Says Who?

SIMPLY THE BEST

Episode Summary

Well, we watched it.

Episode Notes

What more do you want?

Episode Transcription

Dan:

All right.

Maureen:

What do we do if ...

Dan:

You just told me to hit record.

Maureen:

I know that. Well, you don't have to just do what I ...

Dan:

Goddamn it, Dan! Just hit record.

Maureen:

All right. This episode of Says Who is brought to you by Patreon.com/SaysWho, where every Sunday of quarantine, we give you a special episode just for you, that you can listen to whenever you want. You know, it's just some extra content. Oh, no. We'll be doing it forever. Aw. Patreon.com/SaysWho. Thank you for your support.

Dan:

Hi, everyone. This is Maureen. Do you like books? Buy my fucking books, you pieces of shit! I've written a lot of them, and goddamn it, you don't have them all. So, get them all. Go to a fucking bookstore. I don't care which one. Fucking buy my books!

Maureen:

Barnes & Noble.

Dan:

Go to Barnes & Noble because they're fucking going out of business, and maybe we can help their asses out.

Maureen:

That's not it. It's the $5 thing.

Dan:

There's $5 book, which is less than it costs to make it, you fucks! You can't buy a book for five fucking dollars? When are you ever going to buy a fucking book? Go get some coffee and a $5 fucking book-

Maureen:

It's in the café.

Dan:

... you pieces of shit!

Maureen:

It's in the café.

Dan:

At the café at Barnes & Noble, you fuckers!

Maureen:

With any purchase at the café, it's $5.

Dan:

Any goddamn purchase ... You don't even need to buy a fucking coffee at the café. They probably sell fucking Snickers bars and shit. Who gives a fuck? Just goddamn buy it, and get my fucking book for $5, you shitty fucking book buyers! Just fucking buy it!

Maureen:

And, it's on BarnesandNoble.com. It's $5.

Dan:

At BarnesandNoble.com ... If you don't want to go into a fucking store, I get it. Just go to BarnesandNoble.com. It's $5, too.

Maureen:

With purchase of any other book.

Dan:

With a purchase of a fucking other book, goddamn it. Buy another one of mine! Buy two of mine! Buy one for full fucking price because you're not a fucking cheapskate, and then for five fucking dollars, you get Truly Devious, you shits!

Maureen:

Why not buy Dan's book?

Dan:

His book isn't in print anymore because he's a stupid fucking piece of shit.

Maureen:

Oh, Maureen, that's my book.

Dan:

That made me dizzy. My throat hurts.

Maureen:

Oh, you better save your throat, my friend, because we got some kind of shit to do today.

Dan:

Hold on, we forgot to tell them about Merch.SaysWhoPodcast.com.

Maureen:

I didn't forget. I didn't forget. I didn't forget.

Dan:

All right. Well, are we doing it?

Maureen:

Goddamn it, Dan!

Dan:

See?

Maureen:

I didn't forget shit.

Dan:

This is what it's like. This is what it's like. Go to Merch.SaysWhoPodcast.com, where you can get all of your Says Who merchandise, including your nice, warm, fall-weight Thicky Chex and His All-dinosaur Orchestra sweatshirts. People are buying those sweatshirts because it's sweatshirt weather. It is fucking sweatshirt weather here in Chicago. I don't know if it is in New York, but-

Maureen:

It is.

Dan:

It's cold. Considering-

Maureen:

Today I have my-

Dan:

... turning the heat on.

Maureen:

These Aren't Bright Guys and Things Got Out of Hand baseball tee on today.

Dan:

Ooh ... Also available at Merch.SaysWhoPodcast.com.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

Hey, Dan ...

Dan:

No.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

Hey Dan ...

Dan:

Amy Carter's Shoe, you're joining us here at the very top.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

At the top. I'm here. I want to talk about some stuff.

Dan:

I bet you do.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

Oh ...

Dan:

You might've been the only person ... And, you're not even a person. You're a shoe. You've might've been the only sentient entity in America that enjoyed themselves last night.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

Oh, you better believe it. That was some real spank bank stuff. Mama like. Yum yum yum.

Dan:

Uh ...

Amy Carter's Shoe:

Dan, did you love it?

Dan:

You know, I have to be honest with you, Amy Carter's Shoe. I did not love the debate.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

What? I don't understand.

Dan:

I know. I feel ... I would rather hear what you liked about it, maybe. Maybe that's how we'll start today.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

Oh ... Yeah.

Dan:

Uh oh. Oh, boy.

Amy Carter's Shoe:

Yeah. I'm like, "Mama likes it."

Dan:

Oh, no.

Maureen:

Oh, no.

Dan:

Welcome to Says Who, the podcast that isn't a podcast.

Maureen:

Hey ... Wait. Was you saying something? What are you, dancing? I'm Maureen Johnson.

Dan:

I don't know what you were.

Maureen:

What are you? Or, what I heard ...

Dan:

Huh?

Maureen:

It's not what I heard. It's not what I heard, liar. Liar.

Dan:

Oh, I know what you're doing.

Maureen:

Liar. You see what I'm doing.

Dan:

Yeah, I see what you're doing. It took me a minute because my brain doesn't work anymore.

Maureen:

No.

Dan:

My brain does not-

Maureen:

Welcome to Says Who.

Dan:

The post-debate episode of Says Who ... We're coming out a day late so that we could watch the debate, and Maureen, I have some regrets.

Maureen:

Yeah, Dan. Boy, oh boy. We got to ...

Dan:

It's good. Good stuff.

Maureen:

We'll get into the meat of it in a second.

Dan:

Will we?

Maureen:

No, we won't. No. But, I mean-

Dan:

I woke up feeling like I was hit by a fucking bus.

Maureen:

I felt hungover. I think that there's definitely something about that debate. There will be a psychological term for whatever it is that we're all feeling. We all have this kind of ... It was ... Oh, boy. For the last week, I've been saying, "Dan, tell me what it's going to be like."

Dan:

Goddamn it, Dan!

Maureen:

Yep.

Dan:

You fucking piece of shit! Tell me what it's going to be like.

Maureen:

Right.

Dan:

That's what it's been like for the last seven days.

Maureen:

We tried to guess, and we tried to feel more like it'll probably be like an annoying back-and-forth where they land soft blows on each other and contradict each other, and Trump will say that everybody's telling a lie. I don't know what the fuck we watched.

Dan:

I mean, I will say, in my worst-case scenario of what last night was going to be, it was a lot like I imagined, but what I had not imagined was what it would be like to sit through. I very much thought that Trump was going to be belligerent, that it was just going to be this level of just I'm rubber, you're glue. And, just anything, it was just met with stonewalling and noise and fucking everything. But, it's one thing to imagine that in your head, and it's another thing to willfully sit through it. Dear fucking God.

Maureen:

Now, perhaps there's a couple of you who didn't see it. And, I get-

Dan:

I wish I was you.

Maureen:

Yeah. There were people that didn't watch it.

Dan:

Ah, man. Those people-

Maureen:

And, boy ...

Dan:

... are fucking brilliant.

Maureen:

Whoa ... My God.

Maureen:

So, basically, what happened was ... It's really easy to explain because it started. They came out. Chris Wallace from Fox asked a question.

Dan:

Yep.

Maureen:

And then, Trump started talking and never stopped.

Dan:

Yeah. And, just ...

Maureen:

Just did not shut the fuck up. It was like having a deranged toddler at the Thanksgiving table. It's like, "And then, I saw a bird. I saw a bird. No, you didn't see a bird. I saw a bird." Just this chatter. And then, because the rules were strict, it was like, "Okay, you stop talking, and now you talk for two minutes, and then you stop talking." And, he would not shut the fuck up.

Maureen:

It was astonishing, to the point where you couldn't make out anything that was being said for a large part of it. And then, the moderator starts yelling at him. So, the moderator's yelling at him. Joe Biden just starts laughing and tells him to shut up.

Dan:

Literally, one point was all "Can you just shut up, man?"

Maureen:

Yeah. It was pretty-

Dan:

At another point calls him a clown. Says it first under his breath, and then says it a second time. Calls him a clown a second time and catches himself, and then says, "I mean person."

Maureen:

By that point, that was pretty far in, and I couldn't fault him for that because it was just chaos.

Dan:

It was.

Maureen:

It was chaos. It was unbelievable. It was unwatchable.

Dan:

It was unwatchable. There was the fact that it was unwatchable, and then it was the fact that when he would actually answer questions, the things that came out of his mouth were fucking insane.

Maureen:

Yeah, it was just-

Dan:

Just conspiracy theories and discredited shit. At one point, Biden is trying to talk about his dead son, Beau, and Trump is only half listening, and so, starts attacking about Hunter Biden's drug use, and Biden just stops and is like, "That's not the son I'm talking about." And, Trump's like, "Well, I don't know Beau, but I do know Hunter." It's just like, "What the fuck is happening?"

Maureen:

Yeah. It was awful.

Dan:

What is happening? There were just so many points. I'm looking at my notes right now. I'm three bullet points in when the first I hate this bullet point comes up. And then, it just keeps going. I fucking hate this. Ugh.

Maureen:

I think basically all of America was screaming in one voice, "Just turn his mic off."

Dan:

Yeah, but I don't think that would've worked, honestly. I get shut his mic down. But, then the story becomes they were shutting up the president. I think it's more effective that the story is just like that man was fucking unhinged for 90 minutes.

Maureen:

The one point that if you could ... So, a lot of it you just couldn't even hear because no matter what was being talked about, even when they kind of got him to shut up ... I was like, "Shut up. Mister President, shut the fuck up." Then it was just mutter. Just "Oh, well" ...

Dan:

You're the liar.

Maureen:

It was having a sentient Facebook comment sitting next to you.

Dan:

It really was.

Maureen:

It was fucking bananas, and the one point where you could actually kind of sort of figure out what was going on was near the end, when Chris Wallace explicitly called on him to denounce white supremacists and the Proud Boys, and the president says, "Stand ..." It was another proposition first before he said, "Stand by." It was stand something-

Dan:

It was, "Stand down and stand by."

Maureen:

Right.

Dan:

And, I know that because the Proud Boys have already made that into a T-shirt. Yeah. Because they were psyched.

Maureen:

Yeah. He could not and would not denounce them.

Dan:

No. No. He immediately pivoted to saying that leftist violence is terrible. So, if you looked at the statement as a whole, it was stand by because there's more leftist violence that we need you to help with.

Maureen:

It was absolutely not a ... I mean, it was ... As of a couple minutes ago, I'm having trouble finding it because my mouse is off power, so I'm trying to find my cursor. But, as of a couple minutes ago, he put out a statement or something that said that he didn't understand the question.

Dan:

Oh, yeah. It was a hard question. It literally was, "Will you denounce white supremacists?" And then, he went, "Sure. Give me a name. Give me a name."

Maureen:

Give me a name.

Dan:

And then, I think Biden was like Proud Boys. And then, he was like, "Oh, yeah. I'll denounce them." And, Chris Wallace is like, "Well, do it." And then, Biden's like, "Do it." And, both of them are like, "Do it." And then, he's like, "Blah."

Dan:

It is impossible to describe how fucked up that whole shit was. It didn't even really end. It just sort of stopped. Usually, people give final statements and shit, and this was just like, "Oh, okay. Now it's over."

Maureen:

Yeah. He also wouldn't commit to waiting for the election results before declaring victory.

Dan:

Yeah. To me, honestly, the most terrifying part of the whole thing was that exchange at the end. Chris Wallace asked both of them to commit to asking their supporters to have patience and to stand down if the election results took a while, and then to accept them. And, his response was, "Oh, I'll absolutely ask my supporters to go into polling places and to watch what's happening in them, because there's terrible things happening in them, and I want them to watch. It's a nice name. They're called poll watchers." And then, he somehow then pivoted to something ... I think maybe Trump supporters were kicked out of a polling place in Philly. And so, he was like, "Terrible things are happening in Philadelphia, and we need you to watch that."

Maureen:

That's fair, though. There are-

Dan:

As somebody that has been a polling judge before, somebody that has worked at a polling place, there is a specifically designated thing called a poll watcher. You have to be credentialed. You have to present those credentials. There's a limit to the number of poll watchers allowed in any polling place. They can be from a candidate, but there are rules with which they have to abide by. You can kick them out if they don't abide by those rules. And, he is just basically telling his fucking goons to just go in.

Maureen:

Yeah. It went about badly as it could possibly go.

Dan:

I mean, yes ... Joe Biden was fine, so it could've gone worse there, I guess.

Maureen:

Yeah. I mean, to be honest, you couldn't fault him for stumbling over ... He stumbles a couple times because it was hard to know what ... You couldn't even figure out what the questions were anymore. To be honest, I think he held it together pretty well considering the sheer amount of chaos that was going on. You had to sit there and actively try to pick out the question from all the noise, because then it would change. And then, Donald would shout stuff, and then he kept doing a thing where he would turn and look right at the camera and basically say, "You must vote. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ."

Dan:

Yeah. I mean, clearly, the entire strategy ... Well, there were two strategies on the Trump side. One was just keep interrupting and throw Joe off completely. That was clear from the moment that the first question was asked, that was clearly what he was ... He could've just been like, "Hey! Whoa! Whoa!" You know, just anything to interrupt a train of thought. And, he did not allow that train to be derailed much, which was honestly impressive for anyone, let alone for somebody who has to concentrate on how he speaks because he has a major stutter and all of those other things.

Dan:

And then, the other strategy was just to grind all of us into dust.

Maureen:

Yeah.

Dan:

Which was ... that accomplished ... deeply accomplished.

Maureen:

When it was over, CNN ... The floored anchors just stared for a moment before declaring it a shit show.

Dan:

Literally. I think it was Dana Bash-

Maureen:

Yeah.

Dan:

... said, "This is cable. It was a shit show."

Maureen:

I was texting with my mother who just kept typing, "Holy shit." There was no commentary to give on it. You couldn't sit there and pick it apart and listen. It was just like someone was standing in your yard throwing canfuls of shit at you, and you were like, "What's happening?"

Dan:

Again, if you didn't watch-

Maureen:

God bless you.

Dan:

... a good example would be the exchange around the administration's terrible response to coronavirus, because Trump's entire approach to that was simply to say, "If Joe Biden had been in charge, two million people would be dead. There would be two million people dead. Two million people would be dead if he was in charge. Two million people would be dead." How do you debate that? Because he might as well be like, "If leprechauns were real." It doesn't matter. He's just making shit up. He literally had a whole diatribe about hypothetical response by Joe Biden based on nothing.

Maureen:

Or the mask stuff.

Dan:

And then, Joe Biden would attempt to respond and be like, "Well, 200,000." "Two million people would be dead if you were." "200,000 people" ... "There would be two million people." "But 200" ... And then, Chris Wallace is like, "You need to be ..." "Two million people would be dead."

Maureen:

Or the mask thing at the rallies. Trump's like, "The masks! The masks. Your CDC says it's important. Some say we should wear masks. Some don't. I have one in my pocket sometimes. You should see Joe over here. He walks around with the biggest mask you've ever seen. Two people in 200 feet, he's got a big mask on."

Maureen:

"So, why do you encourage having these rallies where people don't wear masks?" "He couldn't get the people at his rallies. That's why he's not doing it. He can't get them. I can get them. People want to come see." "So, why don't you tell them to wear" ... "They want to come see me. They want to come see me. They're excited."

Maureen:

It was ... I don't ... Okay. If you didn't watch it, here's what you need to do. Go on YouTube and just type in the search terms, metal machine music and Lou Reed. And, it will bring up an album. It does not matter what track you put on. Click any track, and listen to it for a full minute. That will give you a pretty good mental picture of what it felt like.

Dan:

I felt like such ... And then, I think you tweeted. You were like, "Now, I'm supposed to just go to sleep after this?"

Maureen:

Yeah.

Dan:

I was wiped out, and I passed out pretty quickly afterwards. And then, I woke up at 2:30 in the morning with a full-fledged like ... Aah! And, I was awake for two and a half hours. I was awake until 5:00 a.m.

Maureen:

It doesn't make me think-

Dan:

Just with my brain processing what had happened.

Maureen:

You're not thinking about anything in particular. You're not turning any particular phrase over, I mean, aside from ... It's this just ... It's like a probe. Someone stuck a probe and just keeps tapping a part of your brain. It's just like poke. Anyway, they're going to have to do something because no one is going to watch that shit again.

Dan:

Yeah, that's the real question now. And, I think you raised this last episode, of just like are they really going to do these, all of them?

Maureen:

Right.

Dan:

Certainly, a lot of pundits last night were basically like, "Joe Biden should not do another." I cannot imagine Joe Biden pulling out because that feels like that will be the narrative that he's too afraid to face Trump again.

Maureen:

Right. He can't pull out.

Dan:

But, I also can't imagine that Trump wants to do that again.

Maureen:

What do you think, honestly, that his people made of that?

Dan:

Well, I don't even know who his people are right now. Everyone said that he didn't prepare, that Joe Biden had been doing debate training for a full week. And, everyone said that Trump didn't prepare, and in fact, the very first question which was about one of the news items for this week that likely we should talk about at some point, but about the naming of Amy Coney Barrett as his selection to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat in the Supreme Court, and he started to answer ... The official rules of this thing, which went out the window very quickly, but the official rules were that a person had two minutes to answer a question, and then I think it was two minutes for the other person to respond.

Dan:

He got about 10 seconds into that answer, and I was like, "Holy shit. He's just going to be done." You could hear in his voice that he had nothing else to say in that answer, and then his record skipped a groove, and then we were just fucking off to the races. But, there was a moment at the very start where it was like, "Oh, wow. He really didn't prepare." He is not prepared to answer a question about the Supreme Court justice that he named four days ago. And then, of course, it didn't actually matter because it was ... Oh, Jesus Christ.

Maureen:

It was ...

Dan:

Joe Biden, in his answer to that, he said, "Roe v. Wade is on the ballot this November," which is true. And, Trump immediately just goes, "Why is it on the ballet? It's not on the ballet. Why are you saying it's on the ballot? It's not on the ballot. It's not on the ballot. That's not on the ballot. Why would you say that? It's not on the ballot." Fuck. Ugh. It was so much of that shit.

Dan:

That was the shit that I was like, "I don't know how well they are going to prepare Biden for that," just the whatever you say, no, I didn't say it. Somehow that answer really went far field and turned into talking about Obamacare and Biden saying that you haven't come up with a plan for healthcare, and Trump just goes, "Yes, I did. Of course, I did. I did." And then, Biden would be like, "Well, what is it, then?" "Well, I did. I did it." Ugh.

Maureen:

We're going to have another one of these in two weeks.

Dan:

We sure are. You know, I had to pull it up today because I still think it was the most insightful useful and sadly not particularly acted upon bit of analysis from 2016, which was Baratunde Thurston, who was a comedian and just very, very smart guy ... Pulled it up. It was in September of 2016, so right about now, four years ago. Said that the best lens with which to think about Donald Trump is that he is a distributed denial-of-service attack on America, which is typically, nowadays, when you can't get to a website and people say, "Oh, this website's been hacked," it hasn't really been hacked. It's just been attacked with something called a DDoS attack, which is massive numbers of request to access that website in a planned attack, hit all at once to make it impossible to actually access it.

Dan:

If access to a website is like a hose, suddenly you hit it with a tidal wave, and suddenly you can't get to that hose because there's just shit everywhere. That is Donald Trump. That has always been Donald Trump. Just throw as much shit out there and make it impossible to actually move anything forward. After watching last night, I was like, "That was that personified. There was no way to move anything forward because of just the pure level of DDoS attack coming out of his mouth that just brought everything to a screeching fucking halt."

Maureen:

So, Dan ...

Dan:

Hmm?

Maureen:

What's going to happen in the next one?

Dan:

Goddamn it, Dan. What the fuck is going to happen? And, shut the fuck up about your stupid DDoS attack, your bullshit. Pull your fucking head out of your ass! Tell me what the shit's going to happen next time.

Maureen:

Well, they're going to have-

Dan:

So, next is-

Maureen:

What are they going to do to-

Dan:

... technically-

Maureen:

... the format?

Dan:

Technically, up next is Kamala Harris versus Mike Pence.

Maureen:

Fine ...

Dan:

I mean, that will be-

Maureen:

Different.

Dan:

I would guess that it will be entertaining. I just, in my mind, she is about to perform a dissection on that man. Just methodically cut into him and remove parts over the course of the hour or whatever they'll be talking.

Maureen:

Yeah.

Dan:

But, after that, there are two in a row. There's two. There's one the 15th and then one on the 22nd.

Maureen:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:31:27]

Dan:

They can't change formats at this point because all of that stuff was negotiated months ago. By the end of this thing, all Chris Wallace could do was say, "Your campaign agreed to these rules, sir. You have two minutes." Or, "Everyone agreed to this, sir. Sir, stop ... sir ... Everyone agreed. Your campaign agreed to these rules. I need you to abide by these rules." All of this shit was sorted out forever ago. I don't think that they can just say, "You know what? Instead of debating, the next one we're just going to play a round of Floor is Lava." I don't think that they can just change that up now.

Maureen:

Well, maybe they can do a thing where microphones are only live when it's your turn or something, or they ... something so you could hear.

Dan:

I mean, but I don't think that would work, honestly, because cutting off his mic ... Watch. I'm going to go walk a long way away. Hold on.

Maureen:

Okay.

Dan:

So, I can just yell from here, and you can still fucking hear me. I'm easily the distance that Donald Trump was, and I'll do this, and this was will be far more distracting to the person speaking than if I was speaking at a more level into a microphone.

Maureen:

I'm really enjoying this, to be honest with you.

Dan:

So, unless they put them in separate soundproof booths ...

Maureen:

I mean ... Yeah.

Dan:

Cutting off the mic isn't going to work.

Maureen:

So, why don't they-

Dan:

I'm going to come back to the microphone now. Hello.

Maureen:

Why don't they just put them in separate soundproof booths?

Dan:

Because all of that would've ... I mean, the thing about these debates is the height of the podiums are negotiated. Whether they're sitting or standing, whether they're allowed to have a notepad. All of this is negotiated in painstaking detail before ... who the people are going to be, how many ... all of it. And so, they can't just suddenly be like, "Hey, guess what? Your guy was a fucking maniac, so now you're both going to be in orbit." It just doesn't work that way. They can't suddenly do that. And, for Trump's people, I can't imagine that they would agree to rules that would silence him. Right?

Maureen:

Right.

Dan:

That would force him to actually have been prepared, and it would force people to actually be able to hear what Joe Biden has to say, which they don't want to have happen.

Maureen:

But, also, I can't imagine that they are thinking that turned out well.

Dan:

I don't know. They're all such dumb pieces of shit at this point. There's nobody around him that is a decent human that has a sense of what is actually supposed to happen or what is likely good for your candidate. Because-

Maureen:

Right. But, it was annoying. It was super annoying, and I feel at the very least, there would be that kind of little part of their brain that's like, "Yeah, maybe people don't want to be annoyed to death."

Dan:

But, I don't even think that they think it's ... I don't know that they think it's annoying. I think that they think ... I think the most coherent person, anyone on that team that is not just all about like, "Yeah. Hey, he fucked them up." Right?

Maureen:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dan:

Anyone that isn't like that is like, "Well, yeah, he's not a debater. He's a brawler, and he brawled. Biden can't brawl, so we did great." People will show how much he'll fight for America and how much he'll fight for them, while Biden just wants to use fucking rules of engagement. I don't know that there's anyone on that team that is going to be like, "Oh, shit." Right? Anyone that would, would be fired by Trump.

Maureen:

You think probably privately, they're thinking, oh, shit?

Dan:

Sure.

Maureen:

Yeah.

Dan:

Absolutely. We will get a full few days of news cycles of leaks from in the camp, of people shitting their pants, and the worrying that this and that. And, nothing will change, other than there likely will be another clearing of house because we're right at about the point where normally he would now fire the whole staff-

Maureen:

Just fire everybody.

Dan:

... and have a whole new staff.

Maureen:

The other big thing besides the debate and influencing it is a very important thing that happened a few days before.

Dan:

Not even sure which of the ones but, certainly, we need to discuss them.

Maureen:

Oh, it's the big one.

Dan:

The taxes?

Maureen:

The taxes.

Dan:

Yeah. Take it away.

Maureen:

We were at the dog park, and we come back. I sit down at my computer, and I look, and then I get up and I say to Oscar, "Um, some stuff happened while we were out." And, New York Times ... I have questions about this, Dan, because you're the journalism professor ... somehow got their hands on 10 to 15 years worth of Trump's-

Dan:

15 years-

Maureen:

Worth of tax documents.

Dan:

Yeah.

Maureen:

Now, for a story this big, with this kind of information, how long do you think that they've had it?

Dan:

I would guess that they have had it for a few months, would be my-

Maureen:

I was wondering if it'd be something like that.

Dan:

I think there were three people on the byline, but they would have vetted the shit of that stuff. I think that they probably would've been reporting it out for a couple of months.

Maureen:

So, they've been verifying ... who do you think ... because it does seem like someone over there has gotten the keys to the fax machine. Where do you think that this stuff is coming from?

Dan:

Well, that's the interesting thing. Obviously, The New York Times does not disclose anything other than saying the source or sources that they got it from legally had access to them. So, at least, to follow that through, that would mean it was not somebody that at the IRS entered into an account and pulled the documents and sent them over. It was somebody that was handling the documents, whether it was an accounting firm, whether it was ... I would gut the most obvious answer would be that-

Maureen:

Eric.

Dan:

... the various New York prosecutors that have been slowly and methodically working their way toward those documents, and the Supreme Court finally allowed some level of access to them ... That would be my gut, but I'm not entirely sure they got them. If you remember back to 2016, also right before a debate, The New York Times released a story based of two years of his tax returns from the ... I think it was from the '80s, and it turned out that I believe Marla Maples was the party that had access and shared them-

Maureen:

That's just funny.

Dan:

... with The New York Times. So, Melania? Melania would've had access to his personal taxes, I would assume.

Maureen:

Barron?

Dan:

Barron ... I don't know. Does a dependent ... It would be all the years Barron was alive.

Maureen:

He can just get in there.

Dan:

He's 15.

Maureen:

Yeah.

Dan:

He's good at computers. I think it was Barron.

Maureen:

Yeah. Good for Barron. Good for you, Barron.

Dan:

Yeah. So, these taxes show that 10 out of 15 years he paid no taxes at all. They went all the way up to 2017, so they included the first year of his presidency and the year of election. Both of those years, he paid just $750 in taxes.

Maureen:

Disappointing.

Dan:

It's not just disappointing.

Maureen:

Hard to hear.

Dan:

It's a number that almost feels like it was put in to be insulting to anyone that ever saw it.

Maureen:

Yeah. How did that number work out?

Dan:

Why not just make it zero if you're only going to pay $750? Why not just pay zero? I don't get it. That part doesn't make any sense to me. What percentage of what tax write-off shows up as a nice, even number of 750 when the narrative is that you are writing out depreciating expenses of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate, and then, suddenly it just ... Oh, but look at that. There was 750 bucks left over. Here you go.

Dan:

The biggest part of the tax stuff ... The $750 stuff certainly is the most viscerally, just, shiv in the gut. But, the biggest thing is that he owes around a half billion dollars in debt, all of which comes due in the next four years. And, he is the personal guarantor of that debt.

Maureen:

Yeah. Concerning.

Dan:

That's a little concerning.

Maureen:

Dan, it's not even October yet.

Dan:

It is tomorrow. This comes out October 1st. We have a month and two days to go.

Maureen:

Well, for phase one.

Dan:

Well, right.

Maureen:

Come on.

Dan:

Until the never-ending count happens.

Maureen:

Right. So, what's going to happen is we're going to have three more debates.

Dan:

Goddamn it.

Maureen:

Okay. Just listen. Just listen to me.

Dan:

Just hearing that ... That really hit me.

Maureen:

Okay. I'm going to pull up the calendar.

Dan:

Is it bad what I just said?

Maureen:

Yeah. All right. Well, just hear me out now. So, I'm looking at the calendar now. All right.

Dan:

Oh, my word.

Maureen:

So, let's see here. We just had one ... one, two, three ... All right. So, we have three more debates. Next week is the V ... Someone, some asshole filled my calendar with them, so I can easily see them.

Dan:

Goddamn it, Dan. What the fuck are you doing putting dates in the fucking calendar? You only put dates in the calendar when I ask you to put dates in the fucking calendar, you stupid piece of shit!

Maureen:

Am I wrong in this case?

Dan:

Am I wrong? Goddamn it! You're not wrong.

Maureen:

We have a debate on the 7th. Then we have a debate on the 15th. Then we have a debate on the 22nd. So, every week for the next three weeks, we have a debate. Okay.

Dan:

Yeah.

Maureen:

Then, by that point, we're in the zone of ... Let's see ... one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine ... At that point, it will be 12 days to the election. So, we're never going to have more than ... The longest stretch of anything resembling quiet, where they will not be quiet is 12 days. But, it will not be quiet. It will be chaos, and figuring out how they're going to do this next debate is going to be an absolute shit show.

Maureen:

So, every week of this, Dan, of Says Who, we're going to be dealing with something like a debate. Best-case scenario: Let me put it this way, Dan. From here on out, the best-case scenario we've got for this show is that we'll be talking about a debate. Then, that next week, we'll be in the final week of the campaign. Then, we're going to be on election Tuesday, which will be a shit show.

Maureen:

That night, no matter what the fuck happens, he's going to declare something along the lines of victory. Even if he loses so bad that he's got one vote somewhere, he will say, "We have to see what happens." So, he's not going to concede. That's when See You Tomorrow starts, and then the real carousel starts. So, right now is the most fun we are going to have for the rest of 2020.

Dan:

I passed out about halfway through that. What? I really just ... Every part of my body just ...

Maureen:

You heard me.

Dan:

I just noped out. I don't even-

Maureen:

This is-

Dan:

Literally, I'm not even kidding. I opened up QuickBooks.

Maureen:

I'm going to say it all again, Dan.

Dan:

Oh, God. No. Don't.

Maureen:

Right now is as good as it gets. This is maximum fun right now in 2020. Right now. Right now. This is the best we're going to get because we'll have a debate next week, which will just be annoying, but we'll be able to deal with it. Then, we're going to have the second presidential debate, and who the fuck knows what that looks like? The third one is going to be, if it happens, Armageddon. If it doesn't happen, Armageddon.

Maureen:

Then, we are in the last campaign, during which he will be the most desperate man alive. He will be saying crazy shit. He will be out there swinging his dick in public in front of children on a daily basis. Then, the week after that is election night, which will be a shit show. And then, we are off to the races. So, I hope you really savor the moment, Dan. This is as much fun as you get.

Dan:

I blanked out again.

Maureen:

Nope. I'm going to do it again because I need you to understand. I need you to understand-

Dan:

I understand.

Maureen:

... and accept.

Dan:

I understand. I understand, and I submit.

Maureen:

Do you?

Dan:

I submit. But, I just can't help but think, Maureen, that we are supposed to be a coping strategy ... I was really hoping-

Maureen:

This is hoping.

Dan:

... you were going to finish that thought.

Maureen:

This is as good as it gets.

Dan:

Oh, no. It's not. Ugh.

Maureen:

This is it, Dan. Enjoy.

Dan:

I'm not. I'm not enjoying.

Maureen:

Why do you think I'm sitting here at my desk eating what's left of last night's ice cream? I ate a pint of ice cream between-

Dan:

Oh, what kind of ice cream did you get?

Maureen:

Mint chocolate chip with taro, in one pint.

Dan:

Whoa.

Maureen:

We got the hand-packed pints from our favorite place that we haven't been to in six months, and we had them delivered.

Dan:

See, that just feels like you ruined your favorite place.

Maureen:

No, it was really nice to have it.

Dan:

Oh.

Maureen:

Yeah. I ate half of it last night, and then I came back and saw the news and just cranked that thing back out and ate the rest of it, Dan. Next Wednesday night, the 7th, Salt Lake City, that's the vice presidential debate. Thursday, October 15th, in Miami, and Thursday October 22nd in Nashville.

Dan:

So, on a Says Who note, I would gut that we will not pushing ... We pushed today's episode back a day. Came out on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday. With the rest of these debates happening on Wednesdays and Thursdays and that kind of thing, I don't think we'll be pushing back. I think that likely the Quarantine Sunday episodes of Says Who will become instant reaction type episodes, and then we'll be back on a regular Wednesday schedule, I guess? What is anything? What does time mean? What does anything matter? Why do we even pretend like a schedule is important anymore?

Maureen:

And then-

Dan:

What is anything?

Maureen:

... after four weeks, then See You Tomorrow begins.

Dan:

Our vote countdown show.

Maureen:

And, that's presumably going to go on for the rest of 2020.

Dan:

Easily.

Maureen:

When do you think it's all-

Dan:

What does that even matter?

Maureen:

When do you think it's going to be decided? What's going to happen?

Dan:

I mean, they're being very clear and transparent about what is going to happen. They are rushing a Supreme Court justice into the Supreme Court so that they can decide the election like they did in 2000. So, what's going to happen? They are going to contest every and anything. Some of those things will stick. Those things will then get moved very rapidly up to the Supreme Court with a newly seated sixth conservative justice, three of the justices named by Donald Trump. Three justices, Barrett, fucking Kavanaugh, and Roberts, I believe, all worked in one manner or another on the Bush-Gore election, on the Bush side of things. So, what's going to happen? That's going to happen. How long will that take? That's, I think, the real question. And, is there any way around it? I think that there is, and I think that is an uncontestable blowout.

Maureen:

An uncontestable blowout with ... Dan, how does it end?

Dan:

I don't know.

Maureen:

Does he win?

Dan:

I don't know.

Maureen:

Dan, does he win? Have we not even reached the halfway point of Says Who? Is it four years before we get to go to Disney World?

Dan:

Well, it's likely four years before we get to go to Disney World because that's how long it will take before we feel safe being in a place as crowded as Disney World. That's a long time.

Maureen:

So, listen, Says Whovia, we're all in this together. We're together, all of us. It's fine. It's not fine, but you know. Look. Stick together.

Dan:

I believed it for a minute. I thought it was like, "You're doing it."

Maureen:

Yeah.

Dan:

And then, you just-

Maureen:

No. Okay. All right.

Dan:

... drove right over that cliff accidentally. You missed that last turn-

Maureen:

All right. Dan-

Dan:

and over you went.

Maureen:

Nope. Not true. Imagine four years ago knowing this wonderful group of people were in our future.

Dan:

Yeah.

Maureen:

I mean ... Dan, come on.

Dan:

What?

Maureen:

Goddamn it, Dan! Goddamn it! Goddamn everything!

Dan:

Goddamn, Dan! I'm telling you to fucking listen when I say something, you say something back. Goddamn it! That's how fucking conversations work, you fucking moron!

Dan:

Yes, a wonderful group of people-

Maureen:

Shut up!

Dan:

What would my life be like without them?

Maureen:

Dan, this is as good as it gets for the rest of the year.

Dan:

Simply the best! It's better than all the rest. Better than anyone. Anyone I ever met.

Maureen:

Yes.

Dan:

Right now is simply the best. It's better than all the rest. Better than any other day in 2020.

Dan:

That's what you're telling me.

Maureen:

Dan, remember four years ago, we used to carefully write scripts?

Dan:

Yeah. We did.

Maureen:

Now you're just singing Simply the Best to no one, by yourself, scream singing in your basement.

Dan:

It's true. This is true. This is accurate.

Maureen:

Because four years ago-

Dan:

That's accurate.

Maureen:

... big, dumb Dan from four years ago didn't know.

Dan:

You fucking idiot! You fucking idiot! You fucking stupid piece of shit! Said it was eight weeks! You fucker! You stupid fucker! It's been 208 weeks, you shit! And, it's going to be 208 more, you stupid fuck!

Maureen:

Or more. Third term.

Dan:

It's true.

Maureen:

Third term, third term ...

Dan:

Oh, Jesus Christ. Says Who was made possible by you.

Maureen:

He'll be dead before then. We have at least that.

Dan:

Will he? Will he? There were two deeply elderly men onstage last night, and watching it, the person that I thought was going to die was me. I'm going before he is, I swear to fucking God, at this point.

Maureen:

I will say, Dan, this fuzzy microphone cover that you got for me is really nice to put your head down on. It's very ... Goddamn it.

Dan:

Says Who is made possible by you.

Maureen:

Why do I have a headache?

Dan:

My throat hurts so much from screaming.

Maureen:

Why do I have a headache?

Dan:

Is made possible you, through your support of our Patreon at Patreon.com/SaysWho-