Blow that whistle, it's the new Says Who! Maureen and Dan talk Brexit, impeachment, and the sheer nuttery of this never-ending news cycle.
Oh hello there, SaysWhovia. Come sit beside us on the porch. We’ll have some lemonade and tell stories about the old days, like a week ago. It was a different world then. Back then, sometimes we only had two news cycles a day! Things were slower. Life crept along.
Now, of course, the news cycle is… well, there’s been a new one while you were reading this! We’re on a water slide! Are we going into a fun pool or a shark-infested pool or a fun, shark-infested pool? Who knows! But there’s SOMETHING at the end of this slide! Let’s all find out together.
But first, the briefest of reviews of this week. There’s Brexit and corruption and impeachment and more corruption and subpoenas and more corruption and blatant tweeted crimes stuff and hard drives and some corruption. Dan has written it all down. The whistleblower is whistling, SaysWhovia. Can you hear it on the wind?
Toot toot!
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Dan's tracking impeachment news and sending out updates every day. Sign up at impeachment.fyi
Maureen's new book The Vanishing Stair is OUT NOW. NOW!
Support Says Who and become a citizen of SaysWhovia by joining our Patreon today! You really can join for just a dollar. Or more if you want!
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo
We love Darth
Dan: This episode of Says Who is brought to you by You.
Maureen: Oh, my gosh. Is it?
Dan: It sure is. Maureen Johnson, this weekend, we passed a milestone on our Patreon. We passed 400 supporters, 400 citizens of SaysWhovia.
Maureen: And when we say how directly you are making the show happened, just before we got on ... Dan, can I just tell tales out of school?
Dan: Yes.
Maureen: You were like basically, my headphones, I have to lash them to my computer with a series of rubber bands and spells. And every time I need to take them out or in, I have to restart my computer and I said, "Dan, it's time to get a new computer."
Dan: Yes, it is kind of remarkable that my computer has not just burst into flames at this point.
Maureen: It doesn't have to be this way because the citizens of SaysWhovia are funding this, so get a piece of equipment to make it work. Literally, you guys have given us funds to build this thing so we are entirely indebted to you so we should get stuff to make it so that they can have it.
Dan: This is logic, Maureen, but holy cow, all of you, we cannot thank you enough.
Maureen: Honestly, it's just I regard the Patreon, I feel like it's the most worthwhile. It's genuinely moving. I regard those funds you give us as really sacred, and we've been very ... We're like, "Okay, a postage meter," and I think that's all we've gotten is like a postage meter.
Dan: Literally that.
Maureen: We're very like, these are precious and they're to be spent making the thing that you want. We really appreciate that.
Dan: It's unbelievable how much we do ...
Maureen: It's really, yeah.
Dan: Your support at patreon.com/sayswho really does make this all happened.
Maureen: Thank you. Dan, books.
Dan: Books, Maureen. You write them, I read them.
Maureen: Dan, I'm coming up on a busy period.
Dan: You sure are.
Maureen: There's this movie stuff that's going to happen. I can't believe it but I still can't say when it is. I know, I'm just not allowed to say it. But it's-
Dan: I'm going to start calling you Hollywood Johnson.
Maureen: It's really soon, like it's hilariously soon and I can't say how soon it is. It's so dumb, but they don't let you. They don't let you. So, movies are not books, but in a hilariously short of period of time, there's going to be a movie. I'm going out to LA next week.
Dan: Yeah, you are.
Maureen: I'm going to be doing page proofs on the plane.
Dan: Man, you're the multitasker.
Maureen: But I'm doing a lot of book events. It's all happening. Texas, and I'm going to the Miami Book Festival. I'm going to a bunch of other places I don't even know, Dan, because the last book in the trilogy is done. Like once I do those page proofs, I don't touch it again. It's done.
Dan: Done.
Maureen: There's a bunch of other stuff going on with these books that I also can't really ... It's dumb. It's not like I don't have the nuclear secrets or anything. I'm not carrying the nuclear football but they just say, "Don't say anything," so you don't say anything. But honestly, I think you'd like Truly Devious maybe.
Dan: I just recommended it to someone today.
Maureen: I saw ... I mean, you might like it unless you don't.
Dan: But if you don't, that's on you.
Maureen: I'm just saying, Halloween is coming up. Christmas is coming up. Other holidays are coming up. Non-holidays are coming up. Birthdays are coming up. Why not get people a nice book? And it's pretty cheap because it's a paperback so you can buy it for someone, and say, "My friend, Maureen, wrote this."
Dan: I love it.
Maureen: There you go.
Dan: Buy books.
Maureen: Honestly, just literally buy any book and it's good. And Dan, have you been making anything recently?
Dan: Well, Maureen, it's funny that you should ask. In fact, just yesterday, I launched a new project at impeachment.fyi. If you need a quick summary of the day's news in the impeachment, I've got your back now. I decided that somehow all of the reading and looking and thinking about this crap that I do should maybe benefit someone else other than the years that I'm taking off of my life.
Dan: So I am now writing quick one, two-sentence, bullet-pointed summaries of where we are at. It is on the web. There is a newsletter that you can subscribe to, impeachment.fyi.
Maureen: This is what happens when Dan has four extra hours.
Dan: I'm not even kidding. This is how ... We can talk about this when the actual show starts. We became one of those podcasts with six minutes of ads before it starts. We can talk more about this in the real show. Let's do it.
Drive Thru Kid: Welcome to McDonald's, can I take your order please?
The Passenger: Yeah, I'm going to have a-
Drive Thru Kid: Oh, no.
The Passenger: ... six-piece McNugget?
Drive Thru Kid: Okay.
The Passenger: With ... Do you have like a mustard ... It's like a mustardy dipping sauce-
Drive Thru Kid: We have honey mustard.
The Passenger: Yeah, yeah. I'll have that one.
Drive Thru Kid: Okay.
The Passenger: Onion rings, do you have onion rings?
Drive Thru Kid: No, they only have onion rings at Burger King.
The Passenger: Fries then, fries.
Drive Thru Kid: Yeah, we have those. Yeah. So you're not going to try to order onion rings anyway?
The Passenger: No, you don't have them. I'll have a chocolate shake, I think. It sounds pretty good.
Drive Thru Kid: Just normal size?
The Passenger: And you know what? I'll also take a filet fish.
Drive Thru Kid: These are all things that we have on the menu. You've never done that before. Is everything okay?
The Passenger: Yeah, everything is fine. You've been reading the news recently, kid, at all?
Drive Thru Kid: Just, I mean it's sort of hard to avoid, but I try to but I can't. So, yeah.
The Passenger: On that filet fish, is there any cheese or anything on it or-
Drive Thru Kid: Yeah, there's one slice of cheese and also you get a tartar sauce and some relish.
The Passenger: That's nice. I'll enjoy that. Did you ever realize that you've got to do something. You've got to do the right thing?
Drive Thru Kid: Yes.
The Passenger: Did you ever realize-
Drive Thru Kid: That's generally what you're supposed to do.
The Passenger: Yeah. Did you ever realize that maybe you're stuck in a situation that isn't the one you're meant to be in but you can be the person that does the right thing?
Drive Thru Kid: Yeah. One time, the small cups were in the large cup container, and instead of just asking who did it. I just switched them back.
The Passenger: That's what I mean kid. Just like ... By the way, do you have any dessert items like-
Drive Thru Kid: Yeah, we have an apple pie.
The Passenger: You have an apple pie?
Drive Thru Kid: Yes.
The Passenger: Good. That sounds good. That sounds really good, kid. Kid, sometimes when we see wrong, we've got stand up and we've got to, even if it's hard on us, we got to do the right thing. You do it the right way and you just-
Drive Thru Kid: This is ... Wait a second. Are you the whistleblower?
The Passenger: Kid? How soon is that food going to be ready?
Drive Thru Kid: I mean, you could have driven around quite a while ago.
The Passenger:Because I got to get a lot of food because I may be on the road for a while, kid.
Drive Thru Kid: What?
The Passenger: I got to ... Oh, there's someone behind me. Oh, my god.
Drive Thru Kid: Well, that's probably just somebody that needs to order food. You can just drive through.
The Passenger:Listen, kid. Here's what's going to happen now. I'm going to drive around. You're going to get me in the dumpster, then you're going to take this car. You're going to drive this car. You got to torch this car.
Drive Thru Kid: I don't know how to drive a car.
The Passenger: Then you push it into the river. Find a river, push it in the river. I'm going to take you ... Take off your uniform. Take it off right now. I'm going to put your uniform on ... Just take off your clothes. Right now, take off your clothes. Take off your clothes, I'm coming around. You're naked. You're going to take the car. You're going to torch the car. Get in the car, kid. You got to torch this car. You got to give me your clothes. Take off your clothes, chase him. Oh, my god. They're coming. They're coming.
The Passenger: Oh, they're just ordering. They're just ordering. I'm just going to pull around. I'm just going to pull around. Make that [crosstalk 00:09:39].
Drive Thru Kid: Okay. That will be $10.23.
The Passenger:There's another car.
Drive Thru Kid: Oh, god.
Maureen: Welcome to Says Who, the ... Oh, I'm looking at my puppy's feet, Dan. Her little toes are just so cute.
Dan: You're supposed to finish the introduction.
Maureen: Welcome to Says Who ... Let's see. Just a little toes [inaudible 00:10:17]. The podcast that isn't a podcast. This is my puppy's toes.
Dan: And I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen: Oh, I'm Maureen Johnson. Did I say that?
Dan: Sure. It was fine.
Maureen: I got-
Dan: Let's just keep going, yeah.
Maureen: ... really interested in her. When she was first a tiny pup, her little toesies were pink.
Dan: It really does seem like all of us collectively have been on a real journey with Dexy. She's now like you can just do the podcast next to her and it's no issue whatsoever.
Maureen: It depends, but she's ... I walked her. I walked her right before we ... That's why if you were like, "Where is she? Maureen's not in the notes anymore. She's gone." It's because I walked her before we recorded.
Dan: I never noticed that because as we've discussed, I have to restart my computer in order to make the headphones work.
Maureen: And also you do all the work.
Dan: Well, not really. This is the work-
Maureen: We're not supposed to say that out loud, but-
Dan: This is the work, what we're doing right here. This is the work, Maureen.
Maureen: Is it?
Dan: Sure.
Maureen: Dan, how's your week been?
Dan: Well, Maureen, I had to take the train into the fair city of Chicago on Friday and by giving myself the 35 minutes of idle time that a train allows, I created a whole other job.
Maureen: Goddamnit.
Dan: There's literally a Twitter thread that is like, "So, how come the Democrats aren't like, yeah, don't have a newsfeed of what's happening in the impeachment." And then like 20 minutes later, I'm like, "Oh, maybe I should do that." And then, next thing I knew, three days later, Maureen, I launched a website called impeachment.fyi.
Maureen: It's great.
Dan: Let me underscore how little I know what I'm doing. So this is a website that in the vein of what the fuck just happened today, the amazing work of Matt Kaiser. It simply boils down these stories into a few bullet points so that you can better understand it. In this case, it's very specifically centered around the impeachment.
Dan: I know how to make websites, Maureen, and I decided, "Oh, it will just be an easy website and a newsletter." The first major update went out yesterday, and at eight o'clock at night, I was like, "I wonder how you make a newsletter." After having collected, Maureen, 1,500 signups. Yeah, that was not the number I was expecting.
Maureen: I'm looking at impeachment.fyi right now, and it's great.
Dan: It turns out if you spend three years obsessively following the news and talking about it, it isn't that hard to talk about it more.
Maureen: That's probably healthy.
Dan: Yeah, very. But yeah, the way I tend to do things is I start them and only once they've started do I figure out how to do them.
Maureen: Same. So, yeah.
Dan: If you all have signed up for the newsletter, you did get it last night, only after I learned how to do it.
Maureen: MailChimp. MailChimp is pretty handy.
Dan: It is, though I am running right up against the free tier right now, which I was not expecting to have happened on day two of this project. So there might be a migration in the future or-
Maureen: Or you could put a little donate button on there that says, "Throw me a couple of bucks to send out the newsletter."
Dan: This is true. Yeah, we'll see, Maureen. But yeah, suddenly, this is the problem with having idle time. What's the expression? Idle time makes the devil's work or something?
Maureen: The devil finds work for idle hands, I believe-
Dan: There you go. Yeah, it's true. No, I had idle hands, but now, I've got a whole another job that doesn't pay me money. I'm good at those. Let's get the money once. Oh, what am I doing with my life?
Maureen: Everything.
Dan: Maureen, that's true. Maureen, you're back from Greece.
Maureen: It's almost like you came up by starting your own zine and learning how to make magazines.
Dan: Almost. Almost like that, Maureen, almost. You are back. We're in almost the same time zone again. You're no longer looking out at the Albanian mountains and an idyllic sea filled with dolphins.
Maureen: That's right. We saw several dolphin pods go by.
Dan: ... East River.
Maureen: Well, I don't think there are any dolphin pods going by but one never knows. There are always jet skiers out there.
Dan: Wait, on the East River, really?
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: Oh, god.
Maureen: All the time.
Dan: You like really don't want to fall.
Maureen: They're always out there.
Dan: They're the most stable jet skiers you have ever seen.
Maureen: It's like 80 degrees in New York today here in October 1st, and tomorrow, I believe it's going to be 90.
Dan: Who doesn't love jet skiing on hot sewage? Jet skiing on hot trash feels like an ample metaphor for this week.
Maureen: Does it?
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: Dan, today, so we got our groceries delivered. You just buy them online and they [crosstalk] No, Dan-
Dan: Your fancy pansy over here.
Maureen: I don't have a car.
Dan: I'm joking. I know that that is a fairly normal thing in New York City.
Maureen: Yeah, because we don't have cars. And actually, they tend to come on, if not a truck, they come on these bicycles ... They're bicycles with these big platforms behind them, and there's bins on the platform. So it's a bike or trike that they ride along and then the delivers come off the back.
Maureen: But they came today and one of the sale items they had was one of those produce boxes, a harvest ... Whatever the farm has and you get the box with the-
Dan: I'm not getting tricked into this one.
Maureen: Look, it's not a trick, but it was $10 off. They're usually $30 and it was $20, and I was like, "Hit me with your box of veggies," because it's like one of those cooking shows where you open it up and you're like, "What am I going to make with this stuff?"
Dan: Oh, like a CSA box?
Maureen: Yeah, like a CSA box. So you get whatever they've got and this is a really good time to get the tomatoes, the peppers, the eggplant, all the cool stuff. So I opened my box up this morning and I got so excited, it was like I had won the lottery.
Dan: Look at all these bok choy.
Maureen: I know. It's like I get super ... Because sometimes it's stuff you wouldn't normally buy like French tarragon like you just look at it and you're like ... I'm talking about kind of my Says Who U is I would go in there and I'm already looking at a bunch of stuff going down. I'm going, "Well, this is veggie chili right here. Look at this. This is going to be nice."
Dan: Maureen Johnson, we have done Says Who now for over three years-
Maureen: 500 years.
Dan: I feel like Says Who U is the best thing that we've done.
Maureen: Probably.
Dan: It has changed everything for me. I'm reading books. I'm making food. We're like doing projects as a family. We made cake pops this weekend, Maureen.
Maureen: That's awesome.
Dan: It's just like giving yourself not just permission but giving yourself an expectation that you're going to go offline for a little bit is absolutely wonderful. It has been a game-changer for me.
Maureen: Well, that sounds nice, Dan, because as we sit here, my phone is going bloop, bloop, bloop with news, Dan.
Dan: No, what?
Maureen: There's just news, more news.
Dan: More news? No more news, Maureen.
Maureen: What a week, huh?
Dan: What a week. What a week. Last week, we recorded three episodes of Says Who. I wonder what this week will hold. [Hachibachi 00:19:12], Maureen Johnson.
Maureen: I was in Greece. So we basically never left this house that we were in. It was a big house, we were all in, and you just went in and you stayed there. So there was a big wrap-around patio and our room was right off and we would just kind of go in and out, and Oscar would turn on the TV because of the Brexit stuff and then the US stuff.
Maureen: So I have this whole weird backdrop when I think about Greece now of just walking in and out of this room to constant. That's what I will think of Greece now. It was just this like every time you walk in this one room, the world has altered again. And I'll let you know the update once we've gotten through.
Maureen: But you want the quick Brexit for-
Dan: Yeah. I mean the thing, I saw somebody on Twitter yesterday, I believe, that was like, "2019 in politics: UK, hold my beer. USA, hold my beer. UK, hold my beer. USA, hold my beer." And on and on and on. Let us just take a step back for a moment and marvel at the fact that both the United States and the United Kingdom have collapsed at the exact same time.
Maureen: It's on the same day in a lot of ways.
Dan: Yeah. It feels fake.
Maureen: Yeah, but it's not. It's really happening.
Dan: All right. Brexit me.
Maureen: I was having a little sip of coffee. So the quick overview, Brexit, current timeline 31st of October, and Boris Johnson, the prime minister, had made this move for something called prorogation. He shut down parliament. And then a surprise twist. So people took it to court. One court in Scotland ruled that it was illegal. It went to the UK supreme court, and the UK supreme court, all the justices gathered and they gave a unanimous decision that it was in fact illegal and because it was illegal, it was like it had never happened.
Maureen: And they said it was as if someone had walked into the chamber of the House of Lords with a blank piece of paper asking them to sign it because it never happened. So they all went back in and Boris Johnson is now fairly fucked.
Maureen: Now, one of the things that parliament did right before it was prorogued, was it passed this piece of legislation that said it demanded that Boris Johnson go to Brussels on, I believe, the 17th of October. It's either the 17th or the 18th and asked for an extension and that passed so he has to do it. Now, that's law.
Dan: Just to remind listeners, Brexit currently is scheduled to happen on Halloween, just 30 days away.
Maureen: Yes. So that's the law. He has to do it. And then an unprorogued parliament is back and there was just a conservative party conference which is like the convention. And the weird thing that's been happening is that everybody has clearly gone and gotten the same message. And so they asked him if he'll obey the law, and he says, "Of course, I'll obey the law."
Maureen: And then they say, "So that means you'll go to Brussels and ask for an extension as the law says." And he says, "We will be leaving the EU on the 31st of October." By the way, they've created their new slogan as Get Brexit Done. It's on everything. It's on all their posters, their whole poster thing was Get Brexit Done. We have to get Brexit. They all just say Get Brexit Done over and over again. It's like that's the phrase. We have to get Brexit done.
Maureen: And they said, "But you have to, by law, go and ask for an extension." And they say, "We'll obey the law." "Are you going to ask for the extension?" And he said, "No." And they said, "So you're going to break the law?" And he said, "I will not break the law." And they said, "So you're going to ask for an extension?" And he says, "No."
Dan: That sounds like a rather frustrating conversation.
Maureen: It's a riddle. They all say it. They were like, "So, he's going to be break the law?" "No, he would never break the law." "So, he's going to ask for the extension?" "We will be leaving on the 31st of October." "So, you're not going to ask for the extension?" "We'll be leaving on the 31st of October." "So you're going to break the law?" "We will not break the law."
Maureen: And they do this over and over. So, clearly, either they're cooking up some shit or they're not. They're just fucking with people, but apparently, there is this one super weird loophole and I've only heard this from Oscar who read about it, but apparently there's some weird loophole that says, "The privy council can postpone a law, like when a law goes into effect."
Dan: What is a privy council?
Maureen: The privy council is somebody that refers to the council that used to surround the monarch. And there is this privy council that's a group of ... I don't know, Dan. It's a group. It's a group of legislators. It's one kind of grouping. It's maybe some kind of committee like we might have a committee on this or a committee on that. The privy council is some ... I don't know, Dan, it's-
Dan: Hopeful that at least they're wearing elaborate costumes.
Maureen: I mean, at least some kind of drape over a capey thing. There may be some shenanigans being planned. No one knows.
Dan: No. That'd be shocking.
Maureen: No one knows what it is. Although-
Dan: Shenanigans, you say?
Maureen: So 30 days. I mean, meanwhile preparations and projections are being made. One projection is that they'll lose a billion pounds of trade every week. You hear all kinds of things. For example, some fast food outlets are stocking up on pork, because the food and medicine [inaudible 00:25:58]. No one knows. No one knows if he's got a secret deal in his pocket or if he's-
Dan: He does not have a secret deal in his pocket.
Maureen: If he's going to go around it and postpone the law, then they crash into no deal. No one knows. We'll find out in 30 days or less. Oh, god, tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
Dan: Well, the good news is everything's fine here, Maureen.
Maureen: Oh, tell me about that.
Dan: It's not fine. Maureen, the last time we recorded our regular episode of Says Who, it was last Tuesday and it ended with you saying something to the effect of, "So do you think that by the end of the day, the Democrats are just going to actually like do something like start impeachment? And suddenly, everything that we've been talking about is going to change up?" Well, the answer, Maureen, was yes.
Maureen: It was, huh?
Dan: Yes. It is a new day here, Maureen, where there's an actual impeachment inquiry in effect.
Maureen: Cool. Who said it? Who said it? Tell me who said it?
Dan: You said it.
Maureen: I said it.
Dan: You said it, Maureen. You accurately predicted it.
Maureen: Yes, I did.
Dan: There's an impeachment in the fall, and here we are in the fall, in the haunting month of October and we are doing impeachment. And it's really going great-
Maureen: Is it?
Dan: ... so far. Oh, yeah. It's been just totally normal. So this all centers around as we discussed and reenacted Trump's call with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. And he's sort of asking favors for digging into Hunter Biden's work in the Ukraine among other things and potentially withholding defense money for it.
Dan: So that's great. But what has been interesting is to watch sort of things spider outwards now, since that point. So part of it was not just that this call happened but that right after it happened, the White House scrambled to hide it essentially, to put it into a different holding pen, all the notes and transcripts of it go from sort of more easily accessed place to a secure server.
Dan: So now we have learned that other calls with heads of state exist and had been put into that secure server. Obviously, calls with Russia have all ended up in that secure server. Conversations with Saudi Arabia but we also learned last night that even a conversation with Australia where Trump kind of urged the prime minister to work with Bart to look into various conspiracy theories surrounding the 2016 election also ended up in that server.
Dan: Maureen, this is all coming down to servers again.
Maureen: Now, Dan, some subpoenas have started. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Dan: He had-
Maureen: Guess what, though?
Dan: Yeah?
Maureen: The news relates to that. He says he will not go in and he will not respond to the subpoena.
Dan: Yeah, they subpoenaed a bunch of documents and he is now saying that he will not comply. That seems great, and who could have predicted, Maureen? It's not like they have been refusing subpoenas for the last six months. Yeah, that's a-
Maureen: Also subpoenaed is our friend Rudy Giuliani.
Dan: Oh, my goodness gracious. So Rudy Giuliani exists at the center of all of these as Trump's man in Ukraine.
Maureen: What a team.
Dan: What a team.
Maureen: One of the things I saw when I was in Greece was the BBC ... Suddenly, on the BBC, who's big face turns up but The Mooches. And The Mooch gave this interview in which he described Trump as basically the biggest fucker alive. It's like this guy, this fucking guy.
Dan: Not inaccurate.
Maureen: And then he goes on this tear and the interviewer says, "But Mr. Scaramucci, didn't you say the following," and then just grills The Mooch-
Dan: On all the ...
Maureen: Oh, just went and saw that Mooch's face is like, "Well, you know," and then just on and on and on. It was amazing-
Dan: Let me remind you that The Mooch during his illustrious 10 days in The White House said that Donald Trump could throw a football so accurately that it could pass through a tire from a good distance.
Maureen: Oh, I love it.
Dan: So, I'm glad he's finally seen the light.
Maureen: There are so much news this week that, honestly, there's almost no point in discussing it, like we should just dance about it or whistle about it. It's like the wind. It's the air we breathe. It's the water we swim in. Have you ever seen things happen this quickly for ...
Dan: Well, I mean, it is something that we have discussed before where with this administration, you can scratch any surface and underneath you will discover criming.
Maureen: I want to ask you this, Dan. Think about this.
Dan: Yeah, I'm thinking.
Maureen: It's like we've been in Olympic training for the last three years. Imagine Dan of the summer of 2016 trying to cope with this.
Dan: No. no.
Maureen: Think about it. Imagine what that would have been like.
Dan: Yeah. We have definitely been giving our brains the worst kind of calisthenics. But like we can hold a lot in there now and there's a lot to hold. But I do feel like this is ... For those of you that heard that Says Who omelet bar episode where we took a photo of Donald Trump at an omelet bar at one of his hotels and simply deconstructed the photo and found multiple scandals lurking in various things depicted in the photo. This is the-
Maureen: If I was going to do the top three things Dan has ever done, one would the Mario Kart breakdown. And number two is definitely the omelet bar.
Dan: Yeah. But this is now the omelet bar writ large. This is not just some jack-ass spending a long time on Google. This is like major news organizations, each with their own set of sources plus a whole bunch of people now realizing that they need to cover their own asses and leaking out. But it's just the flow of stuff both sort of leakers that are saying ... I mean we know that these conversations with Russia and Saudi Arabia and now Australia. We know that all of these things got kind of reclassified because there are leakers.
Dan: Even the whistleblower who, we are in this bizarre ... Well, it's not that like, "Oh, well, we found ourselves in the weird world where they're lying all the time." That is not actually true. But the whistleblower, this is a person who received information about this call and went to the inspector general of intelligence with it.
Dan: Trump is now trying to say this whistleblower is a fake whistleblower and the conversation was a perfect conversation blah-blah-blah, while The White House themselves released a summary transcript that is the most fucking bananas thing possible. This whistleblower isn't like he has leakers, or she. He or she, they have leakers within The White House.
Dan: It's not even that the whistleblower has this stuff. There are other people giving the whistleblower this stuff. You accurately described it in our town hall episode last week as rat fucker Titanic. And right now, you have folks just leaking left and right and trying to kind of cover their own asses because it don't look good.
Maureen: It's all the rivets are popping.
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: You can hear them. "Pop", or there's ... "Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop." That sounds like it was important, "Pop." And you know the Titanic, Dan, I was really into the Titanic as a kid. It was built to-
Dan: You were into the Titanic before the Titanic was cool.
Maureen: Oh, I really was. The Titanic was built to withstand a certain number of ... It had all these water-tight compartments down below, whatever it is, the belly. What's a basement of a ship? It could withstand something like six being overtaken by water which they were like, "When's that ever going to happen?"
Maureen: What happened on the Titanic is something like eight were ripped open which was what fucked it. And when it went, they said you could hear the rivets blasting out as the water pressure came in. At first, Dan, they were the people up on the deck, the rich people, that were so amused by the iceberg that they picked up bits of it and put it in their drinks.
Dan: Oh, my god.
Maureen: That's true.
Dan: What?
Maureen: Just bits of ice came onto the deck and people picked it up and put it in their drinks.
Dan: Wow.
Maureen: I feel like the more I think about things I know about the Titanic, the more they're going to become relevant.
Dan: That's always a good thing.
Maureen: Yeah, so people did do that. They put the ice in their drinks and I think they believe that they're on a ship that can't be sunk because it floats on an ocean of bullshit. And it just seems to be floating and they're like, "Okay, it can take a lot." How many compartments is too many? And we're starting to get a lot of compartments. We had Russia. That was a big compartment. Ukraine. Now, weirdly Australia. How many other dumb fucking conversations do you think he's had? He has at least five a day.
Dan: I mean, yeah, that's the thing. Have any of them been above board? Why would he, like, yeah.
Maureen: Imagine sitting on that fucking time bomb. Imagine you're in there and you're like fucking Wile E. Coyote sitting on a box of rockets. And you know that everything you do all day long is made of bullshit and someone is walking around just barfing matches all day long.
Dan: Maureen, somebody on Twitter a few weeks ago tweeted at me and you that they were playing a board game called Watergate, and I ordered the game. And one of the most ... So you either play as Nixon or you play as the reporters. And the reporters are trying to connect Nixon to informants and Nixon is trying to thwart them. And the interesting thing is you basically, if you're playing as one or you're playing as the other, you're playing entirely different games. The strategies are totally different. The win states are totally different, all of that.
Dan: And the interesting thing, I've played it enough now where it makes sense. It's one of those games where it takes a number of times through before you're like, "Oh, I get it." But the most interesting thing is that for Nixon to win, all he has to do is last. All he has to do is get through it. He doesn't have to do anything else. The reporters have to do like 20 different things in order to win, and all Nixon has to do is get through it.
Dan: And you realize just how genius the game was where it's like, that's all they have to do. All these folks sitting on this powder keg, all they are doing is thinking like, "We just got to get ... Just a little more time. We can do it, right? We can just get there. We can get there." And now suddenly maybe they can't?
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: It has been seeing the level of panic go, watching Rudy Giuliani repeatedly implicate not only himself but more and more people by doing things like displaying his text messages on Fox News where's he's coordinating with the State Department to hold meetings with the Ukraine is just mind-blowing. It's just mind-blowing watching Trump's Twitter which has never been a fun thing to do. Watching the level of meltdown, watching him say that Adam Schiff should be arrested for treason.
Dan: And then in almost the same sentence misidentifying apostrophe as a hyphen like just ... Yes, it is something, Maureen.
Maureen: Sure is. Sure is.
Dan: It is so wild that scandals that normally would have charted at least within the top five of a week if not the top one aren't even showing up anywhere. The fucking army officer, Maureen, who was in charge of all communications Mar-a-Lago was just sentenced to three years' probation on Friday after he made false statements to a federal agent during a child pornography investigation.
Dan: He oversees all official communication in and out of Mar-a-Lago, the fucking computers, the fucking skiffs, all of it. He's uploading fucking child porn to Russian servers. And it doesn't even crack the top 10.
Maureen: How long will it take when this is all over for everything about that happened during this period to be revealed?
Dan: Either all the time or no time. I think the thing that is going to be hardest once this is all done ... And, oh, god, please let it be done ... is that we are going to fast-forward right into everyone trying to save their own asses by saying that we were taken by surprise or just the kind of bullshit that you're going to hear, pretending like we were standing up or pretending like, "Well, we would have said something but blah-blah-blah."
Dan: Either people are going to come right out with everything as fast as possible in order to save their own asses or they're going to sit on it forever to save their own asses.
Maureen: There are hero coupons available, any, all Republicans. Who wants to be a hero?
Dan: Yeah, I mean none of them would cash into that coupon in three years.
Maureen: But they're all thinking about it. I'm telling you, this is a revenge plot. These are all people that hate him. They all hate him. Not one of them likes him. No one likes him because he will fuck anyone and he's already fucked most of them. I mean Ted Cruz, like we've said, he said Ted Cruz's wife is ugly and his dad helped kill JFK.
Maureen: I mean and Ted Cruz's phone banked for him. They all fucking hate him. And probably like nothing better than to fuck him over. If they could only, only reach back and find that spine, where is it? Where is it hiding? All these fuckers. Imagine the fear of realizing that you threw your lot in with this motherfucker.
Dan: You would think. You would think. And yet-
Maureen: You would think a lot of things and yet.
Dan: And yet here we are. The best we've gotten is fucking Jeff Flake who already left writing a fucking Op-Ed in The Washington Post telling other Republicans that if the vote was in secret, there would be 30 to 35 people voting for impeachment. It's not exactly profiles encouraged here.
Maureen: Jeff Flake, telling people to save their souls.
Dan: But only if it's in secret.
Maureen: Goddammit. Dan, because this is not a podcast, it's a coping strategy, okay, it's my favorite game. I play it constantly. I play it all day long all the time. What's going to happen?
Dan: Oh, man.
Maureen: Come on.
Dan: I think that we are going to see in the next few days how for real the Democrats are here because you already have Pompeo now saying that he's not going to abide by the Democrats subpoena. Giuliani, I am sure will follow suit. He already issued a weird tweet last night about questioning the legitimacy of the subpoena.
Dan: And that's the moment. There had been multiple, multiple, multiple inquiries since January into things happening at The White House. And almost to a T, all of the subpoenas have been denied, and the Democrats have not enforced them. So, it is put up or shut up time for them. If they do, if they enforce, what happens next is for real.
Maureen: Yeah. What if they hold them off and put them in jail? Because apparently, there is some special congress jail.
Dan: Yeah, or fine them or do anything to enforce these subpoenas if they do that.
Maureen: Imagine holding off and putting Rudy Giuliani in jail.
Dan: Come on, Maureen, don't tease like that.
Maureen: So, I want you to make your guess, Dan. Make your guess.
Dan: I, for the first time in a very long time, I see the possibility that this is done in the coming months.
Maureen: Wow.
Dan: I think absolutely that this is a man who has quit everything he has ever done when it gets hard. And if the tide truly turns that he will tweet out one day and suddenly, he will be gone. I don't think we'll ever reach the point where he's impeached.
Maureen: You think he'll just quit?
Dan: I think he'll quit. That's what he's done his whole damn life.
Maureen: Like they have made it impossible for me, so I'm leaving?
Dan: Yeah, he will never even say he left. It's going to be some cryptic ass tweet and then you're going to hear like, "Oh, Maureen [inaudible] just took off from The White House lawn and just landed in New York." Granted, this is saying that all of these folks that are spineless actually find their spine. If he sees that suddenly the people who have been toadying for him for three years are now lining up against him, I think that he will either broker a deal or he'll just fuck off. That's, I think, where I'm at. Where are you at?
Maureen: A bunch more stuff happens in the next two weeks, three weeks. A couple more real big things break. At least one on the size of Ukraine. They'll get into that server. Another whistleblower come forward, something, and I think that suddenly we end up with an actual ... It's October, but mid-November something, really huge is happening.
Dan: Wow. That soon?
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: I'm in.
Maureen: I don't know what exactly, because they're talking about hauling him in to testify.
Dan: Are they?
Maureen: Trump?
Dan: I don't feel like I've heard that.
Maureen: At some point, they say he has to testify.
Dan: Wow. That will be a shit show.
Maureen: He says no, but it's so bad that ... I think what happens first is you start chipping away Republicans. That's how it happens. The grind really starts to get to them. And then once you lose all the kind of support, then it's not such a big deal to haul Rudy Giuliani after and put him in jail. You put fucking ... Imagine if they hauled off and put Mike Pompeo. For all I know, he's going to get his ass fired or something. All these positions, they come and they go. Look at the streets littered with them. How many people have heard his job so far? I don't remember.
Dan: Secretary of State?
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: He's what?
Maureen: There's Tillerson.
Dan: There was Tillerson. There was someone in between because Pompeo came from, who knows? Who even knows? Who can keep track of it all? That's why we have Darth.
Maureen: Right. The streets are littered with these motherfuckers. It's not like they're precious.
Dan: No.
Maureen: And he'll send Rudy off to get eaten in a heartbeat and no one would give a shit about that. That's Rudy's job.
Dan: Maureen, let me jump ahead and ask you the most important question. What is your prediction for when our post-Trump trip to Disney World will be?
Maureen: January.
Dan: I'm writing this down. I'm writing it down, January, January.
Maureen: I don't know when in January but I'm saying January.
Dan: All right.
Maureen: And we have to establish clear rules. When do we get to go? When he leaves office, is that the-
Dan: Yeah, when he's gone.
Maureen: He's gone. Helicopters taken off.
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: How soon after that do we have to go? Do we have to clear the decks and go?
Dan: I had a discussion with Janice about that not that long ago. I feel like it's a variable thing. So, A-
Maureen: I know you have children.
Dan: Yeah. Everyone's got some lives. If it hits in January, you have a book that comes out, things like that.
Maureen: Oh, that's right.
Dan: I feel like-
Maureen: Oh, that's right.
Dan: Yeah. I feel like-
Maureen: Oh, shit. I have a book out in January, don't I?
Dan: Yes, you do. I feel like, A, if it is truly dramatic, that our action should match that drama.
Maureen: You pull the kids out of school.
Dan: I'm talking the elevator goes up and we are on our way to the fucking airport.
Maureen: Go, go, go.
Dan: Just do it. But I feel like if it is less dramatic than that, I also feel like we can plan it out and it does not have to be simultaneous or an immediate reaction. I think that most likely with our lives being as complicated as they are, we may actually have to coordinate it a little.
Maureen: But it will be soon?
Dan: As soon as lives will allow for, certainly.
Maureen: When we go to The Haunted Mansion, will you and I have our own doom buggy to ride together?
Dan: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, we will be riding that doom buggy into the future.
Maureen: And then it will be you ... So it will be you and me?
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: Then perhaps your wife and my husband.
Dan: Yeah, my two kids.
Maureen: And then the kids in their own like the older can look after the baby.
Dan: Yeah, exactly.
Maureen: He'd be all right with that?
Dan: He's not even a baby anymore. Oh, yeah, he'll be fine with it.
Maureen: How many times are we going to-
Dan: He repeatedly points out to me that at Disney, you are allowed at 14 to be in the parks without parental supervision.
Maureen: He's 14 now, right?
Dan: Yeah, he is.
Maureen: Because we each get on our own card certain number of FastPasses, how many times are we going to ride The Haunted Mansion?
Dan: I mean, typically FastPassing The Haunted Mansion may be one time. Usually, you can find windows where The Haunted Mansion is a short enough wait, plus the actual wait is fun. There's a whole graveyard that you can interact with the graves and stuff. It's good time. But I think we just basically get in ... We get out of our doom buggy and we get right back in line, just around and around and around.
Maureen: Yeah, probably.
Dan: I remember back when I was a kid, I went to the Six Flags outside Chicago once. And back then, you could simply kind of wave your finger in the air as you came to a stop and they would let you just stay on and ride a rollercoaster again.
Maureen: What?
Dan: I don't think that happens anymore.
Maureen: Are you going to try to talk me into going on Tower of Terror?
Dan: It's so good, Maureen.
Maureen: I will be clear with you. I am not going on Tower of Terror.
Dan: Janice also refuses to do the Tower of Terror as one of her recurring nightmares is an elevator drop nightmare, and I respect that. But I will tell you what I've told her which is you at least have to wait in the line because it is beautiful. And then they have a little exit for people that don't actually want to go on the ride. But you got to ... It's like a whole cobweb-filled haunted hotel with like eerie bellhops walking around, and it is the best.
Maureen: And a 100% along with going to Disney, I would also like to go to Universal to back to Harry Potter world because it's great.
Dan: I'm in. I feel like if this is going to be a fucking blowout, let's make it a blowout.
Maureen: Fuck, yeah, it's a blowout. Are you kidding?
Dan: I feel like for the first time in a very long time, it doesn't feel feudal to at least discuss it. And SaysWhovians, we are going to discuss it with you, with you. Thanks to your support of our Patreon, at patreon.com/sayswho. Again, holy cow, there are more than 400 of you now.
Maureen: Also, as many of you have signed up, this is a particularly good week to sign up because as far as we know, we could be recording every other day at this point.
Dan: Who fucking knows? All bets are off here. It's really just a life balance thing. There's certainly enough to discuss almost any day.
Maureen: I should just leave this. I'm leaving this stuff out.
Dan: Your dog is going to eat it. You can support us and you at the $5 and up level, you get access to the Town Watch episodes of Says Who. There are 28 in the can, I counted just the other day and, yes, as Maureen says, probably many more to come at patreon.com/sayswho.
Maureen: We will make sure you get your money's worth.
Dan: We will certainly provide ... It's going to be wild, Maureen. I wish that in Florida Disney, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride still existed. That's only in California now, but this is going to be a wild ride.
Maureen: Well, when I go out to LA, maybe I should go to LA Disney World and go on it.
Dan: Man, every time I go to LA, I'm like, "I could go to," and I never do. It's far and it costs a bunch of money.
Maureen: Is it far? I thought it was pretty-
Dan: It's in Anaheim, so it's like if you're driving, it's like 45 minutes from LA proper. But if you're dumb like me, you look into it and you're like, "Well, I could take the city bus," and then it's like a two-hour bus ride.
Dan: Our theme music is performed by Ted Leo. Our logo is designed by Darth. You can contact us at Says Who Podcast on Twitter. You can email at hey@sayswhopodcast.com. You can join the discussion on Facebook at /groups/sayswhovians. Our Facebook group is moderated by Janice Dillard and things have been blowing up on Facebook ever since we launched Says Who U.
Dan: If you are thinking about taking 15 minutes of your day for something else, join up on the Facebook and share what you're up to because it is just filled with amazing, amazing stories.
Dan: And in the meantime, spread the word, subscribe, and please leave stars and reviews on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. You can join us on October 9th for our next episode. But before that, I, Dan, will be at the American Writers Museum here in Chicago on October 8th with Annalee Newitz talking about her new book, The Future of Another Timeline. Turn out for that. And Maureen, you-
Maureen: I was saying it'll probably be a quiet week, so we probably won't be doing any bonus episodes.
Dan: Yeah, probably. And you are going to be Austin, Texas at the end of the month at The Texas Book Festival, October 26th and 27th.
Maureen: And then after that, I'll be at The Miami Book Festival in November at some point.
Dan: In Miami.
Maureen: I'm going to only hot places and I'm excited.
Dan: Good. That's nice. That's well played.
Maureen: Miami, Los Angeles.
Dan: Well played, Maureen Johnson.
Maureen: Fuck, yeah.
Dan: But for now, I am here in my basement in Chicago and I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen: I am on this chair in the living room. The dog, the puppies got her. She's asleep with her head on my feet. She's so soft. I'm Maureen Johnson.
Dan: And this has been Says Who.
Maureen: We recorded this, Dan, and now all the news is going to dry up and it's going to be so late. As of today, I honestly believe that we'll start to dry up and then it will be quiet.
Dan: You don't really believe that.
Maureen: I honestly believe that. And I honestly believe that.
Dan: I don't.
Maureen: I really mean it.
Dan: I really mean it. I really mean this.
Maureen: Yeah, nothing's going to happen now.
Dan: Nothing.
Maureen: So chill. Everybody, just go to sleep.