0:00

It's Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024

0:02

from Peach Fish Productions. It's

0:08

the gist I'm Mike Peska. Tom Sawyer

0:10

faked his own death to hear town

0:12

folk mourn and eulogize him. I

0:14

don't even know where to get any town

0:16

folk. All Joe Biden

0:18

had to do was to gum up a debate

0:20

quite badly. Man, are people nice to you. After

0:23

you totally, totally screw up your biggest

0:26

moment in an election that you liken

0:28

to the preservation of democracy. Wanna hear

0:30

a bunch of people just being nice

0:32

to Joe Biden for no discernible reason?

0:35

Here's a mashup of Van Jones, Joe

0:37

Scarborough and Ana Navarro. I

0:39

love Joe Biden. I work for Joe Biden. I

0:41

love that guy. That's a good man. He

0:44

loves his country. I think

0:47

I should start by saying, without

0:49

any apologies, that

0:52

I love Joe Biden and Jill. Look,

0:56

I've known Joe Biden and I love Joe Biden

0:58

and I've known Joe Biden for over 20 years.

1:01

So nice. Former

1:03

Congressman Tim Ryan writes, I love America. I

1:06

love our party. I love

1:08

Joe Biden. Aww.

1:10

And Andrew Yang said, what's

1:12

Joe Biden's superpower? That

1:15

he's a good guy who will do the

1:17

right thing for his country. Well, thank

1:19

you. Fantastic. Van,

1:21

Tim and Andy. Now, of

1:24

course, they each added a different version

1:26

of, well, to quote Ryan, the

1:29

Democratic nominee in 2024 should be Kamala

1:31

Harris to quote Yang, do

1:33

the right thing for his country. In this

1:35

case, that stepping aside and letting the DNC

1:37

choose another nominee. Well, forget

1:40

those guys. They're just politicians. How about

1:42

writers? Thomas Friedman, headline

1:44

over his byline in the New

1:46

York Times, Joe Biden is a

1:48

good man and a good president.

1:50

Okay. I think that's all we

1:53

need to read, right? I mean, maybe on the

1:55

print edition, we don't even have that much space

1:57

for all the words. Let's just end it there.

2:00

All right, out of curiosity, good

2:02

man, good president, what comes next? He

2:05

must bow out of the race. The

2:07

New York Times has been lauding Biden left

2:09

and right. Here is Paul Krugman. Joe

2:11

Biden has done an excellent job as

2:14

president. In fact, I consider him the

2:16

best president of my adult life based

2:18

on his policy record. He should be

2:20

an overwhelming favorite for reelection. Let's leave

2:22

it there. Let's just leave it there,

2:24

but you know. Krugman did,

2:26

and also benefiting from high praise are

2:28

those who are just associated with Biden.

2:30

It's a great opportunity to talk up

2:32

the Biden staff and the Biden

2:35

retinue. Here was Jay Johnson

2:37

on MSNBC. So long as he

2:39

has people around him like, like

2:41

Avril Haines, Samantha Power,

2:43

Gina Raimondo. Avril Haines,

2:45

it's her moment in the spotlight.

2:47

And of course, if Biden is

2:50

replaced, the Gina Raimondo support that's

2:52

up for grabs, she could defect

2:54

to Trump or RFK. Now

2:56

I know Johnson was speaking for himself. He said, I

2:58

like the people who Gina

3:01

Raimondo likes, but there were

3:03

others within the democratic firmament making the

3:05

case that it is through

3:07

the supporting staff that Joe

3:09

Biden can actually win if

3:11

he just starts to emphasize the supporting

3:14

staff. If only undecided

3:16

voters could finally get it

3:18

through their thick skulls that

3:20

Gina Raimondo is with Biden.

3:23

Cause they're all going around saying, I'm

3:25

voting for whoever Gina Raimondo supports.

3:28

I know she's the current secretary of

3:30

commerce, but I'm still wondering,

3:33

is there a question that Gina Raimondo

3:35

might not be with the Democrats? There

3:38

is not that question. If only we

3:40

could make that clear. David

3:42

Rothkopf, former editor of foreign policy

3:44

magazine writing in the New Republic

3:46

said, Joe Biden needs to go

3:48

with the team approach. Here he

3:50

is explaining it all on a

3:52

recent podcast. They have to move

3:55

to a kind of team strategy, not

3:58

all Biden all the time. but a

4:01

strategy that says we're the blue

4:03

team, we're the pro-democracy team, and

4:06

up and down the ballot, we're the ones that are

4:09

going to stop MAGA. And

4:11

Kamala Harris has got to be central in that one

4:13

too. Just as they said that

4:15

Al Gore is an old person's idea of

4:18

a young person, what you just heard there

4:20

was a devoted Democratic voters idea of what

4:22

could possibly persuade a non devoted Democratic voter.

4:25

I will say this, Joe Biden

4:28

is the kindest, bravest, warmest,

4:32

most wonderful human being I've ever known

4:34

in my life. However,

4:36

it saddens me to also say, you know what,

4:38

I'm just gonna leave it there. But you know

4:40

what comes next. On the show

4:42

today, speaking of the political skills

4:44

of Kamala Harris, we have

4:46

a bit she did on BET. It

4:49

sparkles like that time Pokemon was referenced

4:51

as a prompt to go to the

4:53

polls. I don't know who created Pokemon

4:56

Go, but

5:00

I'm trying to figure out how we

5:02

get them to have Pokemon go to

5:04

the polls. But

5:07

first, Phil Elwood is a PR executive

5:09

in the same way a mob lawyer

5:11

is said to be an officer of

5:13

the court. Instead of being

5:15

employed by a banana or a Gambino,

5:18

Phil worked for a Gaddafi,

5:20

an Assad. And as

5:22

an aside to an Assad, he

5:24

is now an author. The title of his

5:27

book is all the worst humans. How

5:29

I made news for dictators, tycoons

5:31

and politicians. Phil Elwood up

5:34

next. This

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episode is brought to you by Dragon

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7:20

unique. The name of his book is All

7:22

the Worst Humans, how I made news for

7:24

dictators, tycoons, and politicians. Phil Elwood, welcome to

7:26

the gist. Thank you so much for having

7:29

me. I'm really happy to be here. Now,

7:31

I want you to know in that fight,

7:33

let's set the scene. You're about to be

7:35

fired with the Beatles by the Beatles' former

7:38

manager, and one of the things was he

7:40

upset that you wouldn't represent Al-Assad

7:42

of Syria or that you didn't

7:45

represent him well enough? Well,

7:48

it was a combination of things. It was more

7:50

of an economic issue that led to my termination.

7:53

A lot of our clients were involved

7:55

in the Arab Spring, kind of on

7:57

the receiving end. We'd

8:00

lost several of our

8:02

clients. And so it was bad

8:04

for business and my services were

8:06

no longer needed. Wouldn't a would

8:08

be dictator despot strong man in

8:10

the middle East need a PR

8:13

person even more during the Arab

8:15

Spring? Well, you

8:17

see a number of

8:19

factors happened. So they stopped

8:21

paying their bills was one of

8:23

them and stopped answering emails. They

8:25

were a little busy with other things to worry

8:27

about what people were saying about them on Twitter.

8:31

So it was just a matter

8:33

of priorities and our contract was

8:35

not paid. If I

8:38

was Hosni Mubarak, I would, this is

8:40

what companies always do. They pull back

8:42

on marketing during tough times and people

8:44

still wanna buy tide and bounty. So

8:46

if I was Hosni Mubarak, I

8:48

would not send my horseback troops

8:51

to whip the crowds into here

8:53

square. I'd buy some more PR.

8:55

I think it was this tactical mistake. I

8:58

couldn't disagree with you. I couldn't

9:01

agree with you more. It's a,

9:03

you're absolutely right. But

9:06

it's hard to know what the right thing to do

9:08

is in the middle of a conflict like that. So

9:11

your main Arab client was Gaddafi and

9:13

the Libyans. Tell me a little bit

9:16

about, there's a description of him in

9:18

your book that was, I thought pretty

9:20

apt, although I have to take slight

9:22

issue with it. They called him a

9:25

pockmarked, a pockmarked F. Murray

9:27

Abraham with a jerry curl doppelganger who

9:29

looked like he swallowed a fistful of

9:32

clozapine. But isn't F. Murray

9:34

Abraham himself somewhat pockmarked? The

9:39

journalist who did that article is very, does

9:43

a very good job in that article describing

9:45

the scene and the situation. I

9:47

mean, there are so many idiosyncrasies about the Gaddafi

9:50

family. I don't know how long your program is,

9:52

but I mean, there were more pictures of Gaddafi

9:54

up than there were stop signs in the country.

9:57

Everyone knew they were being surveilled at all.

9:59

times they were followed or it was it

10:02

was a it was a very strange place

10:04

and then if you get into the kadafi

10:06

family themselves things like you know his protection

10:08

detail uh was you know 400

10:10

beautiful what he said virgin

10:13

uh assassins they were

10:15

literally an all-girl army of kung

10:17

fu killers and his rationale

10:19

was very solid he just said you know

10:21

everybody who's ever been assassinated by a member

10:24

of their protection detail the assassin was a

10:26

man yeah yeah and weren't

10:28

they also eastern busty eastern europeans

10:31

i don't know i don't know

10:33

the the kind of composition of them i

10:36

just i just know that they were picked

10:38

for certain attributes what

10:41

was your what were you tasked with

10:43

on a long weekend in las vegas

10:45

with the libyans well there there are

10:47

three important things to know about the

10:49

the kind of section about vegas

10:51

and kadafi the first of which is

10:53

i had never been to vegas before

10:56

so as a tour guide or a you

10:58

know minder i was in

11:00

a totally foreign country the

11:03

second thing you need to know is that i

11:05

i did not know why i was going until

11:08

i was on the airplane and they closed the

11:10

passenger door an email blips through on my blackberry

11:12

i don't know if you remember if you ever

11:14

had one of those a blackberry and

11:17

so an email blips through and i'm

11:19

scrolling down this thing it's a four

11:21

page long email that is just a

11:23

list of demands from the client i'll

11:25

be babysitting and that was um metosom

11:27

kadafi so that's the last thing you

11:29

need to know about the biggest trip

11:31

is who i was babysitting was

11:34

the uh 35 year old son

11:37

of mumer kadafi uh at the in

11:39

his 20s he tried to overthrow

11:41

his father in a military coup uh didn't

11:45

work out but his father made him

11:47

the national security advisor of the country

11:50

so that's that was his position

11:52

when i was babysitting him now

11:54

the the sons were all in

11:56

america partying in different cities i

11:58

just happened to be tasked with the vegas people.

12:01

And they were partying because their

12:04

father was going to be talking

12:06

at the United Nations General Assembly

12:08

the following week. And so

12:10

they wanted to get to know America a

12:12

little bit, I guess. So

12:15

we have this absolutely wild weekend that

12:17

ends with a bill

12:19

from the Bellagio that is as thick as

12:21

a Russian novel. And

12:23

there's all kinds of hijinks that go

12:25

on. The full story in the

12:27

book is it's

12:29

pretty unbelievable. The only reason I believe it is that

12:32

I was there. The kid,

12:34

I mean, kids always lash out. So, you know,

12:37

my son showed up like two and a half

12:39

hours late in blue curfew last week. His son

12:41

tried to overthrow him. It happens. And

12:44

he didn't he didn't like Cher, am I right? He

12:46

didn't take to Cher's show. He

12:48

didn't he didn't like rate it five stars

12:50

or anything. He didn't talk to me about

12:52

like the only interaction I ever had with

12:54

Matossum or the only time really

12:56

had a long conversation was when he was going to

12:59

hit a bouncer and I jumped in between him and

13:01

I was like, hey, if you got to hit somebody

13:03

hit me, I'm not going to press charges and I'm

13:05

not going to call the police. Just if you got

13:07

to get it out, do it. And

13:10

he didn't end up doing it, but he did

13:12

laugh. And that was the longest interaction I had

13:14

with him. And who was the doctor? I was

13:17

just butler hit. That was the doctor. That was

13:19

his nickname because he wanted

13:21

that he wanted us all to call him

13:23

the doctor. And I

13:25

asked about this. I was like, so does

13:28

he have a medical degree? And

13:30

the response I got was something akin to no,

13:33

he has a degree in torture from Moscow

13:35

State University. No, I mean, not these are

13:37

not people that you really want to, you

13:40

know, party in Vegas with. Well, at least it wasn't

13:42

an honorary degree, you know, here in that. Yeah,

13:46

like his brother, I went to I went to

13:48

graduate school with safe Ellis Lamb, Gaddafi, and he

13:50

later got into a lot of trouble for bribing

13:53

the president or the head of the university

13:55

for in exchange for his doctorate

13:58

that came out in the WikiLeaks. Libya

14:01

files. So you took or

14:03

your firm took him as a client and

14:05

I suppose if you weren't

14:07

insane, there is a justification for it.

14:09

The United States was trying to lure

14:11

him back into the nations

14:13

of the world in good standing. He was

14:16

giving up his nuclear program. Turned

14:18

out to be kind of a tactical

14:20

mistake for him. But it's very hard

14:22

to reign in Gaddafi for all the

14:24

reasons we thought. And in fact, that

14:27

speech at the United Nations did not

14:29

include different references of our great cities

14:31

of this country dotted or laced throughout.

14:33

A reference to the grandeur of Las

14:36

Vegas or the beauty of

14:38

the Grand Tetons. It was just him

14:41

rallying and talking for over an hour.

14:43

And he basically shot himself in the

14:45

foot, which the protestors who overthrew him

14:48

later would do to say

14:50

nothing of the hot irons. Yes, yes.

14:53

He was actually killed next to Metosom, the one

14:55

I was in Vegas with. That was the one

14:57

he was executed with. Oh, doctor. So

14:59

my question is, of course you'll

15:01

take the money and it's not

15:03

illegal for you or your firm

15:06

to take the money. But with

15:08

a client like that, could you

15:10

really do anything? Could PR really

15:12

do anything? Well,

15:14

there is an interesting story back in

15:16

2009. I

15:20

was summoned to the embassy, the Libyan

15:22

embassy in the United States was located

15:24

at the Watergate Hotel, where

15:26

nothing shady has ever happened before. So

15:29

I get summoned to the Watergate and

15:31

the ambassador sits me down and he says, Phil,

15:34

some wonderful news is happening. A

15:36

national hero is being returned to

15:38

Libya. And I want to know

15:40

what you think the media's response to this is going

15:42

to be. So I don't know much about Libyan national

15:44

heroes at the time. So I asked him who it

15:46

is and he says, it's Al McGrawkey. And

15:48

I know that name because I was alive in 1988 when

15:52

he blew up Pan Am Flight 103, killing

15:54

over 270 people. Over

15:57

Lockerbie Scotland, yes. Over Lockerbie

15:59

Scotland. And so the

16:01

Scottish authorities were releasing Malmograhi

16:05

on compassionate grounds. He had cancer. And

16:08

so then they gave him

16:10

a hero's welcome like the equivalent of

16:12

a ticker tape parade. Like this guy

16:14

won the Super Bowl in Tripoli, Libya.

16:17

Now the media did not respond favorably

16:19

to this. They

16:21

responded very badly to the extent that Robert

16:24

Mueller, the then director of the FBI, who

16:26

will come up later in the story as

16:28

well, wrote

16:31

a letter to the Scottish authorities calling this

16:33

a miscarriage of justice. I think he used

16:35

harsher language than that. But then

16:38

I was commanded by my client to get

16:40

a positive piece of press for the Libyans

16:42

that week, or they threatened to

16:45

terminate our contract if we didn't. So

16:48

I did some research and I found that

16:50

one of the members of Congress that opened the door to

16:52

Libya back in 2004 was Solomon

16:55

Ortiz, the chairman of

16:57

the House Intelligence Committee. Now I had done

16:59

a project with him recently, so I called

17:01

his staff and I said, look, all

17:04

of the work you guys did to open the door

17:07

with Libya and to bring them as an ally in

17:09

the war on terror is going to be for nothing

17:11

if they keep getting beat up in the media this way.

17:14

Would you sign this letter that I

17:16

wrote on your behalf that

17:18

says knock off the Libya bashing?

17:21

They agreed, signed the letter, and then

17:23

I leaked it to a reporter at

17:25

Politico who then wrote a piece with

17:27

the headline, knock off the Libya bashing.

17:30

So in the book, what I say is that

17:32

I deserve whatever the opposite of a Pulitzer is.

17:36

But Solomon Ortiz, he was,

17:38

it was in his

17:40

interest and aligned with his understanding

17:42

of the national interest for him

17:44

to make that argument, right? There

17:47

wasn't any subterfuge. You made essentially

17:50

a good case to him,

17:52

and he said, actually, this would advance, perhaps

17:55

my standing, perhaps the

17:57

argument, and ultimately America's.

18:00

standing in the world or the safety of

18:02

the world in general. So even though there

18:04

was all this shadiness involved, you could argue

18:06

that there was some light

18:09

shot through all the shade. Well,

18:12

sure. I mean, and Qaddafi was helping us

18:14

in the war on terror. Like there were

18:17

things that were legal in Libya that were

18:19

not legal for Americans to do, and we

18:21

had him do them. Yeah.

18:23

You know, they were killing Al Qaeda

18:26

in Africa for us. I mean, it's

18:28

hard to know who's more right or

18:33

who's more wrong when everybody sucks here. I

18:36

know, but my point is that even though

18:38

you have all these stories and you know

18:40

that there are ethical conflicts, that's the sort

18:42

of thing where if I were you, I

18:44

could live with myself. I very much could

18:47

live with it. Now, only would I be

18:49

proud of the short-term accomplishment. That's a very

18:51

hard thing, a good story about Libya the

18:53

day they get this horrible terrorist back. But

18:55

you do reset the agenda a little bit,

18:58

help make a good point. It's very difficult.

19:00

So that is my question. Is that one

19:02

of those where it weighed on you, it

19:04

drove you to drink, it made you hate

19:06

yourself, or was that a good day where

19:08

you didn't have too many ethical and moral

19:11

qualms about it? You

19:13

know, that one was kind of just

19:15

like, congratulations for doing your job. Okay.

19:17

And you know, I didn't feel, the

19:20

one that really weighed on me

19:22

from that episode in life was

19:25

the World Cup story. I

19:27

mean, the World Cup story is really

19:29

interesting because I'll tell you my part of it.

19:32

I, right now, here is a hat, and

19:35

I think you and everyone could see the

19:37

hat. It is an old hat I was

19:39

about to throw away. And I remember I

19:41

went to, I don't know, the Hotel Intercontinental

19:43

in downtown Manhattan, and

19:46

they had a huge spread because the United

19:48

States was going to win the World Cup,

19:50

was going to win the bid for the

19:52

World Cup. They were giving, I think, a

19:54

couple at once, and the United States was

19:56

favored to win, and Bill Clinton was there

19:58

behind the bid, and Barack Obama. and maybe

20:00

Michelle Obama were behind the bid. And

20:03

how could you not give the United States

20:05

the World Cup? So we're all, I was

20:08

covering it as a sports reporter for NPR

20:11

in terms of sports and drama. It

20:13

was much less than an actual event,

20:15

but okay. I'll interview some sports big

20:17

wigs on this, the verge of our

20:19

great triumph. Tell me how Phil Elwood

20:21

screwed it up and made the hat

20:23

a collector's piece that actually has no

20:25

value on eBay. Well,

20:28

I'm sorry about your hat's value. But

20:32

the World Cup

20:35

bid was very interesting. And

20:37

I don't think that I switched any votes

20:39

per se, but what

20:41

I did was give cover to absolutely everyone

20:44

who voted for the Qatari bid. So let

20:46

me tell you how this worked out. About

20:51

a month before the vote in Switzerland,

20:53

I got a call from my boss

20:55

and he said, Phil, the

20:57

Qataris are very angry. The US Congress

21:00

introduced a resolution supporting their own bid

21:02

to host the games. And

21:05

they want you to get a resolution

21:07

introduced into Congress opposing their own bid

21:10

to host the games. And I'm like,

21:12

that is impossible, you can't do that.

21:15

And so he said something along the

21:17

lines of, I said it, you make

21:19

it true. And hung up

21:22

on me. And then I, so I

21:24

went to a bar and I sat outside and I

21:26

thought to myself, how am I gonna do this? And

21:28

then all of a sudden a

21:30

group of school kids walked by

21:32

and they were all morbidly obese. And

21:35

I was like, there's my answer. God bless

21:37

those waddling little heifers. And

21:40

so they, and they brought me, I

21:42

got some napkins and I wrote a

21:44

resolution that said the United States government

21:46

would not support bids for any international

21:49

games, World Cup or Olympic until we

21:51

fully funded physical education programs in public

21:53

schools to get it, to go along

21:55

with Michelle Obama's get moving campaign or

21:57

let's move campaign at the.

22:00

time. So then I

22:02

had to get the resolution introduced, which

22:04

meant going to a lobbyist that I

22:07

knew who had some connections on the

22:09

Hill. He paid him to

22:11

help me out with this under the

22:13

auspices of the Healthy Kids Coalition. And

22:16

he got a member of

22:18

Congress from Detroit to introduce the

22:20

resolution. I then leaked it to

22:23

a reporter. Kwame Kilpatrick, who's interesting.

22:25

Kwame Kilpatrick's mother. Yes,

22:29

Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. She had lost her

22:31

primary. And so she was a lame

22:33

duck in a lame duck session. So

22:36

it was fairly, they're

22:38

suggestible. And

22:40

so we got this resolution introduced. And then

22:43

I leaked it to a reporter at Politico.

22:45

And he wrote a story with a subject

22:47

with headline World Cup versus gym class. So

22:49

what this did was it gave every voter

22:51

the same talking point, which was not even

22:53

the US Congress wants to host it. Why

22:56

would you give it to the Americans? Now,

22:58

there are a couple of things that I

23:00

want to say before we close out this

23:02

story. The first is that ESPN

23:05

said when Qatar announced their games

23:07

that it made more sense to

23:09

play the Super Bowl in a

23:11

lake than it made to play the

23:14

World Cup in Doha. And I will

23:16

say that FIFA's rules say that

23:18

you can't run a negative bid on

23:21

somebody else's campaign, a

23:23

negative campaign against somebody else's bid. And

23:25

so what I did was in direct violation

23:28

of FIFA's rules. So they should actually ban

23:30

me from working on another bid for the

23:32

rest of my life, which is just fine

23:34

with me. The idea

23:36

of the resolution resolutions are non

23:38

binding. This one was introduced. It

23:41

I'm going to assume since you didn't noted it

23:43

was never even voted on. Why would it be

23:45

anyone's priority to even vote on it? It was

23:47

never meant to be voted on. Was that a

23:50

tactic you used often? Yeah,

23:52

I learned it from members of Congress. They

23:54

introduced what are called messaging bills all the

23:56

time, which are never intended to go anywhere.

23:59

I mean, I mean, it's like when they

24:01

do things that are absolutely

24:03

outlandish just to appeal to the basest

24:05

elements of their constituencies. And I'm talking

24:07

about both sides here. And

24:11

it's dumb, it's a waste of Congress's

24:13

time. So all I was doing was,

24:15

well, one, I was helping my

24:17

client to achieve their goal, but

24:20

I was also kind of showing that Congress is nothing

24:22

more than a tactic for a lot of us. I

24:25

mean, that's how much they've debased themselves.

24:27

You write the resolution on a napkin

24:30

or whatever it is in

24:32

your recollection. How often did that happen?

24:34

Just you writing a resolution and it

24:36

being introduced on, at least in a

24:38

committee of Congress? Well,

24:40

the only resolution that I talk about in

24:42

the book is the World Cup resolution, but

24:45

I will tell you there have been others.

24:49

I can't really use it.

24:51

The Healthy Kids Coalition. Tell

24:53

me about the robustness and

24:55

history of this organization. Sure,

24:58

sure. It's

25:00

what is called an AstroTurf

25:02

organization. So for those unfamiliar,

25:04

an AstroTurf organization is just

25:06

like a grassroots organization, except

25:08

it's completely fake. So

25:11

it doesn't really exist. All it is

25:13

is a website, a tax filing in

25:15

Delaware, or someplace like that. And

25:18

a couple of people that are

25:20

using this to illustrate that there's

25:22

a groundswell of support behind what

25:24

they're doing. And of course there

25:26

isn't. So the Healthy

25:28

Kids Coalition, I don't know who created

25:30

it or why. I just borrowed it

25:32

for a few minutes for this project.

25:35

So Representative Curry Kirkpatrick

25:38

was bribed. You

25:40

just impressed upon her the validity of

25:42

your point. She agreed with the point,

25:45

right? Well, the lobbyist

25:47

did. He was like, look, this fits

25:49

with the Michelle Obama's agenda. This

25:51

is a great time to do it. We'll get

25:53

some press about it because the World Cup is

25:55

about to be voted on. It's

25:57

counterintuitive, which makes it. news.

26:01

Like the fundamental understanding

26:03

that if somebody who wants to

26:05

do this job needs

26:07

to understand what makes news. Like a

26:09

lot of people are surprised that the

26:11

etymology of the word news is just

26:13

the word new pluralized. So

26:16

it's just news. So

26:18

you know if you do something that's innovative,

26:20

if you do something that's counterintuitive, you're gonna

26:22

get some news about we're

26:25

going to pause our conversation with

26:27

the man who represented all

26:29

the worst humans, Phil Elwood. We

26:31

will come back tomorrow with more

26:34

of my conversation of how he

26:36

did it and how he feels

26:38

about having done it. Phil Elwood,

26:40

author of all the worst humans, how I

26:42

made news for dictators, tycoons and politicians tomorrow

26:45

on The Gist. You're

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27:27

now the spiel Doug Burgum, not

27:29

just a collection of syllables and

27:31

pixels designed to reassure your Lutheran

27:33

aunt, but the front

27:35

runner to be vice president was

27:37

on Meet the Press this Sunday

27:39

and asked about some of his

27:42

possibly future running mates lies. As

27:45

someone who is on Donald Trump's shortlist to

27:47

be his vice presidential nominee, do you think

27:49

he should stop saying things that are

27:51

not true? I think

27:54

that the whole manufactured thing this

27:56

morning of that Donald Trump has

27:58

said something that he hasn't said before.

28:00

I mean, everything that is quite a

28:02

principle. It's not a lie. If you

28:05

keep saying it, it's like multiplying by

28:07

a negative. You do it twice becomes

28:09

a positive. A lie. Oh, no. That

28:11

my friend is simply called consistency. You

28:13

know, who's really lying? The media in

28:16

saying that Donald Trump is telling lies

28:18

or at least new lies, which are

28:20

by definition, the only lies

28:23

that count. You know, sometimes when

28:25

Donald Trump repeats himself when speaking

28:27

greatest economy in history, greatest in

28:29

history. Well, only the first one

28:31

counts. He immediately breathes honesty

28:33

into the sentiment, according to Doug

28:35

Burgum, by saying it twice. The

28:38

second one is merely

28:40

a demonstration of consistency.

28:42

Consistency is the key.

28:44

It's really how we

28:46

determine what is truthful.

28:49

Keeping that in mind. Let's listen

28:51

to this next time when host

28:53

Kristen Welker played the governor some

28:55

old tape and asked for a

28:57

response. The child, I want to play something that

28:59

you said about abortion when you were running for

29:01

governor in 2016. When

29:04

you all have ability to terminate pregnancies and make

29:06

it illegal, it just makes it unsafe for some

29:08

of the most vulnerable people in the world, young

29:10

women who were scared, who were afraid, who were

29:12

in the spot, you know, that they don't want

29:14

to be in. America was an

29:16

unsafe place for women before Roe versus

29:18

Wade. Just to put a fine point

29:20

on what you said there, you said

29:22

America was an unsafe place for women

29:24

before Roe versus Wade. So by your

29:26

own standard, governor, is America unsafe for

29:28

women as a result of Roe being

29:31

overturned? No, it's not. And, and

29:33

of course, this is something that should have been

29:35

returned to the state. So you've evolved in that,

29:37

and you're thinking in that because you said right there,

29:39

it's unsafe, it was unsafe for women before Roe was

29:41

in place. Let's be clear. That was a

29:44

comment from over

29:46

eight years ago. And certainly, I've evolved in

29:48

that position, but part of it I've evolved.

29:50

Wait, whoa, whoa. So

29:52

that's Doug Burgum being

29:55

inconsistent. And

29:57

somehow that's also okay.

30:00

And since those two positions were at

30:02

odds with each other, one of those

30:05

positions has to be incorrect and now

30:07

it's the old one, not the new

30:09

one. Hmm, let's

30:11

try to articulate how this works

30:13

in the world of Donald Trump,

30:15

Doug Burgum and lies. Here

30:17

we go. When Donald Trump says

30:19

a thing that is incorrect, he can

30:21

correct it simply by saying the

30:23

same thing. Also, when

30:25

Doug Burgum says something incorrect,

30:28

he can correct it by

30:30

updating it. And

30:32

by updating it, that means saying

30:35

the opposite thing. So the important

30:37

thing is consistency and also equally

30:39

important, inconsistency. We should

30:41

just know that a Trump-Burgum ticket will

30:43

never lie because everything

30:46

they say by their own

30:48

definition will evade any definition

30:50

of lie. They

30:52

simply can't be dishonest, folks. Put that on

30:54

the campaign signs. On

30:56

the Democratic side, Joe Biden,

30:59

top of the ticket, said in speeches

31:01

following the debate, I know how to

31:03

tell the truth. This

31:05

was after he said during the debate, quote,

31:07

I'm the only president this century that doesn't

31:10

have any this decade, doesn't have any troops

31:12

dying anywhere in the world like he did.

31:15

That is incorrect, but I don't think he

31:17

was lying. I think he was confused. Much

31:20

better. His vice president, actual

31:22

vice president, not just leading candidate to

31:24

be vice president, Kamala Harris, put together

31:27

a fun little skit with Taraji P.

31:29

Henson during the BET Awards. They called

31:31

each other or pretended to call each

31:33

other. Let's eavesdrop. No,

31:36

no, Taraji. Now, you know, I

31:38

wouldn't do that, especially not to a

31:40

fellow bison. The real HU? You know.

31:43

So what's on your mind? Madam

31:46

VP Harris, I'm worried about the election.

31:49

His reproductive rights are on the line.

31:52

Our Supreme Court is on the line.

31:54

Our basic freedoms are being tested, Madam

31:56

VP. I know you've been

31:58

traveling across the country. What are you

32:00

hearing? Yeah girl, I'm out here in these

32:02

streets. And let me tell you, you're right

32:05

Taraji. There is so much at stake in

32:07

this moment. The majority of- Cringe as

32:09

it was. There were no

32:11

mentions of either Hawkes or Tua

32:13

to enrapture the youth voters, so

32:15

they didn't go there. And

32:17

you know, Taraji is right, as

32:20

Madame VP is right, and as also

32:22

Doug Burgum eight years ago was right.

32:25

Which makes sense! He was out there

32:28

in those streets of Bismarck. Of course he's going to

32:30

be right. And it's

32:32

also right to say that lying is

32:34

bad, even if President Biden does it

32:36

because he's so disoriented and confused, thus

32:38

leading anxious Democrats to turn to a

32:40

Vice President who's being a bit cringe.

32:43

Or perhaps more than a bit in

32:45

the case of the BET Awards. Let's

32:47

go with whatever level of cringe is

32:49

when you want to fold up inside

32:51

yourself, implode and then scatter into bits

32:53

of cringe dust. That level. I'm

32:56

thinking of all the

32:58

Democrats who watched the debate

33:00

through splayed fingers, or who

33:03

said, I can't watch. They

33:05

were cringing, weren't they? In

33:07

fact, the Democrats might cringe themselves

33:09

out of office. But that has

33:12

long been a tradition in the

33:14

party. Pokemon go to the

33:16

polls, Al Gore's

33:18

lockbox, that time when

33:20

compared to John Kerry, they pushed forward

33:22

John Edwards and said, oh yeah, that's

33:24

the cool one. Elections

33:27

going to the guy who seems cooler or

33:29

more inviting to have a beer with, I'd say

33:32

that's actually the cringe part

33:35

for a mature democracy, as

33:37

is the idea that in this election,

33:39

that guy is Donald J.

33:41

Trump. That is worse than cringe. That

33:44

is deeply shameful. And

33:51

that's it for today's show. Cory

33:53

Warra is enjoying a birthday today.

33:56

He's the producer. As

33:58

a result, Joel Patterson. is

34:01

not enjoying all the extra work he had

34:03

to do because Cory Warra

34:05

is off on a

34:07

birthday jaunt. In a lock box.

34:09

Leo Baum is our intern. We

34:12

have a sub-stack post up now

34:15

that Leo helped us craft. Tom

34:17

Steyer, he was interviewed on the show.

34:19

I interview him in print and

34:22

we get to plastic straws and

34:24

doomerism and his daughter saying, shouldn't

34:26

want to have kids because of the environment. All

34:29

new stuff. Michelle Peska

34:31

is the chief table officer

34:33

for Peach Fish Productions. The

34:35

GIST is presented in collaboration

34:38

with Libson's AdvertiseCast for advertising

34:40

inquiries. Go to advertisecast.com/the GIST.

34:42

Moo-poo-jee-poo-do-poo, and

34:45

thanks for

34:47

listening. Moo-poo-jee-poo-do-poo.