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1:14

Bob Sesca Show.

1:17

Bob Sesca. Bob. Bob.

1:20

Bob. La luga, la luga,

1:22

la luga, la luga. Why don't I

1:24

just call you Bob? The Bob Sesca Show.

1:34

From our nation's capital, it is Wednesday, June 26, 2024,

1:36

and this is the Bob Sesca interview on

1:39

the Sexy Liberal Podcast Network. Hi, I'm Bob.

1:41

Hello, Bob. Hi, day 1250 of the Biden-Harris

1:43

administration, 133 days until the 24 presidential election.

1:49

You can find me on

1:51

threads and Instagram at TheBobSesca,

1:53

Twitter, BobSesca underscore go, and

1:55

our Patreon page, as always,

1:57

bobsescashow.com. Okay, so it's been

1:59

a weird day. My

2:02

dad died today. I'm

2:04

still processing everything but know that my

2:06

family and I have spent the last

2:08

year at least saying

2:11

goodbye. So we're mainly just relieved now

2:13

that he's not suffering anymore. But as

2:15

you can tell, I decided to do

2:17

the show today anyway, and

2:19

talk with my good friend Jojo from jurors.

2:22

As I've been saying, doing

2:24

this podcast is absolutely therapy.

2:26

And the laughs I have

2:28

with Jo in this talk

2:30

today were exactly what I

2:33

needed. In fact, I

2:35

think I'm gonna do tomorrow's show the Thursday show the

2:37

Friday show as well. Besides, you

2:39

know, the things we're talking about

2:41

and the threat to democracy is

2:44

too damn important to ignore. So

2:47

hang out with me today.

2:49

This is me talking with

2:52

Joanne Carducci Jojo from jurors.

3:04

There you are. Hey, hi. Thank

3:06

you so much for your patience on this. Just

3:09

to let you know before we get started, I

3:11

just found out my dad died. Oh, no.

3:14

Oh my God. It's yeah,

3:16

sorry. It's been a long time coming.

3:19

I'm just right now. I'm just, I'm

3:21

sad. But at the same time,

3:23

I'm relieved that his suffering is

3:25

over. So that's why I was

3:28

getting fielding calls and arranging

3:30

with the funeral home and things like that. All

3:32

those fun things when when you lose a parent.

3:34

So that's what I was dealing with. Yeah, yeah.

3:36

But thank you for sticking

3:38

with me. Thank you. Sorry about the delay.

3:40

First of all,

3:42

I want to just extend my

3:45

more sincere empathy and sympathy. I'm

3:48

so sorry. Thank you. But also if

3:50

you need to do this another time,

3:52

because I get it. I've lost both

3:54

my parents. I get it. Yeah. No,

3:56

no. In fact, I would love to

3:58

talk to you. That's okay.

4:00

I would love to do the show and it's

4:02

because I want to be distracted

4:04

and I want to laugh and I want to

4:06

talk about this stuff. Obviously we're talking about really

4:08

important things so yeah

4:11

I'm okay. I'm okay to do it. I'm okay

4:13

to go. Yeah okay okay.

4:15

Well just as an aside after this at

4:17

any time if you ever ever ever just

4:20

need somebody to bounce stuff off of or

4:23

just listen it's it's a club nobody wants

4:25

the membership in but once you understand what

4:27

it feels like to be in it you

4:29

are always there for somebody else especially as

4:31

you know you just enter this weird fucked

4:33

up phase of life and I'm

4:35

always going to be there if you ever need anything. I

4:37

so appreciate that. Thank you so much Joe. In

4:40

fact you know what I think I'm probably going

4:42

to include all of this in the show because

4:44

it's an amazing thing with my listeners that

4:47

they have been with me through the

4:49

past year hearing about my dad and

4:51

his medical issues and and

4:53

a couple of strokes that he had and

4:55

in and out of the hospital so this

4:57

is kind of I think closure for everyone

5:00

and naturally we've all been in this

5:02

place before you have in particular so

5:06

yeah yeah I think it's an important

5:08

thing to yeah yeah honest about it

5:11

and let everyone know. Yeah

5:13

no I think that's good and I think

5:15

you'll obviously go through ebbs and flows with

5:17

this and yeah every minute will be a

5:19

new adventure in your feelings your emotions your

5:21

thoughts so yeah yeah I get

5:23

it. It was a crazy feeling and you

5:25

get that call and it was that falling

5:27

feeling that yeah when you hear the news

5:29

because I was prepared for it and in

5:31

fact I had imagined it I imagined that

5:33

phone call and then when it finally happened

5:35

it was just like that sinking falling feeling

5:37

you know like if you oversleep for an

5:39

exam when you're in college or something like

5:41

that it was that kind of

5:43

feeling but a little bit worse obviously for

5:46

many reasons but in addition to

5:48

that as I said there's that sense of relief

5:50

as well because he was pretty pretty bad off

5:52

there at the end so anyway

5:54

yeah yeah I always thought of it

5:56

as it's very strange and I was just saying

5:58

this last thing but It

6:00

felt to me to your point about

6:02

falling. It felt like I was a

6:04

marionette almost, but tethered to something bigger

6:07

than me. And it felt like

6:09

someone cut that string so that one side

6:11

of me felt just disconnected from everything bigger

6:13

than me. And

6:15

it just felt like all of a sudden I

6:18

was lopsided and sort of floating out there in

6:20

space. And then when my mother died, it felt

6:22

like I was cut completely free of anything

6:24

I had been tethered to. And then I was like, well, what

6:26

do I tether to now? And I've tethered to my kids. It's

6:29

a lot, it's a lot. How

6:32

long ago did you lose your parents? I

6:34

lost my dad in 2011 and I lost my mom in 2018. So

6:41

yeah, and I lost my mother-in-law,

6:43

my former mother-in-law in 2010. So

6:47

it's been, you know, there's been

6:49

around grief more

6:52

than I'd like to say, yeah. Yeah, sure. Do you

6:54

have any, do you have brothers and sisters or? Yeah,

6:57

well, thank grief. Again, I'm one

6:59

of five. My brother was the oldest, but

7:01

he passed in 2020, right? Before

7:05

the pandemic. So it's my sisters

7:07

and I, but yeah, I mean,

7:10

we all were alive when both

7:12

of our parents died. And so, you know,

7:14

that's hard. It's really hard. At least you

7:16

had that support system though. You didn't have

7:18

to deal with it entirely on your own.

7:21

You had people who could directly empathize with

7:23

losing a parent in those situations, right? Yeah,

7:26

do you have siblings? Yeah, I have two

7:28

younger brothers. Yeah, it does

7:30

make a big, I mean, I can only speak to

7:32

my experience, but having them, especially at my

7:34

dad's wake, I

7:37

was supposed to speak and I got up and I started

7:39

crying so hard, I couldn't speak and they came up and

7:41

stood with me so that I could get through what I

7:43

wanted to say. And it really, it really, it really gave

7:45

me the legs to

7:47

be able to do it. And so yeah, I'm glad that you

7:50

have your brothers and I'm so sorry for all of you. Yeah,

7:53

you know, my parents split up in the early

7:55

90s, but my mom

7:57

has still been really active with

7:59

caring for my dad. and being

8:02

there through the entire ordeal. And so I've

8:05

been grateful for that as well. So it's

8:07

not just me and my brothers dealing with

8:09

it. My mom, even though

8:11

they're no longer married, she

8:14

really stepped up. So it was her. That

8:16

support system is all important, as

8:18

we all know, with

8:20

her mothers, right? And how can

8:23

I forget my sister-in-law, who's been an absolute angel

8:25

throughout all of this? Some things

8:27

are just bigger than the differences between

8:29

us. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, in

8:31

a large part, I do what I

8:34

do because of my dad. Because he

8:37

was involved in the federal government for his entire

8:39

career, or most of his entire career. Started

8:42

out as an internal auditor with the IRS,

8:44

and then worked his way

8:46

up through the bureaucracy all the way

8:48

up to acting inspector general, the Treasury

8:50

Department. So he was quite

8:52

successful in his work and made a

8:54

lot of connections, testified on the Hill

8:56

a bunch of times. You testified during

8:58

the, I think it

9:00

was the Whitewater investigations in the 90s,

9:03

and also the Branch

9:05

Davidian Waco attack, which was ATF, which

9:07

at the time, pre-9-11, that

9:09

was under the banner of the

9:11

US Treasury Department. So that was kind

9:14

of his direct purview. And so he

9:17

did not love testifying before Congress.

9:21

He was not his favorite thing in the world.

9:23

But I'll never forget, sitting in

9:25

my little apartment in Reading, Pennsylvania at

9:27

one point, turning on C-SPAN and seeing

9:29

him testify before Congress on C-SPAN. That's

9:32

crazy. Yeah, yeah. But it was that

9:34

proximity to Washington, DC, that kind of

9:37

inspired me to get into politics, being

9:39

that close to the power center. And

9:42

I didn't really realize when I was a

9:44

kid that his job was

9:46

not directly related to politics, that he

9:48

was a career civil servant.

9:51

So he wasn't

9:53

a political appointee. But now

9:55

there's that extra perspective, Joe, of the fact that

9:58

if he were still working on it, working

10:00

for the federal government, he would

10:02

be one of those guys who Donald Trump would probably fire

10:04

in that 50,000 federal worker purge that

10:07

Trump wants to do for Project 2025. Yeah,

10:10

yeah. And then his job

10:12

would be replaced by a political appointee

10:14

in the Inspector General's office. And that's

10:17

one of the big concerns, just

10:19

kind of casually segwaying into politics here,

10:21

is that you're going to have investigators

10:24

that are going to be loyalists

10:26

to Donald Trump. And who knows how long

10:28

they're going to be in place beyond him?

10:31

It's almost like he's infecting the government with

10:33

his stench, with his

10:35

fascist stink. Yeah. And

10:37

so it's going to be there long after he's gone.

10:39

I get that direct sense. I think that's maybe

10:41

why they're doing it. Oh, 1,000%. And

10:46

you're right about your dad's job. It shouldn't

10:48

have been political, right? Those are positions that

10:50

shouldn't be political. It's not about that. It's

10:52

about doing your job. It's about doing

10:55

your job for our government to keep this

10:57

thing afloat, to keep the lights on.

10:59

But Trump, as I

11:01

often think about him, and always has an inability

11:04

to sort of ooze and

11:06

infect the cracks and

11:08

fissures in our system. And this

11:10

is another way. He's like a

11:12

virus, honestly. Like,

11:15

what was that terrifying show? I could only get through

11:17

half the first season. I was so

11:19

scared. Recently, Last of Us, something like

11:22

that. Oh, yeah, Last of Us. Yes, yes, yes. With

11:25

the fungus, the cordyceps. Yeah,

11:27

and so right, he's going to

11:29

end the Project 2025 guy, Federalist

11:33

Frico that was on MSNBC last week

11:36

said more than 50,000. Ultimately,

11:38

that would be their goal. So

11:40

yeah, positions like your dad's, thank you to your dad for

11:42

what he did for the government. They

11:45

would be political, sycophantic, lackeys

11:48

and toadies who would say,

11:50

sure, president, that hurricane

11:52

was here, not here. Yeah,

11:54

right. Don't look at that map. Where

11:57

do you want to put the hurricane? Yeah.

11:59

We'll put it. there. And it's still it's

12:02

astonishing to me that the word is not

12:04

getting out yet about project 2025. No

12:07

one knows about it except those of us who are

12:09

really in sconce and politics following

12:11

it every day on social media and so

12:13

on. But as far as the general population,

12:15

as far as registered voters

12:18

by and large, they just don't know,

12:20

they don't know what's in store. And

12:22

you know, the danger is once they

12:24

find out it's going to be too

12:26

late, right? Right. Exactly. And it sounds,

12:28

it's so often the case with Trump and all

12:30

of the Republicans really, but it sounds like something

12:32

we're just saying is like, no, no, really. They're

12:35

going to, they're going to do away with the

12:37

department of education. No, really. And they're like, yeah,

12:39

sure. Just like you said, he wasn't going to accept

12:41

the results of the elect. Oh, wait a minute.

12:44

And it's like, no, for real, they wrote, there's a,

12:46

there's a map that they showed us, they wrote it

12:48

down. They have a whole website and you know, they

12:50

just, people don't really want

12:52

to believe or don't believe the worst things

12:54

that they ever hear because it seems like

12:56

something out of, you know, a dystopian hellscape

12:58

fiction, but it's true. And yeah, hopefully we

13:01

can get them to realize it before it's

13:03

too late. And so that's, you know, it

13:05

starts now started months ago. We just keep

13:07

sounding the alarm. One of the

13:09

things I wanted to ask you about Joe

13:11

is you tweeted something yesterday about how the

13:13

Republicans are crapping their cages about Biden doing

13:15

debate prep at camp David. What is that

13:18

all about? What are they saying? I

13:20

mean, they, the, first of all, I think

13:22

it's hysterical that they're dragging Joe Biden for

13:24

doing debate prep at

13:27

all. Hold on. He's been a

13:29

career politician and he needs to

13:31

prep for a debate and presidential

13:33

election, even the most consequential election

13:35

of our lifetime. What? Yeah. You

13:37

mean like he's not just golfing

13:39

and like eating, but at the

13:41

buffet, like he's what? He's

13:43

not hanging out at the prime rib bar

13:45

at Mar-a-Lago. No, no. He's

13:47

not cracking open his third ketchup bottle

13:49

of the day. He's, he's, crunching

13:53

policy with experts.

13:55

Like what? It's

13:58

just, it's just like, it's so ridiculous. It's

14:00

like being in college and they're like wait, you're gonna

14:02

study for the exam. I'm going to the bar I'm

14:04

gonna go play darts. Yeah, and like I'm you know,

14:06

I'm gonna do great. I'm gonna ace that exam You

14:08

don't care you fail out. But yeah, no I

14:11

they're dragging him just for doing any prep at

14:13

all But they keep throwing Camp David in there

14:15

for some strange reason as if I don't know

14:17

as if it's to say like he's utilizing One

14:20

of our you know or storied facilities

14:22

for his own nefarious needs and

14:24

it's like dude You know Right

14:28

to remember when he was when he invited the Taliban

14:30

there. Yeah three days before a 9-11 anniversary Yeah,

14:34

you know what they could feel free to shut

14:36

the fuck up because the Republicans chastising

14:38

anyone for lapses of decorum

14:40

or impropriety is a fucking

14:42

joke for God's sake Donald

14:45

Trump had the entire RNC

14:47

at the White House I

14:49

mean the 2020 Republican National Convention took

14:52

place at the White House Yeah,

14:54

I mean talk about mixing the campaign

14:56

and Government

14:59

and a gigantic Violation

15:01

of all kinds of shit that most people

15:04

have entirely forgotten about I mean talk about

15:06

flushing something down the memory hole that whole

15:08

thing I mean, we can't even get people

15:10

to remember kovat for God's sake much less

15:12

or his more specifically his incompetent

15:15

response to kovat much

15:18

less the fact that he had

15:20

the RNC at the White House

15:22

and now They're bitching about

15:24

Joe Biden doing debate prep at fucking

15:26

Camp David. Are you kidding? And if

15:28

you remember as you do if you

15:31

remember watching that like the RNC and

15:33

with that backdrop It felt

15:36

like our house was a prostitute It

15:38

felt like our house was being dressed

15:40

up like a like his whore Like

15:43

it it was I never

15:45

even liked when you get on Air Force one

15:47

I was like get out of my plane you

15:49

fucking flatted fat ass get the out of my

15:51

plane It felt like it was dirt He was

15:53

dirtying it up and and again back to those

15:56

cracks and fissures in the system where it's like

15:58

hold on We have clauses for this we have

16:00

rules for this and it's like well what are

16:02

we gonna do and nobody did anything because like

16:04

who's gonna do it and so he just got

16:06

away with it and it's just always been this

16:09

never-ending like line of this

16:11

thread of him constantly pushing the boundaries and breaking

16:13

the law and getting away with it because everyone's

16:15

like I don't know whose job is that like

16:17

your job's my job whose job is like well

16:20

I don't know who does something here and it's

16:22

it's and that was that was maddening

16:24

but it was also really painful to watch

16:26

and I remember feeling like we were all

16:28

being violated in real time. I'm so glad

16:31

you brought that up about it being our

16:33

house because I've always had this romantic notion

16:35

of the White House and it

16:37

was amplified by a factor of 11

16:40

t billion once the West Wing came on

16:43

and Karen Sorkin and the cast of the

16:45

West Wing always had such great reverence for

16:48

that building and that just

16:50

magnified my love of all

16:52

things White House and

16:55

then Donald Trump comes in and starts

16:57

scooting his disgusting ass all over the

16:59

White House like a dog with an

17:01

itchy bung hole and and

17:03

then Melania comes in and destroys

17:06

the Rose Garden this historic location

17:08

outside the White House and turns

17:10

it into some sort of what

17:13

looked like an Eastern

17:15

European cement cemetery. Yeah

17:18

one of many atrocities that took

17:20

place yeah at that building while

17:23

Trump was there disgusting. Yeah I

17:25

mean back to dystopian for Christmas

17:27

landscapes or Christmas. Oh my god

17:29

yes that's right remember that with

17:31

the red Christmas and decoration. I

17:33

owned a red tree. Everything says

17:35

Christmas to me is is is

17:38

satanic red tree like what no

17:40

offense my dad had an accent

17:42

not that one but like no

17:44

offense people that sense because the

17:46

accents rock but like um

17:49

what like you go to a Biden

17:51

White House for Christmas and it's like

17:53

yay it's like Christmas. Yeah she was

17:55

like fuck Christmas where's the

17:57

hidden cages. Fuck the fucking Yeah,

18:01

I mean it looked like those

18:03

Christmas decorations that one year, the

18:05

red awfulness, looked like they

18:07

were going to bring in dissidents and impale

18:09

them on those trees. Okay,

18:12

let's bring in a bunch of migrants and

18:14

we're going to impale them here in the

18:16

colonnade or whatever, wherever it was. We did

18:18

the Room for Life sacrifice for Santa. Yes,

18:21

this is where we start sacrificing

18:23

the blood of the innocent to

18:26

whatever golden gods

18:28

that they worship. Yeah, right. Him,

18:31

him, he's the golden god. Right.

18:34

God. Yeah, the altar of the

18:36

melted circus peanut. That's what they're sacrificing them to.

18:39

Yeah. Yes. And

18:41

you know what? We're not far off the mark

18:43

with that. I mean, we're joking, but that's pretty

18:45

much what, yeah, how they feel. So

18:49

Thursday night, tomorrow night, the debate,

18:51

how should the president handle this?

18:53

It seems like no matter how

18:55

skillful a debater Joe Biden is.

18:58

Trump's just going to suck all the air out

19:00

of the room, isn't he? Yeah, well, my first

19:02

suggestion is that he doesn't go with Mountain Dew,

19:04

but Mountain Lightning. I think the caffeine quotient is

19:06

just a little bit higher and rednecks like it.

19:08

So I feel like he's going to relate to

19:11

them on a different level. So

19:13

that would be my first tip. But no, for real,

19:15

I think it's ridiculous that they're also already assuming that

19:17

Trump got his ass kicked by saying that Biden's not

19:19

going to be on drugs anymore. Now it's energy drinks,

19:22

right? Like he's going to go in there on that

19:24

freaking case of Celsius like he's done more, you know,

19:26

10 years ago. Yeah, it's, I

19:28

mean, hopefully the fact that

19:30

Joe will be able to speak, hopefully

19:33

without Trump interrupting him because they're supposed

19:35

to be, they're supposed to be cutting

19:37

the mic so that he can't. Again,

19:40

this is Trump, so rules schmooz, right?

19:43

He's going to go and eat the freaking button

19:45

that cuts his mic on live TV. But

19:48

I just think that Biden has to do

19:50

what he did in the second

19:52

and third debates of 2020

19:55

in which he fared much better. I believe

19:57

there were three. The first one was just just

19:59

a constant cacophony. of just Trump

20:01

tantrums and it was really hard to

20:03

watch even for the most about like

20:06

followers but I hope that

20:08

he can't interrupt him and that Biden's able to

20:11

be the adult in the room right like

20:13

to talk coherently and competently about actual issues

20:15

while Trump sits over there throwing shit at

20:18

the walls you know what I mean that

20:20

that's what Joe Biden should just do but

20:22

he also honestly needs to

20:25

say many times convicted felon the convicted felon

20:27

to my right the adjudicated rapist convicted won't

20:29

say that but he should convicted felon to

20:31

my right or to my left or wherever

20:33

the fuck he's standing or sitting or whatever

20:35

it is he needs to keep

20:38

saying it because first of all it does

20:40

a lot of things that gets under Trump's skin

20:42

like nothing else and when you get under his

20:44

skin he gets increasingly unhinged because he's an insane

20:46

narcissist and then he's just gonna unleash more and

20:48

more crazy and that's to Joe's benefit because he

20:50

has to always be the grown-up in the room

20:53

versus the monkey throwing shit against the wall all

20:55

right we're gonna take a break here back with more Jojo

20:57

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21:26

hey Los

21:32

Angeles are you looking for unique 4th

21:34

of July plans for you and your

21:36

friends or family LA's greatest rivalry returns

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21:40

4th edition of the El traffico soccer

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matchup as the LA Galaxy returned to

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their original home to defend their turf

21:47

against LA FC last year a record

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both on and off the field

22:00

and a celebration for all of

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22:04

Rose Bowl edition. From

22:30

Perry to Carol Burnett, we've got the

22:32

best journalists, most qualified opinions, and some

22:34

of the best comics with the most

22:36

unqualified opinions. The John Fegel Sing podcast.

22:38

Get it? Wherever fine podcasts can be

22:40

downloaded. Bob Seska! I'll

22:44

take me, breathe some

22:46

day long! You

22:49

know, Nicole Wallace had a great

22:51

suggestion for Joe Biden. Just

22:54

to come out right away and say, yeah,

22:56

you know what? I'm 81 years old. I

22:59

have a little bit of arthritis. But guess

23:01

what? I'm not a convicted

23:03

felon. I'm not a convicted criminal.

23:05

I'm not an adjudicated rapist. I'm

23:07

not a business fraud as determined

23:09

by several courts in New York.

23:12

I wasn't impeached twice. Just go through the whole

23:14

list of Donald Trump things

23:17

and just hammer him right out of the

23:19

gate and the president's going to have that

23:21

opportunity because I guess he's going to be

23:23

speaking first so he can actually do it

23:26

like that. And I like that. But I

23:28

also believe that ultimately,

23:30

and maybe I'm just being cynical about it.

23:33

Again, as I said, he doesn't really need

23:35

to do anything other than to not fall

23:37

over because everything else is just

23:39

going to be about Donald Trump. It always is. There's

23:42

very little I can remember other than Joe

23:44

Biden going, will you shut up, man? Beyond

23:47

that, I don't remember anything else from those

23:49

debates from four years ago other than Donald

23:51

Trump making a flailing ass of himself. And

23:53

I think that's going to be the big

23:55

takeaway that people will see him and go,

23:57

oh, that's right. You mean he's.

24:00

the nominee again? Oh fuck. Oh God damn

24:02

it. We got to line up against this

24:04

guy because you have probably observed as well

24:06

as I have that for the last four

24:08

years, I think there have been quite a

24:10

few voters and maybe not just hardcore liberals

24:13

who are like, La, La, La,

24:15

La, La. I'm not going to pay attention to

24:17

this guy. I don't think I'm going to pretend

24:19

he doesn't even exist. La, La, La, La. Plugging

24:21

their ears. And suddenly when he emerges again on

24:23

that debate stage tomorrow night, everyone's going to crap

24:25

their pants. I get the sense that that's going

24:27

to happen. Yeah. I mean that collective amnesia is

24:29

a coping mechanism because we've all been through collective

24:31

trauma. Right. And so it's like, Oh, and then

24:33

all of a sudden your face was your abuser

24:36

again, after four years of being like, what abuser?

24:38

I don't know what abuser where I mean, Oh

24:40

God, we have an old guy in the White

24:42

House and I don't want to see another old

24:44

guy. And it's like, Oh, he's so old. And

24:46

then it's like, Oh my God, there's a guy

24:48

with us with the baseball bat repeatedly in the

24:50

crotch. It's like, Oh my God. Oh no, he's

24:52

actually back. Like you weren't kidding. Yeah. Yeah. I

24:54

mean, it's amazing to

24:56

me that we're here. I can't believe we're

24:58

here, but we're here in some measure also

25:01

because people wanted to just suppress and forget

25:03

how horrible it was. The fact that the

25:05

guy was golfing is we hit, I think

25:07

50,000 or a hundred thousand deaths from

25:10

COVID. He's like, yeah, now's a good time to go back to

25:12

golf. I think. Yeah. Are you going to be in that food

25:15

line over there? You're going to be in, they're piling up the

25:17

bodies and refrigerator trucks. Yeah. I'm

25:19

going to hit the lakes. That's right.

25:21

Okay. And it's like, let's, I hate

25:23

to say we can't forget, but because

25:25

it was really painful, but you got

25:27

to walk through trauma sometimes to grow

25:30

and heal. And we got to walk

25:32

through the trauma that is Donald Trump

25:34

right now. Yeah. In fact,

25:36

yesterday I had a bit of a flashback

25:38

right in the middle of doing the podcast

25:41

where I remember Donald Trump screaming about four

25:43

years ago, right about now, slow

25:45

the testing down, please. I mean,

25:49

that was, that right there is one of

25:51

the most maniacal things I've ever heard from

25:53

a political leader in this

25:55

country throughout American history.

25:58

That is so insane. that

26:00

because he was so disturbed over

26:02

the fact that more and more

26:05

people were being infected with COVID,

26:07

his solution was not to do

26:09

a better job mitigating it, but

26:11

to actually prevent the testing that

26:13

was showing the infection rate. That

26:15

was his solution. It was like in

26:18

a strange way it was almost like

26:21

Captain Kirk in Star Trek reprogramming the

26:23

Kobayashi Maru test. I'm not gonna figure

26:25

out how to get out of this

26:27

no-win situation. Instead I'm just gonna reprogram

26:30

the test. So slow the

26:32

testing down. And I'm gonna tell you what

26:34

I'm doing at the same time. I'm gonna

26:36

tell you that I want the facts and

26:38

the truth kept from you

26:40

so that I don't look back. Yeah, you're gonna

26:42

be dying, but like I just don't

26:44

want the numbers, okay? Like DeSantis did something not

26:47

too dissimilar but he just wasn't so stupid to

26:49

be like, yeah, let's hide the numbers, okay? Yeah,

26:51

he hid the numbers. Yeah, I forgot that was

26:53

four years ago today. See, even I forgot about

26:55

that one. And you did such

26:57

a good one that was really triggering. I was

27:00

like, oh, he's in the room with me now.

27:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, this place.

27:04

I'm like, Bob Woodward privately, like this thing's a

27:06

killer. Like it's really bad. Yeah, nobody

27:08

wants it. Yeah. I'm in

27:10

this place, Joe, where I used to

27:12

really enjoy presidential campaigns. Presidential election season

27:15

was something I would always look forward

27:17

to. Now it's just

27:19

miserable. It's just a slog. I

27:21

can't wait until it's

27:23

over. And I obviously

27:25

hope that everything turns out just fine,

27:28

but the existential crisis is just

27:30

too much to take on. I

27:32

think it's just too

27:34

harrowing, which leads me to conclude that

27:38

something's got to happen. Something's got

27:40

to give because every time we

27:42

come up on this four year

27:44

span and the

27:47

stakes are democracy or

27:49

fascism on the ballot.

27:51

That's way too close to

27:54

oblivion for my tastes. I'm

27:56

sure you feel the same way. Yeah. I

27:58

mean, it's. The first thought

28:01

I have every morning is, where are my kids?

28:03

My kids okay? Yeah, my kids are okay. They're

28:05

here, they're asleep, everything's fine. And then pretty much

28:07

my second third, fourth, fifth, and 400th thought of

28:09

the day is, oh my God, oh

28:11

my God. Like it's really between

28:13

two choices and one of them is still

28:15

Trump. And like, yes, democracy is 1000% on

28:17

the line. I

28:20

say this all the time, it's not histrionic, it's not

28:23

hyperbolic to say that. We stopped that in 2020 and

28:26

it was true, but it's far, far worse

28:29

now. And what we're facing, the

28:31

enemy we're facing now is far

28:33

more insidious. And yeah, it

28:36

can be a lot. It is

28:38

a lot every day to face all

28:40

of it. Like, you know, it's like

28:42

this constant stream of this really hateful,

28:44

aggressive agenda that's being imposed upon us

28:47

by like, Christoph fascists who know that

28:49

they're in the throes of losing their

28:51

grip on the majority that

28:53

they have based solely on their whiteness

28:55

and richness. And so they all do

28:57

whatever it takes to hold onto that.

28:59

And if that means, you know, stripping

29:02

every woman and child of their fundamental

29:04

rights to bodily autonomy or, you know,

29:06

handing a gun to every freaking sociopath

29:08

with a bump stock on it, they're

29:10

gonna do whatever it takes. And that's

29:12

an overwhelming thought, but the New

29:15

York Times is wrong. We are not

29:17

so overwhelmed, right? That we're like checking out

29:19

and burned out and not engaged and not

29:21

fired up because to the contrary, it's

29:23

like some of us Sundays are down and

29:26

the other ones are like, I got you. And we're

29:29

all just gonna keep going. Like none of us is

29:31

checking out anytime freaking soon. Save democracy first and then

29:33

we'll take a fucking nap. Yeah, and I

29:35

feel like the solution is pretty

29:37

damn easy to comprehend, to set

29:39

up and to achieve. It's just

29:41

a matter of getting to that

29:43

point, which is we just

29:46

gotta start winning elections. And if we

29:48

can continuously win a series of elections,

29:50

and it seems like it's happening that

29:53

way between the special elections, between

29:55

the midterms, between 2020 itself, hopefully this

29:57

year as well, we can keep winning

29:59

elections. Republicans are going to start to discover

30:01

because they're so centered around the

30:04

idea of winning and policy Platforms

30:07

things like that are irrelevant. So

30:09

if we deprive them of the

30:11

ability to win I Think

30:14

that that could end up Forcing

30:16

them to back away from Trumpism

30:18

at least that's my perhaps

30:21

foolish hope I don't know I can't think

30:23

of any other way to do it I

30:25

don't know how else to rebuttal it or

30:28

to flush it down the crapper. I

30:30

don't know what which it is Yeah, they

30:32

don't have a fairly good track record of

30:34

winning elections since he lost in 2020 I

30:37

mean pretty much most of the candidates he's

30:39

endorsed since 2020 have lost but where they

30:41

barely won the majority in the house They've

30:43

even slimmed it down since And

30:46

they have these special elections keep coming

30:48

back in our favor And I I

30:50

think the trend is moving in that

30:52

direction because overwhelmingly Americans

30:54

aren't Insane. I mean, yes,

30:56

there's plenty here that are but at the

30:58

end of the day What we want is

31:01

for the people who go to Washington DC

31:03

to represent us to do things for us.

31:05

Yeah, and Republicans have

31:07

what have they done? They haven't even really

31:09

protected dishwashers and toaster ovens and they said

31:11

that was a priority but they haven't so

31:14

far I mean they canceled Bud Light. I

31:16

guess that's their big win So

31:18

congrats on that But honestly, they haven't done a

31:21

damn thing about the border then done a damn

31:23

thing about inflation They haven't done a damn

31:25

thing about the price of anything. They haven't done a

31:27

damn thing about anything But I'm teaching

31:29

Joe Biden's dog, you know, I'm saying. Yeah, yeah

31:31

They have no record and and at the end

31:33

of the day people are like, oh, so wait,

31:35

you didn't do anything about any of that Wait,

31:38

the Democrats did. Okay. Well, let's see. I'm

31:41

going with sanity here Well, in fact, they're

31:43

gonna make inflation a hell of a lot

31:45

worse 16

31:47

Nobel Prize winning economist plus Moody's

31:49

Analytics plus Larry Summers all

31:52

say that Trump's policies are going

31:54

to spike inflation between the mass

31:57

deportations affecting the price

31:59

of growth groceries, produce, et cetera.

32:02

And this ridiculous notion of

32:04

augmenting tariffs, possibly replacing the

32:07

income tax with tariffs, that

32:10

is going to drive prices so high.

32:12

And I feel like this

32:14

is the greatest strength.

32:18

I'm talking about prices specifically. That's the greatest

32:20

strength that Donald Trump has right now. I

32:22

think the prices issue

32:25

is propping up the possibility of

32:27

a Donald Trump presidency at this

32:29

point. So I feel like we

32:31

need to face that strong point

32:33

head on and continuously attack it

32:35

between now and November with

32:37

all of this information that we now

32:39

have at our disposal from myriad

32:42

economists who are like, OK, they're leaning on

32:45

the brakes saying, wait a second, people. Don't

32:47

sell out democracy because you think Donald Trump

32:49

is going to make prices go back down

32:51

to 2019 levels. He

32:54

is going to far worsen

32:56

the inflation situation. And

32:58

on top of that, Joe Biden, prices are

33:01

coming down. Target, Walmart, some of these retailers

33:03

are reducing prices. Obviously, gas prices are coming

33:05

down. And I think we're starting to see

33:07

that in some of the polls as

33:10

far as people noticing that. But

33:12

what do you think of that? Just targeting

33:14

Donald Trump at, I think, from

33:16

a policy perspective at least, at

33:18

his strongest point? I mean, 1,000%, you've

33:21

got to go on offense, right? But

33:23

not only do we have all of

33:25

these economists and experts predicting what would

33:28

look like. We have Donald Trump's fucking

33:30

record, OK? So Donald Trump loves to

33:32

end, again, the amnesia. Donald Trump's economy

33:35

was so strong. Before the pandemic, we

33:37

can't talk about him mishandling, right? But

33:39

that's bullshit. In fact, he inherited a

33:41

strong economy under Obama and then fucking

33:43

tanked it before the pandemic. And people

33:45

don't like to talk about that. But

33:48

before the pandemic, even without the pandemic,

33:50

thanks to his bazillion dollar tax cut

33:52

for the ultra rich, he added more

33:55

to our national debt than nearly every

33:57

other person. The third most relative to

33:59

the state. So

46:00

what you could drive over

46:02

to is us. And

46:05

we knew he wasn't

46:07

there. And

46:09

he was always standing

46:11

looking out the window.

46:16

Sitting in his easy chair. He

46:21

was always a bit of a

46:23

mystery. He

46:25

always seemed so far away. Even

46:29

when he was

46:32

standing next to

46:34

me. We never

46:36

had that much to say. He

46:41

would always hear me coming to go.

46:46

Four million miles away.

46:50

And I'd see a silhouette in

46:53

the window. Every

46:56

time I pulled out of

46:58

the driveway. Now

47:03

there's a shadow in the

47:05

window that's missing. There's

47:09

a shadow in the window

47:11

that's gone. I

47:14

only want to tell you I love

47:17

you. And

47:19

I'm doing my best to be

47:22

strong and hold on.

47:34

Yeah, I always wondered what he

47:36

was thinking. Was

47:39

he waiting for me to

47:41

crash? Or

47:45

maybe he just wanted to

47:47

come with me. But I

47:50

never thought to ask. And

47:55

I always wondered what

47:57

he was doing watching

47:59

me.