The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Screw episode 100, never market.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Episode 200, forget about it.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Four hundred in the future, we'll see.

00:00:10 ◼   ► I don't want to speak to the future.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Three hundred though, it's a holiday party.

00:00:16 ◼   ► We should clear a couple of things up.

00:00:19 ◼   ► You were still in the midst of a holiday party.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I am very disappointed in all of your listeners who think that I was

00:00:26 ◼   ► also participating in the holiday party at the same time,

00:00:29 ◼   ► which says a lot about, I guess, how I conduct myself.

00:00:32 ◼   ► That's a nice sounding book.

00:00:34 ◼   ► That is interesting. So four years ago,

00:00:38 ◼   ► the day after the election,

00:00:39 ◼   ► you and I recorded an episode and I was in the midst of a holiday party.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Perhaps I did you wrong.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Maybe we should straighten this out before we get to current events.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Perhaps I owe you an apology.

00:00:54 ◼   ► You owe me nothing. What had happened was that there had been

00:00:57 ◼   ► an election that had not turned out the way that we expected.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Like a lot of people,

00:01:04 ◼   ► we were a little bit fitful and needed to get some ideas and emotions out.

00:01:10 ◼   ► We did.

00:01:14 ◼   ► You think if it serves you'd been up all night?

00:01:17 ◼   ► Well, up is a weird word.

00:01:23 ◼   ► You've been reclined probably, arm over the arm of the couch.

00:01:29 ◼   ► I know. So going into this,

00:01:33 ◼   ► you and I didn't talk extensively about having a redux holiday party,

00:01:40 ◼   ► but it was on the table.

00:01:42 ◼   ► You and I get along well enough and we know each other well enough,

00:01:46 ◼   ► that it's like that Michelangelo painting where God and Michael,

00:01:52 ◼   ► or Adam, whatever his name is,

00:01:54 ◼   ► are just the touch of a finger.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Just the tip.

00:01:58 ◼   ► The slightest touch. Just the tip.

00:02:00 ◼   ► You and I, it was on the table. Let's see.

00:02:03 ◼   ► But as with so many things,

00:02:05 ◼   ► whether as rational as one likes to think one is,

00:02:08 ◼   ► I still have, I'm sure we'll talk about this.

00:02:12 ◼   ► I have a lot of my brain has,

00:02:14 ◼   ► I think pathways have been a little bit rewired,

00:02:17 ◼   ► and I have been superstitious about a lot of things.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Me too.

00:02:23 ◼   ► Our fingertips touched,

00:02:25 ◼   ► and we did not even need to say that we were being superstitious because

00:02:28 ◼   ► a superstitious person knows not to even mention that they're superstitious.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Right. A not superstitious person doesn't even want to admit,

00:02:38 ◼   ► and that the superstition is creeping up.

00:02:40 ◼   ► So for example, on that front,

00:02:43 ◼   ► I have some very negative associations with Mr. Steve Kornacki.

00:02:52 ◼   ► Steve Kornacki should come with a trigger warning.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Now, for those who don't know,

00:02:58 ◼   ► Steve Kornacki is the MSNBC personality who's in charge of their,

00:03:05 ◼   ► I'm not making this up, their big board.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Big board.

00:03:08 ◼   ► It's different than the magic board.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Right. He is the funnel point between their decision desk.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Now, those are people who are off-camera,

00:03:24 ◼   ► probably in a basement.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Well, there's a phrase that we don't use in journalism anymore,

00:03:30 ◼   ► but let's just call it a wall.

00:03:31 ◼   ► You get a wall between the advertisers,

00:03:35 ◼   ► and there's walls between advertisers, opinion, news.

00:03:39 ◼   ► In this case, there's somebody sitting in some underground bunker,

00:03:43 ◼   ► probably an assault mine somewhere in the West,

00:03:47 ◼   ► who will be the team that decides when a call is called.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Is that the rough idea?

00:03:53 ◼   ► All right. Numbers come in,

00:03:55 ◼   ► projections get made, and Kornacki is

00:03:59 ◼   ► the interface to the public of what the network is going to say.

00:04:04 ◼   ► It was Kornacki who was delivering the news four years ago where I knew.

00:04:10 ◼   ► I'm a junkie on this.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I really am. I get this stuff.

00:04:15 ◼   ► You're watching webcams, right?

00:04:16 ◼   ► Yeah. For me on election night,

00:04:23 ◼   ► it's like being the baseball fan who's not even really watching the game.

00:04:27 ◼   ► He's mostly watching.

00:04:29 ◼   ► You come in, you buy the score book,

00:04:30 ◼   ► and you take your pen and you're keeping score.

00:04:32 ◼   ► The score book is more important to me than the game. I'm watching it.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Four years ago, Florida went bad,

00:04:40 ◼   ► and it was like, "Ooh," and then they started talking about exit polls that were bad.

00:04:46 ◼   ► Then North Carolina went bad,

00:04:48 ◼   ► and then I just poured myself a pint glass of vodka and lights went out.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Yeah. There was that funnel though.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Everything starts out with the world of dreams and somebody just needs to get to 270.

00:05:01 ◼   ► As we've certainly seen over the last three, four days,

00:05:03 ◼   ► you do get to a certain point where,

00:05:06 ◼   ► and you know what, can we stop saying vote?

00:05:08 ◼   ► Why don't we say ballots?

00:05:09 ◼   ► Vote is not a plural noun.

00:05:11 ◼   ► Stop doing that. But anyway,

00:05:12 ◼   ► we're going to go find more vote.

00:05:14 ◼   ► We talked about this last time, I think,

00:05:16 ◼   ► but you get to Michigan and that big funnel is suddenly getting more and more narrow.

00:05:22 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, Michigan, I don't know.

00:05:24 ◼   ► It's not looking very good." You give all down to this county.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Do you remember at one point,

00:05:27 ◼   ► this is when I was really just ready to get the pint glass,

00:05:30 ◼   ► was when we finally got down to like,

00:05:32 ◼   ► well, we think there might be one county with a few,

00:05:37 ◼   ► like there may be a box of votes somewhere.

00:05:40 ◼   ► We were just clinging to hope the entire time as that funnel continued to narrow everywhere.

00:05:46 ◼   ► It must be said on top of which, sure,

00:05:50 ◼   ► maybe we're idiots, but the whole thing seems so implausible for a million reasons,

00:05:54 ◼   ► including our friend at South by Southwest.

00:05:56 ◼   ► There were so many reasons to think.

00:05:59 ◼   ► There were so many reasons to think that everything was going to be fine.

00:06:03 ◼   ► It got narrower and narrower and narrower.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Then like you say,

00:06:07 ◼   ► it's the khaki interface.

00:06:10 ◼   ► He's the one who's going to bring that to us.

00:06:13 ◼   ► So I had it in mind.

00:06:17 ◼   ► October was when it got real because October,

00:06:22 ◼   ► the whole month of October was,

00:06:23 ◼   ► "Hey, the election is coming."

00:06:24 ◼   ► This is when it went from,

00:06:26 ◼   ► "I can't wait to try to vote this guy out to,

00:06:29 ◼   ► all right, here we are."

00:06:31 ◼   ► It got real.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Up and downs all along the way until a certain letter was posted.

00:06:39 ◼   ► You don't have to make a reservation.

00:06:40 ◼   ► You don't have to call up and get a ballroom.

00:06:43 ◼   ► You're not reserving anything.

00:06:45 ◼   ► I'm just picking which channel I'm going to put on TV.

00:06:48 ◼   ► Sure.

00:06:48 ◼   ► But I started thinking, what am I going to do?

00:06:50 ◼   ► Am I going to do kornacki or MSNBC like a big boy,

00:06:55 ◼   ► or am I going to go somewhere else because I got bad associations?

00:06:59 ◼   ► I'll tell you, 2018 with the midterm election,

00:07:03 ◼   ► I didn't watch MSNBC and it was for that reason.

00:07:06 ◼   ► I had a bad taste,

00:07:08 ◼   ► and not that I hold it against him personally, it's a bad taste.

00:07:11 ◼   ► My wife, my beloved wife,

00:07:13 ◼   ► when she was, I believe,

00:07:15 ◼   ► around six or seven years old,

00:07:16 ◼   ► had a spaghetti dinner and got a little bit touch of the food poisoning perhaps.

00:07:23 ◼   ► You know what happens is you're six, you get sick.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Yeah, you get filthy fingers.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Hasn't had a taste for spaghetti with red sauce ever.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Is that a fact?

00:07:33 ◼   ► That's a fact.

00:07:33 ◼   ► She feels things very deeply.

00:07:35 ◼   ► She's very intelligent. She's been to law school,

00:07:37 ◼   ► but she feels things very deeply,

00:07:40 ◼   ► including one must imagine,

00:07:42 ◼   ► her feelings about spaghetti.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:44 ◼   ► One time, John and me,

00:07:46 ◼   ► my friends and I made a drink of,

00:07:49 ◼   ► we had a handle of Jack Daniels and a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew.

00:07:53 ◼   ► That was the thing that we made into drinks and drank.

00:07:56 ◼   ► I could not see a label.

00:07:59 ◼   ► I could not smell the smell.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I could not for years and years and years.

00:08:04 ◼   ► This is basic human psychology.

00:08:06 ◼   ► This thing made me very sad.

00:08:07 ◼   ► I don't want to feel that feeling again.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Now, was it the Mountain Dew or the Jack Daniels that gave you the badest decision?

00:08:13 ◼   ► That's the hope that kills you.

00:08:15 ◼   ► But it's also, I mean-

00:08:16 ◼   ► It's the Mountain Dew. It was Mountain Dew.

00:08:18 ◼   ► You blame the Dew.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Huh.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Well, I'm not saying that that's what made you sick.

00:08:23 ◼   ► I'm saying that you couldn't go.

00:08:25 ◼   ► So for example, you go to a movie theater,

00:08:27 ◼   ► you can order a Mountain Dew at the movie theater.

00:08:29 ◼   ► You cannot order a 64-ounce Jack Daniels.

00:08:31 ◼   ► It's also why some relationships are so toxic.

00:08:33 ◼   ► It's not that any will, sure,

00:08:34 ◼   ► both people are assholes,

00:08:35 ◼   ► but it's when you get two differently polarized assholes that come together.

00:08:39 ◼   ► They call it synergy, like a two plus two equals 35 situation.

00:08:43 ◼   ► You don't want to mix those.

00:08:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Yeah. You eat a plate of spaghetti.

00:08:47 ◼   ► You get a little ill afterwards.

00:08:49 ◼   ► You feel bad in your stomach.

00:08:51 ◼   ► Maybe for the rest of your life,

00:08:52 ◼   ► you never have a taste for spaghetti with red sauce.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Now, she'll eat spaghetti with a garlic sauce, like a white sauce.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Would she have an Alfredo or a Primavera?

00:09:00 ◼   ► She loves an Alfredo. Sure, loves it.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Okay. That's what I'm going to do. I get it.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Yeah. She'll eat red sauce on, say,

00:09:07 ◼   ► any rigatoni or what have you, anything except the specific,

00:09:13 ◼   ► because you have that association.

00:09:15 ◼   ► That was Steve Kornacki for me.

00:09:18 ◼   ► But this year I thought, you know what?

00:09:20 ◼   ► I'm putting on the big boy pants.

00:09:21 ◼   ► No superstition. Let's go with it.

00:09:22 ◼   ► Let's go back. You got to face facts.

00:09:27 ◼   ► I watched the MSNBC.

00:09:28 ◼   ► I believe I watched for 72 hours.

00:09:31 ◼   ► Yeah. Not to beat this to death,

00:09:38 ◼   ► but I've heard a lot of people talk about this.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Something I put in our notes here to talk about is this ongoing,

00:09:46 ◼   ► equally unpleasant cocktail of anhedonia and madness that so many of us have felt.

00:09:52 ◼   ► So that night in 2016,

00:09:55 ◼   ► it was so difficult to,

00:09:58 ◼   ► there was a kind of cognitive dissonance or certainly,

00:10:01 ◼   ► at least an emotional kind of dissonance where you're saying,

00:10:03 ◼   ► how is this happening?

00:10:05 ◼   ► By the time on this recent Tuesday night,

00:10:08 ◼   ► as we recorded this, it's Friday, November 6th,

00:10:10 ◼   ► in the afternoon, John's time.

00:10:13 ◼   ► But there was that sense of like, oh man.

00:10:17 ◼   ► I talked about this with my kid.

00:10:19 ◼   ► I said, here's the thing about Florida.

00:10:20 ◼   ► There's a lot about Florida that's special.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Believe me, I grew up there.

00:10:23 ◼   ► It's America's Wang.

00:10:24 ◼   ► But there are certain things that are special about Florida in an election,

00:10:27 ◼   ► including that they have the early votes.

00:10:29 ◼   ► They count the early votes early.

00:10:31 ◼   ► There's all kinds of things.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Basically, what it came down to was,

00:10:34 ◼   ► in one estimation I read,

00:10:36 ◼   ► that basically Trump had to get Florida to win plus or minus,

00:10:40 ◼   ► and that Biden would be nice to get Florida to win.

00:10:42 ◼   ► But to take it even further down,

00:10:45 ◼   ► there's all the pathways.

00:10:47 ◼   ► There's some wonderful graphics for this.

00:10:48 ◼   ► There's an interactive graphic on,

00:10:50 ◼   ► I want to say New York Times where you can see what different scenarios indicate.

00:10:53 ◼   ► But what I said to her was, here's the thing.

00:10:55 ◼   ► We might know by seven o'clock if this thing's in the back,

00:10:58 ◼   ► where a situation in which they're able to say, okay,

00:11:02 ◼   ► Florida is very much too close to call, too early to call.

00:11:06 ◼   ► But boy, if Florida looks good for Biden,

00:11:08 ◼   ► it's not game over.

00:11:10 ◼   ► But basically, if Trump's playing Gallagher,

00:11:12 ◼   ► he's on his last dude.

00:11:14 ◼   ► Basically, if Biden wins Florida,

00:11:18 ◼   ► he's something like 90 percent likely to win.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Not also because Florida is a bellwether for places like other Southern states.

00:11:25 ◼   ► If Trump wins Florida,

00:11:28 ◼   ► it's only a one in three for the whole Shigella,

00:11:31 ◼   ► but that's still, it's a big difference.

00:11:33 ◼   ► It's what there's a big difference between no and everything but now.

00:11:37 ◼   ► So that's where we're hanging our hopes.

00:11:39 ◼   ► Guess what? Kornacki's up there,

00:11:40 ◼   ► he's looking real good, and it becomes clear it's not going to be Florida.

00:11:44 ◼   ► What does that do, John?

00:11:45 ◼   ► Now, I'm bringing up Piscaty all over the place.

00:11:48 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:11:49 ◼   ► >> Again?

00:11:50 ◼   ► >> Exactly.

00:11:50 ◼   ► >> Really? How is this even close?

00:11:53 ◼   ► I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

00:11:55 ◼   ► >> There was the easy way and there was the hard way.

00:12:00 ◼   ► The easy way was Florida goes Biden.

00:12:03 ◼   ► Again, not over, over,

00:12:05 ◼   ► but literally almost impossible.

00:12:07 ◼   ► Not just because of Florida's 29 electoral votes,

00:12:10 ◼   ► but because it's like this if-then,

00:12:13 ◼   ► cascading if-then statement of public sentiment.

00:12:17 ◼   ► That's exactly why I knew to break out the pint glass of vodka so early four years ago,

00:12:24 ◼   ► was there were a couple of if-then statements.

00:12:27 ◼   ► I just remember North Carolina being it.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Because North Carolina, and again,

00:12:31 ◼   ► this year it looks like Trump's going to win North Carolina.

00:12:33 ◼   ► We've recalibrated our thoughts on North Carolina.

00:12:36 ◼   ► But Obama had won it twice.

00:12:39 ◼   ► >> We also still need to learn there's more than one "Latino person."

00:12:44 ◼   ► >> That's me.

00:12:47 ◼   ► >> Saying the Latino vote is a little bit like saying the plaid shirt group.

00:12:55 ◼   ► >> Right.

00:12:55 ◼   ► >> It's not really super useful in terms of understanding that group of folks,

00:13:01 ◼   ► and maybe it's a little bit insulting whether you're Latino or wear a plaid shirt.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Not super useful.

00:13:06 ◼   ► >> Right.

00:13:06 ◼   ► >> We blew that a little bit,

00:13:07 ◼   ► and now we'll know that hopefully we'll work on that.

00:13:10 ◼   ► But yeah, that's when the feelings start welling up and got a little tight.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Now, I had a feeling I very rarely have because of all my various disabilities as a person,

00:13:18 ◼   ► as a human, I rarely feel like,

00:13:20 ◼   ► "Oh my gosh, I wonder if I'm having a cardiac event."

00:13:23 ◼   ► I'd gotten several bloops on my watch to let me know that my heart was a little bit accelerated.

00:13:30 ◼   ► But do you agree though?

00:13:31 ◼   ► I mean, there is that feeling of like,

00:13:34 ◼   ► "I cannot handle a here we go again situation.

00:13:36 ◼   ► I've been dreading this for four years."

00:13:38 ◼   ► My combination of anhedonia and madness is really dragging me down emotionally.

00:13:44 ◼   ► I would love tonight to be,

00:13:45 ◼   ► the phrase that I wrote down here is that we could have really used a clean break.

00:13:49 ◼   ► Clean break, decisive victory.

00:13:51 ◼   ► No problems with being able to say these eight votes in this box shouldn't be counted.

00:13:58 ◼   ► If it had been a decisive victory,

00:14:00 ◼   ► we gave ourselves, it's like the sand said less,

00:14:02 ◼   ► that's the hope that kills you. That's what we were hoping for.

00:14:06 ◼   ► When it didn't happen, you can't help but be a little bummed.

00:14:09 ◼   ► I've made some personal changes this year.

00:14:14 ◼   ► One of them is I've gotten diligent about my email and I've stuck with it all year.

00:14:21 ◼   ► This is a big change from someone who's finished most years in the whole 10,

00:14:26 ◼   ► 15, 20,000 unread emails.

00:14:28 ◼   ► One of them is I figured out I have to,

00:14:33 ◼   ► and I'll name the company. I'll name them.

00:14:36 ◼   ► It's a company called Google.

00:14:38 ◼   ► They run a service called Gmail that I back several of my email accounts from.

00:14:45 ◼   ► I think I need to move,

00:14:47 ◼   ► but anyway, that's neither here nor there.

00:14:49 ◼   ► But the fact is every day,

00:14:52 ◼   ► I have about a grand total of very consistent, which is nice,

00:14:56 ◼   ► about 50-70 spams a day.

00:14:59 ◼   ► These are in the spam box.

00:15:01 ◼   ► Will you be claiming your Bitcoin?

00:15:02 ◼   ► Well, no.

00:15:05 ◼   ► That's a little tough enough for them to crack.

00:15:07 ◼   ► But a lot of emojis and the word Bitcoin and

00:15:10 ◼   ► the obviously not correct version of my name that's used in this particular email address.

00:15:15 ◼   ► That's also something they can't correct.

00:15:17 ◼   ► No matter what I do,

00:15:19 ◼   ► no matter who I add to my address book and what I flag as not spam,

00:15:23 ◼   ► there's at least two to three non-spams in my spam every day.

00:15:27 ◼   ► So I go through every day.

00:15:29 ◼   ► It actually feels very 1999, maybe 2001.

00:15:33 ◼   ► Yeah, that feels very 2002.

00:15:34 ◼   ► Back when you would get in something like Fastmail or SpamSib,

00:15:38 ◼   ► you get a Bayesian thing going,

00:15:39 ◼   ► but you still have to check in to make sure.

00:15:43 ◼   ► All I'm saying is where I'm going with this is that I eyeball all of my spam,

00:15:49 ◼   ► about 50-60 spams a day.

00:15:50 ◼   ► It's just part of my habit.

00:15:51 ◼   ► I have ingrained it.

00:15:53 ◼   ► It's like making coffee. I'm okay.

00:15:55 ◼   ► It's good, but I like fun.

00:15:56 ◼   ► I feel good about finding the ones that are in there.

00:16:00 ◼   ► You're like Oscar Schindler, but for mail. That's cool.

00:16:04 ◼   ► Sometimes I find ones,

00:16:06 ◼   ► it's a little freaky.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Election day, Tuesday, I'm going through my spam.

00:16:12 ◼   ► I don't know about you, but during the day on Tuesday,

00:16:16 ◼   ► I found a lot of busy work that needed to be done.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Absolutely. I'll put a little bit of salsa on that taco.

00:16:24 ◼   ► I found myself various times through this past week going,

00:16:27 ◼   ► "You're sending an email to me right now? Really?"

00:16:32 ◼   ► I make a lot of playlists and I rearrange the dorm fridge here at my office.

00:16:39 ◼   ► I find a lot of little projects to keep my hands busy and to keep the demon dogs at bay.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Do you remember what you worked on on Tuesday?

00:16:46 ◼   ► Your spam raking became the Zen Garden.

00:16:50 ◼   ► Yeah, but here's the thing. Here's where I'm going.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Every once in a while, if you look at your spam every day,

00:16:56 ◼   ► every once in a while,

00:16:56 ◼   ► you get one with a subject that it makes you double take.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Because it's not about boner pills or they send you a lot.

00:17:05 ◼   ► I don't know if you've looked at your spam lately,

00:17:06 ◼   ► but boy, you get a lot of offers for N95 masks.

00:17:10 ◼   ► I'm telling you this Bitcoin thing, payment verification.

00:17:13 ◼   ► I don't know why they think in a second.

00:17:16 ◼   ► But I get a ton of that.

00:17:18 ◼   ► I'll go look right now. Anyway, you're working on that.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Well, and one just jumps out at me.

00:17:23 ◼   ► The subject was, will you have a heart attack?

00:17:26 ◼   ► All caps, tonight.

00:17:28 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:17:32 ◼   ► I thought to myself, what do you know?

00:17:34 ◼   ► This could be a Blumhouse film.

00:17:36 ◼   ► That sounds like the beginning of a very good low-budget horror film.

00:17:39 ◼   ► I even clicked on that one just to double check that it

00:17:42 ◼   ► wasn't some good man from the future who might know something I didn't know.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Come with me if you want to live.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. Read this spam email.

00:17:54 ◼   ► That's the only way. Okay. Oh, God.

00:17:57 ◼   ► We've got to write this extra.

00:17:58 ◼   ► But here's what I got. It looks like yesterday.

00:18:01 ◼   ► This is the, it's from the username is dribblingavirin.

00:18:06 ◼   ► It's dribblingavirin@optionpoint.buzz.

00:18:10 ◼   ► What they're saying here is, press this anus pressure point to shrink in flame prostate overnight.

00:18:16 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a good one.

00:18:18 ◼   ► The truth is out. They say for 5,000 years,

00:18:20 ◼   ► the Chinese, oh, that's a little racist,

00:18:21 ◼   ► have kept this acupressure trick locked and sealed.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Boy, you see the best stuff.

00:18:27 ◼   ► Did that make you superstitious?

00:18:30 ◼   ► Did you think, okay, is this future me?

00:18:33 ◼   ► Is this like me with a strap-on beard from a different time?

00:18:36 ◼   ► But I can't let myself know that because I know I wouldn't believe it.

00:18:39 ◼   ► You know what I'm saying? You played that game.

00:18:40 ◼   ► You have a protocol with your wife about how to know whether you've been Face/Offed.

00:18:44 ◼   ► You must have thought about at various times,

00:18:48 ◼   ► how would I convince myself from a different time that it's me?

00:18:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:52 ◼   ► I don't think you were at liberty to tell people that, Merlin.

00:18:56 ◼   ► I think you just broke some of our opposite gun.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Oh, no. Did I break Face/Off protocol?

00:19:00 ◼   ► Well, it's all right.

00:19:02 ◼   ► I feel like our protocol is such that.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Maybe I have some questions for you right now because I have some concerns.

00:19:08 ◼   ► How much of the day could you eat a peach?

00:19:12 ◼   ► Don't ever think it.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Anyway, I watched the Kornacki.

00:19:18 ◼   ► I watched MSNBC.

00:19:20 ◼   ► I got the bad feeling.

00:19:23 ◼   ► So my friend Ben Thompson and I do a show, The Dithering.

00:19:29 ◼   ► We do it three nights a week.

00:19:31 ◼   ► We do it at 10 PM, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, my time.

00:19:37 ◼   ► That's in the morning, Ben's time over there in Taiwan.

00:19:41 ◼   ► Then the show comes out for listeners of the show on Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings.

00:19:46 ◼   ► It's been great success.

00:19:47 ◼   ► We have a lot of fun with it, 15 minutes an episode.

00:19:49 ◼   ► But it occurred to me last week,

00:19:52 ◼   ► I hadn't really thought about it.

00:19:53 ◼   ► This is our first year we started this thing,

00:19:55 ◼   ► I think back around April or so.

00:19:58 ◼   ► You go through your year,

00:20:00 ◼   ► your year has patterns.

00:20:02 ◼   ► It just never really occurred to me.

00:20:03 ◼   ► You think about things like Christmas and other major holidays.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Like Thanksgiving, we're not going to record Thanksgiving night.

00:20:10 ◼   ► We're not going anywhere on Thanksgiving.

00:20:12 ◼   ► I don't know if you heard there's a pandemic.

00:20:14 ◼   ► But election night, what are we going to do?

00:20:18 ◼   ► How do we record? I said to Ben, what do we do?

00:20:21 ◼   ► I mean, there's a very good chance that come 10 PM Eastern time,

00:20:25 ◼   ► we all literally have no idea who's the winner.

00:20:30 ◼   ► How do you do a show if you don't know the winner?

00:20:32 ◼   ► He's like, "Don't worry about it."

00:20:34 ◼   ► That seems to me like a John Gruber thing to say.

00:20:37 ◼   ► It felt like Ben was stepping into the role that I would usually play,

00:20:40 ◼   ► which is, "Don't worry about it,

00:20:42 ◼   ► it'll all work out."

00:20:44 ◼   ► We record right on time.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Ben said, "At 10 o'clock at night,

00:20:48 ◼   ► I'm starting to feel bad."

00:20:50 ◼   ► I was at a low point.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Ben was like, "Don't worry about it, it'll be good. We got it."

00:20:55 ◼   ► 10 for you, 7 for me.

00:20:57 ◼   ► That's relatively early unless we got the Florida dunk, which we didn't.

00:21:02 ◼   ► So Florida had already gone south, right? Bad, real bad.

00:21:07 ◼   ► And maybe the only saving grace was that it was

00:21:11 ◼   ► this whole big demographic shift in South Florida from Cuban Americans

00:21:16 ◼   ► and other Latin Americans, Latinos, Hispanics.

00:21:22 ◼   ► When you're waiting for the polling locations to close

00:21:25 ◼   ► in the central time zone part of the panhandle,

00:21:30 ◼   ► that's not going to be your richest source of big wins for Mr. Biden.

00:21:36 ◼   ► As somebody who's from and who's lived in Tallahassee,

00:21:39 ◼   ► I've been to Waukala County and I have a pretty good idea how that's going.

00:21:44 ◼   ► Don't you love, do you love,

00:21:45 ◼   ► I love as a citizen of this great nation,

00:21:48 ◼   ► I love how every four years you learn some great county names.

00:21:53 ◼   ► First of all, I never think about DeKalb County, Georgia.

00:21:57 ◼   ► I would call it DeKalb County.

00:21:59 ◼   ► But now, of course, I know that because you've got John King up there.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And John King, I don't know,

00:22:04 ◼   ► he's really good at what he does,

00:22:05 ◼   ► but boy, he just seems a little bit annoyed all the time.

00:22:09 ◼   ► He's got to go over it again and again.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Well, I love seeing all this blue on there,

00:22:13 ◼   ► but that's okay. All right. Pump the brakes, John.

00:22:15 ◼   ► I'm going to tell you who John King is.

00:22:17 ◼   ► I learned so much about geography.

00:22:18 ◼   ► I know Kornacki. Kornacki, man,

00:22:20 ◼   ► as we stipulated four years ago.

00:22:21 ◼   ► The man's a monster.

00:22:23 ◼   ► Kornacki.

00:22:24 ◼   ► Arithmetic alone, let alone geography.

00:22:28 ◼   ► I don't know how he does it and stays so cheerful.

00:22:32 ◼   ► John King is the CNN Kornacki.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Yeah. Here's the difference.

00:22:39 ◼   ► John King is on TV all the time,

00:22:42 ◼   ► the other 364 days a year.

00:22:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:45 ◼   ► He's been a White House reporter correspondent.

00:22:48 ◼   ► I feel like Jesus Christ was a corporal.

00:22:50 ◼   ► Maybe the Clinton-

00:22:50 ◼   ► Kornacki. I don't know what the hell Kornacki does between elections.

00:22:54 ◼   ► I'm sure whatever he does,

00:22:55 ◼   ► he earns every penny of it.

00:22:56 ◼   ► But Kornacki, this is what Kornacki was born to do.

00:23:00 ◼   ► He's deployed. He's best deployed.

00:23:02 ◼   ► Sometimes he sits in.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Like when that one, what's his name,

00:23:05 ◼   ► the Dingling guy got fired from MSNBC.

00:23:07 ◼   ► Kornacki did a great job sitting in for him for a while.

00:23:11 ◼   ► But no, I think they mostly keep him in some kind of like what we do in Shadows Coffin,

00:23:15 ◼   ► mothballs, but they deploy Kornacki very,

00:23:18 ◼   ► they unleash the Kornacki.

00:23:19 ◼   ► They've got to deploy him very carefully.

00:23:22 ◼   ► He's like a gremlin.

00:23:24 ◼   ► Who is that Dingling who got fired?

00:23:27 ◼   ► That was Chris Matthews?

00:23:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Chris Matthews. That's right.

00:23:33 ◼   ► Chris Matthews has always had outstanding Fred Willard energy.

00:23:38 ◼   ► I always wanted to love Chris Matthews because Chris Matthews is from the Philadelphia area,

00:23:45 ◼   ► and he talks like a Philly guy,

00:23:46 ◼   ► and he knows the Philly local poly.

00:23:49 ◼   ► He would have been so great if he hadn't been such a Dingling.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Yeah. I know.

00:23:53 ◼   ► This would have been his year.

00:23:54 ◼   ► So anybody who wants to keep dunking on Chris Matthews,

00:23:59 ◼   ► just know that Chris Matthews knows that this year when it all came down to the Philadelphia area,

00:24:06 ◼   ► the city, and the region, this was his year.

00:24:08 ◼   ► This was the year Chris Matthews was meant to be on TV,

00:24:11 ◼   ► and he Dingling did up real good.

00:24:13 ◼   ► You dunk on Matthews too hard,

00:24:15 ◼   ► he's going to throw a D battery at you.

00:24:17 ◼   ► That's where he's from. Take that, Pete Rose.

00:24:21 ◼   ► Ow. John King from CNN.

00:24:25 ◼   ► I think he's all right at his day-to-day job.

00:24:28 ◼   ► Not a big CNN guy, me.

00:24:29 ◼   ► I'm not really a cable news guy to tell you the truth.

00:24:31 ◼   ► That's like saying you're not really a doctor's office guy.

00:24:36 ◼   ► It's like when he wants to be there,

00:24:38 ◼   ► but sometimes when you're called.

00:24:40 ◼   ► You know what? That's not bad.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Our good friend, Mike Davidson,

00:24:46 ◼   ► he's got a luxurious beard, by the way.

00:24:50 ◼   ► Really, right up there with Letterman.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Letterman and Mike Davidson,

00:24:53 ◼   ► neck and neck for Trump era beard growth.

00:24:56 ◼   ► But Mike Davidson had a quote the other night.

00:24:58 ◼   ► It might have been Wednesday night,

00:25:00 ◼   ► literally 24 hours into this.

00:25:02 ◼   ► He was at one point at NBC, right?

00:25:05 ◼   ► Yeah. He was at a startup.

00:25:07 ◼   ► He's news guy. He's startup guy.

00:25:09 ◼   ► I know a bunch of people from when he was at NBC,

00:25:12 ◼   ► and now, for example, TIFF is now working at the New York Times doing graphic stuff.

00:25:17 ◼   ► But that's a fun group to have drinks with.

00:25:19 ◼   ► The tweet was basically,

00:25:22 ◼   ► I'll paraphrase because I'm not going to bother to look it up,

00:25:24 ◼   ► but the tweet was basically,

00:25:26 ◼   ► "Hey, you know how you're watching cable news nonstop right now?

00:25:29 ◼   ► Just know that millions of your fellow Americans watch this all day, every day."

00:25:33 ◼   ► I've been through it.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I had to really make at the strong advising of my shrink,

00:25:40 ◼   ► I really had to cut back because I was all the way in on the Rachel Maddow.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Like we had to throw out the script tonight.

00:25:47 ◼   ► Oh, what's going on with Rush the Craziest?

00:25:49 ◼   ► I was there like, "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Because why?

00:25:52 ◼   ► Because what we know about cognitive biases."

00:25:54 ◼   ► Which is that in order for me to not feel like I'm taking crazy pills,

00:25:57 ◼   ► I have to hear somebody say out loud the things that are in my brain.

00:26:01 ◼   ► Is that wholesome?

00:26:02 ◼   ► In the end, it was not wholesome.

00:26:05 ◼   ► But I told you this morning,

00:26:07 ◼   ► one reason you need to catch me up in a minute on what's happening right now,

00:26:11 ◼   ► because as I talked to my shrink this morning,

00:26:12 ◼   ► he's like, "You still staying off social media?"

00:26:14 ◼   ► I'm like, "I could say yes,

00:26:17 ◼   ► but I think the evidence is out there that I'm not doing the best job at that right now."

00:26:24 ◼   ► No, you're absolutely right.

00:26:28 ◼   ► This could get us into a million different things about what we

00:26:31 ◼   ► each feed our brain with all day long.

00:26:35 ◼   ► When we sit here going,

00:26:37 ◼   ► "I still can't believe," like I said to my family over and over,

00:26:41 ◼   ► there's two things I say over and over.

00:26:42 ◼   ► I say, "I just want him to be sad.

00:26:46 ◼   ► I don't want him to go to jail.

00:26:47 ◼   ► Everybody wants him to go to jail.

00:26:48 ◼   ► I just want Donald Trump to be sad.

00:26:49 ◼   ► That's all I care about. I want him to be sad and I want to not

00:26:52 ◼   ► feel crazy about what I think I understand in the world."

00:26:58 ◼   ► Of course, the irony is that over on the other side,

00:27:02 ◼   ► all of the other sides,

00:27:03 ◼   ► everybody else is also thinking the same thing.

00:27:06 ◼   ► All those people outside praying and bowing in

00:27:09 ◼   ► red hats in front of the vote count last night.

00:27:12 ◼   ► Did you see that in the video?

00:27:13 ◼   ► >> Yeah, I did. That down in Arizona.

00:27:15 ◼   ► >> Holy mackerel.

00:27:17 ◼   ► If that's not a cult, it'll do for now,

00:27:18 ◼   ► but they're thinking the same thing.

00:27:20 ◼   ► It's just about a different thing from a different POV.

00:27:22 ◼   ► We're all wondering why we feel crazy because everybody else seems crazy.

00:27:27 ◼   ► It's never been clear that that's not going away anytime soon.

00:27:30 ◼   ► >> All right, let's take a break.

00:27:31 ◼   ► >> Oh, yeah.

00:27:32 ◼   ► >> Let me thank our first sponsor,

00:27:35 ◼   ► it's our good friends at Mac Weldon.

00:27:39 ◼   ► >> Is this a bit?

00:27:41 ◼   ► >> This is not a bit. This is legit.

00:27:43 ◼   ► This is on the schedule.

00:27:44 ◼   ► This is out of my doing.

00:27:46 ◼   ► Look, Mac, it's a premium men's essential brand.

00:27:50 ◼   ► They believe in smart designs, quality fabrics.

00:27:53 ◼   ► They sell things, underwear, socks, hoodies, underwear, polos.

00:27:57 ◼   ► I think I said underwear twice,

00:27:58 ◼   ► but that's what they started with.

00:27:59 ◼   ► Active shorts, I don't even know what the difference

00:28:01 ◼   ► between the inactive shorts and active shorts are.

00:28:03 ◼   ► >> But they also say that they say it's going to be the best underwear,

00:28:06 ◼   ► socks, and hoodies, and more.

00:28:08 ◼   ► I would love a pass at that edit because I

00:28:12 ◼   ► think it elides the fact that their stuff is actually insanely great.

00:28:16 ◼   ► I'm wearing three articles of Mac Weldon right now.

00:28:18 ◼   ► >> I love it.

00:28:19 ◼   ► >> Huge fan.

00:28:20 ◼   ► >> I love their undershirts.

00:28:23 ◼   ► >> Don't sell across the clothes.

00:28:24 ◼   ► You've got the stuff.

00:28:25 ◼   ► You've got the stuff. You don't need to say and more.

00:28:27 ◼   ► They got the underpants you want.

00:28:29 ◼   ► They got the shirts you want.

00:28:30 ◼   ► Why are we still talking about this?

00:28:31 ◼   ► >> Do you ever make a common sense realization later in life,

00:28:37 ◼   ► and it's the dumbest thing,

00:28:38 ◼   ► but you realize that you'll never get those decades back.

00:28:41 ◼   ► For me, it's the idea of the V-neck undershirt.

00:28:45 ◼   ► >> Interesting.

00:28:46 ◼   ► >> Because do you wear a necktie most of the time you go out?

00:28:51 ◼   ► Let's say you and the lady are in a family.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Maybe you're going out to a nicer dinner.

00:28:55 ◼   ► >> Or I got to do as they say a hit on cable news,

00:28:58 ◼   ► or I want to be photographed in front of a flag for a Twitter icon.

00:29:02 ◼   ► I'm going to put on a necktie, sure.

00:29:03 ◼   ► >> I'll see.

00:29:04 ◼   ► >> Not in my day-to-day though, John.

00:29:05 ◼   ► My feet don't fit into shoes anymore. A lot has happened.

00:29:08 ◼   ► >> Collared shirt, top button undone.

00:29:11 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:29:12 ◼   ► >> That's me. I'm not putting that top button in that top button.

00:29:15 ◼   ► What do you put underneath?

00:29:16 ◼   ► You put a regular t-shirt on,

00:29:18 ◼   ► you got the t-shirt sticking up over the shirt.

00:29:21 ◼   ► You put a V-neck t-shirt on.

00:29:22 ◼   ► That's what the V-neck is for. I don't know.

00:29:24 ◼   ► >> Wait a minute. That's what the V-neck is for?

00:29:28 ◼   ► >> Yeah. The V-neck is so that you can wear a collared shirt.

00:29:31 ◼   ► You undo the top button like a normal human being who's not a Poindexter,

00:29:35 ◼   ► and you don't see an undershirt underneath.

00:29:37 ◼   ► >> So you're telling me I wear one of my normal crew neck 18-hour tees that I get from Mac Weldon.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I wear that with a crew neck.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I'm looking like Stork from Animal House.

00:29:47 ◼   ► You're telling me-

00:29:47 ◼   ► >> You look all right. Get a V-neck.

00:29:49 ◼   ► >> You're sweet. I get a V-neck,

00:29:51 ◼   ► and now I can have that top button open.

00:29:53 ◼   ► I'll leave that open for Elijah.

00:29:54 ◼   ► >> You look like-

00:29:55 ◼   ► >> I'm going to look good is what you're telling me.

00:29:56 ◼   ► >> You look like a cool guy who doesn't even need an undershirt.

00:29:59 ◼   ► >> I know. I don't think of myself as a V-neck guy, and now I wonder.

00:30:02 ◼   ► >> Yeah, because I wear the V-neck undershirts when you're never going to see it.

00:30:08 ◼   ► It's because I got it. It's a literal undershirt.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Anyway, they've got those.

00:30:12 ◼   ► I swear by them. They're fantastic.

00:30:14 ◼   ► Also, swear to God,

00:30:16 ◼   ► the V-neck, I've been wearing these V-neck undershirts from them for years,

00:30:19 ◼   ► since you've been hearing me talk about Mac Weldon.

00:30:21 ◼   ► They all look brand new.

00:30:22 ◼   ► I don't know how that's possible because in theory,

00:30:25 ◼   ► the reason I'm wearing an undershirt is I tend to destroy them.

00:30:28 ◼   ► >> Well, yeah, you get those yellow pits.

00:30:29 ◼   ► But the other thing we learned about from Chris Anderson,

00:30:33 ◼   ► you get what's called the long tail.

00:30:34 ◼   ► I love the ability to tuck in that shirt and have it stay tucked.

00:30:38 ◼   ► It's not cute. It doesn't need to be its own whole brand, no offense.

00:30:41 ◼   ► In this case, you buy a t-shirt like a gentleman,

00:30:44 ◼   ► you put it on, you tuck it in,

00:30:45 ◼   ► it's not going anywhere, V or crew.

00:30:48 ◼   ► >> No. Anyway, but I blew decades in my life thinking I was not a crew V-neck fellow.

00:30:54 ◼   ► >> John, there's things we know and there's things that we know now.

00:30:57 ◼   ► So when people say to you, "Oh,

00:30:59 ◼   ► when your wife bugs you about replacing the timing belt,

00:31:03 ◼   ► because it'd be real expensive if it breaks."

00:31:05 ◼   ► You know that's true,

00:31:06 ◼   ► but it isn't until it breaks you go, "No, no, that's true."

00:31:09 ◼   ► To me, that sounds like your V-neck revelation.

00:31:13 ◼   ► >> Just great stuff. They've got advanced technology fabrics.

00:31:17 ◼   ► I don't know anything about fabric technology,

00:31:19 ◼   ► but the AirKnit X, Dry Near,

00:31:22 ◼   ► Warm Knit, the Silver stuff,

00:31:25 ◼   ► that's our friend Marco loves it because he can get sweaty as hell,

00:31:28 ◼   ► and it doesn't make you stink. It's good stuff.

00:31:29 ◼   ► They're not full of it.

00:31:31 ◼   ► >> I think it's called the, I don't want to say Waffle Knit,

00:31:34 ◼   ► I don't know if that's a brand name.

00:31:35 ◼   ► I'm wearing their black Waffle Knit shirt right now,

00:31:40 ◼   ► over a Daring Fireball shirt because I'm that guy.

00:31:43 ◼   ► But I also have some other items of Mack Weldon around right now.

00:31:45 ◼   ► >> Also, I forget what I don't have it handy,

00:31:48 ◼   ► but I got there, it's a zip-up hoodie.

00:31:51 ◼   ► >> Oh, the Ace hoodie?

00:31:53 ◼   ► >> Yeah, and it's thin.

00:31:54 ◼   ► I've been looking for something like this forever.

00:31:56 ◼   ► Mack Weldon has it. What I want,

00:31:58 ◼   ► I don't necessarily want it to go out in cold weather.

00:32:01 ◼   ► What I want is when I'm in the house and it's getting chilly,

00:32:05 ◼   ► and I need another layer in the house.

00:32:09 ◼   ► It's the greatest and it's super nice.

00:32:11 ◼   ► My son has had one for over a year.

00:32:14 ◼   ► He's like, "Why didn't you get one?"

00:32:15 ◼   ► >> My family always steals mine.

00:32:17 ◼   ► Famously, I think in a lot of people I know,

00:32:19 ◼   ► you get some garments.

00:32:21 ◼   ► My daughter is basically still in all of my clothing at this point because she's huge.

00:32:24 ◼   ► She's very, very, very statuesque.

00:32:26 ◼   ► No, but they just disappear.

00:32:28 ◼   ► I put it on a hook, I put it on a hanger,

00:32:30 ◼   ► I put it somewhere, and then it's like the good scissors.

00:32:33 ◼   ► I might find it later.

00:32:35 ◼   ► >> The scissors. Anyway, so many similarities between our families, Merlin.

00:32:40 ◼   ► I cannot keep the scissors.

00:32:41 ◼   ► >> It's a shame. But you like to be cozy,

00:32:44 ◼   ► you're in a cold climb,

00:32:45 ◼   ► you'll put on a hoodie.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Now, what about on your feet?

00:32:47 ◼   ► Do you get chilly down there?

00:32:49 ◼   ► >> The feet. Hold that thought.

00:32:53 ◼   ► >> Let me just tell you, I just want to fulfill some obligations here.

00:32:57 ◼   ► They've got a loyalty program.

00:33:01 ◼   ► >> Yes.

00:33:01 ◼   ► >> Level one, free shipping for life.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Once you get to level two,

00:33:04 ◼   ► all you have to do to get to level two, by the way,

00:33:06 ◼   ► is spend 200 bucks and then you get 20 percent off every order for the next year.

00:33:11 ◼   ► That's just fantastic.

00:33:13 ◼   ► Level one, free shipping for life.

00:33:15 ◼   ► Level two, 200 bucks of spending gets you 20 percent off everything else for the next year.

00:33:20 ◼   ► They have a guarantee.

00:33:21 ◼   ► If you don't like your first pair of underwear, you can just keep it.

00:33:24 ◼   ► I mean, who wants underwear back, frankly?

00:33:27 ◼   ► But they'll let you keep it.

00:33:28 ◼   ► >> I'm sorry, John. I didn't want to get you this bit.

00:33:29 ◼   ► >> They'll send you your money back.

00:33:31 ◼   ► >> It's a shame we have to say that.

00:33:32 ◼   ► It's a shame you have to say they don't want the underwear back.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Because what are they going to do with it?

00:33:37 ◼   ► >> Money you might want back.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Underwear, they don't want it back,

00:33:41 ◼   ► but they're so confident.

00:33:42 ◼   ► Anyway, 20 percent off your first order,

00:33:45 ◼   ► go to mackweldon.com, m-a-c-k-w-e-l-d-o-n.com/talkshow.

00:33:53 ◼   ► The promo code is the same thing, just talk show.

00:33:56 ◼   ► That gets you 20 percent off your first order,

00:33:59 ◼   ► mackweldon.com/talkshow, code talk show.

00:34:02 ◼   ► That gets us to,

00:34:04 ◼   ► you want to call this the continuation of the sponsorship,

00:34:07 ◼   ► you want to call it content, I don't care.

00:34:09 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:34:10 ◼   ► >> Gets us to the important thing and that's the slippers.

00:34:12 ◼   ► You and I, we never quite-

00:34:14 ◼   ► >> We screwed up so bad by talking about these goddamn slippers.

00:34:17 ◼   ► We blew it by mentioning to other people how good these slippers are.

00:34:22 ◼   ► We blew it because we talked about it on an episode of your podcast,

00:34:25 ◼   ► the talk show, and then what happened, John?

00:34:27 ◼   ► >> They sold out and we couldn't get them and I didn't have-

00:34:30 ◼   ► >> Months, months, probably years at this point.

00:34:33 ◼   ► >> I didn't have a spare pair.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Guess what happened in 2020?

00:34:38 ◼   ► I never needed anything but slippers.

00:34:40 ◼   ► I wore the damn things out.

00:34:42 ◼   ► I haven't worn anything all year except for Mack Weldon slippers.

00:34:47 ◼   ► When it got warm enough, some flip flops,

00:34:50 ◼   ► and now I'm back to the slippers.

00:34:53 ◼   ► They're worn out, but they came back into stock, the Mack Weldon slipper.

00:34:58 ◼   ► >> We had an exchange because I received,

00:35:02 ◼   ► forgive me, I don't know the person, I forget who said this,

00:35:04 ◼   ► but somebody on Twitter said, "Hey, FYI,

00:35:06 ◼   ► the slippers are back in stock."

00:35:08 ◼   ► I ran my daughter over and I ran straight to

00:35:12 ◼   ► the computer to text you and say, "John, it's go time.

00:35:14 ◼   ► Turn your key, sir. They're back in stock."

00:35:16 ◼   ► They're back in stock and then what did you see?

00:35:18 ◼   ► You said, "You just learned the same thing."

00:35:21 ◼   ► >> I've already gotten two pairs.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Now, I opened mine.

00:35:26 ◼   ► >> Okay. I was after I wrote mine on the air.

00:35:28 ◼   ► >> I heard you doing it.

00:35:29 ◼   ► >> I've been saving them knowing this is eventually coming.

00:35:32 ◼   ► >> I opened them just to examine them,

00:35:34 ◼   ► just to make sure it was all right.

00:35:36 ◼   ► >> All right. Let's see here.

00:35:38 ◼   ► I got a utility knife, cutting, open.

00:35:42 ◼   ► They say you can pull on the ripcord.

00:35:44 ◼   ► I don't like that. It feels sloppy to me.

00:35:47 ◼   ► Oh, look at these. I tried a different color this time.

00:35:49 ◼   ► I think these are called charcoal.

00:35:51 ◼   ► I got, oh, look at that.

00:35:53 ◼   ► They're in a bag. I love a bag.

00:35:55 ◼   ► Look at that bag. Then I got them here.

00:35:58 ◼   ► >> You can take that bag. You can put that bag right in the suitcase.

00:36:01 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:36:02 ◼   ► >> If you don't like the bag, you keep it.

00:36:05 ◼   ► >> Anyway, I'm doing it right now.

00:36:08 ◼   ► Right now, as we speak on the air,

00:36:10 ◼   ► I've just taken off my old slippers.

00:36:14 ◼   ► I've got my brand new ones.

00:36:15 ◼   ► >> Oh, John, this feels important.

00:36:17 ◼   ► >> All right. Here they go. Now, here's the thing.

00:36:19 ◼   ► Here's why I like the Mack Weldon slipper.

00:36:22 ◼   ► They've got a back, a back on the heel.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Now, it's not a high back.

00:36:27 ◼   ► >> If you want to be one of those monsters that wears them like a scuff,

00:36:29 ◼   ► you can do that or you could have some dignity and wear slippers with a back up.

00:36:34 ◼   ► But the thing is,

00:36:37 ◼   ► I had to berate my statue as Donner because she wore them to the park one time.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Look at these. They're so handsome.

00:36:44 ◼   ► John, you know what I love?

00:36:46 ◼   ► These are inside shoes.

00:36:47 ◼   ► These are inside shoes. I only wear these inside. That's the thing.

00:36:51 ◼   ► I might go to the garage to get toilet paper.

00:36:53 ◼   ► One of those occasions where my sweatpants fall down around my ankles.

00:36:56 ◼   ► But the Mack Weldon charcoal slippers,

00:37:01 ◼   ► now, all these are handsome.

00:37:02 ◼   ► But they're rugged. That's the thing.

00:37:04 ◼   ► It's not insubstantial.

00:37:06 ◼   ► >> They're closer to a shoe in terms of structure.

00:37:11 ◼   ► If you needed to run out,

00:37:12 ◼   ► if you had them on,

00:37:14 ◼   ► you're in the house and something happened, you need to leave.

00:37:16 ◼   ► You could leave and it would be hours,

00:37:19 ◼   ► like some kind of family emergency type situation.

00:37:22 ◼   ► >> You're saying Nicolas Cage breaks in.

00:37:24 ◼   ► >> Whatever.

00:37:26 ◼   ► >> I see.

00:37:26 ◼   ► >> You wouldn't realize until the incident was over,

00:37:31 ◼   ► holy crap, I left with my slippers on as opposed to a typical slipper.

00:37:35 ◼   ► As soon as you leave the house,

00:37:36 ◼   ► it would be like leaving without your pants.

00:37:38 ◼   ► >> How great is your running in flip-flops, John? Be honest.

00:37:41 ◼   ► >> In flip-flops, I wouldn't run.

00:37:43 ◼   ► See, I'm too old.

00:37:45 ◼   ► I can't take a fall at this age.

00:37:47 ◼   ► >> Oh my God. We're so brittle.

00:37:48 ◼   ► Hollow bones.

00:37:49 ◼   ► >> Yeah. I've got these new slippers on. I've been saving them.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Now, this is another one of those things where we just sort of-

00:37:58 ◼   ► >> The fingertips touched.

00:37:59 ◼   ► >> The fingertips touched.

00:38:00 ◼   ► >> We didn't need to have a lot of exchanges about this.

00:38:03 ◼   ► I think we could just go through intuition. It's time.

00:38:06 ◼   ► >> Now, what would we have done if the election had turned out bad again?

00:38:10 ◼   ► Would we still have done slippers?

00:38:13 ◼   ► >> Let's not get over our skis here.

00:38:15 ◼   ► It's still pretty early.

00:38:16 ◼   ► >> I'm not sure. This is something that didn't quite happen.

00:38:19 ◼   ► >> See, this is how they get you.

00:38:21 ◼   ► >> I'm not sure that this added up.

00:38:24 ◼   ► In my mind, it was like,

00:38:26 ◼   ► well, Biden seems like he's going to win.

00:38:29 ◼   ► We'll do another show and we'll put new slippers on.

00:38:33 ◼   ► >> Yeah. It didn't need to be said.

00:38:36 ◼   ► It was intuitively obvious.

00:38:39 ◼   ► >> Can I just tell you now,

00:38:40 ◼   ► I'm telling you right now,

00:38:43 ◼   ► I don't want to malign them.

00:38:45 ◼   ► I love these slippers.

00:38:47 ◼   ► I want to sell out.

00:38:48 ◼   ► I want them because I've already stocked up myself, so it's A-okay.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Go buy as many pairs as you want.

00:38:53 ◼   ► You're not robbing me of them.

00:38:54 ◼   ► I'm set for the year.

00:38:57 ◼   ► I don't want to imply that their slippers don't last.

00:39:01 ◼   ► What I'm saying is I wore the hell out of these slippers in the time since I bought them.

00:39:06 ◼   ► I mean, I'm very satisfied with the wear and tear.

00:39:09 ◼   ► >> It's like I say about the Apple TV.

00:39:11 ◼   ► It works great as long as you never use it.

00:39:13 ◼   ► If you're using the slippers,

00:39:15 ◼   ► there will be wear and tear.

00:39:16 ◼   ► This is not a problem with Mack or Weldon.

00:39:19 ◼   ► It's just that you love them so much, you love them too much.

00:39:22 ◼   ► It's like a beloved stuffy and you want fresh ones.

00:39:27 ◼   ► >> When I'm working, when I'm writing,

00:39:29 ◼   ► when the juices are flowing and the words are coming out,

00:39:32 ◼   ► I'm on the balls of my- I sit.

00:39:34 ◼   ► I don't have a standing desk.

00:39:35 ◼   ► Come on. I'm on the balls of my feet though.

00:39:39 ◼   ► >> I get a heart attack like a man.

00:39:42 ◼   ► So when you're "working", yeah.

00:39:46 ◼   ► >> But it might look like I'm sitting and I am sitting,

00:39:50 ◼   ► but I'm on the balls of my feet and my feet are moving.

00:39:53 ◼   ► I'm wearing the slippers down as I sit.

00:39:57 ◼   ► >> As active sitting.

00:39:59 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:39:59 ◼   ► >> Okay.

00:40:00 ◼   ► >> When I'm writing,

00:40:02 ◼   ► I think I'm not quite sure what I look like,

00:40:05 ◼   ► but I think when it's really going,

00:40:07 ◼   ► I might sit there and be in the flow for a full 45 minutes,

00:40:10 ◼   ► but if somebody were observing me,

00:40:12 ◼   ► they would say, "That's a man who needs to go to the bathroom."

00:40:15 ◼   ► >> I see that there's a kind of urgency that you haven't acknowledged yet.

00:40:18 ◼   ► >> A nervous energy.

00:40:19 ◼   ► >> Yes.

00:40:19 ◼   ► >> It's coming out.

00:40:20 ◼   ► >> Yes.

00:40:20 ◼   ► >> Right?

00:40:21 ◼   ► >> I know the feeling.

00:40:23 ◼   ► I used to write. I understand.

00:40:24 ◼   ► >> Yeah. Well, it's hard on slippers.

00:40:28 ◼   ► >> It's true. Well, it's occupational hazard.

00:40:32 ◼   ► >> What his lungs were to my grandfather,

00:40:35 ◼   ► the coal miner, the slippers are to me.

00:40:38 ◼   ► >> My father who was in Korea.

00:40:41 ◼   ► It's okay, Dad. I hope he's looking down and enjoying

00:40:46 ◼   ► my sophisticated contextual take on poop and boner jokes.

00:40:53 ◼   ► >> I got to get you out of this spot.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Are you going to bring me because we can't go all day today?

00:40:58 ◼   ► >> No.

00:40:58 ◼   ► >> Are you going to bring me up to speed on where we are now?

00:41:00 ◼   ► I was talking to my friend about social media.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Bring me up to speed as of 12 PM Pacific time on Friday, November 6th.

00:41:09 ◼   ► Where are we right now?

00:41:10 ◼   ► You're feeling good, but tell me what's still on the table.

00:41:13 ◼   ► >> No. It's a lock. It's done.

00:41:15 ◼   ► >> Oh, come on.

00:41:17 ◼   ► >> I'm telling you. Merlin, I'm not trying to spoil anything.

00:41:19 ◼   ► I'm telling you, the networks are only being,

00:41:24 ◼   ► they're gracious, they're more gracious than me.

00:41:26 ◼   ► It's all over. It's over.

00:41:28 ◼   ► >> Partly because if you call this too early and then you have to like,

00:41:33 ◼   ► that's what Fox is dealing with now,

00:41:35 ◼   ► is they got in front of this.

00:41:37 ◼   ► I guess decision desk HQ is now saying that,

00:41:40 ◼   ► but this is your bit. Tell me where we are now.

00:41:42 ◼   ► >> Here's where we are. None of this is official, by the way.

00:41:47 ◼   ► I mean, what's the reddest state in the country?

00:41:50 ◼   ► I don't know, Arkansas, maybe Mississippi, Alabama,

00:41:53 ◼   ► one of those states where Trump won by 30 or 40 percent.

00:41:58 ◼   ► Maybe you could take some blue states.

00:42:01 ◼   ► >> We've known all along this would come down to a handful of states.

00:42:06 ◼   ► >> None of those are official, right?

00:42:08 ◼   ► New Jersey, Biden was up by-

00:42:10 ◼   ► >> Well, nothing's official until the results are certified,

00:42:12 ◼   ► but I have found some solace in a BBC graphic that's been going around,

00:42:16 ◼   ► which was to say for this person to win,

00:42:18 ◼   ► they will need, in this case,

00:42:20 ◼   ► let's say the vice president is going to need two of these states or Pennsylvania.

00:42:25 ◼   ► For the current president,

00:42:27 ◼   ► it was that I think he was going to need two or three of these states and Pennsylvania.

00:42:32 ◼   ► >> He's not going to get Pennsylvania because Pennsylvania,

00:42:36 ◼   ► even though there are votes still to be counted,

00:42:39 ◼   ► the official tally already has Joe Biden in the lead and the votes to be counted.

00:42:45 ◼   ► >> Very much, and we learned this from Kornacki,

00:42:47 ◼   ► the votes coming out of very much of his favor.

00:42:48 ◼   ► >> They're all in his favor, decidedly preposterously so.

00:42:51 ◼   ► There are people who aren't paying attention who think,

00:42:54 ◼   ► well, that sounds crooked and it has nothing to do with crookedness.

00:42:57 ◼   ► It has to do with the fact that people who listened to the president and did what he told them to do,

00:43:06 ◼   ► voted in person instead of using mail-in ballots,

00:43:10 ◼   ► and people who didn't believe a word out of his mouth and were genuinely concerned

00:43:17 ◼   ► about the epidemiological aspects of leaving and going in person and trusted the state that,

00:43:25 ◼   ► hey, we've got mail-in balloting.

00:43:27 ◼   ► This is the first presidential election where the state of Pennsylvania had it.

00:43:30 ◼   ► They did this, but the laws of Pennsylvania were written.

00:43:34 ◼   ► >> They've had absentee before,

00:43:36 ◼   ► but this is their first.

00:43:36 ◼   ► >> Absentee but not mail-in ballot.

00:43:38 ◼   ► >> Yes.

00:43:38 ◼   ► >> Right. And the laws were such that they can take the envelopes, stack them in a box,

00:43:46 ◼   ► but they couldn't start opening them until 7 a.m.

00:43:50 ◼   ► >> Can I just mention one more thing here because I think it's salient to this point.

00:43:53 ◼   ► And of course, as we all know, once everything starts seeming related,

00:43:56 ◼   ► that's when you know that you're crazy.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Why are we so bad at COVID?

00:43:58 ◼   ► There's a million reasons we're bad at COVID,

00:44:00 ◼   ► but one of the reasons we're bad at COVID is America hates subtlety.

00:44:03 ◼   ► And one bit of subtlety that's valuable, and I think anybody with any sense goes,

00:44:07 ◼   ► "Wow, there's real different things going on in real different places."

00:44:09 ◼   ► Here's some more subtleties that suck.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Deaths, lag, cases in a way that can be tracked.

00:44:15 ◼   ► We know that this particular county with this particular makeup is going to have a very different thing.

00:44:20 ◼   ► I'm just saying that one reason we suck at COVID is there's not one COVID.

00:44:24 ◼   ► There's also not one election.

00:44:25 ◼   ► We like to say there's one election, but there's a lot of different elections.

00:44:28 ◼   ► It's something that is controlled at a state and lower level.

00:44:31 ◼   ► But on top of all of that, and I learned this from our board, Kornacki,

00:44:34 ◼   ► is that the way the votes are counted, the order in which—

00:44:38 ◼   ► well, first of all, the kinds of votes.

00:44:40 ◼   ► Obviously, you've got some in person.

00:44:42 ◼   ► You've got the early-late and the late-earlys.

00:44:44 ◼   ► You've got the mail-ins.

00:44:45 ◼   ► You've got the overseas ones.

00:44:47 ◼   ► But part of what's making this so frustrating for everybody, I think understandably,

00:44:52 ◼   ► is the order in which those votes are counted differs, especially from state to state.

00:44:57 ◼   ► So if you count in person in one of the western states, a red state, early,

00:45:02 ◼   ► well, yeah, that's going to look like a huge, what they call, I guess, a red mirage.

00:45:05 ◼   ► It's going to look like things are great for Trump.

00:45:07 ◼   ► When the later votes come in that we're mailing, especially in a case like Pennsylvania,

00:45:11 ◼   ► well, guess what?

00:45:12 ◼   ► That turns around.

00:45:12 ◼   ► But that's not the same everywhere.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Georgia, there's a different—

00:45:15 ◼   ► you know, don't you think that's part of what makes people crazy,

00:45:18 ◼   ► is not understanding which kinds of votes are being counted tonight?

00:45:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:23 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

00:45:24 ◼   ► And it feels fishy because how could our big, wet boy

00:45:30 ◼   ► lose such a 600,000-vote "lead"?

00:45:34 ◼   ► And like a lot of people have said, I'm not into sportsball like you are.

00:45:37 ◼   ► But I mean, it's a little like saying, in the same way that the president likes to say,

00:45:41 ◼   ► "Well, if you don't count New York, COVID went great."

00:45:43 ◼   ► And again, it's sort of like saying,

00:45:45 ◼   ► "Well, the first two innings were very positive for our team, so why would we finish the game?"

00:45:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:53 ◼   ► Think about it.

00:45:54 ◼   ► Imagine you're shooting—

00:45:58 ◼   ► you're playing basketball, and the rules are such that your whole school can play the game,

00:46:04 ◼   ► but the rules are such that we're going to play—

00:46:06 ◼   ► your team only gets to have the ninth graders come out for the first half,

00:46:11 ◼   ► and then in the second half, you're going to have the seniors and the juniors come out.

00:46:15 ◼   ► Well, they're a lot better at basketball.

00:46:16 ◼   ► You get Mariano Rivera come out in the first inning,

00:46:20 ◼   ► but for some reason, he's playing shortstop, and no one knows why.

00:46:22 ◼   ► There's nothing crooked about it.

00:46:25 ◼   ► They knew it was going to happen.

00:46:26 ◼   ► And now that Biden already has the lead as we record, there's no mathematical chance.

00:46:31 ◼   ► They can call it.

00:46:32 ◼   ► They might have called it while we're recording this show, officially.

00:46:35 ◼   ► As we're recording right now, it looks like there was a Georgia Secretary of State thing.

00:46:39 ◼   ► I'm sorry, I'm not letting you finish.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Tell me.

00:46:41 ◼   ► No, that's okay.

00:46:42 ◼   ► You're confident.

00:46:44 ◼   ► I want to know what is the basis—

00:46:46 ◼   ► not that I disagree.

00:46:47 ◼   ► I want to be cheered up here.

00:46:49 ◼   ► What is the basis for your confidence momentarily for the sake of your audience?

00:46:55 ◼   ► Let's set aside the utter conflagration we will be going through for the next six to eight weeks.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Let's set that aside.

00:47:01 ◼   ► What makes you feel good right now on November 6th?

00:47:03 ◼   ► So I feel great because the states that have already been called

00:47:08 ◼   ► by every single news organization up and down the political spectrum

00:47:12 ◼   ► have Biden at over 200, like 253 electoral votes.

00:47:16 ◼   ► You need 270 to win.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Pennsylvania is worth 20.

00:47:18 ◼   ► He's taken, as of this morning, the official count, has him in the lead.

00:47:25 ◼   ► Most of the votes that are left are mail-in votes that have been running

00:47:30 ◼   ► 80 to 20, give or take, in Biden's favor.

00:47:35 ◼   ► In other words, four out of every five of these are for Biden, one out of every five for Trump.

00:47:39 ◼   ► And this is different.

00:47:40 ◼   ► So there's a part of you that thinks, well, I mean, like,

00:47:42 ◼   ► I know enough about this kind of stuff to say, well,

00:47:45 ◼   ► just because you got heads four times in a row does not mean that you will get heads

00:47:50 ◼   ► 17,000 times in a row, but if you're getting, as our boy Steve says,

00:47:54 ◼   ► you're getting 13,000 votes counted roughly per hour, and that trend line,

00:48:00 ◼   ► the percentage of how that's going actually continues to go up along the way,

00:48:05 ◼   ► that's a pretty good indication.

00:48:06 ◼   ► And Agile, right, they call this yesterday's weather.

00:48:09 ◼   ► Like, if it was 60 degrees yesterday, it's not going to be 50,000 degrees tomorrow.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I agree.

00:48:17 ◼   ► So anyway, Pennsylvania is, it's a lock.

00:48:20 ◼   ► If you knew what to look at, I felt certain.

00:48:26 ◼   ► It's a shoe-in.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Oh, that's a big shoe-in.

00:48:28 ◼   ► I felt like Pennsylvania was a lock for a while.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Joe Biden is a very superstitious politician.

00:48:36 ◼   ► I don't know if you've heard this.

00:48:38 ◼   ► Somebody has told me numerous times he's been in politics for 47 years.

00:48:42 ◼   ► 47 years.

00:48:44 ◼   ► I notoriously, and I love the state of Delaware.

00:48:50 ◼   ► Delaware originally was sort of the southeast extension of Pennsylvania.

00:48:54 ◼   ► It's a very Pennsylvania, southeast Pennsylvania-like state.

00:48:57 ◼   ► There was like, it's sort of like a Shelbyville-type situation,

00:49:00 ◼   ► where people didn't like the the usurious credit card laws of the LTS that they marched out?

00:49:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:49:07 ◼   ► Yeah, something like that.

00:49:08 ◼   ► But culturally, extraordinarily similar to southeast Pennsylvania, almost identical.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Joe Biden had been the senator there for a long, long time, you know, early 70s.

00:49:19 ◼   ► You know, never took it for granted.

00:49:22 ◼   ► He's one of those guys, never ever, you know, he was a lock.

00:49:25 ◼   ► He was a lock to get re-elected.

00:49:26 ◼   ► I don't even know if anybody ran against him.

00:49:28 ◼   ► Never ever counted it, you know, doing the same.

00:49:32 ◼   ► They've already launched their transition website.

00:49:35 ◼   ► A superstitious 70-some-year-old man, you know.

00:49:39 ◼   ► Every time we learn something, and this is not conspiratorial,

00:49:44 ◼   ► but every time we learn something based on polling, it is reasonable...

00:49:48 ◼   ► So, sorry, every time we learn something based on public polling,

00:49:51 ◼   ► I think it is also reasonable to assume that that public information will also sit alongside

00:49:58 ◼   ► what people call internals, like internal polls, where they might have the ability to do stuff

00:50:04 ◼   ► with data that we don't have and have access to things that we don't have.

00:50:07 ◼   ► Now, on the one hand, you can use that to convince the president that, you know,

00:50:12 ◼   ► that he is the, I don't know, the emperor of Japan, probably, based on certain kinds of polling data.

00:50:18 ◼   ► But if you have insight that shows a trend line in your internal polls,

00:50:22 ◼   ► don't you imagine that must be a big part of the last couple days for them?

00:50:27 ◼   ► It is a very big part of it.

00:50:28 ◼   ► So, Pennsylvania does it.

00:50:32 ◼   ► If Pennsylvania is the only of the states that haven't been called, quote-unquote,

00:50:36 ◼   ► called, Pennsylvania alone put Biden over the top, and Pennsylvania is a lock.

00:50:41 ◼   ► And nobody is saying otherwise.

00:50:42 ◼   ► If he gets that 20, as we've known all along, for the slog anyway,

00:50:46 ◼   ► once he gets that 20, the game is over.

00:50:49 ◼   ► There are not enough points to be put on the board for the president.

00:50:53 ◼   ► Right.

00:50:54 ◼   ► But in addition to that, Nevada...

00:50:56 ◼   ► Now, I just learned how to pronounce that this week.

00:50:58 ◼   ► I thought it was Nevada.

00:50:59 ◼   ► You should be watching Veep.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Yeah, you would know.

00:51:01 ◼   ► So it's Nevada.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Nevada is closer than polls had suggested, but polls are just like betting lines in sports.

00:51:09 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:51:10 ◼   ► They tell you that the Patriots are favored by seven points,

00:51:13 ◼   ► and the Patriots wind up only winning by one.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Maybe they lose the game.

00:51:18 ◼   ► That doesn't mean...

00:51:19 ◼   ► Gamblers, you would know this because you're not a gambler,

00:51:21 ◼   ► but people who gamble have never been guilty of wishful or magical thinking,

00:51:26 ◼   ► because they're such raw data machines in terms of...

00:51:29 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:30 ◼   ► But anyway...

00:51:32 ◼   ► So like predicted.org is fun, but I would not look to that,

00:51:36 ◼   ► especially knowing what I know from election profit makers,

00:51:38 ◼   ► that the Magachuds have gone in there and basically bought...

00:51:41 ◼   ► They had bought in the previous couple of weeks a ton of Trump stuff to try and move the needle.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Can I tell you what's...

00:51:47 ◼   ► Showing up on predicted.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Can I tell you what's wrong with predicted?

00:51:50 ◼   ► And I...

00:51:51 ◼   ► Please, yeah.

00:51:52 ◼   ► I can both tell you what's wrong and do a little bragging.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I've actually won several thousand dollars on predicted.org this week.

00:51:59 ◼   ► Wow.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Well, because I'm a gambler.

00:52:02 ◼   ► Not that I would gamble, but if I were...

00:52:04 ◼   ► But you're not a degenerate gambler.

00:52:06 ◼   ► You're a gentleman gambler.

00:52:07 ◼   ► All right.

00:52:08 ◼   ► The only bet I lost this week was I did bet on the state of Florida,

00:52:12 ◼   ► and I lost quite a few hundred dollars.

00:52:15 ◼   ► Did you have trouble getting...

00:52:16 ◼   ► So I'm saying all this phonetically because everything I know about predicted comes from

00:52:18 ◼   ► the wonderful Election Profit Makers podcast, which is a podcast started in 2016,

00:52:22 ◼   ► where three people who are wonderful go in and try to make money betting on the election.

00:52:27 ◼   ► But I've heard from them that the market gets...

00:52:30 ◼   ► What do they call it?

00:52:30 ◼   ► The contract gets saturated or they won't take any more bets on a certain thing.

00:52:34 ◼   ► So you have to kind of come in the side door by saying,

00:52:36 ◼   ► "Okay, will the winner of the North Carolina Democratic primary win?"

00:52:40 ◼   ► Or, "Well, the big one is like, what's the margin for electoral votes?"

00:52:45 ◼   ► I mean, how many markets are you in?

00:52:47 ◼   ► Well, yeah, and they cap you.

00:52:51 ◼   ► I don't know why.

00:52:52 ◼   ► I don't know how much of this is law.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I don't know how much of this is not, but they cap your individual at $850 on a market.

00:52:58 ◼   ► So what you can do is you can bet $850 on Biden,

00:53:04 ◼   ► but then you could also bet $850 on which party's nominee will win the presidency,

00:53:10 ◼   ► Democrat or Republican.

00:53:11 ◼   ► And they count that as a separate market, just in case, you know, maybe Joe decides...

00:53:16 ◼   ► That's the thing is if you're like a logician, like there's a big difference between,

00:53:21 ◼   ► you know, can this happen?

00:53:23 ◼   ► Will this happen?

00:53:24 ◼   ► Like, how do you really close those?

00:53:26 ◼   ► And then the way that they do each of these markets is you also

00:53:29 ◼   ► didn't have a very specifically worded thing with a date on it, correct?

00:53:32 ◼   ► Right.

00:53:32 ◼   ► But they're...yes.

00:53:35 ◼   ► But basically where those, the predicted in particular,

00:53:38 ◼   ► is very different from a typical sports book is a sports book.

00:53:42 ◼   ► You can go in on the Super Bowl and if you want to bet a million dollars,

00:53:46 ◼   ► now, you know, you're obviously not coming up there with cash.

00:53:49 ◼   ► They're going to want to meet and greet with the manager.

00:53:51 ◼   ► You know, you're going to have...

00:53:55 ◼   ► You might have to sign a couple of papers, but they'll take your bet

00:53:58 ◼   ► if you would like to bet a million dollars on the Super Bowl.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Oh, right.

00:54:04 ◼   ► You can find somebody to take a bet.

00:54:07 ◼   ► You can find a prop Joe who will take your bet on almost anything.

00:54:11 ◼   ► Right.

00:54:11 ◼   ► So the predicted thing gets skewed and went way back and forth.

00:54:17 ◼   ► And like Tuesday night went way into Trump's favor.

00:54:20 ◼   ► And somebody who was truly like, you know, like our friend from South by,

00:54:27 ◼   ► really, you know, it really is just cold hearted, doesn't even care who wins.

00:54:32 ◼   ► Really honest to God, doesn't care if it's Trump or Biden, but just...

00:54:35 ◼   ► Let's all account for in the model, like who wins.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Looking at the numbers.

00:54:39 ◼   ► It's all in the model.

00:54:40 ◼   ► You could have made a fortune that night because of how the betting lines went Trump,

00:54:46 ◼   ► but you actually couldn't in the US markets because you could only bet up to $850.

00:54:51 ◼   ► You'd have to like pick individual things.

00:54:53 ◼   ► Like you can put another $850 on Wisconsin and another $850 on...

00:54:55 ◼   ► But it's also that you, I love the simplicity of the way it's set up,

00:55:00 ◼   ► which is there's a contract and there's a dollar.

00:55:03 ◼   ► So basically what you do is you buy or sell at a certain point.

00:55:06 ◼   ► So it's not as simple as saying I made this bet at this time, right?

00:55:10 ◼   ► Part of what makes it so interesting where you can go and scoop up bargains

00:55:13 ◼   ► or like, you know, choose poorly, isn't that part of the fun of it?

00:55:16 ◼   ► Is you say, well, Biden to win is selling at 61 right now.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Maybe I can arbitrage that because I'm pretty sure he's going to win, right?

00:55:25 ◼   ► Isn't that part of the fun is that you're buying at a certain rate.

00:55:28 ◼   ► It's the equivalent of odds in some ways.

00:55:31 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's not, it doesn't make, it would be a lot more fun to me if it was just simple odds,

00:55:36 ◼   ► because then you don't have to look for the arbitrage.

00:55:38 ◼   ► But basically, anyway, you were asking why do I feel good?

00:55:43 ◼   ► Pennsylvania is in the tank for Biden.

00:55:45 ◼   ► That puts him over 270.

00:55:47 ◼   ► Arizona, Arizona is a weird story because Biden's going to win.

00:55:53 ◼   ► But what's weird about Arizona, Pennsylvania in a lot of ways though, because of the way

00:55:57 ◼   ► that they're counting and the fact that like what started as a Biden lead has,

00:56:00 ◼   ► there's been attrition with that in the same way that Trump's lead has had attrition in Pennsylvania.

00:56:05 ◼   ► It sounds like what happened in our, and again, this will all get clarified in about two weeks

00:56:11 ◼   ► and we'll just know, but it sounds like Arizona and Nevada, which again, I can't get used to

00:56:16 ◼   ► saying it that way, but both of them seemingly were surprised by their number of mail-in ballots,

00:56:21 ◼   ► which is odd because really you would think anywhere where you could send a mail-in ballot

00:56:28 ◼   ► this year, people would, but they were surprised by the quantity.

00:56:31 ◼   ► It's like an emergency room saying, what's the rush?

00:56:32 ◼   ► Right. They were overwhelmed.

00:56:34 ◼   ► You couldn't have anticipated this?

00:56:36 ◼   ► Right. And so they've taken longer to count. Whereas Pennsylvania has been saying since

00:56:42 ◼   ► before the election, there is no chance, no chance that they will be able to count anywhere close to

00:56:48 ◼   ► all the votes on election day. No chance, no chance, no chance. Not only not on election

00:56:54 ◼   ► night, but probably not till Friday. And today's Friday.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Pennsylvania is an extreme example, but everybody everywhere has been saying,

00:57:01 ◼   ► it's like I said, like let the chicken cook as hungry as you are. And as much as you think the

00:57:05 ◼   ► chicken should be done, trust me, you do not want to eat this before it's done cooking. And then

00:57:10 ◼   ► everybody's like, whoa. It's like, no, it's not done yet, dude.

00:57:14 ◼   ► I'm hungry.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I'm so hungry. Just nine more bites.

00:57:17 ◼   ► I'm so hungry.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I need some kind of decisiveness.

00:57:21 ◼   ► This was a, this was a slice of dark beet, right? Yes. No, no.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Should this be purple?

00:57:29 ◼   ► I thought we talked about this, that you weren't going to eat the chicken.

00:57:34 ◼   ► I am very proud of this state. This state's handling of this election,

00:57:41 ◼   ► the city's handling of it, the entire state's handling of it has been extremely...

00:57:46 ◼   ► I love that mayor.

00:57:47 ◼   ► It's been extremely professional and they were ready for it. They had a facility, they had people,

00:57:53 ◼   ► they had webcams, nice high quality, high def cameras set up to anticipate that people might

00:57:59 ◼   ► want to see that how this is going. It's all been great. And they were spot on. They said,

00:58:05 ◼   ► probably not until Friday. Then there was some talk that maybe they would finish Thursday night.

00:58:10 ◼   ► There was a lawsuit filed by a fellow named Trump yesterday that got them to stop for...

00:58:16 ◼   ► Stop the count.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Stop the count.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Well, and they had to pause for a little bit to wait for something.

00:58:19 ◼   ► But they're on pace to finish today.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Allegheny had just dipped early on their own, right? That was not,

00:58:25 ◼   ► that was... Had Allegheny, Pittsburgh had to stop because of that or...

00:58:29 ◼   ► Because they paused a little bit yesterday, correct?

00:58:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I forget what the reason for that was. But basically, Pennsylvania's in the bag. It's

00:58:36 ◼   ► not even going to be that close. It really isn't. I am telling you, it's going to be

00:58:40 ◼   ► well over 100,000 votes and about one or 2% in the margin.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Arizona is interesting because Arizona, they seemed like they were overwhelmed.

00:58:49 ◼   ► Their votes that they are counting aren't over... There's no particular Biden or Trump slant to them.

00:58:56 ◼   ► They're more in that 50/50 range. So that's why people want to see them all counted. You can't

00:59:01 ◼   ► just say... Like with the Pennsylvania votes, you could say, "Look, we know how many there are left.

00:59:06 ◼   ► There's 140,000 of them. We know Biden has been winning 80% of the mail-in votes."

00:59:12 ◼   ► So let's just say... These kinds of votes in this district are

00:59:15 ◼   ► trending strongly this way. Right, in this district. So let's just say,

00:59:18 ◼   ► for the sake of argument, let's say instead of the 80% he has been getting,

00:59:22 ◼   ► which we reasonably could say... Let's just say he only gets...

00:59:26 ◼   ► Even if it's a gentleman 65, he's still going to...

00:59:28 ◼   ► 65, right, which would be a huge swing, statistically, he would still win. That's

00:59:33 ◼   ► where we are in Pennsylvania, and that's why it seems so solid. And that 80% projection has been

00:59:39 ◼   ► super consistent from Tuesday night through now. Arizona is more 50/50. Nobody... They seem like

00:59:44 ◼   ► they were surprised, weren't ready for the count. But the weird thing about Arizona is that Fox News,

00:59:49 ◼   ► which... I don't know if you've heard of them. They're known for having a bit of a political

00:59:55 ◼   ► slant, which you wouldn't think is against the president.

00:59:58 ◼   ► My sense is what they would... Is that they would report, and then I would decide,

01:00:01 ◼   ► is am I getting something wrong? Right. And the Associated Press,

01:00:05 ◼   ► which is really the sort of... That's the gold standard of calling

01:00:09 ◼   ► a presidential race. Right. They called Arizona Tuesday night,

01:00:14 ◼   ► and nobody... Here we are Friday morning. Nobody else has called it. They're still counting votes,

01:00:18 ◼   ► but it really does look like they were right. It is closer. They probably shouldn't have called it.

01:00:22 ◼   ► They probably... But every step of the way when they might want to say, "Ooh, we're going to have

01:00:29 ◼   ► to take that back." And I don't know if you remember. Do you remember the year 2000?

01:00:33 ◼   ► The year 2000. Oh, I feel like I do. That's when we were relieved that our clock still worked.

01:00:39 ◼   ► Well, 2000's election actually had calls that went back and forth. There were calls of Florida

01:00:48 ◼   ► for Gore, and then I think it was NBC News, and they took it back. And then there was a Fox News

01:00:54 ◼   ► call. Gore had claimed, if memory serves, the indications were going to be that he was going

01:00:59 ◼   ► to win. He had... Hadn't it been that... No, was it that he had conceded to Bush and then withdrew?

01:01:06 ◼   ► He had to take it. So what happened was NBC News said Gore won Florida. Then they said, "Well,

01:01:11 ◼   ► we take it back. No good." Then Fox said, "Okay, we're calling it for Bush. Bush wins Florida."

01:01:17 ◼   ► And then a couple of other networks all said, "Well, if Fox is calling it, we should call it."

01:01:22 ◼   ► And literally called it because Fox called it. And then Gore said, "Well, if they're calling it,

01:01:27 ◼   ► I want to do the right thing." And he picked up the phone and called him and said, "It looks like

01:01:31 ◼   ► you won. I concede the election. Congratulations." And then 20 minutes later, they were like,

01:01:38 ◼   ► "Everybody realized that it was all because one guy at Fox decided to call it, and there was no

01:01:43 ◼   ► real reason for it. And it was probably way too close to call. Not that it was wrong, but that it..."

01:01:48 ◼   ► And in fact, we now know it really was. It was like 500...

01:01:51 ◼   ► But you take a divisive time, which all the times feel ever since then, but take a divisive time,

01:01:56 ◼   ► and then you make that so much worse by having an eroding sense of the kind of institutional truth.

01:02:04 ◼   ► Right. But there were callbacks. There were outlets that called it, took it back.

01:02:09 ◼   ► Right.

01:02:10 ◼   ► That the Arizona thing with the AP and Fox, neither of them has taken it back. They've

01:02:14 ◼   ► probably shouldn't have called it. But in the intervening days, as the count's gone on,

01:02:21 ◼   ► it still looks good. Biden's going to win it. Nevada looks the same. Nevada,

01:02:25 ◼   ► the similarity to Pennsylvania isn't in their preparation. Because one of the nice things

01:02:30 ◼   ► about Pennsylvania is Pennsylvania has been reporting 10,000 votes. Another 90 minutes go by.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Here's another 10,000 votes. Another 90 minutes go by. Here's 10,000 votes. Nevada is frustrating and

01:02:43 ◼   ► head-scratching to people because they kind of went radio silent for a day there where they were

01:02:48 ◼   ► like...

01:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah. So it's the memes my kid is really enjoying. The Nevada going out to take a powder. But

01:02:55 ◼   ► compounding this difficulty, according to Scuttlebutt is...

01:02:57 ◼   ► My wife...

01:02:57 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Well, you say this.

01:03:00 ◼   ► No, say it like... Compounding this, at least in the Scuttlebutt, the media Scuttlebutt is like,

01:03:04 ◼   ► Fox supposedly has been like a little bit, "Ugh, we probably shouldn't have done that."

01:03:08 ◼   ► But on top of it all, if you were going to call along the lines they were calling,

01:03:14 ◼   ► Nevada really should have been called too. In both cases, I'm glad they didn't.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Yes.

01:03:17 ◼   ► You know. But what are you going to do? Are you going to be the network?

01:03:21 ◼   ► Right.

01:03:21 ◼   ► I don't know how much you're reading the behind the scenes stuff with Ashley Parker

01:03:25 ◼   ► and Annie Carney and everybody. But apparently, I don't know if you know this, but the White

01:03:29 ◼   ► House is a little bit frustrated with Fox News right now.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Yeah, a little bit.

01:03:35 ◼   ► And Fox was the one that ended up essentially calling the entire... If you call Arizona,

01:03:41 ◼   ► which is ending up closer than a lot of people thought it was going to be a few days ago,

01:03:45 ◼   ► and on top of that you call Nevada, which would, I believe, put the vice president over the top,

01:03:50 ◼   ► oh boy, are you going to be in Dutch with the wet boy.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Right?

01:03:54 ◼   ► Here's the weird dichotomy of this, and we should start leaning towards wrapping this up.

01:04:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:00 ◼   ► But one or two percent is not a lot of percents. Right? So it's not. A hundred thousand votes

01:04:09 ◼   ► is a lot of votes. It is. Right? So...

01:04:12 ◼   ► This is what your friend, Bay Thompson, calls the law of large numbers. Stuff gets weird when

01:04:16 ◼   ► you're talking about like bigger than 10.

01:04:18 ◼   ► So let's take the state of Wisconsin, which was weird. So the three states that really screwed

01:04:24 ◼   ► Hillary Clinton four years ago were Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. They were all considered

01:04:29 ◼   ► the quote-unquote "blue wall." They've been blue in presidential elections for as long as anybody

01:04:34 ◼   ► could remember, which is only like 20 years. You know what I mean? Like you go back to Reagan and

01:04:38 ◼   ► it's, you know, a totally different map, and everybody pretends like that's ancient history

01:04:42 ◼   ► when it's really just not that long ago.

01:04:43 ◼   ► And if you don't account for all the different demographic changes over the years.

01:04:47 ◼   ► But basically this year, everybody thought, "Look, if Biden can turn Wisconsin, Michigan,

01:04:51 ◼   ► Pennsylvania back to Democrat, then he wins. That's it. Doesn't matter. Don't worry about

01:04:57 ◼   ► any of the other states." Those three states. And the polls said they all look good for Biden,

01:05:03 ◼   ► but in this order, Wisconsin, big, big, big for Biden. There was a poll from ABC. I know ABC

01:05:09 ◼   ► and Washington Post, you know, not like rags, who said, "There's 17-point lead," which everybody

01:05:14 ◼   ► thought was an outlier.

01:05:15 ◼   ► In the midst of a huge flare up in the pandemic in Wisconsin.

01:05:19 ◼   ► Right. And everybody thought, "Well, that makes sense." Right? Terrible flare up. Everybody's

01:05:23 ◼   ► like, "Oh my God, this is terrible. We need to change." Wisconsin was big for Biden. Michigan

01:05:28 ◼   ► in the middle. Pennsylvania, ooh, a little too close for comfort. And it looks like in reality,

01:05:34 ◼   ► they're in reverse, where Pennsylvania is going to be finished with the biggest margin for Biden.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Michigan in the middle. And Wisconsin was razor thin. 0.3%, which is crazy. And you hate to think

01:05:47 ◼   ► the fate of the Republic, maybe the fate of democracy, maybe the fate of Western civilization,

01:05:52 ◼   ► all hinges on something like that. But also 0.3% in a big state like Wisconsin is 20,000 votes.

01:06:01 ◼   ► And 20,000 votes is actually a lot of votes. Like somebody on TV on MSNBC was talking about

01:06:08 ◼   ► physically how big 20,000, like if you just put them into boxes, how many votes 20,000 votes.

01:06:13 ◼   ► Well, I mean, think about it this way. I remember when I very first discovered SiteMeter,

01:06:17 ◼   ► when I had a blog nobody had ever heard of, and I installed SiteMeter on my site.

01:06:20 ◼   ► And the thing that I've always said, I've said this in talks for years, is that

01:06:23 ◼   ► when you get your first visit to your website, your website just went up 100% in visibility.

01:06:32 ◼   ► Right.

01:06:32 ◼   ► My math is not great, but I think that's accurate. It's just that different,

01:06:37 ◼   ► it depends on how much we're talking about here. Now, for somebody in something like a presidential

01:06:42 ◼   ► race, that may not seem like much. You take all these places for granted based on your model and

01:06:47 ◼   ► your polling, you know what I'm saying? And then suddenly when that funnel gets smaller and smaller,

01:06:51 ◼   ► but the proportions are still important. And that's really confusing to people. So how,

01:06:57 ◼   ► the president is saying, how could it be that I had a 600,000 vote lead and now that has over

01:07:02 ◼   ► two days gone down to this amount, that must be crooked. It's like, no, it's not. That's just the

01:07:06 ◼   ► funnel is narrowing in a way that has the percentage of that outstanding vote count that

01:07:13 ◼   ► you're getting is changing. And so, yeah, suddenly 1200 means a lot. If your lead is 1200, that is not

01:07:19 ◼   ► great, Bob. If there's another several thousand to come in, isn't that what we're talking about?

01:07:23 ◼   ► Right. No, that's it. So it's good. He's got it. And Nevada probably should have been called with

01:07:32 ◼   ► Arizona, but you're right that all of a sudden they're like, well, we kind of called this one

01:07:35 ◼   ► early. And if we call both of them, then it's sort of like, we're calling the elections over

01:07:39 ◼   ► and people still want to see these things counted. And honestly, I think it's great for the country

01:07:45 ◼   ► that instead of calling stuff, leaning towards calling it too early, they're all leaning towards

01:07:49 ◼   ► calling it too late. And it's one of those things. It's, you know, go back to high school math,

01:07:54 ◼   ► it's calculus where you're approaching from one side or the other. And as time goes on,

01:08:00 ◼   ► we get closer and closer and eventually, you know, you're approaching, you never quite get there to

01:08:05 ◼   ► the true exact count. Yeah, that's why they call it Zino's election. Yeah. But it is way more

01:08:12 ◼   ► responsible and better for the spirit of democracy, in my opinion, to err on the side of let's just

01:08:18 ◼   ► let them count and then we'll call it. But it's going to happen. The big surprise. And then,

01:08:23 ◼   ► again, Pennsylvania puts Biden over the top. It's over. Arizona and Nevada are almost certainly

01:08:29 ◼   ► both Biden. And that puts him even further over the top and therefore out of the reach of any one

01:08:35 ◼   ► legal dispute in any one state. And then providing enough, if you like, cushion to say like, hey,

01:08:42 ◼   ► you know, Dan Sinker has been having fun with this on Twitter, which is like, oh, yeah, so

01:08:46 ◼   ► so here we decided to throw the election, but we're going to throw the election in a way that

01:08:51 ◼   ► we don't get a majority in the Senate and we lose seats in the House. It's a really sophisticated

01:08:55 ◼   ► strategy. It basically involves every single person in America. And we were so good at it

01:09:00 ◼   ► that, like, in some ways we're worse apart from the presidency, we're worse off than we were a

01:09:04 ◼   ► week ago. Right. And that the local strategy, the local district and state level officials like

01:09:11 ◼   ► senators and Congress people who have the most to lose by actually losing the election, like

01:09:18 ◼   ► Democrats running for Congress who lost even though they were slightly favored to win. But

01:09:24 ◼   ► Biden won in the district that they would have, you know, worked against their own interests to

01:09:29 ◼   ► favor it for Biden, but not for them while they were at it cooking the books.

01:09:34 ◼   ► Think about the conventional wisdom people have about like, I forget what the exact mixture is,

01:09:38 ◼   ► but people will say like, we need this party to be, you know, federal executive and we need this

01:09:44 ◼   ► party. So like you might say like, oh, yeah, I really want a Democratic president, but a

01:09:47 ◼   ► Republican governor. There's there's certainly that there's the part that's been driving me

01:09:50 ◼   ► crazy all along, which is, do we just want to keep assuming that every vote cast by a registered

01:09:56 ◼   ► Republican is for the president? And the corollary being every, well, this country is a lot more

01:10:01 ◼   ► complicated than that. You got a serious coastline of Scotland problem in this country, which is the

01:10:06 ◼   ► more closely you measure everything, the longer that coastline gets, the more you learn about

01:10:10 ◼   ► every single different person. There's there's no way to just go, oh, where are my Latinos at?

01:10:16 ◼   ► Like that's really that's not a very sound strategy. So I mean, I can see why people

01:10:21 ◼   ► would say that because our people, like our parents voted party line, whatever that party

01:10:25 ◼   ► was, they would vote all the way up and down. And I believe actually, in some areas, perhaps even

01:10:30 ◼   ► the states, you can choose to vote party line, you could like hit one giant novelty sized button

01:10:35 ◼   ► and say, give me all the red hats. But we had, you know, we had that in Pennsylvania. Yeah,

01:10:40 ◼   ► for my lifetime. And in fact, that we gave it up, because it was considered to favor Democrats. I

01:10:45 ◼   ► don't know if it did or not. But it was considered to, I guess, because they think that in the big

01:10:49 ◼   ► cities, the people just hit the big D button for Democrats. So what happened in Pennsylvania was we

01:10:56 ◼   ► wanted mail-in balloting to be statewide. And the concession was, okay, we'll allow mail, you know,

01:11:02 ◼   ► you can just vote by mail, but we'll get rid of, it will get rid of straight ticket voting. And the

01:11:07 ◼   ► Democrats jumped on it and said, sure, because I think the Democrats rightly so thought that that

01:11:13 ◼   ► D button wasn't actually the magic boogeyman for electing Democrats that Republicans thought they

01:11:19 ◼   ► were. And it again, I really hate, I think we did a good job four years ago, I think we're doing a

01:11:24 ◼   ► good job today of not being, you know, we're not wearing our blue sweaters here on this show. But

01:11:29 ◼   ► it really is true. It's undeniably true that at a fundamental level, Democrats really do our

01:11:35 ◼   ► Annapoli named party, at least at the moment where they really do just want more people to be able to

01:11:40 ◼   ► vote and just count them. Just get more. I mean, Joe Kennedy maybe. I mean, you know, he paid a lot of share.

01:11:46 ◼   ► Well, you're going into history. I'm talking right now coast to coast.

01:11:50 ◼   ► Is this the point, John, where we say, use that phrase in modern times, like that's meaningful?

01:11:54 ◼   ► In modern times. In modern times. He's the most disruptive president in modern times. Well,

01:11:58 ◼   ► who else? Give me another one. I mean, like, you know, are you going to Grover Cleveland your way

01:12:02 ◼   ► out of this? Really? You're going to Coolidge this? You're going to Hoover me? Give me a break.

01:12:06 ◼   ► All right. Let me take one more break. I want to talk about something else I like.

01:12:10 ◼   ► I love this company. Oh man. Adams, A-T-O-M-S. Hey, why have your shoelaces become untied? Why are your

01:12:21 ◼   ► shoes only made- John, they make my mask. They make my mask. I wear their mask. Why are they only made in half

01:12:26 ◼   ► sizes? Why do your shoes stink? Why do your feet ache? Why are your shoes so uncomfortable? Adams

01:12:31 ◼   ► fixed all the annoying things about your shoes with their Model Zero sneaker. I believe when I

01:12:37 ◼   ► first started wearing the Model Zero sneaker, it didn't have a name. I believe it was sort of like

01:12:42 ◼   ► Apple Watch. Now we call Apple Watch Series Zero. It was just called Apple Watch. I was wearing

01:12:48 ◼   ► Adams when it was just Adams. Now it's called the Model Zero. It moves with you throughout the day.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Has elastic shoelaces that don't become untied. Features an odor fighting copper thread lining.

01:13:01 ◼   ► You'll feel like you're walking on clouds when you wear them. They are perfect for long walks. They

01:13:06 ◼   ► come in quarter sizes. Quarter sizes! I have their 9.75 shoes. My left foot's bigger than my right.

01:13:13 ◼   ► I forget the exact size. I have it written down. I have it saved. But I think I'm like an 11.

01:13:17 ◼   ► It's very partisan. It's very partisan of your feet. I think I'm like an 11 and a half on my left.

01:13:23 ◼   ► All right. Weird flex. Their masks are great too. I love them. The Adams mask. I will not wear

01:13:29 ◼   ► other masks. Other masks, you know, they call it a muzzle in the red states. Their mask,

01:13:35 ◼   ► everybody's got their own opinions about this, but boy, every single day I have extra ones. I've

01:13:40 ◼   ► deployed them like I would with pairs of scissors that will disappear. I put the masks all around in

01:13:45 ◼   ► all the places and there's always one. One in my backpack, one in my pocket all the time.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Here's my favorite thing about the masks is we went as a country. We went from,

01:13:53 ◼   ► "Can you believe we all have to wear masks? Can you believe we all have to wear masks?"

01:13:57 ◼   ► I thought it was weird. Everybody thought it was weird. It's weird. Don't worry about that.

01:14:00 ◼   ► Like too many people who don't want to wear masks are still hung up on the, it feels weird.

01:14:04 ◼   ► Like who am I? Howard Hughes? I'm going to wear it. What are you talking about?

01:14:06 ◼   ► We're with you, baby. It's the weirdest thing in the world. But my favorite thing is who would have

01:14:11 ◼   ► thought we'd all have abundant drawers full of masks. And preferences. And strong preferences.

01:14:19 ◼   ► The way that like, if you're like a dinky guy and you like all your different watches and your fancy

01:14:22 ◼   ► little palette, like, "Oh, this is going to be my day to evening mask." Here's the thing I love

01:14:27 ◼   ► about the Adams mask. Well, number one, it's made out of the same odor fighting material as the

01:14:32 ◼   ► insert of their shoe. And it does, it keeps my bad breath from stinking up the mask. I'm a big fan,

01:14:40 ◼   ► I'm a big promoter. I've told people this. Just keep your mask by your Altoids and just pop a

01:14:45 ◼   ► couple of mints in there before you put your mask on. But what's nice is with the sort of odor

01:14:50 ◼   ► fighting technology of the Adams mask, mine keeps a minty smell. Well, that's lovely. I think the

01:14:56 ◼   ► masks have really helped America understand that they are probably drinking too much coffee.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Because then when you leave the house, you realize you got the coffee breath. John Stewart, I saw John

01:15:03 ◼   ► Stewart on Colbert a couple months ago. Is that me? I think that's me. John Stewart said, "I would

01:15:08 ◼   ► like to apologize to everybody I've ever encountered in my life for my breath."

01:15:16 ◼   ► And I feel that smell after you floss, that's you all the time.

01:15:20 ◼   ► Yes, yeah, yeah. Do you ever hear that? That was the trick. For those who don't know, the trick is,

01:15:27 ◼   ► if you ever want to get in a habit of flossing, floss your teeth one time and then smell the

01:15:32 ◼   ► floss. And then once you do this, you'll realize, "Oh my God, I need to floss all the time." It'll

01:15:37 ◼   ► make you want to floss. Well, that's what wearing a mask is to your breath. Anyway,

01:15:41 ◼   ► the other thing I love about the Adams style, for me personally, maybe for you, it's different,

01:15:45 ◼   ► but they're stitched down the middle and it kind of gives it a fold over the nose and mouth that

01:15:52 ◼   ► keeps it as opposed to a one piece that to me is always touching my lips. Oh, I see. Yeah,

01:15:58 ◼   ► absolutely. It makes you a little bit aerodynamic, like some kind of like a shark.

01:16:02 ◼   ► Yeah. Well, it's like putting your hands in front of your face. They're also easy to put on. God,

01:16:08 ◼   ► where are we in life that we're talking about? And there's like a given mask.

01:16:12 ◼   ► Well, and they also have sizes. It turns out I've got a big fat head. I feel like I'm going

01:16:19 ◼   ► to Ted Kennedy style. You know what I mean? Like we're by the end of Ted Kennedy's life.

01:16:23 ◼   ► Oh, like somebody once said, like Conan O'Brien once said, he said, "I don't have a head. I have

01:16:27 ◼   ► a case for a head." You think about becoming very large headed in your later life? You get the Jim

01:16:34 ◼   ► blossoms and everything? There's no question about it. I happen to know. You know, and I'm a baseball

01:16:37 ◼   ► fan. And I happen to know that for most of my adult life, I was a seven and a quarter fitted cap size.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Seven and a quarter. Yeah. And then I felt like it was getting a little snug and I bought a seven

01:16:49 ◼   ► and three eights and it too was too snug and I'm up to a seven and a half. So, I've gone up. My

01:16:55 ◼   ► head is absolutely growing in size. I wear it large. It's like Adam said to Eve, "Stand back.

01:17:01 ◼   ► I don't know how big this thing gets." Yeah. Quite a few. Quite a few of my masks are way too tight.

01:17:06 ◼   ► They pull my ears forward. I look comical. It'll get you out. No good. Adam, what can people go to

01:17:12 ◼   ► learn more about Adams? Adams.com. A-T-O-M-S dot com slash DF. Adams.com slash DF and buy your first

01:17:21 ◼   ► pair of their sneakers today. And when you buy the sneakers, you'll get a free mask, which was rated

01:17:27 ◼   ► best material by the Wall Street Journal. Now, who are you going to believe? The Wall Street Journal

01:17:31 ◼   ► or me and Marlon? I'm telling you right now. Is that Joanna Stern? She works for that outfit.

01:17:36 ◼   ► I don't think that's who said it, but if it was, then I would take her word for it because she's

01:17:40 ◼   ► cool. But anyway, with each order, if you use the discount code DF while checking out, that's what

01:17:46 ◼   ► scores you the free mask. The free mask isn't something they just give to any Tom Dick or Harry.

01:17:52 ◼   ► I bought it with my own money like a sucker. What the hell is wrong with me? Yeah. Anyway,

01:17:56 ◼   ► my thanks to Adams. Great shoes. I wear them all the time. Great masks. Adams.com slash DF. All

01:18:01 ◼   ► right. Let's bring this home. Improbably comfortable. Let's bring this home. Wrap it up.

01:18:07 ◼   ► Drive this into the garage, John. What now? I think we got to go big picture. And what I want

01:18:14 ◼   ► to say to people, and if we lifted your spirits, and we've heard, you've seen it. We didn't want to

01:18:19 ◼   ► spoil it. We don't want to talk about it. But people have said that they've listened back

01:18:24 ◼   ► to the show four years ago. That's the nicest thing a person could say. It's so nice. It's very

01:18:28 ◼   ► nice. It's very nice. And you and I have had that success before. We did a thing at South by

01:18:32 ◼   ► Southwest. Oh, boy. About that time we saw that one guy in the bar, and he was tilting at

01:18:38 ◼   ► approximately six degrees and moaning. No, he was on the street. Is that where it was? I feel like

01:18:44 ◼   ► he was on the street. He was having some verticality issues, and I don't know if that

01:18:49 ◼   ► was accounted for in the model. I don't pass judgment. I don't pass judgment. No, me neither.

01:18:52 ◼   ► Hakuna Matata. What's next, John? Let's get out of this thing. Yeah. People have been very nice.

01:18:57 ◼   ► Thank you to everybody who said that. That means the world to me.

01:18:59 ◼   ► And I think the people who needed it and felt like they felt better because of it, they don't need it

01:19:05 ◼   ► this year. We got this. But what I'm hearing... So there was a first-level sense of dread four years

01:19:11 ◼   ► ago, and this is what really had me down. And it wasn't in the way that I would have felt down

01:19:17 ◼   ► if Barack Obama had lost to John McCain or to Mitt Romney four years later. It wasn't the way

01:19:25 ◼   ► that I felt down when John Kerry did lose to George W. Bush in 2004, even after what I thought

01:19:31 ◼   ► was four years of some pretty crummy policy. And there was a war that wasn't so well considered,

01:19:42 ◼   ► et cetera, and so forth. I felt worse four years ago, hopefully worse than I'll ever feel after

01:19:48 ◼   ► any election, not because my preferred candidate didn't win, but because I could see how this was

01:19:55 ◼   ► going to go bad. I could see that this was going to involve clowns being appointed to important

01:20:02 ◼   ► positions that you cannot have a clown. That Michael Lewis book, all these things that we

01:20:09 ◼   ► thought of as really, really, really boring infrastructure, donkey drills actually have

01:20:15 ◼   ► huge impacts. You don't want somebody at energy where the nuclear things live. You don't want

01:20:21 ◼   ► somebody who doesn't know what they're doing or got in because they bought room service at a Trump

01:20:25 ◼   ► hotel. The guy who originally had that job, Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, didn't know

01:20:32 ◼   ► what the Department of Energy did. Hadn't he tried, was he the one who tried to abolish it

01:20:37 ◼   ► at some point? Was that him? Yeah. He tried to abolish it. Was he a Dancing with the Stars

01:20:41 ◼   ► memory server? Yeah. After he got promoted for being Secretary of Energy. Good frames can make

01:20:49 ◼   ► you look smart, but it can't make you be smart. That's just the more you know from Rick Perry.

01:20:54 ◼   ► He was the good Trump nominee for Department of Energy. Then he left and, you know, the real,

01:21:00 ◼   ► you can see how this would happen. And you didn't know what it would be, but very few presidents go

01:21:07 ◼   ► through four years without a significant crisis. And the whole point of these crises is that you

01:21:11 ◼   ► don't know what they are. You don't know when it's going to be a meteoric, you know, coming in and

01:21:16 ◼   ► you got to send Bruce Willis and the gang up there to blow it up. And you don't know when it's going

01:21:21 ◼   ► to be a pandemic, you know. I don't want to miss a thing. You know, there's no, if you don't have

01:21:26 ◼   ► the interest, if you don't have the fear, somebody once said of George W. Bush, he's probably the

01:21:31 ◼   ► most incurious president we've ever had. And boy, now today, it's not even just the, I'm sorry,

01:21:36 ◼   ► I interrupted you, but it's just, God damn it. We knew, but it was also the cognitive dissonance of

01:21:41 ◼   ► how could this happen? What did I miss about my country that I could get this so wrong and I could

01:21:46 ◼   ► be spending the next four years with my dick in my hand trying to figure out if I'm losing my goddamn

01:21:50 ◼   ► mind. It was very, very difficult. Now, when somebody like John Kerry loses, that sucks because

01:21:55 ◼   ► they said some terrible things about him, but that's more like your local minor league team not

01:21:59 ◼   ► winning. With this one, it was more like, no, like this is not the sport you thought it was. And

01:22:05 ◼   ► you've been a fan of the wrong thing. And now you're going to be so confused and sad and incapable

01:22:10 ◼   ► of disappearing into joy for the next four years, if you're lucky. Remember that dumb thing I said

01:22:15 ◼   ► at the end that we both said, I think we'll be fine? Remember that when we said that?

01:22:18 ◼   ► That's a regret. That's a regret of mine. I didn't believe you.

01:22:23 ◼   ► Yeah, well. But here's what I want to say. Here's my parting message to everybody listening,

01:22:33 ◼   ► is God bless you. I'm glad you're listening. I thank you for your good words before, but I hear

01:22:38 ◼   ► it already where people are saying, well, how could this be so close? And they're down again.

01:22:44 ◼   ► They're already down. How could this be so close? How could we not take the Senate too? How could

01:22:48 ◼   ► we lose a couple of seats in the House? Blah, blah, blah. I agree. There's part of me that

01:22:53 ◼   ► wants to ask certain people who voted a certain way, what the hell are you thinking? What were

01:23:00 ◼   ► you thinking four years ago? How after all of this? There was an idea four years ago

01:23:08 ◼   ► that this Trump fellow, he says crazy things, but he's not going to do crazy things. How many times

01:23:14 ◼   ► do you hear that? It's an act. Yeah, they say what they say seriously, but not literally.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Right. He did crazier things than he said. Hell, the stuff that he said was less crazy than the

01:23:25 ◼   ► stuff that he did. He didn't say he was going to separate three-year-old kids from their parents

01:23:31 ◼   ► at the border and put them into cages. I mean, this is crazy stuff. I mean, it's really sad. And

01:23:37 ◼   ► I'm not making light of it. I'm saying that it's really... No, you've really got to go back. And

01:23:43 ◼   ► like with all the ways we try to survive emotionally and mentally, you got to go back

01:23:47 ◼   ► and re-experience all those things and to find people on both sides. And Adam Schlesinger from

01:23:52 ◼   ► Fountains of Wayne is dead because of COVID or like George Floyd or whatever it is. You have to

01:23:57 ◼   ► go back and walk back through each one of those like hysterically painful things that just made

01:24:03 ◼   ► America into a mouth with many missing teeth. It's just been brutal. What I want to say to all of you

01:24:10 ◼   ► who are depressed about the margin of victory is that a win is a win. And there is. The stakes are

01:24:18 ◼   ► entirely different between sports ball and politics because politics is as real as it gets. That's

01:24:24 ◼   ► where kids will actually wind up in cages and pandemics wind up spreading across the country,

01:24:30 ◼   ► coast to coast, and killing people and making people sick and real, real, real things. And with

01:24:38 ◼   ► sports ball, there's a team in blue jerseys and there's a team in green jerseys and one of them's

01:24:42 ◼   ► sad and one of them's happy and that's really ultimately all there is. But the similarity with

01:24:47 ◼   ► elections is the elections are a sport and you might be 100% convinced that your team is the

01:24:55 ◼   ► better team than the other team. 100% and that you should probably win this football game by 35

01:25:01 ◼   ► points going away. But it's the Super Bowl. It's the big thing. The bookies even say it. The bookies

01:25:07 ◼   ► have you up by two touchdowns. You're going to run away with this game and you end up...

01:25:12 ◼   ► But on any given Sunday...

01:25:14 ◼   ► And you end up... You're down. It's the second half. You're actually behind. Some of your fans

01:25:20 ◼   ► are pouring whiskey right down into their eye sockets because they can't take it. They think

01:25:26 ◼   ► it's all over. They saw this happen before, but your team sticks to the plan. They march down the

01:25:34 ◼   ► field at the end of the game and they kick a field goal. They win by three and they win. That team

01:25:41 ◼   ► celebrates. When that's over, that field goal goes through, the clock goes to zero and they're in

01:25:46 ◼   ► there and they hand them the trophy. There's no difference in the celebration than the amount of

01:25:51 ◼   ► champagne they're dunking on their heads and stuff like that. You won. Win is a win, right?

01:25:56 ◼   ► That's the thing. In a certain sixth sense, as close as it was, you'd like it to work better,

01:26:01 ◼   ► but it works. You win and then you get started and you move on. You go to the next one. Don't give up,

01:26:07 ◼   ► but keep going. It's all good. It's not the best, but it's good. There's no reason to be down.

01:26:12 ◼   ► Nobody should be down about this. This is a triumph of logic and empathy over the opposite,

01:26:21 ◼   ► whatever the opposite of Trump, I guess. That's good.

01:26:25 ◼   ► Whenever... Something to think about. I think there's nothing more tragic than a failed

01:26:34 ◼   ► romantic. I think when you feel like your heart's been broken over and over, it's difficult not to

01:26:40 ◼   ► become the sort of person that goes online and says, "Lol, nothing matters." I don't know. Maybe

01:26:45 ◼   ► it doesn't, but the one problem with "Lol, nothing matters" and whatever, everybody's all the same.

01:26:52 ◼   ► Well, not only is that the kind of thing Putin says, but there might be somebody in your life

01:26:57 ◼   ► for whom that does matter. I don't want to bust a gut, but even more than four years ago, I'm

01:27:02 ◼   ► very attuned to what these sorts of things mean for one particular person that I care a lot about.

01:27:07 ◼   ► I don't want to model "Lol, that matters" for people for whom it does matter. That's been a

01:27:14 ◼   ► huge change for me. I'm not saying I do what I can. I could probably do more, but it does matter,

01:27:22 ◼   ► and there's going to be the good days and the bad days, but don't cut yourself off completely,

01:27:29 ◼   ► not only just from the normal emotions we used to be able to enjoy for more than two seconds,

01:27:33 ◼   ► but be careful about letting the world redefine your horizons as being incredibly limited

01:27:42 ◼   ► and hopeless. I'm not trying to be Pollyanna. Everybody needs to do this in a different way,

01:27:46 ◼   ► but if we do just in some back part of our non-lizard brain, imagine that things could

01:27:53 ◼   ► be better than they are right this minute, that's still a little bit of hope. It's like Ted Lasso

01:27:57 ◼   ► says, "It's the last of the way. You've got to believe." I'm not saying put on blinders, but

01:28:02 ◼   ► remember that there's somebody in your life that you care about where it does matter. To go fully

01:28:09 ◼   ► bleak, hypernormalization is not going to help anybody. Contrary to your gut, it's not going to

01:28:16 ◼   ► make you feel better, and it's not going to protect you. You've got to tape up that little "believe"

01:28:23 ◼   ► sign. God damn it, I love that show. I would like to think with this as thin as some of these

01:28:31 ◼   ► margins are, maybe Ted Lasso had a little bit of a say in this election, maybe a thousand votes here,

01:28:38 ◼   ► a thousand votes there. Well, I'm not about to... Well, let me put it this way. Episode, I want to

01:28:43 ◼   ► say nine, which I didn't love as much as eight the first time I watched it, but I came back to it,

01:28:48 ◼   ► and I was like, "You know what? There's a healing power to forgiveness that really comes across the

01:28:54 ◼   ► second time you watch that episode. Everybody's just forgiving each other left and right."

01:28:57 ◼   ► I'm not saying we're all ready to go extend a hand and have some kind of pipes of peace moment

01:29:02 ◼   ► with two different Paul McCartney's. I'm not saying that at all, but what I am saying,

01:29:06 ◼   ► there's probably somebody in your life that could benefit from having a little bit of forgiveness,

01:29:10 ◼   ► and maybe one of those people is you. A very good show.

01:29:14 ◼   ► Yeah, such a good show. Your statement there was so sweet. I was going to end with this joke,

01:29:19 ◼   ► and I feel like a jerk for it, but I'm going to do it anyway.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Let's each commit to a joke. Do it.

01:29:22 ◼   ► This is one of my favorite jokes, and this is who I want you. I want you not to be this. This is

01:29:26 ◼   ► a joke. There's a Jewish grandmother, and she's walking with her young son down the beach. It's

01:29:33 ◼   ► a fall day. There's nobody at the beach. There's no lifeguards. It's not the type of day you go

01:29:37 ◼   ► swimming. It's chilly. You just put your feet in the water. Well, all of a sudden, the biggest wave

01:29:42 ◼   ► you've ever seen comes, takes the grandson, just wipes him out, washes him right out to sea, and

01:29:49 ◼   ► there she is all alone on the beach, and her grandson's just been washed out to sea. She can't

01:29:54 ◼   ► even see him, and she cries out to God. She says, "Oh, God, I pray to you, bring my grandson back.

01:30:00 ◼   ► I'll do anything for the rest of my life. I love him. He's the light of my life. He's my only

01:30:05 ◼   ► grandson." One more, out of the blue, another big wave like you've never seen, just comes right out,

01:30:11 ◼   ► washes the grandson right back up. He's soaking wet, but he's fine. Nothing's wrong with him.

01:30:15 ◼   ► Right at her feet, wave recedes. She looks up, and she says, "He had a hat!"

01:30:23 ◼   ► He was wearing a hat! My joke is we're celebrating by picking up some food tonight.

01:30:35 ◼   ► Guess what we're getting? H-O-P-R. You guys might have your fancy cheese sticks.

01:30:46 ◼   ► English pudding. What do they call it? Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding. You get the spinach.

01:30:52 ◼   ► You get the potato. You bring it all home. Does the creamed corn travel well? It travels well.

01:31:00 ◼   ► Yeah, we usually do a couple spinach and some creamed corn. They have a secret menu. You should

01:31:05 ◼   ► come back sometime in the aftertimes. Well, the creamed corn's not on the menu.

01:31:09 ◼   ► It's technically part of the secret menu, like getting it seared, like getting an end cut for

01:31:14 ◼   ► your dessert cut. Yeah, there's all kinds of little secret menu things. Well, enjoy.

01:31:19 ◼   ► Someday. Merlin, it's good to talk to you on better time. I know we've talked in between,

01:31:28 ◼   ► but it feels like bookend. Yeah. Thank you for having me. You can touch my finger anytime.