the case.
Maureen:
In protest.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
So what's been coming up a lot in the news yesterday is reference to something called the Saturday night massacre, which happened during Watergate. And whenever there's an excuse to do Maureen's Watergate corner, I'm happy to do it because if any of you... probably a lot of you are... I don't know. What happened in the Saturday night massacre, so during the Watergate case so in the summer of 1973, there were these senate committee hearings about the case. And during these there was a surprise moment in which Fred Thompson from law and order, not at the time he would later join the cast of law and order. Question a man named Alexander Butterfield, who worked for the president and asked him casually were there any recording devices? And then Alexander Butterfield paused for a long, uncomfortable minute or so, and said yeah, this place is fucked up, it's balls deep in recording devices, which surprised everyone because no one thought that was the answer.
Maureen:
No one thought that place is going to be balls deep in recording devices, but they were not. They did not correctly factor in just how obsessed Nixon was with his own image and legacy, and the fact that he had been recording himself and his cronies committing crimes. So that was a surprise. And so the Battle of Watergate from this point in mid 1973 on became the battle of the tapes. And the special prosecutor of the case, everybody was give me the tapes, give me the tapes. The special prosecutor was like give me the fucking tapes, and the White House dodge and wove and there were various things offered like edited transcripts of tapes, or some tapes, or pieces of tapes, or just a photo op looking at the tapes at points. Like just this is an example of a tape and it built to a head. And on October 30th 1973, Nixon just had a bad night and was like that's it, I've had it.
Maureen:
And he ordered the Attorney General to fire special prosecutor, and the Attorney General was a republican like dude, shit like he was there to do his bidding. His name was Elliot Richardson, and he wouldn't do it, and he resigned. And so they got the next guy in, and he said... So the next guy, who I think was William Ruckelshaus, said Ruckelshaus will do it. You get in here, and Ruckelshaus said nope. And he resigned. So they looked around for another guy, and then they found Bork, and they said to Bork, you do it. Bork's like 10 for boss. You got it. And Archibald Cox was fired, a new special prosecutor would be appointed named, I believe it was Leon Jaworski, who said later that he didn't take the Watergate stuff really seriously until the night of Saturday massacre when he saw what was happening. And that Saturday night massacre would really kind of lead to Nixon's downfall. When you saw that over the course... because it kind of felt nobody would care. But people did care, and something like 50,000 telegrams flooded the White House the next day of people calling for impeachment.
Maureen:
So people cared a lot that all of these prosecutors quit their job or that these attorneys, the Attorney General, quit their job in protest, and that the special prosecutor was fired. And in this case, that would have been like somebody firing Robert Muller, but in this case, people are trying to prosecute people that did crimes for Trump, literally did crimes for Trump. No one's like, do not do crimes?
Dan:
Literally.
Maureen:
And I was like, it's easy crimes but they're like let's not punish him for doing crimes. And this entire team has said, no, we can't and has no opt out in protest. So we're definitely seeing the beginning of certainly the purge the crime... the super and the opening priming Trump straight out, tweeted out that this was what was going on, and the bar was going to be in charge now of his stuff. So now he's going to get bar just to do whatever he wants clear his cronies, clean up... Also, it's going to be interesting what cases and who is going to be gone after because you know, Trump has a lot of pending investigations on him. This is not the only one. The Ukraine stuff is certainly not the only thing Trump is being investigated for or accused of or the Giuliani's being investigated, there's Michael Flynn in the mix, there's... Yeah, we're really seeing it, it's not a sign, this is not one of those lead up signs to win authoritarianism. No, this is actually what happened.
Maureen:
This is not a step or a sign, this is an actual thing where dictators just simply remove... have people that do crimes for them just it's fine. There will be no prosecutions and in fact, his enemies will be punished, people that did the right thing and testified will be removed from their jobs and shunned. As he said about Marie Yovanovitch are going to go through some things.
Dan:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that it is an extremely short list of people at this point that testified in the house investigations impeachment investigations that are still working their job. As Maria Yovanovitch resigned fully from the State Departmentjust a week or two ago. Volker stepped down pretty much right when that started, I think Taylor stepped down. I think there's almost nobody, almost nobody. And it was wild.
Maureen:
Also, it bears pointing out just how many positions in various very important State department branches and offices are unfilled right now. Like we just don't have people doing some of the jobs that need doing in order to have effective diplomacy and things running.
Dan:
No. But Says Who-vians times are fucked up, but then again, they've been fucked up for a while.
Maureen:
Oh, they've been fucked up for a very long time and again, this is one of those things where we go, oh, it has ever been so it's just very, very... I mean, it's, we're coming to some of the natural outcomes of a behavior. Trump is not an aberration, it's the natural outcome. So we got to change. Change or die.
Dan:
Yeah. But also, keep working on you too. I mean, you're heading on vacation Maureen, which is good. This is a good time for a vacation I would say. Shit, every time I have gone away and shut off my phone, I'm always amazed at how I come back and I'm like, oh, I missed like 17 different scandals and outrage cycles and all of that, but everything is pretty much right where it was where I left off. Like the bananas will be there if you need to put it down for a minute, that's all right. You're going on vacation I Maureen Johnson this Saturday, I'm going to Disneyland. I have earned it.
Maureen:
You have earned that.
Dan:
Earned a day at Disneyland our pal Akilah Hughes and I are meeting up, she used to be-
Maureen:
God damn it.
Dan:
She used to be a Disney Princess, so I don't know if we get like the special handshake or something, but I bet. But yeah, we're going to Disneyland I would... People if you can find a thing to do that will bring you a little joy this weekend, this is a good weekend for it. Big, little, find a little thing that's you, and do that thing.
Maureen:
Dan, it's February.
Dan:
It is February, yeah.
Maureen:
In November we're having an election.
Dan:
Yeah, yeah. Marathon.
Maureen:
What are we going to sound like in October?
Dan:
It's like the second or third time you said something in this recording that I just like, feel like I got shot in the gut.
Maureen:
I think that one good thing to do might [crosstalk] everybody leave little messages or gifts for yourself to open up in September and October and November.
Dan:
That's a great idea.
Maureen:
Like little notes or just like put a little something in there now, a little surprise for yourself like, oh, I don't know, a little gift for yourself that you can be like [inaudible] like look, I got myself a groupon for... I don't know at the touch a lobster con or whatever it is. Just if you can a little something for yourself just to make sure that you're well taken care of.
Dan:
I love that idea. I love that idea.
Maureen:
Or you could do it for another person, and you guys can pair up.
Dan:
Oh my God like a Says Who Secret Santa.
Maureen:
Right, like it's-
Dan:
But for October.
Maureen:
For October and it's just like you make a mental health buddy where you send a bunch of like stuff that's just little surprises maybe sending someone a letter or give them a little package that's like open this on this day and... just little surprises. So pair up with somebody and be like their little surprise buddy to like keep them mentally fit throughout this stressful time. That's a pretty good idea.
Dan:
That is a pretty good idea.
Maureen:
It'd be cool if somebody did it.
Dan:
It would be, you know what Says Who is made possible by you.
Maureen:
Oh, you're trying to back out now.
Dan:
I'm just looking at the clock. Just looking at the clock Maureen. I'm seeing 54 minutes and 20 seconds. Says Who is made possible by you through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho. Thank you for your support for real. Our theme music is performed by Ted Leo, our logo was designed by Darth. We love you Darth.
Maureen:
We love you Darth. This is Dexy's first birthday, happy birthday to Dexy.
Dan:
Happy birthday Dexy.
Maureen:
Happy birthday Dexy. Yes, good girl.
Dan:
You can contact us at Says Who podcast on twitter and you can email it hey, that is H-E-Y at sayswhopodcast.com. You can join the discussion on Facebook, which is, once again let me underline what an incredible community exists there at slash groups/sayswhovians they are doing stuff, and supporting each other, and hosting projects, and doing projects together. And it is amazing. Our Facebook group is moderated by Jen Stiller. You can spread the word subscribe and please leave stars and reviews for real reviews are amazing. And please if you have an opportunity to leave one do leave one on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. You can join us next Wednesday unless it becomes Thursday again February 19 for our next episode, Maureen will be live from the tropics. That always goes well.
Maureen:
And also on the 27th of this month, 27th of February, I'll be in Athens, Georgia in the makeup event from the time I was on tour and I got the [inaudible] and I am also going to be rescheduling the [inaudible] rally Pennsylvania event so neither was last. Neither was lost.
Dan:
That's awesome. Athens, Georgia, turn up.
Maureen:
Coming for you. Come out, we can have some biscuits together.
Dan:
Man, I would love a biscuit right now.
Maureen:
Man, they make some good delicious, flowery fluffy biscuits in Georgia, Dan.
Dan:
I have not eaten any breakfast or drunk any coffee yet Maureen.
Maureen:
Dan, you're not living right.
Dan:
I rolled out of bed, threw on my clothes, and just turned on the mic.
Maureen:
You didn't even have to throw on your clothes Dan, like no one can see you.
Dan:
Well, I changed out of my sleeping clothes and into my waking clothes because I have to walk out the door when we're done because I've got to go to work.
Maureen:
Did you change out of your sleep suit and put on your daytime tuxedo?
Dan:
Exactly. So what do you think I am? A commoner?
Maureen:
That's right. I know. Trust me I know.
Dan:
[crosstalk] that's my day outfit.
Maureen:
From my chair in the living room in New York City-
Dan:
Did you pass out?
Maureen:
No, I just-
Dan:
You're supposed to say your name part.
Maureen:
Oh right. From my chair in my living room in New York City, a place where we find both activity end and peace, a place where we are between rivers and close to the sea, and yet we are in bedrock, the strong... I am Maureen Johnson.
Dan:
And from my hotel in downtown Los Angeles, California I am Dan Sinker.
Amy Carter's Shoe:
And this has been Says Who [inaudible 00:57:58].
Dan:
Oh god.
Amy Carter's Shoe:
And you better get out there and vote for my man or I'll kill you.
Maureen:
Oh my gosh.
Dan:
God. Wow.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
That's a new campaign for Joe Biden there. That is a new angle.
Maureen:
She is not happy about the results, and we forgot to say, RIP Yang gang.
Dan:
Yeah, man, his candle burned out long before the Yang gang ever did.
Maureen:
That's right. Elton John reference for the win, close out. Yes.