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Sunday, April 21
· Recap of the Week – Gaza protests, Adeel Abdullah Mangi confirmation hearing
o One of the off-hand bits of news John mentioned at the start was that all Cybertrucks are being recalled due to a problem with the accelerator, “meaning the list of things that can break a Cybertruck now includes driving it.”
o John didn’t have any patience for a man wagging his finger at protesters for blocking traffic to an airport, causing him to miss his flight – “For the record, protest is kind of meant to be disruptive. It’s a little bit ‘the Point.’ As for ‘the cause is maybe right,’ that is putting it mildly.”
o If confirmed, Adeel Abdullah Mangi will be the first Muslim judge on an appellate court – “It’s one of those moments that we refer to as a ‘historic first’ because it sounds a lot nicer than ‘we didn’t consider Muslims for this job until shockingly recently.’”
o No surprise, GOP senators like John Kennedy behaved monstrously during Mangi’s confirmation hearing – “You just asked a Muslim man how he ‘celebrates’ 9/11. Unless you are absolutely sure that that is also his birthday, that is completely inappropriate.”
· And Now This – A Tribute to CNBC on its 35th Anniversary
o An entertaining montage of CNBC getting things horrifically wrong, like this gem from 2008 – “Is the housing crisis really a crisis, or just a problem blown out of proportion?”
o Here was an early COVID take – “Now, I’m not saying this is just a generic type flu, but maybe it would be better if we just gave it to everybody, and then in a month, it’d be over.”
o The real kicker was one anchor incredulously asking an Irish guest, “You have euros in Ireland?” – The guest, understandably, responded, “Why wouldn’t we have euros in Ireland?”
· Main Story – UFOs
o John noted that the prospect of UFOs has given us cool album covers, iconic movies, “and of course, Hugh Jackman. I can’t prove it yet, but I’m close.”
o UFO fever took off in the mid-20th century – John acknowledged that early scientific research into the subject wasn’t really made in good faith. Edward Condon was put in charge of a major UFO study despite biased quotes like, “The authors of UFO books should be horsewhipped.”
o He pointed out that put of what’s limiting honest research is the stigma over believing in UFOs, both in the public at large and in the scientific community in particular – One significant stat shows us that over half of scientists agreed that UFOs were worth further study, but only 2% were willing to say that without anonymity.
o We looked at admissions that the government has knowingly lied to the public about the existence of UFOs (in the literal sense, as flying objects that can’t be identified) – When asked why the government would lie about that, one expert pointed out, “You can cover up knowing something, or you can cover up not knowing something,” suggesting that, rather than a conspiracy to “hide the aliens,” the government might be afraid to admit its own lack of understanding for fear of causing a panic.
o I liked this line, about an ultra-wealthy “true believer” funding UFO research – “It does say something that, for a guy who is willing to throw millions of dollars at the pursuits of aliens and the discovery of an afterlife, his worst financial decision still might’ve been supporting Ron DeSantis.”
o John acknowledged that we need to accept that the pursuit of answers might lead us to revelations that are a lot more mundane than what our imaginations can cook up – He contrasted one lackluster scientific explanation with Roswell, New Mexico, boasting the country’s only alien-themed McDonald’s – “Well, that was boring as fuck! No one in their right mind would want to go to a McDonald’s themed after that explanation at all.”
Monday, April 22
· Headlines – Media coverage of Trump hush money trial
o This was the main premise of today’s story – “This trial will obviously be a test of the fairness of the American legal system. But it’s also a test of the media’s ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way.”
o After watching one montage of journalists talking in a measured way about how their past overcoverage of Trump gave him a lot of free publicity, we saw a different montage showing their breathless coverage of the trial – “The trial of the century,” was uttered multiple times, along with, “The legal walls are closing in around Donald Trump.”
o Jon mocked the overly dramatic coverage of Trump’s arrival at the courthouse – “He arrived at the intersection of American history, where he put a quarter in the parking meter of destiny. Leaving the car, looking to avoid stepping in the urine puddle of jurisprudence.”
o He also side eyed spending part of the news day trying to analyze courtroom sketches, arguing that there was little point – “Unless we could talk to the person who drew the sketch! But do we have the time? Nothing but!”
o Beyond the silliness, this was Jon’s big point – “Look, at some point in this trial, something important and revelatory is going to happen. But none of us are going to notice because of the hours spent on speculative facial tics. If the media tries to make us feel like the most mundane bullshit is earthshattering, we won’t believe you when it’s really interesting! It’s your classic Boy Who Cried Wolf…Blitzer.”
o Surprise appearance by Jessica Williams! – I loved her bemoaning, “My sweet, naïve, older-than-I-remember Jon.”
· Interview – Author Salman Rushdie
o Rushdie’s new book, Knife, is a reflection on his assassination attempt.
o Jon praised the book for not feeling like a typical memoir – Rushdie explained, “It starts out and there’s a love story, which turns into a murder story, which turns back into a love story.”
o He also discussed the passage where he has an imaginary dialogue with the man who tried to kill him – “Well, I thought, you’ve got to give the enemy an even weight. If you’re going to have a serious conversation, then it can’t just be me yelling at him, telling him what a bad person he is.”
o They talked about how the would-be assassin was a young man who was radicalized online – Jon observed, “You know, we think of fundamentalism as primarily a religious artifact. Have the algorithms made fundamentalism something different from that?”
o The topic moved onto outsized reactions to art/speech in general, with one example being an awards ceremony that was recently canceled over controversy about the war against Gaza – Rushdie said, “What happens right now is, we’re all very easily offended, and we think that being offended is a sufficient reason for attacking something.”
Tuesday, April 23
· Headlines – Hearing over Trump’s gag order, Fox News reaction to Trump trial, Biden offends prime minister of Papua New Guinea
o Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng were the hosts for the rest of the week.
o Of course Trump immediately ranted about his judge on Truth Social after a hearing about whether he violated his gag order – Jordan said, “Wow. This guy is incapable of keeping his mouth shut for two minutes. Has Trump ever considered paying himself hush money?”
o Jesse Watters called the trial “cruel and unusual punishment” on the grounds that Trump can’t get up to go to the bathroom any time he wants and he has to sit in court for long hours every day without exercise – Jordan exclaimed, “Wow, eight hours a day, four days a week! It’s literally what the rest of the world calls…a job. A part-time job!”
o Watters also complained that it was a security risk for people to know Trump is at the courthouse every day – Ronny said, “Yes, it’s very dangerous for people to know Trump’s location, which is why he lives in a nondescript building with his name on the front.”
· Fake Ad – Rant-a-Car
o Amusing bit related to how many TikTok rants are filmed by people sitting in their parked cars – In the ad, Troy charged people by the minute to rent a car for filming their rants.
o My favorite was the guy who demanded, “What’s next, people are gonna start identifying as hamburgers? Well, hold the pickles, ‘cause this guy’s 100% all-beef!”
· Interview – Stephanie Kelton
o Kelton has a book called The Deficit Myth and was featured in a documentary called Finding the Money.
o She introduced the issue at hand like this – “The problem is that we treat money just like any other scarce good or service in the economy. And what MMT is doing is saying, hold on a second! We’re not on a gold standard anymore. We have this thing called a fiat currency.”
o When she offered to lay it out with “simple math,” I felt like Ronny, who immediately dropped his head into his hands.
o Eventually, I got the gist – The term “deficit” is misleading, because it’s not inherently universally bad. If the government is using the money to fund things people need, that deficit is to their benefit.
o Kelton explained it like this – “The government can increase its deficit to do things like feed hungry kids, tackle the climate crisis, fix crumbling infrastructure. All of those things are ways to use a government deficit that might have desirable results for people and for the economy.”
Wednesday, April 24
· Headlines – Biden signs foreign aid package, new airline protections for passengers, Tennessee bill to arm teachers
o Jordan was confused when a Biden speech touting “a great day for world peace” turned out to be about military funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan – “Oh, world ‘peace,’ okay. Is peace the one with the tanks? I went to public school that wasn’t funded because they spent all that money on peace.”
o After the foreign aid bill was stalled for months, Mike Johnson finally brought it up for a vote – Jordan observed, “So, apparently Mike Johnson is the hero here. Sure, a couple Ukrainian cities fell while he decided whether or not to be courageous, but he got around to it!”
o Ronny was excited to learn about the new airline protections, calling the greatest legislation in American history – When Jordan pointed out, “I mean, the New Deal…”, Ronny pushed back, saying, “Jordan, the man is refunding you for Wi-Fi in the sky that doesn’t work! What more could you want?”
o They were both skeptical about the decision to arm Tennessee teachers – Ronny asked, “Can the students at least vote on which teacher gets the gun? ‘Cause my gym teacher was already on a massive power trip, and all he had was a whistle.”
· Correspondent Piece (Michael) - Pickleball
o Michael, who apparently used to be an 864th-ranked professional tennis player, has a vendetta against pickleball, which he thinks is taking over the courts.
o I laughed when Michael opened a container of tennis balls, sniffed, and exclaimed, “Oh my god, it’s like a fine wine.”
o An easy joke, but it still made me smile – “I’m hearing ‘kitchen,’ a ‘dink,’ ‘dill,’ ‘falafel.’ I mean, is it a sport or is it a food truck?”
· Interview – Rep. Andy Kim
o Kim is currently running for Senate to replace Robert Menendez – He said, “We live in the time of the greatest amount of distrust in government in modern American history.”
o He continued, “84% of the people in New Jersey believe that their politicians are corrupt” – Given Menendez’s massive bribery scandal, Ronny pointed out, “Well, they were kind of validated, weren’t they?”
o When asked whether the GOP representatives truly believe their own rhetoric, Kim said that he found the members largely divided into one of three categories – A small number of “true conservatives,” the “crazies” who buy into all the rhetoric and conspiracies, and the “cowards” who know the truth but aren’t willing to stand up for it.
Thursday, April 25
· Headlines – Bill Barr endorses Trump, Trump hush money trial, Supreme Court hears presidential immunity case, Trump campaigns at construction site before trial
o After receiving Bill Barr’s endorsement, Trump unleashed a scathing rant about him on Truth Social – Jordan said, “Trump is the king of pettiness. I’m positive that in an alternate universe, Trump was a sorority president, just dripping in shade. Like, ‘Wow, Bill, I love that bikini! You’re so brave to be wearing that. You go, girl!’”
o Ronny had this to add – “It looks like Trump hates Trump ass-kissers as much as the rest of us do. He’ll be like, ‘Kiss the ring,” and then he’ll be like, ‘I can’t believe you kissed the ring, you little bitch!’”
o Trump’s lawyer argued before the Supreme Court that presidents could be immune to prosecution for selling nuclear secrets to foreign adversaries or staging a military coup, as long as they were “official acts” in their role as president – Jordan pointed out, “The Trump legal team doesn’t really believe the immunity argument. They’re just bringing it up to delay his trials. It’s kind of like when your kid asks for water at bedtime, and you know that they’re just trying to delay bedtime because kids don’t need water.”
o Ronny was perplexed by anyone trying to argue immunity for U.S. presidents – “Isn’t this America’s whole thing, is no kings? I mean, that’s why those people threw the tea in the river, what a waste!”
o Michael came on to talk about the “man of the people” vibe Trump was selling to construction workers – “Clearly the ‘J’ stands for ‘Joe.’ As in ‘Joe Six-Pack,’ ‘Average Joe,’ or ‘Jolene’ because of the adultery.”
o Jordan and Ronny both thought this was at odds with the Supreme Court case arguing that he’s basically a god-king who’s above the law, but Michael saw no inconsistency – “Donny Trump is a guy you can imagine having a beer with. He’s also a guy who can murder the guy he’s having a beer with, because the law doesn’t apply to him!”
· Pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses
o After watching multiple videos of colleges calling in police to break up student encampments protesting the war against Gaza, Jordan exclaimed, “Okay, does ‘deescalate’ not mean what I think it means??? Okay, ‘unescalate,’ ‘reverse-escalate,’ at least don’t make it worse!”
o Ronny had nothing but contempt for Mike Johnson’s derisive words to the protesting students – “Yes, ‘stop wasting your parents’ money.’ Be like Mike Johnson: get into government and waste everyone’s money.”
o Jordan was especially galled by Netanyahu weighing in on the protests – “Oh, thanks for taking the time to give your feedback, Benjamin Netanyahu! There’s nothing else going on with you?”
· Interview – Journalist/author Kyle Chayka
o Chayka came to discuss his new book Filterworld, which looks at online algorithms.
o Jordan said, “Our taste is part of how we define who we are and how we interact with the world, right? And I think for me, the stuff that I have grown to fall in love with, you find it” – He talked about discovering incredible music through recommendations from his “cool friend at school” and worried that, with algorithms, we’re losing that.
o To that end, Jordan asked, “Are we executing serendipity?” – Chayka replied, “Yeah, I think so in a way, because everything is pre-sorted to appeal to us. Like, you are not seeing something that’s totally outside of your frame of reference.”
o This was an interesting point from Chayka – “I feel like sometimes the algorithms judge us too well. Like, they know exactly what we’re going to look at, they know what niche products we’re gonna want to buy […] We all have those things that’s like, ‘Oh, the algorithm says I’m gonna like this. Therefore I must like it.’”
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