Hey, the president has Covid so Maureen and Dan made this weekend's Town Watch episode just a regular episode.
A lot of things happened between checks notes Thursday and Saturday. A lot.
Dan:
Hey, Says Whovians.
Maureen:
Hey. Hi-o.
Dan:
It's Dan and Maureen.
Maureen:
Hi, there. Hi, hi.
Dan:
Oh boy.
Maureen:
Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi.
Dan:
It's Saturday.
Maureen:
Hi.
Dan:
The third of October.
Maureen:
Hi.
Dan:
Not a normal day for Says Who and we sat down to record a Town Watch for tomorrow.
Maureen:
We already had one.
Dan:
We did. We already had one. This was an off week for us. This was an off Town Watch week but then everything happened and we started recording the Town Watch and then part way through we realized we are just recording a regular episode but what that means is for those of you unfamiliar with the Town Watch, things get loose.
Maureen:
Yeah, real loose.
Dan:
Yeah. We don't have a plan when we start.
Maureen:
Oh, Dan, as opposed to those super tight episodes we've been putting on-
Dan:
Hey. We have things we say every episode. I usually will edit out when you go to deal with your dog, that kind of thing. Town Watch, fucking, all bets are off.
Maureen:
God dammit, Dan.
Dan:
I like that now you have adopted doing the imitation of you.
Maureen:
Yeah. Well you know what-
Dan:
Anyway, Says Whovia, we are in uncharted times and as a result we are doing two episodes this week apparently. If you are expecting a Town Watch to drop tomorrow, there is likely no Town Watch tomorrow. You get this instead.
Maureen:
Yeah, so you still get it.
Dan:
Yeah. We're sharing it with everyone because-
Maureen:
Because, because.
Dan:
Because nothing matters anymore. Thank you for your support. If you'd like to continue to support, Patreon.com/sayswho. $5 a month gets you this kind of content literally every Sunday now.
Maureen:
Right and also if you want to support us right now we're going to give you so many episodes.
Dan:
It's true.
Maureen:
It's like we're living in your house.
Dan:
It's a good time to sign up if you need a roommate. All right, let's do this.
Dan:
Town Watch. Coming to you live. Coming in hot right now. Extra trombones for this one. Hey everybody it's me [inaudible 00:02:49]. Real special episode today. Got a little extra music.
Dan:
Town Watch. Town Watch. We weren't going to record one this week. We had one in the can.
Maureen:
Just have my hands over my eyes.
Dan:
Town Watch. That's all I'm going to do. Just going to keep saying it. Town Watch. Town ... Can I just, before we really get into this can I just say I got a new chair and it's changing my life.
Maureen:
Oh yeah?
Dan:
It's like, well first of all I always just stand when I record and sometimes that gets a little iffy on my lower back but I've always just had a little chair that is far too short for the desk.
Maureen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dan:
I finally was like, "I should get one that can work if I was standing. Like sort of a leaning stool thing." I got a chair that has a bump of an exercise ball on the top and now I can just sit here and squirm. I feel good squirming.
Maureen:
I want to care more about your chair but I can't.
Dan:
I know.
Maureen:
Because-
Dan:
Before we get into it, can I just say-
Maureen:
What are you doing, Dan?
Dan:
I have spent the whole morning playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.
Maureen:
Dan. What are you doing? Dan? Stop-
Dan:
Well I built a whole theme park, tell you that much. It's doing great.
Maureen:
Dan. Stop to say before we get into it, you can't ... Also, my dog is barking. I have to stop her. Hold on.
Dan:
I add extra trombone when I do [inaudible 00:05:04].
Maureen:
Sorry. Oscar picked his moments really, really poorly.
Dan:
And that's the whole story, Town Watch.
Maureen:
Oh no.
Dan:
Stay vigilant.
Maureen:
I could hear you the whole time, you just couldn't hear me.
Dan:
Oh, well, that's a power imbalance if ever there was one.
Maureen:
Yeah, Oscar picked a bad moment right before we recorded he was like, "I'm just going to get in the shower." What are you doing? Anyway, look, Dan-
Dan:
Maureen Johnson.
Maureen:
Okay, where do we ... I think that we have to agree that we're going to start talking about the story from a point in time. Where do we begin?
Dan:
That seems sensible. I don't even know. The funny thing is, this morning, before we get into it ... I just said that to say that. This morning I realized that this, the events with which we are going to discuss began to unfold on Thursday night, right?
Maureen:
Yeah, yes.
Dan:
It's only Saturday morning right now.
Maureen:
When we say Thursday night, they began to unfold at like, 9:00 or 10:00 PM.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Like late. Like already kind of in bed and reading a book.
Dan:
So we're not really even 48 full hours into understanding the scope of everything and yet it feels like we can never capture the whole of it.
Maureen:
I think there will be books written about this week or even just these couple days.
Dan:
I would like to write one of those. Everyone, the president of the United States has coronavirus. We're five minutes into this shit and somehow we forgot to mention that part.
Maureen:
I think they know.
Dan:
He's in Walter Reed Medical Center.
Maureen:
Yes and pretty much every hour something changes.
Dan:
Every hour someone else has it.
Maureen:
Yeah. Every hour ... Okay so let's just run through the quick list of how we came to understand. This is about a coping strategy, so how did we come to understand this? On Thursday night he says he's getting tested because first, okay, let's go back again-
Dan:
Yeah. No, yeah, you got to back up even more. Thursday night, yeah, it was probably around 8:00 or 9:00 PM Thursday night or maybe even a little bit later because we had settled down to watch some Star Trek Deep Space 9 and after, it was like at 10:00, between the 9:00 and 10:00 Central Hour, a whole series of things unfolded. One of which was that Melania Trump fucking hates Christmas.
Maureen:
Yeah, remember that?
Dan:
Which I know is a minor story in all of this at this point but was just rich as hell at that moment in time.
Maureen:
But we also find out that Hope Hicks.
Dan:
But then Hope Hicks had it and had traveled ... Hope Hicks for those of you that don't know is like, extremely close to the president. She worked with him at the Trump Org, she was sort of early in the administration was referred to as the Trump whisperer. People would go to her to get him to do stuff. Left for a little while during the Mueller, kind of when things heated up during the Mueller stuff and at one point she did testify to Congress. Then she came back sometime in the last I want to say year or so and went right back into being extremely, extremely close to the president. Certainly when Hope Hicks got it, that was a very different playing field than when his Diet Coke valet got it.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Or various other people. Hope Hicks getting it meant that he was in extremely close contact for very long periods of time with somebody that was contagious.
Maureen:
Right.
Dan:
And then-
Maureen:
And then he Tweets around 9:00 or maybe around 10:00 or 11:00 at night that he's being tested, which really made me wonder because it made it a lot of people wonder. I think a lot of us were like, "Why would you Tweet about being tested because you've got rapid testing. You're one of the few people that has-"
Dan:
Specifically they were waiting on test results.
Maureen:
Right.
Dan:
Which was fishy.
Maureen:
Right. Then I went to bed.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
I went to bed. You know what I did? I went to bed saying to Oscar, "He's not going to get it. He never gets it. Those kind of people, they have some kind of evil Teflon that ..." Then I just went to sleep.
Dan:
Yeah, that was a mistake.
Maureen:
And I didn't pick up my phone again for a while but then what happens, Dan?
Dan:
So I have, and I've talked about this on the show, I stopped bringing my phone to bed and would leave it outside the bedroom so that I could get a decent nights sleep sometime but not on Thursday night. After midnight Chicago time, 1:00 AM East Coast, he announced that he and Melania both had the coronavirus.
Maureen:
I was peacefully asleep.
Dan:
You were just snoozing away.
Maureen:
I was having a nice-
Dan:
The snooze of a lifetime over there.
Maureen:
Really nice night, too, because I talked to my friends that night. I had a Zoom call with some really good friends so I was in a very beautiful head space where I was like, "I'm just going to go to bed thinking of my friends and it's so nice."
Dan:
Well, I was in a different head space but it was also fairly nice. I have to say there was definitely the sense of just like, "Wow, I didn't know that I could be looking at the internet and not feeling just pure dread," and I know that's a terrible thing to say but you know what?
Maureen:
It's not.
Dan:
Not a good guy so fuck it. Dude's responsible for the death of 200,000 people due to a virus that he could have dealt with and didn't and then what do you know? The third act.
Maureen:
Well, this just turns out to be the beginning of the story, Dan. So I woke up to a lot of messages from you.
Dan:
So many. You were asleep for so long.
Maureen:
Oh no.
Dan:
In my defense, it was a remarkable length of sleep that you were just out.
Maureen:
It wasn't even that I was out but then I got up and I didn't go right back online. I was doing something. So I was awake and [00:12:44] because I'm doing a project I had to organize a larger amount of data so I was like, "I'm going to sit here and listen to a podcast and get this admin done." It was like the first time I had ever done it and I hadn't immediately turned on ... I just didn't look.
Dan:
You didn't look. I mean, what's amazing is you went to bed with the president on a cliffhanger and you woke up and were just like, "[00:13:17]."
Maureen:
I was convinced. I was convinced.
Dan:
Man, really convinced.
Maureen:
I just thought it was bullshit and I just ... That there's no karmic justice or anything with him and then I was like, "Whatever."
Dan:
But here we are and as Maureen said, this was just the beginning of the story. So we woke up to Donald Trump and Melania and Hope Hicks all having it.
Maureen:
And Dan having a kind of anxiety stroke trying to reach me.
Dan:
I didn't text you. I figured that something must have been up. I didn't want to wake you up and I was glad that you were getting such a good nights sleep. Who's been sleeping well lately?
Maureen:
If you texted me I would have seen it probably.
Dan:
See, that seems like that would have been mean. You were ... Anyway, point being. Then Friday happened. Friday, by the way Maureen, was yesterday.
Maureen:
Nah uh, no, I don't believe that at all.
Dan:
I don't believe it either. But we had sort of just a cascade of positives that included Ronna McDaniel, the head of the RNC. Two senators, Tom Tills and Mike Lee. The president of Notre Dame University and that's, to me, where it got real interesting real fast.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Because all these other fuckers are paling around all week, going to various events, none of them are wearing masks. The president of Notre Dame University went to one event which was last Saturday. It was a week ago today. White House unveiling of Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the announcement that they rushed through because they want to get this done before the election. They held her coming out party on the White House, in the Rose Garden, before Ruth Bader Ginsberg was even in the fucking ground, right? It was a party in bad taste from jump and for ill reason from jump and now it turns out it was a super spreader event. Because now Kelly Ann Conway has it, Chris Christie has it, the head of the Trump campaign, Bill Stepien has it. The current ... We are a month today from election day and the president, who is running for reelection, the head of his campaign and the head of our Republican National Committee, are all quarantining.
Maureen:
So let's go back to yesterday for one second.
Dan:
Sure.
Maureen:
Yesterday we find out he has it, he Tweets once and then silence. Like nothing. Now, one thing is you're supposed to tell the American people how the president is.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
And that's kind of the thing. Nobody was saying anything. Nobody knew what the fuck was going on. All of a sudden, around right after the markets closed, he didn't Tweet nothing.
Dan:
Nothing.
Maureen:
Suddenly we hear he's going to Walter Reed.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
And that he's going by helicopter, not by car.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
So this part, this is where I just pushed the chair back from my desk and said, "Okay, I get it. I get it, world. I'm not going to get anything done." I went and I turned on the TV to see what was going on and that fucking helicopter sat there for an hour.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
They were just burning air time and they're like, "Look at that helicopter. It's got rotors, it's kind of a green color and sand."
Dan:
"And some people call it a whirly bird."
Maureen:
At points, this is literally the kinds of things that they were saying. "Once you get in there, there's a selection of cold drinks and snacks and there's a captain's chair and a rolling, rotating captain's chair that ... It's a nice ride if you can get it." They were like literally to the point where they were describing whether or not there were peanuts inside. So they had nothing to say about this and nothing was happening. All of a sudden they're like, "It's taking off." You didn't see him. So then they got footage of him walking towards the helicopter and he didn't say anything. He just kind of gave a thumbs up and walked towards the helicopter. Now I'm, at this point now fervently texting and speaking to my mother who's a nurse.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
About what she, as a nurse, assesses from this situation. One of the things I said to her was, "Is there any chance they could give him something?" She's like, "They don't generally" ... Why people go to the hospital and what different protocols and different things she would do at different times.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
I said, "Is there any chance they could give him a little something that would give him the energy to get him to the helicopter? It turns out today that that is possible because it seems pretty certain, it is basically confirmed that he was given oxygen inside the White House. Yes, he was given oxygen in the White House on Friday and as many people on Twitter put it, and this is some Twitter speculation but it's backed up with the photographs, if you look at the photographs it does sort of appear that he has like the tubes going around his ear and under the mask.
Dan:
Oh.
Maureen:
And something running down his back and something in his pocket.
Dan:
I haven't seen this particular theory.
Maureen:
I mean, it's the photographs and you can see it pretty clearly. Even when he was walking, the way ... It did look like he was a slightly odd shape so it is within the realm of possibility that he had a little O2 supply with him as he walked across the lawn because once he got to the other side he didn't even walk to the building. They had a trail of SUVs that drove him basically the length of the driveway and over to the door. So he was short of oxygen.
Dan:
Yeah, I mean, so this is where shit gets weird for me, right? Because if these people were not incompetent clowns that have lied to us for the last four years about things big and small, right? Probably we would believe the things that they said a little bit more but the thing that is so weird to me is in my head, in a generalized world where the president of the United States gets a very contagious virus that can proceed quite rapidly and also unpredictably, the idea that you would move the president to Walter Reed Medical Center for a few days of observation during the time of the virus where it is going to likely be the worst, totally makes sense, right?
Maureen:
Totally and nobody would think much of it.
Dan:
Right and if Friday morning someone maybe new had come out and now Kayleigh McEnany and basically said, "Here's the deal. I'm running point on the president's health. Here's his current situation. He has mild symptoms," still fucking go with that. "But as with any protocol, we're going to move him to Walter Reed because we want to make sure that he's getting observed at that level and so that will be happening later in the day. We will keep you up to date on any ..." It's like, okay yeah, fine, why would I think that's weird? The fucking president of the United States has COVID, yeah? But instead, they just can't fucking do anything right.
Maureen:
Well-
Dan:
So you have Mark Meadows come out without a mask, you have everyone fucking walking around without a mask. You have people contradicting each other. Even to today they are contradicting each other.
Maureen:
But Dan, there's one big thing that we forgot about yesterday. So they come out, we find out the president tested positive at 1:00 in the morning. By mid afternoon we find out that he has already been administered a highly experimental antibody treatment that has only has been tested on 250 humans.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
So by mid afternoon they're already injecting him with some kind of thing, which-
Dan:
Not hydroxychloroquine, by the way.
Maureen:
No.
Dan:
So he spent how many fucking months touting that as a miracle drug and nobody has listed that as a thing that he's been given now that he actually has it.
Maureen:
So yeah, by mid afternoon they're using experimental treatments on him.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Then by 6:00 PM, by 5:00 PM they announce he's going to the hospital right after the markets close.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
By 6:00 PM, it takes an hour to get him out to the helicopter and then we have the only kind of proof of life is an 18 second video he makes.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Then he's in there and now we come to today and the fuckery of today.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
So.
Dan:
Well, continue.
Maureen:
So yeah, I'm checking because oxygen is now trending.
Dan:
Yeah, I'm also looking.
Maureen:
We have to look on real time.
Dan:
The president has Tweeted in the time that we've been talking. "Doctors, nurses and all the great Walter Reed Medical Center ..." That makes no sense, "And others from likewise incredible institutions who have joined them are AMAZING," all caps. "Tremendous progress has been made over the last six months in fighting this plague. With their help, I am feeling well."
Maureen:
Okay so all right, this is very confusing so bear with us because we're still, as recording, we're still in the middle of the confusing time. I sat down at my desk again this morning determined to get stuff done when I started to get a bevy of texts from my mother who was watching the live doctor's presentation, which was incredibly weird, in which they give an entirely different ... Let's just back up. Let's talk about what already was previously known is that Hope Hicks starts to not feel well on Wednesday and tests positive Thursday.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Then technically sometime Thursday evening Trump tests positive. That would be the given timeline. Now, Trump has been exposed. They know that a exposed person has been around him. They knew that. He still has an event with a bunch of high dollar donors that turns out then was a buffet and at some point they sang karaoke. I can't, I'm not making this up. They all paid I think a quarter of a million or something to be there. Something crazy like that. I believe it was like that level of donor or something. It was the super high rollers. So he has this big high dollar event, they're all [inaudible 00:25:37], shaking hands, they have a buffet, they sing karaoke. Those donors are not told. They find out with everybody else that the president has COVID.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Today the Trump doctors come out, so he does an event knowing possibly ... I think it is more than likely, given everything that's coming out right now, that he knew at that point that he had COVID.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Because the doctors then come out today and give a very confusing timeline.
Dan:
Yes.
Maureen:
About when he was first treated. The doctors has 72 hours and everyone goes back and does the math and realizes that they-
Dan:
That's Wednesday.
Maureen:
That the onset of symptoms was a totally different day. That they began treatment on Thursday. As of an hour ago White House doctor, "Trump began exhibiting clinical indications of COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon." The doctor has just clarified his timeline. He says, "He meant to say it's day three, not 72 hours in. The diagnosis was made Thursday night." Then the Doctor Garibaldi meant to say it's been two days. So they're saying that, the White House is now claiming that two doctors misspoke.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
These are very high ... These are doctors who precision is ... When my nurse mom went through this, doctors and nurses have a way of speaking that is not vague.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
They are very, trust me, being raised by one you get drilled on precision. When you say you're 72 hours in, that is extremely clinically significant and they tend not to get that shit wrong. So if they come out and say it's 72 hours and two of them give dates and give times, I believe those doctors were saying that yes, 72 hours is when this happened. Now memorandum for the president's physician, he says he, "Used the term 72 hours instead of day three and 48 hours instead of day two with regards to diagnosis. The president ..." So now he's saying he said this. There is confirmation he was getting oxygen in the White House on Friday.
Dan:
Yeah, even that's confusing though. This is the actual oxygen back and forth.
Maureen:
Right.
Dan:
He's not-
Maureen:
Or not oxygen back and forth-
Dan:
"He's not on oxygen right now," Conley said. "He's not needed any this morning, today at all." That's right. Then pressed by reporters on whether Trump was ever on oxygen, Conley said, "Thursday, no oxygen. None at this moment. Yeah and yesterday with the team when we were all here, he was not on oxygen."
Maureen:
He was on oxygen on Friday.
Dan:
Clearly.
Maureen:
Again, this is just me asking nurse mom, I said, "When do you typically ... Would you just give that prophylactically? Would you just give it just because?" She said, this is one nurses' take, she's like, "No, generally you don't give anything until it's needed." Like you wouldn't just, if there's no deficit, you wouldn't just automatically do it. But if his pulse ox was going down, then yes. If his pulse ox was say below 95 or something like that then they probably would have started administering oxygen.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
So his oxygen levels probably going down, he was probably having difficulty breathing. They get him on oxygen, they call in the helicopter, they wait until the market closes and potentially have him on oxygen so he can walk across the lawn.
Dan:
Right, yeah.
Maureen:
So right now, we should just note the time of recording.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Because at the rate things are going-
Dan:
I think I'm going to go ahead, this will not be a quarantine Sunday, Maureen. I will go ahead and edit this shortly after we finish recording it, just to put it out on Saturday because what is the point?
Maureen:
Yeah. I mean-
Dan:
It will be quarantine Saturday everyone, welcome.
Maureen:
I mean, should we just make it available to everybody? Like just no restriction on it. Maybe just put it up as a episode?
Dan:
Yeah, probably.
Maureen:
Because ... So yeah, it's 2:10 right now. Many things come into question like he was probably sick, he was probably not feeling well possibly Tuesday, Wednesday. At the debate it is very likely he was unwell.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
And potentially contagious. Which means that Joe Biden, the other ... Both the president and or the person who will be. One of the two ... The president and the person who will be president, that's Schrodinger's president right there. Are on stage. The Biden camp was not informed. Now multiple senators have it. I mean, the vice president is going to have to be checked multiple times and it's-
Dan:
So the other thing is, so his doctors went out, I'm looking at Olivia Nuzzi's Twitter feed and apparently five minutes after the doctors got off the stage, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, briefed reporters saying he wanted to be off the record but then it was caught on camera so it's him straight up and he says, "The presidents vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We're still not on a clear path to full recovery."
Maureen:
One thing we know about COVID and how it progresses is that it's not a straight line.
Dan:
No.
Maureen:
People tend to feel better.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
And then rapidly get worse and then get better and get worse. It's not a ... You tend not to just start to just feel better and then continue that way. That just seems to be a function of this disease.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
So he could be [inaudible 00:32:35] at points and have that, it doesn't mean at all with this that he's going to remain [inaudible 00:32:43].
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Oh, by the way, new. Eric Trump set to speak with New York investigators on Monday about family business. Dan, what?
Dan:
It's all-
Maureen:
Dan-
Dan:
Happening, Maureen. I-
Maureen:
Dan, let me ask you a question.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
What's going to happen? God dammit, Dan.
Dan:
I mean, there's-
Maureen:
Is there going to be a debate?
Dan:
I mean, who knows, right? Who knows. It is impossible to know right now where things are going to go. I mean, one of the things is there is a long list of people who have tested negative, right? Another thing with COVID is you can be exposed at the same time as someone else and you may not show up as a positive long before or until long after someone else has. It takes different amounts of time to gestate inside the body and some people may never actually get it but we are ... By no means are we out of the window of possibility of people that were at that event or people that were at subsequent events of which there were many and many and many from coming up positive. The fact that we have senators, now three, that are coming up positive. They met all week because they're fucking trying to rush through this fucking Supreme Court thing. So we'll start to see that cascade a little bit. Mike Lee from Utah was this week unmasked sitting directly between Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz.
Maureen:
Sorry.
Dan:
Ted Cruz, who is just famously constantly having to self quarantine because he is exposed to COVID and somehow has not gotten it yet.
Maureen:
Even COVID hates Ted Cruz.
Dan:
Yeah so I mean, we don't know. Mike Pence, he's negative now, we don't know. Rudy's negative, I know that because I texted him and he texted me back to tell me that he was negative.
Maureen:
Just still the greatest thing ever, Dan.
Dan:
It is the fucking weirdest thing on Earth. For those of you that don't know. I have, paid by Says Whovia, I have a burner account so-
Maureen:
Yeah, you did this, thank you.
Dan:
Yeah. You did. Every now and then I will text Rudy Giuliani, always from a fresh phone number and he responds every time. Today I texted him and simply asked, "Rudy, you got your results back?" He responds, "Negative." Then I said, "Christie's positive," he said, "Who is this?"
Maureen:
Every time. Every time.
Dan:
Every time. Every time. But even if he's negative right now, he may not be in the future. We are in such a fluid moment in time it is impossible to know what happens next. Nobody, there is no fucking game plan for what do you do a month out from an election when the president is in the hospital, his campaign manager is out, the head of the Republican National Committee is out, Kelly Ann Conway is out. She can't step in.
Maureen:
Also, to be noted that Kelly Ann was busted by her daughter.
Dan:
Sure was. Sure was. Jesus, Maureen, it is fucking wild.
Maureen:
So there's so much to kind of talk about what all of this means, first of all, for example, Hope Hicks tested negative on Wednesday morning and positive by Wednesday night.
Dan:
Right.
Maureen:
That's how this can happen. So all reports indicate that everyone inside the White House are freaking the fuck out because they've been running around without masks on and everyone there is ... It's like The Masque of the Red Death in there. They've all been locked in with each other. I Tweeted out about 30% of the texts of Masque of the Red Death this morning just because I couldn't ... I don't know if you saw it but I kind of edited it and just Tweeted it out because it's the story of what's going on right now. Almost to a very eerie degree. We are, as of today, let me look over at the calendar, today we are one month away from the election, Dan.
Dan:
Literally to the day.
Maureen:
Today is October 3rd. Things are changing moment by moment. The entire chain of command of the United States government has now got a question mark over it.
Dan:
Yeah. Just absolute wild shit like-
Maureen:
I think that it's very-
Dan:
Mike Pence is not quarantined right now. He's going to campaign next week. He is the next in line. How he's not in a bunker.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Makes no sense.
Maureen:
It's almost like you have a bunch of Trump people running the government right now.
Dan:
Right. That's, yeah.
Maureen:
So here, you want my predictions, Dan?
Dan:
I do.
Maureen:
Okay. I think that there are no more presidential debates.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
I just think that that's just not happening because even if ... It's not even just a question of the two week thing. COVID knocks you down for a long time.
Dan:
Right.
Maureen:
People who get it and are sick with it are sick for a long time. Sometimes they take months to recover fully. I don't think there's any way in hell that if he's in the hospital right now that he's going to be in fighting shape on the 17th of October. Even if they drag his dumb carcass up there, I don't ... I think that they're going to pull the plug.
Dan:
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that the debates will move forward.
Maureen:
Given how terribly he did I think that they're probably delighted to have a good reason to pull the plug on what was the craziest shit anybody ever saw.
Dan:
I mean, I still think he probably thinks he did great and-
Maureen:
Oh, I'm sure.
Dan:
He could be gasping for air in the hospital and be like, "I can do it. Let's go. It'll be great."
Maureen:
Yeah, here's the other thing though, Dan. I think the president is a little baby man.
Dan:
Well, yeah.
Maureen:
He is scared. Very, very scared about himself right now. Even though he's got all this bluster, ultimately dudes like that always freak out.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
You know what I mean? They always freak out so if they say to Trump, "You could die," or something, then I think he would just have them say, "I couldn't do it. The doctors wouldn't allow me. I couldn't take the chance with the government of the US. You're too important to me. I love you too much." Also, I just, not for nothing, he blamed the military and the police for getting COVID so yeah. I mean, let's just ...
Dan:
I mean, this is the thing. This is the thing to me. I have watched multiple videos now of the Amy Coney Barrett party that they threw last Saturday and it is, the more I watch it the more infuriating it is frankly because it is a party. It is people ... Nobody is wearing a mask. They are all slapping each other on the backs and giving each other hugs and laughing and telling jokes and there are dozens of people there and they are crowded into space. They move indoors and there's handshaking lines and they are all operating with impunity. They are all operating with such arrogance, such assuredness that they can walk between the raindrops and not get wet. It is maddening to me. I have eaten food not prepared by mine or Janice's hands twice in the last seven months. My children are working on school from fucking Zoom and it doesn't work. We see no one, right? I know so many people listening are in the same boat. You have been doing the fucking work because there's a fucking pandemic happening and then you see these pieces of absolute human garbage that are responsible for the whole goddamn situation we're in out there basically ... There should have been fucking carnival rides out there for all the solemnity that they held at that.
Maureen:
As you're talking, Dan, I am looking at video footage that's being Tweeted out of Republican Rep McCaul in Texas on a airplane with his mask off refusing to wear a mandated mask on the flight despite being asked three times by the flight attendant before we even left the gate.
Dan:
Yeah and as someone that ... It feels something like justice to actually have this happening, frankly, to me. To finally see them affected by this thing that they have wrought upon us. I don't hate it.
Maureen:
Also, all of this would have been covered up except for the fact that there was a reporter named Jennifer Jacobs who basically busted this open.
Dan:
Yeah, she's the person that reported Hope Hicks.
Maureen:
I mean, there's so many clarifications and things coming in even as we're talking.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
That there's no way we could possibly-
Dan:
No.
Maureen:
The minute we stop recording, an hour later something else will have happened.
Dan:
Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. Anything could happen right now.
Maureen:
So Dan, how does this affect what's going to happen in a month.
Dan:
Nobody knows. I don't think anyone could answer with any level of certainty other than the fact that at least right now you have one person running for reelection to be president who has from day one downplayed both the virus and the science around it and you have another candidate who from day one has, in fact from before day one, has very clearly and very admirably, championed the science, championed how we need to get out of this and has run his campaign accordingly. We saw at the debate Trump was making fun, at the debate where he was likely positive.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Trump was making fun of Biden for wearing a mask everywhere he goes, for having events where very few people attend and they are kept in very distant circles from each other and yet, that is correct. That is correct. That has always been correct. So I would hope that some people will look at this situation and say, "One of these people can't even keep himself safe and certainly hasn't kept any of us safe." And move accordingly.
Maureen:
I think that is probably, I don't want to say it, I think it's a good guess that this probably did not help the Trump campaign.
Dan:
Well, yeah.
Maureen:
I'm hopeful of that.
Dan:
I think that's probably a good guess.
Maureen:
He can't campaign, he can't do events, he can't do rallies, he can't breathe very well, he's in a hospital.
Dan:
This is also, remember, this is a man who truly views illness as weakness.
Maureen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.
Dan:
And who hates people that are sick.
Maureen:
Yeah. He makes fun of them.
Dan:
Yeah, makes fun of them, thinks that they are losers, right? Thinks that they have ... Yeah. So to have to admit it, to have to be in the hospital right now for him is truly-
Maureen:
Galling.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
I had an evil uncle, I had several real pieces of work, Dan. But I had one that we found out that his thing was making fun of coworkers who got cancer and he would just mock people who got cancer. This is the thing, then he got cancer and told another relative who passed it along not knowing that it was a secret and that he made fun of people for it and he became so infuriated. There are people that are like this, that make fun of sick people.
Dan:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely-
Maureen:
I'm going to make some predictions-
Dan:
For him the ultimate disgrace is for him to be publicly sick.
Maureen:
I'm doing it. I'm doing it right now. Making some predictions.
Dan:
I want to hear it. I want to hear it.
Maureen:
Okay, definitely no debate on the 17th.
Dan:
15th, but yeah.
Maureen:
Is it the 15th?
Dan:
Pretty sure.
Maureen:
Let's see. Some asshole put it in my calendar. Goddammit, Dan. I put it in your calendar so you'd be able to see it, Maureen.
Dan:
Yeah, 15th. 17th is Saturday.
Maureen:
Now, all right, okay, in four days time there's supposed to be a vice presidential debate with one person on stage whose been exposed and there is no guarantee at that point that he would test negative.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
You wouldn't be able to trust it so do you just cancel that debate or have it remotely because you can't trust that they're going to provide accurate results if he tests positive?
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
For safety reasons, I'm not sure they can have that debate but all right, let's just say it happens. It seems real risky.
Dan:
I can't imagine that it's really going to happen.
Maureen:
I definitely don't think the debate on the 15th is happening.
Dan:
No, no.
Maureen:
It seems impossible to me.
Dan:
No.
Maureen:
He'll say that the doctors demanded that it not happen. I think that there may be a debate on the 22nd but I don't think there will be. I think the debates are done.
Dan:
Yeah, I mean-
Maureen:
He'll claim he won and the doctors won't let him do any more and that will be that and we won't have to watch that shit again. Which frankly, I'm okay with it, Dan.
Dan:
Oh, yeah, I'll take it. I'm fine with that. It's good. It's all good. I'm fine with that.
Maureen:
We have no idea how his condition is going to go up or down. None.
Dan:
None, zero.
Maureen:
We have no idea how long he's going to be in the hospital.
Dan:
None.
Maureen:
We have no idea that even if he is discharged from the hospital that he does not return to the White House and then his condition worsens again and he has to be readmitted.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Because COVID moves up and down.
Dan:
Yes.
Maureen:
We have no idea. We have no idea if the vice president is positive or negative right now. He is really Schrodinger's candidate right now.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
Because he was sitting in the middle of a sea of people-
Dan:
Oh yeah.
Maureen:
That are all positive. We have no idea who's running the campaign because the campaign manager has COVID.
Dan:
And anyone that could step in, any former campaign manager-
Maureen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dan:
Has been arrested.
Maureen:
Yes.
Dan:
Or is hospitalized.
Maureen:
They are all either in jail or sick.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
We have no idea what the actual chain of command is going to be at any point this week.
Dan:
No.
Maureen:
We have no idea if there's going to be a transfer of power. It is one month to the election.
Dan:
To the day.
Maureen:
They may have knowingly exposed the other candidate to COVID.
Dan:
Yeah, that's the real hold your breath part because we don't know by any level of assurance what Biden's status is right now. He's been tested and says he's negative and that's great but again, things take time. If Trump was actually exposed at the Amy Coney Barrett thing, that was a few days before so you would still be ... There's still time that things could get even more fucking crazy.
Maureen:
Oh, yeah. I mean, there's still diagnoses to come.
Dan:
Yeah, a lot. So what you're saying is, see you tomorrow.
Maureen:
See you tomorrow.
Dan:
We're officially at the point where I did not ... No one ... This is just fucking crazy.
Maureen:
Dan, we recorded an episode on Wednesday.
Dan:
We sure did. It came out on Thursday.
Maureen:
We recorded an episode on Wednesday, it came out on Thursday and by Thursday night, everything was different. We should just ... Can we just do a thing where our mics are open and it's just, our podcast is just live?
Dan:
At all times?
Maureen:
Yeah. How are you doing in terms of getting things done?
Dan:
I actually had an extremely productive day yesterday somehow. Mostly guilt based because I had not been productive on a project that I needed to be moving forward on, like a paid project that I just had been getting dick all done all week and it was like, "I got to do this," and so I was actually able to really concentrate. Part of it was I realized that I could do a lot of the job with pen and paper and so I just, I put my computer away and then it was like, "Oh, look at this. I can plot all of these things out that I need to be doing right now."
Maureen:
I did that the other day and that's when Trump got COVID.
Dan:
So in that respect I was productive for about three and a half or four hours.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
I felt really good about that.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
But doesn't look good for longterm productivity.
Maureen:
October?
Dan:
Yeah, for the entire month of October.
Maureen:
Oh, okay, let's just quickly game this out, Dan.
Dan:
Oh no.
Maureen:
We're a month out from the election. Definitely the next week is all about him having COVID, probably the next two weeks. The debates-
Dan:
Oh yeah.
Maureen:
Are probably going to get called off. I don't even think we've hit the October surprise yet. I'll be honest with you.
Dan:
Oh boy.
Maureen:
You know? I don't think-
Dan:
No, I don't know.
Maureen:
I just don't think we have.
Dan:
Okay.
Maureen:
I think you thought this was the October surprise. I don't think it is because I think the actual October surprise is still out there. Meanwhile, there's going to be testimony from Trump, from Eric Trump on Monday so the whole tax thing, remember that being a big deal?
Dan:
Yeah, that was Sunday.
Maureen:
That was less than a week ago.
Dan:
That was less than a week ago.
Maureen:
Less than a week ago.
Dan:
Yeah, yeah.
Maureen:
So Dan, then we get to the election which is going to-
Dan:
Well also don't forget that there is theoretically a vote on Amy Coney Barrett happening in October, as well.
Maureen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dan:
That as we were recording, McConnell has announced that they are not going to hold any votes for the next two weeks but that he still expects the judicial hearings to continue on schedule.
Maureen:
Even though some of the members of that committee have COVID?
Dan:
Yes, because apparently committees have been meeting in hybrid model and so the quarantined people can continue to quarantine.
Maureen:
This shit is going to look like Weekend at Berney's.
Dan:
Oh, yeah. You also now have Republican senators that are refusing to test. Church Grassley, who is 87 years old, and is on the judiciary committee and met with Mike Lee for sure yesterday said that he wasn't going to test.
Maureen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), sure. Yeah.
Dan:
So he is literally willing to just roll the dice in order to get this vote through. So you have that happening in October, too.
Maureen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dan:
Yep so then you have the election. I'm sorry to have interrupted with that.
Maureen:
Oh yeah, then we have the election at which point we begin the process. We begin the process of trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.
Dan:
With the actual vote.
Maureen:
Right and that, that runs us through January.
Dan:
Yep, it does.
Maureen:
And January is optimistic. At some point, someone will make the series bid to change the election date.
Dan:
Yeah.
Maureen:
I don't think that will happen.
Dan:
Nope.
Maureen:
But at some point they'll try it.
Dan:
Yep.
Maureen:
Dan? I don't know. I don't know. What if on election night Trump is utterly incapacitated?
Dan:
Yeah. Certainly not even a particularly far fetched, "What if?"
Maureen:
No. No, considering-
Dan:
It's only a month away.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Whoa. People are racing in your neighborhood though.
Maureen:
Yeah. They want to know what's going on.
Dan:
Man.
Maureen:
Yeah.
Dan:
Exciting.
Maureen:
Yeah, I hear that a lot.
Dan:
Maureen Johnson.
Maureen:
I mean ... Anyway, bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Dan:
Bye-bye. Bye-bye Town Watch, bye-bye.
Maureen:
Bye-bye. Dan, this is just a normal episode.
Dan:
Right, that's right.
Maureen:
Just put it out.
Dan:
Bye-bye everyone.
Maureen:
No Town Watch this week. You get this. Everybody just get this. Bye-bye.
Dan:
Oh, lordy.
Maureen:
The one ... You know what, Kelly Ann that really got me.
Dan:
Oh, yeah.
Maureen:
Because she was out and it was like a Nightmare on Elm Street where you think you've woken up and then the hand comes up from the bed and is like, "[00:59:20]."
Dan:
There's so much more to come.
Maureen:
Bye-bye.