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Mamdani and Daddy

2025/6/28
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President Trump announces a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, leading to mixed reactions and conflicting reports about the effectiveness of US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's 'daddy' remark adds to the controversy.
  • Trump announces ceasefire between Iran and Israel
  • Conflicting reports on the success of US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities
  • Rutte refers to Trump as 'daddy'

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Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity.

Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs, and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. What's up, Los Angeles? Welcome to Love It or Leave It live from the Elysian Theater. We've got a great show for you tonight. John Leguizamo is here.

to douse us with stories from her career as long as I've been alive 29 years. Then Aristotle Atari and Anthony Kerrigan join us for a quiz on bad guys and worse news. And at the end, we all take off our hats, put our hands over our hearts, and declare our independence from some stuff. But first, let's get into it. What a week.

On Monday, President Trump announced a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel, which Iran initially denied. But that's Iran for you. Always playing hard to get to stop bombing Israel. Trump, I know that's your right and it still works. Trump, your response was correct. Trump expressed his frustration with both countries on Tuesday morning.

They violated, but Israel violated it too. Are you questioning if Israel is committing? Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before. The biggest load that we've seen. I'm not happy with Israel. Israel was straight shooting ropes with this one. Happy Pride, everybody. All right. The president continued.

We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Do you understand that? Iran and Israel, just kiss already. That was a good moment for him. We can just face it. That was just like, that was, if you like him, I get why that was cool. Deal with it. Deal with it. And then imagine Joe Biden dealing with this situation. Absolute fucking nonsense coming out of his mouth. Yeah.

It's worth thinking about. And then Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear facilities had been obliterated was contradicted by a preliminary classified US report, which found that the American strikes had sealed off the entrances to two of the nuclear sites, but hadn't actually destroyed the underground buildings, only setting back the program by a few months.

As quiet fell over the laboratory, Arman and Reza jumped to their feet and embraced. "We're alive!" Arman shouted, the hug lasting a moment too long, Reza's hand brushing his fellow nuclear scientist's neck as they withdrew. Soon the men realized they'd be trapped down here alone for months. The facility had supplies and generators. They'd be okay until the entrance could be cleared, but the unspoken part, always unspoken, now unbearable.

Did Armand feel it too? They shared so much. The same ambivalence, the same terror. They'd been down here, spinning vials, slowly enriching uranium-235 to a concentration of 60%, a wink away from bomb-grade nuclear fuel. But they'd also allowed another illicit fuel to enrich their hearts, a place...

A place no inspectors could ever reach. What about their wives? What about freedom from this place, this life trapped under a rock, trapped between Mossad and Ayatollah, trapped between the light of science and the darkness of ambition? Or perhaps at long last, here in the rubble of the Shahid Ali Mohammadi nuclear facility at Fordow, were Arman and Reza finally free?

The US report also said that Iran had moved its stockpile of enriched uranium before the strikes. Israel basically goaded Trump into a high-stakes game of three-card Monty, and we're the dumb tourists stuck trying to find the lady. No, honey, I'm really fucking close to finding the enriched uranium. I'm $2 billion in on these targeted strikes, but I'm this close to winning it all back.

And that's the one that didn't work. After all of that, everybody told me the Armand Reza story would fall like a fucking piece of shit, and it worked. And then, no, you had my back, but a bunch of people didn't. A bunch of people didn't. I want you all to know something. Tomorrow, we're recording a video, a video of biggest bombs from Love It or Leave It, and Bill, our producer, supposed to have my fucking back, is like, are you doing this so we have more material for tomorrow? LAUGHTER

And then what Hallie said, helpfully, well, it's your show and it is my show. And it is my show. During a press conference at the NATO summit on Wednesday, Trump denied the intelligence report and continued to claim that the U.S. strikes had destroyed Iran's nuclear program. Is there any indication from U.S. intelligence that Iran was able to move any material? No, we're just the opposite. We think we hit him so hard and so fast they didn't get to move. I guess we'll never know the truth until a few months from now when Iran has a nuclear bomb.

Also at the NATO summit, former Dutch Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called Trump daddy for scolding Iran and Israel. They're not going to be fighting each other. They've had it. They've had a big fight, like two kids in a schoolyard. You know, they fight like hell. You can't stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes. Then it's easier to stop them. And then daddy has to sometimes use strong language. You have to use strong language. Every once in a while, you have to use a certain word.

And what word would that be, Donald? I'm gonna cum. Alright. I'm sorry. Happy Pride, alright. You think a grown man calling Trump "daddy" can't get any creepier and then you hear it in a Dutch accent. Trump then addressed the "daddy" remark with the press later. Mark Rutter, the NATO chief who is your friend, he called you "daddy" earlier.

Do you regard your NATO allies as kind of children? No, he likes me. I think he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back and I'll hit him hard, okay? He did. He did it very affectionately. Daddy, you're my daddy. No, please don't hit me hard, Mark Rutte said in response, bearing his trembling ass. Speaking of trembling asses, Defense Secretary Pete Hegstaff...

Held a press conference on Thursday, most of which he spent railing against the media for reporting on his own department's initial assessment of US strikes. Because you, and I mean specifically you, the press, specifically you, the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump. Because you want him not to be successful so bad,

You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes. Does Pete think that being a journalist is innate? It's nurture, not nature, babe. People aren't born with reporter genes. They become reporters when no one invites them to parties in high school. Now, I guess it could be epigenetic, but Pete doesn't know what that is. I don't know what that is. Hegseth continued to attack the press rather than answer their questions.

Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved? Of course we're watching every single aspect, but Jennifer, you've been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally. What the president says. I'm familiar. I was the first to report of the ventilation shafts on Saturday night. And in fact, I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy. So I take issue with that.

Now, these two used to work together at Fox, so it does feel personal. Pete's acting like she stole his lunch out of the break room fridge and drank it all. On Tuesday, Trump told congressional Republicans not to leave D.C. for the July 4th holiday before passing his big, beautiful bill. It's okay. I didn't have any plans anyway, said Mike Johnson, placing the box of hooks and leather straps labeled old photos back on the top shelf of his closet in front of the gun.

The Senate spent all week rushing to finish the bill, adding even steeper cuts than the House version, including slashing food assistance programs, restricting eligibility for Medicaid, and cutting a tax that funds rural hospitals. You know, like when you're putting the finishing touches on a cake by injecting it with bleach? Mitch McConnell offered words of assurance to skittish senators afraid of the bill's unpopular health care cuts, saying, and this is a quote, I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid, but they'll get over it.

Time heals all wounds, said McConnell, even though he is personally covered with wounds that will not heal. In one positive development, the Senate parliamentarian struck a provision that would have opened up more than 250 million acres of federal land for sale, which sucks because I was excited about that Panda Express at the top of Mount Rainier.

But speaking of feeling sick, in a 6-3 decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court conservative majority ruled that states can cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood even for non-abortion health care like physicals, STD treatments, vaccines, gynecological exams, and cancer screenings, finally eradicating the number one cause of abortions, women being alive. We take the news as it comes. I don't like it either. But when they go low, we go socialism in a stunning victory. Yeah.

Zoran Mamdani won New York's Democratic mayoral primary over Andrew Cuomo, or what Fox News is calling the 624 attacks. We now go live to Cuomo's response. After the first round of votes was counted, Cuomo was reportedly so shocked, he almost dropped the tits he was groping.

After conceding, Cuomo was returned to the maximum security wing of Arkham Asylum. Now, some say Mamdani's victory is a threat to the Democratic Party as if Chuck Schumer is somehow a real Democrat and Mamdani pulled a fast one. You can find versions of this take from Mamdani's critics and his defenders, but it misses the point. The Democratic Party belongs to the people in it, and the people want a hot guy with a sense of humor who likes trans people and knows what the slice of pizza should cost. And fine, I'll run for mayor.

Brad Lander, the city's controller who had crossed endorsed Mamdani, spoke eloquently on Cuomo's loss. Andrew Cuomo is in the past. He is not the present or future of New York City. Good fucking riddance. I love how Lander said New York City. A socialist wins in New York and now every politician sounds like Bain. And you think that's a joke, but look at how CNBC was crashing out over this result.

I don't want to go here, but Gotham. Have you seen what Batman is up against in Gotham and what the guy running for mayor is up against? That's what it reminds me of. They're taking Wall Streeters and make them walk out onto the ice in the East River and then they fall through. I mean, there is a class warfare that's going on. So what's happened here, I think, is...

Terrifying stuff. Have you heard about this? With Mamdani, there's this pink sludge flowing in the old subway tunnels beneath the city, activated by human emotion, centered around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's gaining power as we speak. What's happening in New York is insane.

The MAGA right, meanwhile, reacted to Mamdani's victory about as you'd expect. New York City has fallen, wrote Donald Trump Jr., quoting a post that said, I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9-11 instead of voting for it. Not me, I'm too young to remember 9-11. I read about it in books. I mean, I saw TikToks about it. I'm just receiving word that a second Mamdani has won the primary. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

posted a photo of the Statue of Liberty in a burqa with the caption, this hits hard. Obviously, Marjorie Taylor Greene's love and concern for New York City is well known. Here's what she said about a recent visit. I can't comprehend how people live there. It was repulsive. It smells bad. And I just, I think it's a terrible place. Now we here in LA know that she has a point. No, okay, stop it. Stop it.

These are people that fucking hate New York. They hate New Yorkers. They villainize places and people that don't live exactly how they want people to live. These are the kinds of people that only love New York immediately after 9-11 and immediately after Jersey Boys. Stephen Miller wrote on X, NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.

The immigrants grow up to love the city so much they run for mayor. They generate so much excitement it stops a disgraced creep from clawing his way back to power. And the food is amazing. Don't threaten us with a good time. I've been struggling to articulate this. Obviously, Stephen Miller is like such a twerp.

But he's now, they're all now coming out and basically saying it. It's not about undocumented or illegal immigration. It's about stopping legal immigration. That every problem can be drawn not back to undocumented immigration, but their ultimate target, which is just stopping people from coming to this country. And a few of them, they're so in a bubble

they're so convinced of something, which is just not true. They're convinced that everybody agrees with them, but they're just afraid to say it. So now they're feeling more and more comfortable and emboldened to just come out and describe places as the third world. They don't want immigrants from what they call the third world. They're being more and more, as we see in these posts about Mamdani, openly bigoted, openly racist. But with Miller, it

There's something revealing about the way they talk about places they don't know or care about. The way that he talks about New York. Stephen Miller's family and my family came at roughly the same time to America through New York when Jews were escaping pogroms

in Eastern Europe. They went all the way to Santa Monica, but people come through Ellis Island. The New York accent, the accent that a lot of Jews took with them from New York, a lot of Italians took with them, is born of Dutch immigrants, British immigrants, Italian immigrants, Irish immigrants, and a lot of Jewish immigrants. And what's

What's interesting about Miller, right, is his family ends up in California. And so I've described Stephen Miller as a C plus Santa Monica fascist. Why? Because he has that California accent with just a twinge of that thing you can't escape, which is that Jewish accent. But that means his accent is a combination of two things. One,

the melting pot of New York City, and the other, the California accent, which is itself born of the diversity of Southern California. So even as he spits this venom to saying that something has changed and gone wrong in this country, he speaks...

like a fucking immigrant because we all do. He says in this post that New York was once a symbol of American dominance, which is his only way of seeing the world. Like, that's how you compliment a place by its quote-unquote dominance, right? Like, he can't appreciate, like,

these are people going around declaring that they're going to make America better. They're going to fix what's broken in America. They don't know, like care about what makes America good at all. They don't understand it. They have no love for any place. They have no pride in any place. All they have is this idea of dominance. And I actually, it's very, very scary and it's very dangerous, but it's also a kind of weakness. And, and,

I was walking around in LA and while these immigration crackdowns, these terrible crackdowns, which have been scaring people, the people that make LA work and communities all across LA, the jacaranda trees were turning and they were all this beautiful shade of purple and they're all over Los Angeles. And it just struck me that I imagine Stephen Miller, who claims to be from here while hating all of us and hating Los Angeles, I wonder if he ever noticed that.

what makes LA so beautiful, right? All the people in this wonderful place that so many people came. And I assume no, right? I assume that's never been something that he would glance up and marvel at the beauty of this nature and this wonderful place we all get to live. And maybe that's a source of strength because for the same reason they can't see that, they assume we all have the same hateful, negative, vicious,

zero-sum mentality about the world, but the good news is that we don't. And there was a new poll that came out today from, I think it was a Quinnipiac poll, and it found that as they've been blasting the country with this propaganda about the chaos in the cities and the violence in our streets and the criminal aliens that are all around us, slowly but surely support for legalizing undocumented immigrants, giving them status in our country, has slowly but surely been creeping up, not a little, by a lot.

by like 15 points as his immigration approval has slowly trended down. And to me, that's a sign of hope because as much as they're so hate-filled and as much as they are so mean-spirited and cruel and they will exact a lot of pain and cause a lot of misery, they don't understand how other people think or feel because they can't believe that anybody would have more compassion or love or joy or beauty that we do. And I think that's how we beat them. And I think that you see that in what happened in New York.

I think you see that in the protests we've had over the last couple of weeks, and it gives me hope about what's going to happen in the next couple of months in the midterms and beyond. So that was just rambling. But Trump himself weighed in on Wednesday, writing on True Social, we've had radical lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous. He looks terrible about Mamdani. His voice is grating. He's not very smart. And even our great Palestinian Senator Kryon Chuck Schumer is groveling over him.

What was that, said Schumer? Seven bagels falling out of his mouth? Let me put this latke down and see what Trump's saying about me. Trump also lost all credibility in saying that Mamdani looks terrible. Mamdani looks like he's the coolest professor at Hanson University. Look at how good looking this guy is. More like 6911. Speaking of slips of the tongue, a Colorado...

State attorney accidentally, this is, a Colorado attorney accidentally called a judge, honey, on a court live stream. And I'm sorry to tell you this. This is like, this video is like the ring. We're all, I'm going to make, we all are going to watch it in full. Okay, but it wasn't three separate. Let's go with what happened in the case. But honey, or, oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That, that, that, I don't know what to say to that.

I apologize. Okay, go ahead. The question here is what happened? I'm sorry, I've just been totally thrown. Yeah, I can imagine. I'm a little thrown by that also, if I'm being honest. I don't know what to say. It's just a... Okay, well, go ahead. You've only got a minute and seven seconds left. It says here that he gave himself the death penalty.

It's tough but fair. I just think it is incredible that arguing with a woman subconsciously raised a honey from the depths. A good moment to do a quick ad for my new online course, the John Lovett Masterclass in Faking a Seizure. You gotta go down and start shaking. Only way up.

A New Jersey lifeguard was impaled by a beach umbrella during strong winds on Wednesday. She was alert and taken to the hospital to be treated. The umbrella went through her shoulder and out through her back, protruding by about a foot. And you know what that means? Six more weeks of summer. They had to use a bandsaw to cut the umbrella's pole to get her in the ambulance. Oh no, my umbrella, said the worst people on the beach.

The lifeguard, still recovering in the hospital, also told ABC7 that she was bummed when she found out she had to take six weeks off. You hear that, Hallie? She was impaled. Oh, you're tired from writing jokes? Need a break? It's been months since I stabbed you. And finally, singer Leigh-Anne Rimes revealed her fake teeth fell out of her mouth mid-concert on Sunday, forcing her to run offstage to replace them. But I think we've all had that nightmare where Leigh-Anne Rimes' teeth fall out.

Anyway, congrats to the witch Brandy Glanville hired. Your magic is powerful. Much respect. Coming up, it's the best John Devere Grace's sage, Jean Leguizamo.

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Before our first guest, just letting everybody know, we're going to have a great episode coming out over the July 4th break with some of the Friends of the Pod community's favorite moments of all time in Love It or Leave It, which ended up being a bunch of, I think, some of my favorite moments and rants from the show. And then we'll be off for a couple weeks while this team refills its batteries, maybe comes back with maybe a better attitude.

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Can't stand the sight of these people at this point. But while we're out, we're going to have a bunch of new videos on the YouTube. So if you haven't subscribed yet, do us a favor. Go to the YouTube, subscribe. Helps us build that channel. Helps us build this media company. Helps us build a way of responding to right-wing misinformation online. And I'd appreciate it. And with that, please walk into the stage. A man with an IMDb page so long I had to sit down and put my head between my knees in the middle of it.

It's the legendary John Leguizamo. Hi, thanks for being here. Great monologue. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Enjoyed it. I like to think you're always back there watching and it inspires me week after week, but today here you are, finally. I'll always be there for you, man. I'll always have your back. Oh, that means the world to me. You sound sarcastic. I don't. It's my fucking voice. That happened earlier today.

Third time today. Are you sarcastic? Yeah. Third time today. You have a little sarcasm. So it's something I got to work on. Yeah, yeah. We're not all perfect. No, no, no. But it's a good thing. Are you a New Yorker? Yeah. Yeah, that's part of our culture. It's part of it. It's part of it. So you have a new Apple TV show called Smoke, which just came out. And you play an arson investigator turned porn director. Did you do any kind of research for the role? Yes, I'm very method. I'm a very method actor, so I watch a lot of porn for it.

But just for the angles and the editing, not for the content. No, no, just to understand the shot list. Yes, yes, because I was a porn director. I wasn't in front of the camera, I was behind the camera. Right, like when do you punch in? The money shot. The money shot. When is the money shot? The money shot, when they pay for the pizza. Yeah.

Now, you have, we were talking about this, you have one of my favorite interview moments of all time and you're not going to know what it is. No, how would I? I was just there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So you were doing an interview. It was, I think they've gotten you up at like seven in the morning to do one of them today show or one of these shows. Was I grumpy or no? Yes. Bitchy. No, you were, you were honest. You, it was you, it was you in the, I was grumpy and bitchy. You were promoting one of the ice age movies was a sequel and you're sitting there with the whole cast and it's queen Latifah and Ray Romano. Uh, and, uh,

The host of the show says, "What keeps you guys coming back to do another one of these movies?" I think like, Dennis Leary looked over and kind of smirked and nobody knew what to say and you just kind of lean forward and you're like, "The money." The money was incredible. I'm not gonna lie, it was the most money I have ever seen and will ever see in my life because they made a huge mistake.

They thought that the movie was going to fail, so they didn't do a contract with us to continue. And the thing blew up and was this juggernaut. It was huge. And then they had to renegotiate with me, and I went for it. I'm glad you did. I got every... Yeah. Yeah, you got them. Yeah. Yeah.

It just was such a funny moment because you had all just admitted that you go into a studio by yourselves, record for a while, and then the movie comes out and it's like, oh yeah, on set we became a family. Of course it was for the fucking money. No, but I love this character. I do love, I love, Mel Blanc was my hero. So whenever I do all these animated movies like Encanto and Dora the Explorer, Dora and all the stuff that I do, I really love what I do and I try to really create a real character that I believe in.

We were talking about... Nobody cares. No, they were moved...

They're thinking about the money. They're like, yeah, I'm glad you love playing a little rat or whatever. How much? Yeah, we're in a capitalist America, I forget. But we were really marveling at the range of roles you've had over the years. And I didn't realize that, because I think of you as having been a stand-up and then suddenly you're playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, but you had been doing...

Shakespeare at the public theater before you were ever I was always an actor who was very funny or at least I thought I was funny and I made a living out of it and I was diverse because there were no opportunities for Latin men in America so I had to reinvent myself constantly and become different things that would

you know, garner me a career. Yeah, like, you do... It wasn't talent. It was just trying to survive. No, it's... And it's got to be some of the talent. You're so charismatic, you've been sitting here. Please. I got you! You got me. You got me. Hey, you've had me. You've had me. So, you do To Wong Fu. Uh-huh. And... Oh, yeah. Damn, I'm hot. But...

But that was like, I'd do me. That was great. And wife. Right. Who wouldn't? But like, that was a, that was like a brave thing for the three of you to do at that time. Like you guys really, and it wasn't, it wasn't a joke. Like you committed to this and it was a really like, it was a,

It was a really interesting and brave movie for three straight male actors to take on. Especially for the two of them because nobody really knew who I was, except for theater people in New York City. But the two of them were leading men, action leading men. And for them to do the roles and to really commit to doing it right and giving it integrity, that took a lot of courage.

Yeah, and at the time... Rest in peace, Patrick Swayze. Yeah, you can applaud for Patrick Swayze. Yeah, yeah. He did a great job. I mean, we didn't get along on the set too much. No, not too much. I'm a New York actor. You know, this is my shot. I was going to take it. And I was improvising all the time, making up crazy dialogue. I made up so much shit. And he couldn't take it because I was relentless. I'm a New Yorker. I never shut up. And he told me to shut up. And I said... And I was like, make me.

And Wesley said, "I got you." And so we were ready to duke it out, which is stupid because we're in skirts and pumps and stuff. We were too method. I think we were menstruating. But that was it? Did you ever repair it or was just you never got a lot? Yeah, no, no, we repaired it. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's good. Not too much. That's good. But now, I'm sorry. I repaired it on your show just now. No, it's beautiful. Now...

So, To Wong Fu, I think, has become a cult classic. I have another movie of yours that I believe deserves cult classic consideration. What's that? It's Super Mario Brothers. You know, I loved this movie at the time. Because you're young. You're young. Yeah, that's right. You don't know better. No, it's good. Have you gone back and watched it? No, I can't. It's good. It's good. No, no. I mean, you know...

I fancy myself an artist, you know, and I did this because it was my only opportunity at the time. You know, as a Latin man, you know, it was like I didn't get that many choices. And this was the directors were really they had a fight for me because I was a Latin dude and the studio didn't want me. And they fought at Annabelle and Annabelle Jankel and Rocky Morton. And, you know.

It was a tough movie to make, man. We were doing it in a cement factory. Everybody got white lung from the cement. The sound effects told them that, you know, all that steam is going to wreck the audio. So I had to record for a month. We all had to record all our lines. I'd never done that in my life. Like, dubbed yourself for the entire movie. So you had to go into a studio and watch? Yes. The whole thing and go over it and over it. What a cursed movie. The...

It's also just sort of like, we found our Mario and Luigi. Oh, I assume that given there's wonderful Italian-American actors, yes, yes, it's Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, obviously. We share no DNA. Absolutely. No sense whatsoever. There's no 23 Meat Links anywhere for us. Absolutely not. Just a kind of...

A British guy, a Latin guy from New York. That's our marriage movie. Yeah, that's our twins. Fantastic. Well, I think it was great. I love it. I love it now. I mean, now I really appreciate it. And I know it became a cult classic, especially for young folk like yourselves. You also... I'll defend that movie to the death. It was fun. It was back when movies could be fun. It is fun. It's fun. I appreciate it. Speaking of fun... What is that? You don't sound like you're having fun.

You're in multiple scenes that, like, broke my brain that I shouldn't have seen when I saw them. One of them is you are the shooter in the film regarding Henry. Does anybody remember regarding Henry? You were... That is...

I don't remember it either, and I was in it. You don't remember? No, I remember. Of course I remember. I was a shooter. I'm like, oh my God, I'm denigrating my people. They made me the only Latin person in the movie, and I'm killing the white guy.

Yeah. Oh, shooting the white guy. Yeah, shoot him. He lives, he lives. It's a really dark scene. I couldn't even shoot well. I don't even kill him. You don't even kill him. You shoot him twice and he just wanders out. I'm a bad Latin shooter. But it's a chilling scene. I really, like, I wouldn't even show it because it actually is like, it's a very... Oh, no, it's terrible. It's awful. But Mike Nichols. Yes, that's why I did it. Right. And then we became friends for life. Really? He came to see Spicarama. He took me out to dinner many times. I went to his apartment. I saw his Picassos.

That's so cool. What's amazing about that scene is, so Mike Nichols, he's directing all these different kinds of movies.

it's a well he's one of those important directors in american history of course and but he directs that scene and it's chilling and haunting and excellent even though it's not i sort of you just see that even in that moment he's an amazing director i wonder what it was like to do that because you're there for what you're in one very critical scene yeah and just like do you remember being directed by mike nichols that day yeah i mean you know he's very friendly he's a sweetheart uh

and he'd seen me in Mambo Mouth and so he was, he wanted to give me an opportunity so that was my opportunity. Uh,

And, you know, he just said, you know, just be, you know, like you're casual and just turn around and shoot him like you're like buying something. So, yes, I did it really casually. And then I shot, you know, Harrison Ford, which is so terrible, even though it wasn't a real gun or anything. But you feel bad. I'm a human being. You know, I'm not a real shooter. That's acting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but you're still I'm an actor and I'm killing the poor guy. It's terrible. Yeah. He got real good. Yeah.

Also, you played the Violator in Spawn. Let's show a picture of Spawn. Of the Violator. That is some fucking nightmare fuel. Oh wow, that was rough. That was like, my first makeup test was eight hours. And that was back in the day when they glued your face with real glue. It wasn't like special creams and shit. Yeah, it was bad. It was rough. That's a scary character. But I enjoyed the hell out of it. They let me improvise like crazy. I said the craziest things.

I better get credit for the second movie when they remake it. Because they're remaking everything I did. I'm so old, they're remaking everything that I did. What are they remaking? They remade Super Married Brothers. Oh, right, of course. It was a huge hit, yeah. It was cartoon? Yeah. Yeah. They're remaking this. Blumhouse is remaking it. They're going to do Spawn again? Yeah, with Jamie Foxx. That's cool. Spawn, yeah. That's a good Spawn. Yeah. They should bring you back. Okay. Call Jason. Yeah. Make it happen. I would like to do that. Let's...

You got that kind of pull. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Let me go to my list of podcast connections and see how many steps it takes to get to a movie. All right.

So on July 6th, you have the second season of Leguizamo Does America. You're traveling across the country, talking to Latino communities. You've spoken out about the protests in Los Angeles. A lot of people haven't. What are you trying to do with this show? And then also, why do you think more people, let's start with that. What are you trying to do with the show? Well, I'm going across America looking for Latin exceptionalism, Latin innovation, Latin genius, Latin

looking for Latin celebration, celebrating all the things that we brought to this country that we get no credit for, that we're never celebrated for, that we're just ignored and erased. So that's what I'm trying to undo, you know, especially in this time of

great violence to Latin bodies and Latin people in this country. You know, it's a sad time to be a Latin person in this country. I talked to a lot of Latin organizers, actors, activists, politicians, and we're all trying to figure out what to do because it's a tough time to see all these people being hurt like that, mothers and children and

And fathers and brothers and people that look just like my family. It's tough, but I'm trying to bring some opposite, you know, because we have to celebrate the little joys. We have to do the... It's like an antidote to what we're watching on the gram and on TikTok, you know? But I'm glad it's being shown because otherwise there's no evidence and we need all the witnesses and testimonies that we can keep. Thank you. Is there an example...

from the show. And you've also done a history show too. Yeah, yeah. Is there an example from the show that you think kind of is relevant to what's happening right now? Well, yeah. I mean, when I went to Raleigh, which I figured, they know Latin people in Raleigh, but there was a ton of Latin people there and they were brought there in the 70s. You know, like we were brought, we've been in this country

The first European language spoken in America was not English, was Spanish. And we've been here since 1492. And...

to see that we're being rounded up again for the fourth time in this country, it's, it's, it's incredible to me that it's happening for the fourth time. It happened with the repatriation act. 2 million, uh, Latinos were, um, deported even though they, they were all, most of them were American citizens, but they were deported after the depression. We were blamed for taking jobs, same as is going on now. And then it happened in the wetback act in the 1950s, uh,

Over a million and a half Latinos were deported. Half of them were citizens, some of them were undocumented, and then they're doing it again.

So that was in the PBS series. I think we dealt with that a little bit. But in Raleigh, there was all these immigrants brought in the 70s to work in the factories and in the food processing. And they stayed and they created these... They fixed up a lot of communities and rebuilt them as we often do. And we go there and we celebrate all these activists who are helping undocumented immigrants and rebuilding all these communities. Beautiful. There's... I think, you know, the...

The nativism we're seeing now... So when my family was coming into this country, it was in a wave of Jewish and Italian immigrants. Was that late 1800s or early 1900s? Early 1900s. And they were in a crest of immigrants that...

made New York City like 40% immigrant at the time and it led to a nativist backlash, which led to that number dropping, which was all part of the same sort of conditions that were leading to the Great Depression, which then also led to a whole bunch of nativism against Mexican and Latin immigrants as well. It was all connected, that the nativism that was targeting the shifty Jews in New York

and that was leading to the same kind of quotas that ultimately meant Jews were excluded from this country during the Holocaust. Right, right, right. It was the same set of forces that were causing the expulsion of Mexicans to Mexico, even though they were coming into this country to work. Right, they were brought in here. They were invited, part of a program. Bracero program. We were brought here to work.

And what's crazy is we were brought here in the 1800s as well. I mean, we've been here anyway, but from Mississippi to the Pacific was Mexico until 1830.

And we were brought here, we built the, after our Asian brothers and sisters were kicked out in the 1840s, 50s, we came in and finished all the trains and tracks, and we called ourselves traqueros because of tracks, and we finished it all the way, all the infrastructure in the southwest and west.

We finished and then we were kicked out. And there's an incredible story. This woman, Carmelita Torres, in 1910, she started the bath riots because Latinos were brought into Texas and all the Southwest to work on the farms, you know, typical and homes. And she was 17. But what they would do was they would make the men and women separate, get naked, spray them with Zyklon B gas.

And if they had lice, they would sometimes set their hairs on fire. And she protested. A 17-year-old girl. She disappeared after that. But the Nazis borrowed a lot of those techniques that they were using in the Southwest on us. That's what the Nazis borrowed. Let's get a picture of the violator up again. That's what they look like. And yet you've never apologized for this. Look how scary that is. A child, children would see that. I've damaged so many poor children.

But I got paid well, though. I bought my second home and a pool. Wow. Look at that. Can you hate me for that? That's the face you make when you just realize you're going to get a pool. Well, John Leguizamo, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Pleasure, man. You stick around. You're going to stick around. Smoke is streaming now on Apple TV+. When we're back, Irisalo Atari and Anthony Carrigan take the stage.

Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

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Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Uh, this is the story of Redfin. You mean Red Riding Hood? No, I mean Redfin. Once upon a time, there was born a real estate brokerage that was also a magical app. They called it Redfin.

Redfin is on a mission to get people the fairest deal of them all. Like in Snow White? Mm-hmm. With listing fees as low as 1%, Redfin agents charge half of what others often charge, so you have more money to put towards your dream home. And the Redfin app has a clever way of helping you find it. A trail of breadcrumbs? No. They update their listings every two minutes and give personalized recommendations so you see homes that are right for you. And then you live happily ever after? Yep. Time for bed.

Mom, I heard this word and I want to know what it means. Uh, okay. What is escrow? I'll ask our Redfin agent. I'm sure they'll know. Download the Redfin app to get started. Fee subject to terms and minimums. Equal housing opportunity. CADRE number 01521930. And we're back! Please welcome to the stage two bad boys who look so good. It's Anthony Kerrigan and Aristotle Atari. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for being here. Hi, thanks for being here. Thanks. Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm excited. Are you excited? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He knows how to work an audience. Yeah. Doing my best. Right? Yeah, there you go. Good. Doing so good. Sorry. Sorry. Gentlemen.

You've all tangled with villains on both the small and silver screens, but unfortunately we live in reality, which is why we wanted to test your knowledge of the many, many IRL villainous deeds afoot this week in a thrilling segment we're calling News It or Lose It, Evil Eye Witness News. Why is that just a picture of my face?

John, I'll start with you. This week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied blocking a Norwegian tourist from entering the country after they discovered a disrespectful meme on his phone. Oh, snap. Who was it a meme about? What was the meme about? Probably Stephen Miller. So close. So close. Anybody want to steal it? Yep. Chubby Vance. You got it. You got it. It was Chubby Vance. That's why I took face recognition off my phone. Yeah, you got it. You got it.

Cause they'll get ya. - Passcode, yeah, I'll just go, I don't know the passcode. I can't remember, you're making me nervous.

I'm practicing because I know they're going to come from there. And it was so good. Yes, the CPB, the Custom War Patrol, called it false, saying that he actually was kicked out for omitting drug use. But I don't really, that doesn't totally make sense. So you have this meme on your phone and then you just admit to drug use and they send you back to Norway? Doesn't really make sense. Seems like they were going through his phone. Not really clear why either. Something to think about. Anthony. Hmm?

Are you asking me because I'm bald? Oh my God, Jeff Bezos. No. Ding, ding, ding. Or is it?

Yeah. I knew it. But I was just... Don't say anything bad about Jeff Bezos. He funds a lot of movies. No, and we do love that. And we do love... And good for him for doing that. Yeah, we...

What a guy. What a guy. What a dude. We love our tech giants and their forays into scripted television and film. We applaud all of these conglomerates for dipping their toe in and letting us make all kinds of wonderful shows. Art. Art. Patrons of the arts. Yes, they are. And so, anyway, this is a segment about hating those people protesting those good newlyweds.

And their wedding... Those poor little guys, you know, just trying to get married. But this was the... Can we show the wedding invitation? It looks just like Clipart. It just doesn't look like that's what you get when you have the most money. How is that what you landed on? Just looks like dog shit. But it's stealth wealth, right? Stealth wealth. Yeah, yeah, stealth wealth. That's stealth wealth. That's stealth wealth. Except for the whole event, but... But, Anthony, you brought up baldness. I did. I did.

Or did I actually? Well, I brought up a bald man. You did, that's true. I get the association. But you were in the upcoming Superman. Yes. Which is in July 11th. Yeah, I know. You're playing Metamorpho. Yes. Now, can we show a picture of Metamorpho?

How cool is that? I know, it's pretty sweet, isn't it? I love it, yeah. Am I blocking you? No, no, no. Looking at yourself? I've seen it before. Is Metamorpho a villain or am I judging a book by its cover? So, he's complicated. He's definitely complicated. I don't want any spoilers, you know, but there's definitely, you know, there's a great character arc, I would say, for my character. I'm very excited. Does he start out looking like that? Yes. Cool. Cool.

So the character arc isn't about why it looks like that. No, I mean, but the comic books, I mean, if you're interested, the comic books are actually a very fascinating story. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Metamorpho. Yeah. It's a cool name. Metamorpho. Now, you've played villains. I have. Do you think your typecast, because you're bald...

Yeah, I think that, you know, the bad, like, bald guys and bad guys are kind of synonymous, you know? It's just, it's an easy, it's an easy thing, you know? But why? I don't know. I don't know. I'm just such a great dude. I'm like, what, you know, why do they keep doing that to me? I don't think there's anything inherently villainous about being bald. I know. It's one of those unconscious things, though, I think.

Oh. I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know what it is. But yeah, just bad guys like Lex Luthor, another bald bad guy, you know. Mr. Evil. Mr. Evil. You were on Gotham, right? Yeah. Yeah. Another bad guy. Who'd you play on Gotham? Victor Zsasz. Victor Zsasz. Yeah. Wow. And bald. And bald. Do they ever put wigs on you? I have. Yeah. Something that I've coming up and wearing a wig. A long black wig. Are you a villain? Yeah. Even with hair. Even with hair.

I know. That's a good theme. So it's interesting. So you're a villain when you're bald. You're a villain when you're not bald. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's something inside. Wow. Cool. Thanks for having me. Aristotle. Bernie Sanders stopped by the Joe Rogan podcast to issue a warning this week. Mm-hmm.

At the end of the day, all we got is us. Yes. Is that right? Yeah. We are human beings. Yeah. And we're going to have to cling to each other to get through this thing. That message really stuck with Joe Rogan, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to get this wrong, but go ahead. What's your question? What is the thing we're getting through in which we have to cling to each other? Is it A, Trump's second term, B, climate change, or C, falling in love with AI? Yeah.

- Hmm. - Wow. - Give me the options again. What's A? - Trump. - What's B? - Climate change. - What's C? - Falling in love with AI. - I'm gonna go with A. - Incorrect. - Oh. - It's falling in love with AI.

Let's show the full clip. God damn it, man. At the end of the day, all we got is us. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. We are human beings. Yeah. And we're going to have to cling to each other to get through this thing. All I would say at this moment is the answer is not to fall in love with your AI creature out there. Yeah, don't do that.

Why did he get such an easy question? And I got led into something that I think everybody thought it was going to be Trump. You did have multiple choice, though. You were set up. Hey, you know what? We got you. It was a gotcha moment. It was a big time gotcha. Are you at all concerned that you're going to fall in love with your AI creature, as Bernie refers to it? You know, I have talked about this before. This is not a setup for something that I've

that I came up with prior to the show. But I have said I'm not really concerned about, I'm not really worried about nuclear warfare. I'm not worried about, the main thing I'm worried about is the moment that we can create some kind of like an AI robot lover, then we're all screwed. Now you are literally. Because nobody's going to leave home. Right? You're not. Right? You're definitely not. Right?

I watched the movie Companion on a plane. Oh, yeah. So I still have 20 minutes left, and I don't think it gets to be in favor of it. Sure. Based on the first hour and 15 minutes, they seem very anti-robot sex monster. But... Yes. As a theory, it's not the monster's fault. It's Frankenstein's fault. Yes. Right. But you're in Megan 2.0. Correct. Woo!

I love how you had to be like, it's 2.0. Yeah, it's 2.0. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's also a 3 in the name. That's just true. So that's why I was checking the facts. Wrong again. God damn it. It has a 3 in the name, but it's 2. Yes, yes, yes. It'll be fun when it's Megan 3 because then you just make the 3 bigger. Yes, yes, yes. Wow. What was Megan like to work with on set? I hear she's quite the prankster.

She was. And, you know, kind of racy in real life. It was kind of interesting. It was interesting actually like acting opposite this animatronic robot because she was actually really good. She knew her lines better than I knew my lines. But no, it was kind of fun. It was cool. It was interesting. You should go see the movie. Thank you.

John. Oh, what? Cobra Kai star Martin Cove was escorted out of Washington State's SummerCon after he did what to his co-star Alicia Hannah Kim? Oh, wow. I think I missed that week of news. I don't know. What are his multiple choices? Yeah, I don't even get multiple choices. Yeah, what is that about? Hey, what's up with that? Did he... Is it because I'm Latin?

That's right. That's right. Harder questions for you. Maybe I am a little bitter. Let me come up with four. Let me come up with three. How about just two? A, did he bite her arm? Did he bite her arm? B, did he push her down a flight of stairs? Or C, did he spit in her soup?

I know the answer. Do you want a lifeline or no? Can I get a lifeline? Yeah, you get a lifeline. All right. What is it? He did not spit in her soup. He did not spit in her soup. That's correct. There you go. I won. That's correct. He bit his co-star. Yes. Wow. What? Yeah, come on. Explain this. What the hell is going on? He said it was a joke.

Has anyone ever bit you on set, John Leguizamo? Or an animal bit me, a snake bit me. Really? Yeah, in the past, this movie I did, they brought an anaconda, but it was a baby anaconda, so it was like only four feet tall, four feet long. And they put it near my crotch. I don't know why I allowed that. I can't do anything for a laugh. And it bit me on the thigh like several times. I had to go to the hospital for tetanus shots. And they cut that scene out of the Super Mario Brothers movie. Yeah. Yeah.

It did. Wait, what was it for? No, the past, the past. Oh, it was for the past. It was for the past. Hmm. Hmm. But they didn't use it or they did use it? They didn't use the biting part. They just had the snake come towards my, you know. Bob Hoskins broke his arm or his hand during... He did? Yeah. How do you know that? Because I read your book. Oh, okay. Wow. I paid him for that. I paid him.

And you threw up chicken skins one time. Or no, no. Was it crickets? Sorry. Crickets. I threw them up. You threw up crickets? Yeah, because I ate a ton of them and I drank too much. And then I threw them all up over Patrick Swayze. Too long foo. Too long foo. Can't believe you guys didn't get along. We get along sometimes. It wasn't always contentious. This improv guy just threw up bugs on me. I hate it. Wait. So...

Hmm, let's think of a transition. Any biting in the pornos you're directing in Smoke? Oh, great, let's talk about Smoke.

Still got it. Smoke is a great series, man. It's based on a true crime. Dennis Lehane, the greatest true crime novelist of our time. And it's based on John Orr in the 90s was the preeminent arsonist investigator and ended up that he was setting the fires himself. And he killed over a dozen people. Hey, it makes him nervous. We now think you're sick freaks.

What a weird thing to lose it over. Yeah. At this moment. Oh, God. I think you're an arsonist. I think you set fires for fun and it makes you excited. She's pointed to her. Literally will not stop laughing. Oh, my God. That's funny. So he was setting up fires and a dozen people died and he burned millions of dollars worth of property and he would have never stopped if they didn't catch him. And then when does the porn directing come in? Oh, okay. Well...

I'm not the arsonist. Well, I don't want to... Spoiler, but I get too close to the arsonist and I'm his best friend and I'm going to turn him in and then he sets me up to be the fall guy and he ruins my career and I turn to drugs and I become a porn director. Wow. That's what most firefighters do when they lose their jobs.

You know what? You got to just be open to what the universe is telling you. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes you got to direct porn. Yeah, totally. That's it. Yeah, I think that's beautiful. Classic pipeline, you know? Yeah. Anthony, on Wednesday, Aaron Sorkin announced he will write and direct a movie about what tech billionaires dastardly deeds. I'll give you a hint. It's a sequel. Zuckerberg. Yeah. We're getting Social Network 2. Oh.

- Wow. - Yeah. - Yeah, part two. - That was the audio. - It's based on the Wall Street Journal Facebook files published in 2021 about the platform's devastating effect on mental health of teens. And apparently Aaron's gonna direct it. I'm excited about it. - Oh wow. - Yeah. - That's great, that's great. - Wow.

Yeah, yeah. I love that Lucy movie. That was incredible. Made the funniest woman in America unfunny. I love that. I was like, look, you don't need jokes with Lucy. You want a stone-faced, marble-faced woman to be Lucy. Oh my God, this is so true. Hey, Anthony. Hey. Why do you think tech billionaires go all Lex Luthor sometimes? Uh,

I don't think they go like that. I don't think they go Lex Luthor. I think they're, they have it within them. You know, I, the, someone I know like says that money makes you more of who you are. Oh yeah. So if you're, you know, a pretty good person, I think you'll, you'll be inspired to continue to be a good person. But if there's that thing inside of you, that's just like,

you know, wants to be evil, it's going to, it's going to come out. Yeah. It's going to come out. Money for some people is like, it's permission. It's permission. It's permission. Yeah. And I think a lot of people like succeed because they're kind of evil and because, you know, capitalism can kind of like really, you know, yield pretty horrible people just rising the ranks. Is that what you found when you got the money from the ice age thing? Yeah.

I plead the fifth. Aristotle. Yes. This week, Kim Kardashian was announced as the villain in the upcoming movie adaptation of what toy line from Amazon, which we love?

Is it A? You get multiple choice. No, here's the thing. I hate that I didn't know the answer to the first question, but I do know the answer to this one. Okay. Is it Bratz? It is Bratz. Thank you. It is Bratz dolls. That was good. You're welcome. That's cool. Okay. I thought it was, yeah. And you're just a big Bratz guy. You keep up with Bratz. Can we cut this?

I love Bratz, yeah. I'm a big Bratz fan. I collect a lot of Bratz. In fact, the more money I make, the true version of me is a big Bratz collector. Big Bratz collector. The true me. Do any of you have a toy version of yourself? I have a Spawn version and a Super Mario Brothers version that looks more like Stallone, but who cares? That's cool. I love how this is going to go because you'd be like, yes, I got this. Yes, I don't.

Yeah. No, as I was asking, I asked the group, but it wasn't about you. Sure, sure, sure. I didn't think you did. Sorry. I knew you didn't. Yeah, but keep plugging Bratz. Yeah. The funny thing is, I have his toy. Which one? The Spawn one. Spawn. And I actually have his, too.

And I should have brought both of them to have signed. It'd be worth a lot more when you flip it on eBay. Maybe. Wait, Anthony, what doll are you? I have one from Gotham and I think I've got... Metamorpho. Yeah, from Superman. Yeah. Metamorpho. Oh, cool. You get a little taste of it, of the action or no? I don't think so. If he doesn't think so, then he doesn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. How come you never asked for a taste? You would know if you were getting a taste. Yeah, how come you never got a... Why didn't you ask for a taste? I feel like... It's like, hey, just get a taste. Let me ask you this. We want you to get your beak wet. We want you to get your beak wet. I'm just going to email my agent and just say... Where's my taste? Yeah. Where's my taste? Can I get a taste?

No context, and I just... Hopefully she'll figure it out. Don't call HR. Don't worry. It's hard to get it after the movie's done being filmed. You have Love It or Leave It t-shirts and all that stuff, right? Yeah. You get a taste? Yeah. Yeah.

Do you have a doll? What? Do you have a doll? Not yet. Well, you will. But we'll think about it. As soon as we... We'll crunch the numbers. And if you do, what happens? What? They'll get my beak wet. Get a little taste. You'll get a taste. You'll get a little taste. I don't know. Haven't you learned something from this? No, I already knew about getting a taste. Okay, great, great. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry. Tiebreaker question, because it is tied.

Critics and fans alike were abuzz about Danny Boyle's new post-apocalyptic horror movie 28 Days Later featuring a cannibalistic zombie featured in the film who had what? Aristotle knows this. He does. He knows everything. He knows this. A big howg. He does have a big howg. Yeah, yeah. Let's show it. No. But apparently... Oh, wow. Apparently... Wait, is that it?

But apparently it's prosthetic, right? It's not even real. Oh, really? Yeah. That ruins the fantasy for me. Sorry. I'm sorry. No, he did, yes. The actor reassured that it's a prosthetic, but when asked by the outlet if it's proportional, the actor, Lewis Perry, said... Can you get a taste? You get a taste. You don't want a taste of that. He said, I'm six foot eight. I'll say no more. Hey. Wow, more like 28 inches later. Hey, hey. Ha, ha. Ha, ha. Ha, ha.

Yeah, yeah. He makes the big bucks. All right. Aracel, you won the game. Yeah! Because you know about Bratz doll and some guy's huge wang. Your wang.

It's prosthetic wing. And that's News It or Lose It Evil Eye Witness Edition. Megan 2.0 in theaters now. Superman, which is in July 11th. And Smoke, yes, on your Apple TVs. Yeah, June 27th. Because the plus is for TV shows. Yeah. When we're back, we're feeling patriotic. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

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And we're back! Ha ha ha!

All right, one quick announcement. Love It or Leave It is going to be in Montreal on July 24th for the Just for Laughs Festival, and then it's back to Dynasty Typewriter in LA for our usual business. We have a lot of great guests lined up, including Alice Wetterlin, Peppermint, Ken Jennings, Amy Schneider, Kristen Johnson, and many more, so please get tickets at crooked.com slash events. Woo-hoo!

Also, given the Supreme Court's ruling, our friends at Vote Save America have a fund to support impacted Planned Parenthoods and their patients. So you can go to votesaveamerica.com slash support and you can make a donation right now. This is paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. A disclosure I must do. But do us a favor, support Planned Parenthood and go to votesaveamerica.com slash support. We like to stand up these funds in moments like this. So thank you. All right.

We are off next week for the 4th of July, so tonight we're going to get a jump on our patriotism in a segment we're calling Let Freedom Rant. All right. It put us on some great, nice bodies. We'll spin the wheel, and each of us will share one thing we'd like to declare our independence from. Something you want to be independent from. Let's spin the wheel.

Aristotle, it's landed on you. What do you want to declare your independence from? From my cell phone. From my iPhone. I'm actually doing it too. Not right now, but I'm doing it tomorrow. How are you going to do it? Well, I got this thing called a dumb phone. It's a class of phone. This is a real thing. It's basically kind of a technologically unremarkable phone.

And it just kind of gives me what I need. Email, text messages, just basic stuff. Email, text messages, phone, just the basics. Email, text messages, phone calls, like a little bit of internet, just the basics. So there's text messages, email, phone call, little bit of internet, some social media. Yeah.

But it's the basics. But it has like an e-ink black and white screen and it's not very fun to kind of scroll through. But yeah, the idea is to kind of get, because I honestly, it's a lot, you know. It's too much for me. That's my independence. I like that. I like that. Are you addicted to your phone? Oh, hell yeah. Nice. I can't live without my phone. I miss it right now. Yeah. I'm touching my phone. They're bad for us.

You ever notice when someone takes out their phone, you just instinctually just take it out? Yes, of course, of course. It's so corrosive. And it really like hits me. Corrosive? No, no, I think it's inspiring. Inspiring, beautiful. I get a lot of stuff done on my phone. No, no, we do. I accomplish a lot. We do get a lot done on the phone. Oh my God, yeah. For sure, yeah, for sure. And I don't want to say that, you don't want to yuck your yum if it's working for you. Clearly it is. You're John Leguizamo. Yeah, yeah.

It's working. No, you could be... No, it's not because of... It's not holding you back. You could be contentious with me. It's okay. I don't mind. I mean, if I wanted to be, I would be. I want to talk to Aaron Sorkin. Do you have his number? No. We lost touch after Newsroom Season 3. I like Newsroom. It was such a great show. Did you write the best monologues or what? Yeah, no, they're all me. I thought so. I could tell. I could tell it was you.

What are we talking about? Oh, the phone. You know what I downloaded to my phone? What? An app where every time I try to open Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok, something pops up and says, take a deep breath. And it goes slowly down the screen, and it tells me how many times I've opened it in the last 24 hours. And it has just made it so much harder for me to do the thing I was going to do anyway and continue to do relentlessly. So now you're spending more time on your phone. Basically taking these breaths. Yeah.

I mean, look, you could do all the things that you can do on some of these dumb phones. It's just like a black and white, very slightly slower version of an iPhone. You could do all the things that you want to do on your phone, John. Call him John because we're friends now. You read my autobiography. Yeah, I did. I feel close to you as well. A few times. He's got great stories about Seagal, too, by the way. Oh, my God, I hate him. Yeah. Yeah.

He hit me. He hit you? Steven Seagal hit him. We were doing this movie, Executive Decision. I was supposed to be his right-hand man. He comes into the first day of rehearsal, and he goes, what I say is law. And I was like, pah! Because I thought he was joking, and he elbowed me into my solar plexus, knocked me to the ground. And I was like, I hate you. So that, I mean, can I do a spoiler for 1993's Executive Decision? Yes, yes, good. Don't, no.

He meant it. Let's spin it again. He dies. Ten minutes in, I was so happy. Well, that's the thing. Just...

I don't understand why he had time to punch you because you get up into... You get out of the fucking stealth bomber into Marine One or whatever. No, it's just an airplane. He didn't want to come out the day he died out of his trailer because he didn't want to die. He was furious, right? And I was waiting for him. Even though it was fake, I wanted to believe it was real. Because the movie, it's Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal. It's all advertised. And a host of other actors. A lot of great actors. But Steven Seagal is like a big... He's an action star. He's done Under Siege. And now...

And then you're 10 minutes into the movie and the fucking connector to the plane is shaking. And then all of a sudden, Steven's God goes like complete the mission and then closes the fucking thing. You're like dies. Yes. That's why he punched. He was mad at the world. He was in Russia. He lives in Russia and he's like Putin. Yeah, for sure. He says Putin. He was legitimately mad that he was. It's almost like he didn't even know he was going to die in this movie and

And he signed on, he was there, and he literally wouldn't come out of his trailer. Again, this is all based on the book. But...

I'm telling you, he wouldn't come out. They had to talk him out of his trailer because he was trying to talk them into keeping him alive for the rest of the movie. He assumed that he saw the script, saw he was supposed to die, and assumed he would charm his way. Because they had the most charming human being on the planet. Once they had the Steven Seagal experience, they couldn't possibly let the stealth bomber just fly off their thing. As soon as he elbowed you in the solar plexus, they would keep him on. Yes, that was right. Yeah.

Once he leveled John Leguizamo on set, they'd be like, this is... 5'8", he's 6'5", and runs like a girl, which is nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. He does. It runs like he's double dutching like this. Yeah. Yeah. He does. He does. He runs like that. For real. No joke. It's true. He did run track in high school. But he will kick your ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's 6'5". He did kick my ass. I'm not going to lie. He's a big dude. I read the book so I can talk like I was there.

So yeah, so he hit him in the shoulder. And then John and Kurt Russell had budding heads because he kept improvising. No, we didn't get along either. I don't get along with a lot of people. It was a lot. I was just like, why are you doing this, man? I have to say, we've done...

of episodes of this show. I've never in the history just been, had someone else be like, I want to go through the book of another guest. And I love it. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's amazing. It's fantastic. He's a hero to me. You don't understand. So like sitting in it, I'm not kidding. So the last time I met a hero backstage, I didn't tell him how much, and when I finish the story, you can say thank you. I'm saying thank you already.

The last time I was backstage with a hero, which was Robin Williams, and I did a full-on show with him at UCB, I acted like a fucking cool cucumber. I didn't tell him how important he was to me. And he even talked to us for a good hour after the show. And then not that long after that, he was gone.

So I'm telling, and the same thing happened with John Ritter. Oh my God, you're the... I'm the... I gotta go. No, no, no. What I'm saying, what I'm trying to say, I'm telling you. You're gonna kill John Leguizamo. Get away from me. Angel of fucking death. That's why I'm telling you because I didn't tell... Don't say my name.

There you go. I'm telling you because I want you alive. I think we'll sage it mentally. You can come back probably. Yeah, come back. Come back. I think he's really gone. That's the serious thing. You don't get to be John Leguizamo without committing to the bit. He's in his car. He's fucking gone. I met one of my heroes once. It was George Lucas. And I was at a party because I was at the time a plus one to someone who was invited to that kind of thing.

And I see George Lucas and I'm like, I'm going to go ask. And my partner at the time said, don't do it. And I'm like, I'm going to ask. And my partner's like, don't do it. And I was like, I'm going to do it. So I go up to George Lucas.

And I was like, hey, the internet has a theory. The theory is that Jar Jar Binks was always meant to be revealed in the third film to be Darth Jar Jar. It was supposed to be this reveal because you set up Jar Jar as this flummoxed goof. And then all of a sudden, the third movie, Jar Jar drops the act. And you realize Darth Jar Jar was there the whole time pulling the strings. And if you look in the first movie, you can find out signs of this. But that the reaction to Jar Jar was so negative that

he killed that and invented Count Dooku and just replaced what was supposed to be Darth Jar Jar with Count Dooku which doesn't actually make sense. Why wouldn't you have introduced... Count Dooku doesn't make sense. It's just like the whole thing's a mess. And so I went up to George Lucas and I was like, what? Darth Jar Jar, was it real? And when I say that that man looked at me with a level of disdain, like, like, like, he was like, no. What? Like, it wasn't even like a fun, charming wink. No, it was

No. What? Never. Nothing. Never occurred to me. What are you talking about? I think that would have been so rad, actually. I know. It was a good idea. It was a great idea. Totally. Me to the bad guy. Yeah. Do we think, you know, you guys seen the movie? John, can you please come back? John Leguizamo. It's safe to come back.

Is it safe to come back? It's safe. It's safe. I'm just saying I'm telling you this so that it doesn't happen. That's what I'm saying because I didn't to the other guys and here you go. Okay, so there you go. You got all the whole spectrum of feelings going on. Always meet your heroes then kill them. Yes. Let's spin it again.

Anthony, what is something you want to declare your independence from? Steven Seagal. He runs like a girl. He hit my buddy John. I'm not, you know, yeah. Wherever you are in Russia, you can fucking stay there. Yeah, you got him. Let's spin it again. John, what's something you'd like to declare your independence from? How is it that it hits each one of us differently?

I'll ask a different question. What is the purpose of the wheel at all? There's four people on this stage, we're each gonna go. What's the value? Why do we do it? Am I ruining the whole thing, the whole reality of this? You couldn't because this has been a stupid gimmick for literally eight years. It has never worked. I didn't mean to ruin it for you, but it was kind of odd. And what's crazy is every time we drop the wheel, something isn't right.

And even though this doesn't make sense at all, there's something it does in our brains. Yes, it does. It releases a little endorphin or something when you see your face stop on the wheel and you'll come alive. It had the opposite effect. There was an endorphin set. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I was going to say the Democratic Party. I was feeling, I don't know. I feel like we're in such a mess and it's, I don't know. What do I do with myself? I don't know.

I've been a Democrat my whole entire life, but it's such a mess. I don't know. Social Democrat? Socialist Democrat? I don't know. Okay. Independent. It's a tough time to be a Democrat. Yeah, there are a bunch of goofs.

I, my view, my take on, I'm sure you have a good take. Well, my view on all of it is like, I am a Democrat. It's not because I love Democrats, like the elected politicians. Uh, it's because in a two party system and we will be a two party system forever. Um, I mean, you can do rank choice, which is a great thing. A lot of changes you can make, but we have first past the post congressional districts. We're just going to be some form of two party system for a while. Unless we make some big reforms, which takes power to win, which would require the democratic party to win.

But I've never, the Democratic Party is just the best vehicle we have to represent the biggest movement we could possibly build. And that to me should be a big pro-democracy movement that captures basically anybody that believes in democracy, the rule of law, equality, basic compassion, that's anti-corruption, that sort of believes in these precepts. And we need to build as big movements

a broad, diverse coalition of people under that banner. Right now, it should be under the Democratic Party banner. I don't care if you're in the, I don't care if you register as a Democrat. I don't care how anyone identifies, but you get behind the people. Sometimes they'll be Democrats. Sometimes they might be Democratic socialists like Mamdani. You get behind the people that are going to help achieve those ends and that are a part of it. Okay, I'm sold. I'm back. Great.

Thank you. Thank you for talking me down. Yeah. No, and like... I appreciate that. I just, it's... And then we have to do our best to make sure that the people that lead the Democratic Party aren't, you know, skeletons. Empty suits. Just sort of crawling out from the abyss to release press statements in front of a country they don't know or understand. That, to me, is a big problem as well. So that's something to think about.

Let's spin it again. Oh, it's landed on me. Terrific. That's perfect. You know, we're about to have the July 4th holiday, and there's going to be a lot of news that happens. I am eager to declare my independence from the news for a couple weeks. We're going to take a break. And I find that one of the hardest parts of...

keeping up with this era where part of the goal and strategy of the other side is to be relentless and exhausting, knowing that it takes more time to dispel something false than to say something false, that it's harder to play a game when you care about the rules. It just is. But part of, I think, the challenge is feeling like it's hard to have perspective

when you're keeping up with everything all the time. And I like keeping up with everything all the time, but I think sometimes it's valuable for all of us to take a moment, step back, and remember that the chaos machine, the kind of screaming chaos machine, will be there even if we put it aside for a little bit. And I'm excited to step back for a couple weeks and come back because...

One of the things I'm proudest about getting to do this show is we've been doing it for a very long time, but everybody in this team is interested in what it means to have it feel valuable and new, even though we're

We're all, I think, going through this together. And a lot of what we have to point out to us feels a bit obvious. Part of the dispiriting aspect to all of this is how much of what we're dealing with is both incredibly dangerous and incredibly obvious and stupid at the same time. But I'm really proud of the shows we've been doing. But I'm also excited to have some time for us to step back and think about how we can keep figuring out how to respond. And I think sometimes that means for all of us,

getting back into history, getting out of the present. And so that's what I'm going to declare my independence from after we do the Pod Monday. All right. Yeah, yeah. And then I'll get to go see Megan 2.0. 2.0. Yeah, got to see that. Superman. And then...

Watch you set stuff on fire and make some porno or whatever it is. I think that's the gist of it on smoke. And that's our show. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anthony Kerrigan and Aristotle Atari. We're off till July 31st, but we'll be dropping some special bonus content on the feed and on YouTube. So make sure to tune in. There are 493 days until the midterm elections. Have a great night and have a great weekend.

If you're already scrolling endlessly, which we know you are, don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok, and all the other ones for original content, community events, and more. You can also find Love It or Leave It on YouTube for videos of your favorite segments and other YouTube-exclusive content. And if you want to type our praises or rip us a new one, consider dropping us a review. Finally, you can join Crooked's Friends of the Pod subscription community for ad-free Love It or Leave It and Pod Save America episodes, subscriber-exclusive pods, and more exclusively.

Sign up at crooked.com slash friends. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer. Bill McGrath is our producer. And Kennedy Hill is our associate producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer. Sarah Lazarus, Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, and Will Miles are our writers. Jordan Cantor is our editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis provide audio support. Stephen Colon is our audio engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Shershark.

Thanks to our designer, Sammy Kudurna-Rees, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And thanks to our digital producers, David Tulls, Claudia Shang, Mia Kelman, Dilan Villanueva, and Rachel Gajewski for filming and editing video each week. Our head of production is Matt DeGroat, and our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. ♪

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