Shownotes Transcript
Love It or Leave It is brought to you by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood is the most trusted name in sexual and reproductive health and the largest sex educator in the country. Planned Parenthood believes everyone deserves medically accurate, unbiased care so people can make their own informed health decisions. And on top of that, every day, Planned Parenthood organizations
are fighting for common sense policies that keep personal health care decisions between patients and their doctors, not unqualified lawmakers. Nearly 80% of Americans want that. The attacks on Planned Parenthood, our health care, our basic rights, they just don't stop. But you know what else doesn't stop? Planned Parenthood.
The amazing staff and volunteers at nonprofit Planned Parenthood health centers across the country do whatever they can to provide high quality, affordable care to 2 million annual patients. No matter what nonsense some people in power try to pull, you can help. Donate to support Planned Parenthood at plannedparenthood.org slash defend. That's plannedparenthood.org slash defend.
What's up, Los Angeles? Welcome to Love and Relief. Live from Dynasty Typewriter, we have got a great show for you tonight. Bradley Whitford is here, and we'll test his news knowledge. Bob the Drag Queen is here. Jessica Kersen is here. And we'll see together what goats Fox News can scape. And then we'll open up the floor to you, our dear audience. But first, let's get into it. What a week.
Despite the Supreme Court's ruling that the U.S. must facilitate the return of wrongfully deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration has no intention of doing so. Hey, shout out to elder millennials out there. A constitutional crisis and a midlife crisis at the same time. You deserve that motorcycle and or Le Crescent Dutch oven. Yeah, I have to tell you something. I got the Dutch oven. And it's great. 40s.
Dutch oven makes me so happy. I used to do drugs. I still do drugs, but they don't hit like the Dutch oven. I'm telling you, watching the charred remnants of a brisket just glide off the side, revealing the perfect white of that Le Creuset fucking ceramic. It looked like it was burned to a fucking crisp, wipes right off. I don't need Molly anymore.
No two weeks of being sad after I make a brisket. The Justice Department argued that seeking his return would violate separation of powers by forcing the executive branch's hand in foreign policy. But ignoring a Supreme Court order, amazing for the separation of powers. While meeting with Trump in the White House, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele also dismissed the idea of Ebrego Garcia's return.
The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? It's obviously ridiculous. He doesn't need to smuggle anyone anywhere. Just open the doors, let the man walk out. He can buy a ticket. Now, Trump is claiming he's powerless to get someone back from El Salvador. Bukele is claiming he's powerless to send someone back to the United States. We now go live to a shot of Franz Kafka's grave, where visitors have recently heard strange emanations from beneath the tombstone. Oh, brother. LAUGHTER
Stupid. But here's the twist. Democrats decided to do something? I know. A group of Democrats led by Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen said they would go to El Salvador to see Cabrera Garcia's release. More like Chris Van Hollen asked...
Great job. Chris, the Department of Homeland Security tweeted out a protective order that Abrego Garcia's wife once sought against him for domestic violence, writing this MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure. They still have provided no evidence that Abrego Garcia was an MS-13. Also, we're not fighting for this person because he's a sympathetic figure. Nobody deserves a life sentence without due process, except for people who don't inch into the intersection when making a left to us.
Two of us get to go to the gulag with you. Also, when the third car goes long after the light is turned red, to the gulag with you. Not one car, not three cars, two cars. Two cars get to go.
On Thursday, Senator Van Hollen was denied entry to Seacott, the mega prison, even though Republican Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri and Riley Moore of West Virginia were allowed to tour the facility just this Monday. Here's Congressman Riley Moore posing in front of a cell filled with inmates. And now let's do a silly one. In other attacks on basic freedoms, last Friday...
Last Friday, the Trump administration issued a set of demands to Harvard University requiring the school to report foreign students to federal authorities for conduct violations, to end all DEI initiatives, to exert greater control over student groups, to hire more conservative faculty, and to accept John Lovett in 1999. But on Monday, Harvard became the first university to outright reject the Trump administration's demands, calling them illegal. Woo!
Never would have thought Harvard had it in them, based purely on the people I know who went to Harvard. Said Harvard president Alan Garber in a statement, no government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue. Way to go, Harvard, he said, while jamming a pencil into his thigh.
In their response, the Trump administration accused Harvard of anti-Semitism, demanding meaningful change in exchange for taxpayer funding. I would never presume to speak for all Jewish people, but on behalf of the cool Jews... Cool Jews. The White House then froze over $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university and threatened Harvard's tax-exempt status. Just pure thuggery, or as they call it at Harvard, Cornell behavior.
Yeah, sure.
Caving doesn't protect you from further abuse by Trump. Last month, Columbia bent the knee after Trump threatened to yank $400 million in federal funding. That classic New York City spirit. Hey, I'm walking here with your generous permission, Mr. President.
The university's trustees met with federal officials and agreed to demands including banning masks, cracking down on campus protests, and reviewing the curriculum and admissions for its Center for Middle Eastern Studies. They let the federal government dictate how the school runs a specific academic department, when that is the job for a very smart and deeply annoying person who liked college so much they never left. LAUGHTER
In response to Columbia's weaselly behavior, Trump didn't say, thanks for rolling over, guys. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump is currently pursuing a consent decree, an agreement that would have the Trump administration and Columbia locked in a legal battle over the terms of their agreement, potentially for years. Oh, you thought giving the bully your lunch money would make them leave you alone? No, bitch. He blew it all at McDonald's and on shoe lifts. He will see you tomorrow, and this time he wants hash browns.
So Columbia's torches reputation for nothing. And that's an important lesson for all of us because Trump's attack on academic freedom is part of a broader coordinated assault on the right to dissent, to inform the public, and to challenge the government in court. Trump signed executive orders targeting two former administration officials for the crime of being critical of Trump and refusing to endorse election lies. A cool detail in your hinge profile, but a waking nightmare in your actual life.
ICE is grabbing students off the street for co-signing op-eds, as we saw in the case of Rumeza Ozturk. On the legal front, nine law firms agreed to a deal which would provide almost $1 billion in pro bono legal services. Those firms believed the pro bono work was for uncontroversial causes they already supported, like protecting veterans and making sure every American gets three servings of Forever chemicals a day. LAUGHTER
But those firms are in for a rude awakening. According to the New York Times, Trump believes these services might include working for Doge, aiding the Justice Department, or representing Trump officials themselves if they're investigated. Trump's spokesperson also referred to the agreements as binding.
Good grief. Yeah.
Guess these lawyers miss Dr. Faustus, Damn Yankees, The Devil's Advocate, Bedazzled, or an excellent episode of The Twilight Zone with Burgess Meredith called Printer's Devil, which is one of several Twilight Zone episodes with a Faustian bargain. It's a great episode with Burgess Meredith. He's got that penguin vibe, but he plays it down. He plays it down.
One law firm that surrendered, Wilkie Farr & Gallagher, recently hired a new lawyer, Doug Emhoff, husband of Kamala Harris, who said he opposed the firm's decision but was overruled. Small comfort, Doug, when you're providing free legal services to the QAnon shaman after he throws pig's blood on the hood of Jamie Raskin's Chevy Volt. Real quick, what if we all woke up and Kamala was president and the biggest news of the day was that she was in hot water for bringing her Glock to the Easter egg roll? Wouldn't that be nice? Let's all wake up.
Let's say, "Wake up right now. Wake up." Never works. But four firms specifically targeted by executive orders have all fought in court, and they're winning. Judges are halting these brazenly unconstitutional orders by the president. It's fun that the lawyers Trump can't get are, by definition, the ones who are good at winning in court. It's like trying to steal a champion racehorse by chasing after one in flip-flops.
Just this Tuesday, a judge blocked the executive order against the firm Sussman Godfrey, which successfully went after Fox News for lying about the election, saying the order was driven by the president's personal vendetta. Said the judge, the framers of her constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power. We now go live to the grave of Benjamin Franklin. I wish I was in France having sex with an old duchess. I mean, I mean, jeez louise. As that was the third one, that concludes...
The grave thing that we did this week. Would you believe all of those three different historical figures were played by the same Hallie Kiefer? Yeah.
The same lesson on what happens when you capitulate applies to the attacks on the free press. CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, is reportedly in talks to settle with Trump after he launched a completely frivolous $20 billion lawsuit against 60 Minutes for their pre-election interview of Kamala Harris. This follows Disney's embarrassing $16 million settlement with Trump in a case against ABC News that the famously tough lawyers at Disney could have fought and won.
But being willing to settle hasn't saved Paramount from Trump's rage. On Sunday, Trump said that the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, should target 60 Minutes for their unlawful and illegal behavior and strip them of their broadcast license. And in case you haven't seen him yet, here's FCC chair, Brendan Carr, wearing his hideous golden brooch of Donald Trump's fucking face, which he received during Trump's annual Diva Boots the House Down crony convention. ♪
I've never seen a more clearly cursed object. A generation from now, scientists will be burying this brooch in a lead coffin and sealing it with concrete like a body from Chernobyl. We talked about this on Pod Save America. Here's a headline about me shitting on said brooch earlier this week. Obama pod bro rips MAGA sycophant for wearing Trump drag. It's a little more complicated than that, obviously, because Trump walks around every day wearing Trump drag.
I have to ask Bob about this. There are layers to drag here, something a Columbia student could write a thesis about if they hadn't just agreed to turn their gender studies department into a conversion therapy center slash gun range. By the way, I'm 42 years old.
I am not a bro.
How many cocks does a guy have to suck to stop being called a bro? All right. Very good. Very good. On Monday, MIT joined Princeton, Brown, Caltech, and the University of Illinois, among others, in suing the Department of Energy for slashing research funding. There is a chance that Brown University got swept up on all this by accident. When Trump was asking which foreign students to target, he said the Brown ones. So probably just a misunderstanding, that's all.
The president of Princeton said in a statement, Harvard's objections to the letter it received are rooted in the American tradition of liberty, a tradition essential to our country's universities. Good point, Princeton, he said, as the bile slowly rose in his throat. Indiana University started a push for the Big Ten to form a mutual defense pact for when they inevitably start being targeted. You know things are bad when we're doing NATO, but for Midwestern colleges. What if this ends with Sparty the Spartan and Biff the Wolverine kissing?
Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. I'm not a bro. I had to Google the mascots. Point is, fighting is the only way. If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to freeze your federal funding and threaten your broadcast license. There's only one thing to do, and it's to tell that mouse to go fuck itself. All right?
It brings me no pleasure to say that we are in common cause with the ultra wealthy, feckless lawyers of corporate law firms and trustees of elite colleges and the boardrooms of multinational media companies. But we are whether they know it or admit it. And that's clarifying. That could even be inspiring if we let it. We are all in this together now, whether we like it or not. And for those who don't yet accept that, we have to prove how powerful we are, too.
Columbia was more afraid of Trump than their students, faculty, and alumni. These law firms were more afraid of Trump than of their staff and clients. Disney was more afraid of Trump than of their reporters and producers and their audience. That has to change and it has to change quickly because all of us together are far more powerful than Trump will ever be. If Trump picks off his enemies one by one, he wins. If he can't, he loses. It's that simple. And if I can speak positively of Harvard University, a blight on this nation-
A school that rejected me twice. Anything is possible. All right. Sure. On Monday, Vice President J.D. Vance tried to lift up the college football playoffs national championship trophy during an event at the White House, but did not succeed. So good. Here's what makes this work comedically.
He's so incredibly careful. He really takes his time trying to get a good grip. He does his absolute best, and it all falls apart anyway. A trained French clown couldn't have done this funnier. I love that as hard as he tries to fight it, J.D. Vance can't stop his essence from coming out. Like, this is his essence. Remember when he went to that donut store, and he was like, I would like donut, please. Yeah.
And he just fucking sucked the life out of the room. Like, the man is the vice president of the United States, but his essence is unchanged. And I think that's beautiful. And I think whatever it is, whatever that space between how he imagines himself or how he wants to be perceived and what's actually inside of him, that space is what makes his movement so strange. He's not in touch with his fucking body. It's awesome. It's awesome.
Speaking of clowns, a Fox News host on Wednesday related this charming anecdote about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Okay, Pete Hegseth would have a bagel with cream cheese. He would drop it. It would land upside down, the cream cheese on the floor, and he would pick it up. I'm like, wait, is there any hair on there? It is so gross, and he would just pop it in his mouth. There's also a rumor that Pete did not wash his hands after he said that. He said that one time on air. It seems Pete Hegseth is the victim of a schmear campaign.
I really don't like equating eating off the floor with not washing your hands after the bathroom. Those are very different. That's not to say there isn't a clear rule that Hegseth is breaking about dropping food on the floor. If it's dry, let it fly. If it's wet, you will regret. I eat food off the floor.
You want to judge me? You fucking judges? You got your robes and gavels ready to judge me? I'll eat food off the floor. I ate fucking beef jerky off the floor today. I was opening one of those beef chomps. You know, it's basically pellets for people that work in an office.
You know what I'm talking about? Chomps. They're everywhere. I was opening it and I don't like touching the chomps because they're very beefy. And it's just, you're just going to, you just, they're beefy. And so I was trying to open it carefully. Flies out onto the floor. I was in a conversation with Kennedy at the time. Pick it off the ground. I eat it. I'm fucking high traffic area. A lot of dogs. I don't care because it's dry. It's fine. It's wet. No, that's absorbing. That's pulling it up. That's done. That's fucking done.
You're throwing, you drop a fucking cookie on the floor, dry cookie, dry floor. You're throwing it in the garbage. Really? Wow. To live with that kind of fucking privilege. Being grossed out is a form of privilege. Think about something that grosses you out. That's somebody's job.
There's not a thing that grosses you out in this world that is not, there's not somebody who is paid every day to put their hand in that thing. I'm a little bit of a bro. Speaking of dangerous hobbies, Blue Origin's first all-female flight with Gayle King and Katy Perry aboard lifted off on Monday and returned safely from the technical edge of space about 10 minutes later.
It's a woman's world and we're lucky to be rimming on it. I don't know. There's a fair amount of backlash, and not just from anonymous internet trolls, but even from celebrities like Olivia Munn who said, what's the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride?
Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they going to do up there that has made it better for us down here? Really well said. Here's Emily Ratajkowski. That space mission this morning, that's in time shit. Like this is beyond parody. Saying that you care about Mother Earth and it's about Mother Earth and you're going up in a spaceship.
that is built and paid for by a company that's single-handedly destroying the planet. Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space. For what? For what was the marketing there? And then to try to make it like, I'm disgusted, literally, I'm disgusted. A day later, King responded to the backlash. Time one of those goes up.
I'd love to go, but the first question on the Blue Origin application is, are you Gayle King? And the second question is, are you willing to have sex with Jeff Bezos? No.
And I am, but that's not the point. I want to go to space. It's 11 minutes, and then you get to go to space. In other news, Florida woman Kimberly Schlapper, nope, has been arrested for buying and selling human bones on Facebook Marketplace. Her defense, she didn't know, was illegal. Now for a game we call Can You Spell Kimberly?
I have $100 right here. Sir, can you spell Kimberly? Yeah. Let's hear it. My dyslexic ass. K-I-F. Wrong. Thank you for playing. Can you spell Kimberly? It's spelled K-Y-M-B-E-R-L-E-E. Florida. Florida, baby. Ba-ba-ba-da.
Residents of a small Michigan town on Sunday lined up in a human change to help a bookshop move its inventory to a new storefront a block away, one book at a time. Said one guy trying to get to work, what the fuck is this shit? Personally, I don't think there's any good reason for them to arrange a human centipede style, but the books have a new home and that's all that matters. Look, this is just a sweet story about a small town coming together, so there's no need to crunch the numbers and get all analytical about it.
According to the report, the book brigade was about 300 people, and moving 9,100 books took just under two hours. So that's 120 minutes, which makes it 36,000 people minutes to move 9,100 books, which means that it was about four minutes of effort per person per book. The walk from the old location at 108 East Middle Street to its new location on 119 South Main Street is about 400 feet, as I've mapped out here. LAUGHTER
So the round trip is 800 feet. 800 feet in four minutes comes out to a little over two miles per hour, a very chill pace to walk one book at a time. But if you were to do around 30 books, as each person would have to do, you're walking four and a half miles. You're getting your steps in, all right? And that would be nice because it would be people and not books going for a little bit of a walk, which we need. But if each person took two books, which seems like a pretty reasonable baseline...
Each volunteer would end up walking about two miles and the whole transfer would have been done in under an hour. This just in, I'm a virgin again. Damn it. My virginity has returned. And finally, two Belgian teens were arrested for smuggling 5,000 ants out of Kenya. My God, please think of the uncles. Nah, it was bugs. It was bugs. As of this recording, the Belgians have been charged with second degree ants in the pants.
That's it. All right. Next up, Bradley Whitford's here. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Love It or Leave It is brought to you by Armra Colostrum. We're always talking guts on this show.
So why not give your gut its best foot forward with Armoura Colostrum? Probiotics and other supplements are touted as a gut health solution, but most products on the market are dead before they even reach your gut. Armoura Colostrum naturally fortifies your entire gut wall system and optimizes your whole body microbiome, which helps guard against irritants that can trigger digestive issues and compromise your immune system. Research has shown that Colostrum helps to enhance nutrient absorption. Armoura Colostrum can help stabilize blood sugar levels, modulate hormones,
and ignite your metabolism. Colostrum bioactives have been shown to reactivate hair follicle stem cells and activate collagen production, promoting hair growth and enhancing skin radiance. You hear that? Radiance. Plus, we've worked out a special offer for our audience. Receive 15% off your first order. Go to tryarmra.com slash loveit or enter loveit to get 15% off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A dot com slash loveit, code loveit.
Three distinct all-electric Cadillacs. Some drive them for the performance. Others drive them for the range. And some drive them because it's the only way to make an entrance. Three different ways to turn every drive into an occasion. Whatever your reason, there's never been a better time to say, let's take the Cadillac. The all-electric Cadillac family of vehicles. Escalade IQ, Optic, and Lyric.
And we're back! You know him, you love him. Star of stage and screen. It's the one, the only, Bradley Whitford. Hi, thank you for being here. My pleasure. I'm a big fan. I gotta say, I haven't heard anything because the green room is hot. It's really fun in there. Oh yeah, it's good times. Good group. How's it going out here? It's pretty good. They're a good crowd. It's a good crowd tonight. It's good. I needed it.
I needed their support. Hey, you're in the sixth and final season of Handmaid's Tale. Yes. What are you cheering for? Right, it's a little bit like... Fascism?
Now, it premiered in 2017. Is it weird to work on a show that's gotten... It got briefly less and then more prescient? Is it strange that the prescience curve has changed? There was a radical prescience curve before.
Yeah, it's very weird. I mean, are we supposed to be funny? You can be funny, but you don't have to be. No, no, no, no, no. This show creates space for humor, but also deep meaning and purpose. Deep meaning and purpose. You know, it's a very weird time for this. At the same time, a moment to think about the importance of storytelling and the limits of storytelling.
When the show started, they were shooting the pilot before Trump won that election in 2016. And the idea of women's health care, Roe v. Wade being overturned, was absolutely unthinkable. And in the course of doing this show...
You know, last year's, this is an amazing statistic, 64,000 pregnant rape victims in the United States, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, do not have access to abortion care in this country. So it's literally a Handmaid's episode. This is not the funny part of the...
of the stuff. It's very weird. Thanks for signposting that for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't expecting a laugh. I feel like I should jump to a perhaps funny anecdote from The Handmaid's Tale. Sure. Okay.
You don't have to, though. You should announce segues always. I love that. I think it's fine. It was a wonderful creative experience, and we shot in Canada, and it's a very difficult material with a very sweet, genetically, stereotypically super sweet Canadian crew, and...
there was a moment where the very sweet assistant director came up and said, okay, I don't want to rush you, but I think we should get the nooses on the girls. So there's moments like that. Oh, we got to cut the peg fell out of her mouth. Shit like that. Jesus.
There's something that the show, you know, the show to me, I was thinking about this. So I read the novel before the show. When people say, oh, the, and it almost has become a cliche, like, oh, we're living in the handmaid's tale, right? They're speaking of a specific kind of, I think, Christian nationalism and its dangers. And I understand that. But the passage that has stuck with me the longest since I read it years ago is it's a passage about
the danger of humanizing terrible people. That in a lot of our
right? You're that, that you're supposed to get to know people, learn about them. What, what, what really drives them? Who's the real person, right? When it's their behaviors and their actions that all that matter. And there's this beautiful passage about, uh, what it would have been like to be married to a monster and your way of rationalizing being supportive of a monster. And, oh, the way that that monster is kind to the dog and has a nickname for the dog, right? Sweet moments. And the show generally has done a brilliant job, uh,
of exploring that danger. And I just wonder how you thought about that when your job is to inhabit a terrible, deeply flawed and broken person who seems to be a little bit more self-aware about their evil than a lot of others. I always thought of this guy as kind of a...
you know, McNamara fog of war guy whose big brain obliterated his humanity and maybe his humanity is fighting, trying, trying to get out. I mean, I, I, I'm always thinking of sort of parallels with what is, what is, uh, I don't know if you're aware of the political situation now, but, uh, tune in, tune in, tune out. Uh, but, uh,
We are up against, you don't need my insight on this, but we're up against fascism. When I hear the sort of post-mortem about, you know, we can't be so woke, you know, that lost the election for us. You know, we're dealing with fascists here. It would be like, you know, saying it's a messaging problem to the Jewish resistance, you know. Let's...
Lay off the anti-Semitism because there's a lot of economic anxiety out there in the Alps. Right, right, in the Alps. That we need to understand. And Dolomites. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so when I hear James Carville, you know, going, we got to stop talking about, you know, you know, this queer shit. You know, it's like. It's like he's in the room with us. Wow. Wow.
That's professional training. Yes. It's a lot of training. I smell etouffee. That's crazy.
Yes, that's what you got to understand. But I think about that moment now. What's interesting in the show, and I don't, you know, there is hope in the show. Don't let the bastards grind you down. The key furnace in the show, which I think is something really important to remember now that is the center of...
June's character is that despair is a luxury our children cannot afford and actions the antidote to despair under the most extraordinary conditions. But thank you. So thanks, Amy. This is your wife. I recognize the laugh. Thanks, baby.
It's nice to have someone in your corner. Yeah, it is. If you can make one person in an audience laugh. Yeah. Like Lady Gaga once said. So we were... It's interesting that you are part of, I think, one of the most hopeful and optimistic shows ever made, Handmaid's Tale. And then... No, the West Wing, obviously. And...
And I went and looked this up and West Wing premiered in 1999. So did The Sopranos. And it felt like there were these two directions in front of us for television. One was, this is a show where everybody's a hero. And then this is a show where everybody's a piece of shit. Yeah.
We chose to go in that direction. And I wonder, like, what it... There's a real nostalgia, I think, for West Wing right now and some of the more kind of less cynical television of that era. And I wonder, like, have you thought about that? Do you feel that when you're... Whether it's in The Handmaid's Tale or in whatever else you've been doing? Yeah, I mean, I think about that. I remember Tommy Shlammy. That's his name. You can...
You can giggle. One of the great TV directors. One of the great TV directors. His name is Tommy Shlomi. Tommy Shlomi. He could go by Thomas Shlomi. Right, but he doesn't. But why would you? Why would you? And I remember, because The Sopranos was on at the same time. By the way, I love The Sopranos. I remember we would always be accused of being this sentimental, hopeful group.
unrealistically hopeful show. And that is certainly true in some ways, but I remember thinking the bigger fantasy is like a mob guy in therapy. You know, not that there are six people around the president who believe in him. Right, right. Like what's, yeah, what's a funny, what's a less real world to live in? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody's fighting to do the right thing.
But I remember because what they were doing on The Sopranos, I remember Tommy saying, I can't believe what they're doing. He is going, our hero is going completely dark and things like Breaking Bad, it became a whole genre.
I do think that that switches at certain times. You know, I guess shows like Ted Lasso are unapologetically hopeful. And it took off. Yeah, yeah. But how's the world? Pretty bad. Speaking of the world. Yes. I don't know if you can tell from my small frame and under eye bags, but the news is unrelenting.
Which is why we want you to help our listeners keep track of all the important and devastating and fun news of the week that didn't make the monologue in a hilarious recurring segment we call News It or Lose It. Oh, there we go.
First question. Yes. This week, the Wall Street Journal published an article about Elon Musk's 14 known children with four different women and his desire to sire a legion of babies. According to Ashley St. Clair, mother of Musk's most recent child, Romulus, the head of Doge, told her to reach legion level before blank will need to use surrogates. Is it before A, we leave for Mars, B, before global population collapse, C, before the apocalypse? No.
We've broken Bradley Woodford. No, it's C. It's the apocalypse. Oh, okay. To reach legion level before the apocalypse, we will need to use surrogates. Woof. Next question. Next question. Nearly every member of a so-called elite squad of nerds from this federal department collectively resigned this month after being steamrolled by Doge. An elite squad of nerds from which federal department? Hmm.
Oh, there's no hints. There's no categories. There's no hints. Uh, uh, was it, uh, IRS? No, it was the Pentagon, but it could have been the IRS. Almost the entire stamp of the Pentagon's defense digital service outfit decided to bounce on mass after Elon's boys bulldozed their office. Uh,
One Pentagon official told Politico that Doge's incursion has been catastrophic. They're not really using AI. They're not really driving efficiency. What they're doing is smashing everything. The best way to put it is, I think we either die quickly or we die slowly. Jesus fucking Christ. Are you using AI at all? Like chat GPT? Yeah. Oh, man. It's scary. It's getting very smart. It's... You know what? I was shooting a thing in Budapest, speaking of...
Warnings. And I made a joke because I'm playing a minor character in this thing when James Garfield gets shot. And I said, I think this would be a funny time for James Blaine, the character, less interesting character that I play, to give a big speech. And our writer, Mike Mikowski, said,
up to me a minute later and showed me like a 10 minute speech that James Blaine could have given at James Garfield's memorial. So it worries me for the writers. I worry about that too. I also worry that you're shooting it in Budapest. Yeah.
Have you felt like there's this less and less of shooting in Los Angeles? Yeah. It's a huge fucking problem. It's a huge problem. I had always thought that the reason there was less and less shooting here was maybe a political problem that in a state...
wrestling with the need for more funding for fundamental things like education, that giving Spielberg an incentive to shoot didn't play well. But I do not understand because...
It seems like filmmaking is a real economic engine in all over the world. So I don't know. Is Gavin going to fix that? He's got it. Right now, it feels like Democrats... By the way, fuck you, Gavin Newsom, for the... For the podcast? No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for the podcast, but the transports bullshit. Fuck you, man. I don't think...
I, on the, yeah, I'm frustrated on the, the, it just doesn't feel like,
There's an emergency. California, Los Angeles, the film industry, we were the epicenter of the world's culture. It was incredibly important for our economy. It was incredibly important for our culture. It's what made this city a world capital. And it's all leaving very quickly. And they're debating increasing a tax credit.
But it used to be the idea was there was a lot of stuff filming here and you could apply for the tax credit. And if you got it, it would help. But now if you don't get the tax credit, you do not film here. Right. So then what's the real tax rate for? Because nothing is filming here. Why are we just increasing a tax credit? Shouldn't there be a bigger policy, simpler, easier, faster so that more shit like it is an emergency. They are not treating it like an emergency. Oh, it has been, you know, as it's been devastating. Yeah.
To, you know, the crew that I lived with, you know, on West Wing, they can't do that anymore here. Well, this is the thing that's really dangerous. Obviously, it affects people's lives, but the advantage Los Angeles has is...
There's the most talented crew in the world lives here because this is where they built their lives. And that advantage can go away. And once we lose it, we can't get it back. We still have it right now. But we won't have it for much longer. It's a crisis. I'm really like, I've got to get the mayor on this show. Let me take back the momentarily, fuck you, Gavin, and respectfully ask our governor to...
solve this issue. I have heard that
in connection to the fire rebuild, that there is some emergency changes coming to that system. But it seems like it should be something we can depend on here. Yeah, I like Gavin Newsom. I think he's very smart. I think he understands these problems. I just like, I want...
I want it to feel more like our leadership in this state understand that we have a very short window to bring the production back and, and increasing the pool of money for a tax credit is not enough. It's too late. We've, we're too far past that. We need to like actually really incentivize to bring people back and that the, and the studios and the filmmakers and the producers need to need to have a line into the city and the state for what they need to
to make things happen here. Because I do think part of the problem also is in the same way that they've had to do a bunch of emergency rules to allow people to rebuild after these fires, there's a bunch of ways that California and Los Angeles are just fucking slow. It's not even about money. It's just about how hard it is to get the permits, get the permissions, get it all set up here. So anyway, she's been bugging me. All right. They are building a, there's a great big Apple studio that is coming online very soon. Yeah, that's good news.
In lighter news, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was speaking to her constituents at a town hall recently. One of them shouted that the congresswoman was a butch body blank. A, butch body bigot, B, butch body bully, or C, butch body brain worm? Butch body bully. Bigot? He said bigot. Give him the ding. Yeah. Let's roll the clip. Butch body bigot! Nice. Butch body bigot! Let's do one more question.
Crosswalks in Palo Alto were recently hacked to speak with two wealthy voices. Name one. Wealthy voices? Yeah, the voices of wealthy people. Uh, I don't know. Elon? Yes! Somebody hacked them to make this sound. Wait. Hi, this is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering. You know they say money can't buy happiness. That's exciting. Yeah, that's beautiful.
Thank you, Bradley. Thank you. He'll be back. The final season of Handmaid's Tale is available now on Who. Coming up, it's Jessica Curson and Bob the Drag Queen. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.
Love It or Leave It is brought to you by Helix. I have a Helix mattress. I have a Dawn Lux. It's extremely comfortable. I got a couple. Yeah, they're great. They help my sleep. They also just make the end of the day really nice. You kind of finish all your tasks, your various tasks, and then you get to just watch Real Housewives in your very comfortable bed. What a dream. So nice. Wish I could do that right now. So how do you know which Helix mattress works best for you and your body? Take the Helix sleep quiz and find your perfect mattress in under two minutes. I took the Helix sleep quiz, as I said, and I was matched.
with a Dawn Lux because I wanted something that felt firm but plush and I sleep on my stomach and my back and my side. I sleep in all the positions. The Helix lineup offers 20 unique mattresses including the award-winning Lux and Ultra Premium Elite collections. Helix Plus, a mattress designed for big and tall sleepers. Helix Kids,
A mattress designed for growing bodies endorsed by child sleep experts. Helix knows there's no better way to test out a new mattress than by sleeping on it in your own home. That's why they offer a 100-night trial and a 10- to 15-year warranty to try out your new Helix mattress. Plus, your personalized mattress is shipped straight to your door free of charge. Go to helixsleep.com slash loveit for 20% off site-wide. That's helixsleep.com slash loveit for 20% off site-wide. helixsleep.com slash loveit. Three distinct all-electric Cadillacs.
And we're back!
Please welcome to the stage, the incredible Jessica Kersen and the phenomenal Bob the Drag Queen. Hi. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Welcome back. Way over right there is great. Hi. These pictures they chose of us are so funny. What'd you say? These pictures they chose of us. Oh, it's gone now. No, I just saw them. I look like a thin Hispanic girl. Oh, I see it. Look. Yeah.
That's amazing. It's like me with the most makeup I've ever worn. I took a picture. I think they're both good pictures. No, you don't like them? No, it's okay. I hate every picture of myself, so it doesn't matter which one. You know what really helped me? What?
and then didn't help me and I still have the same problem I always did. So it didn't help at all? Not at all. But Fran Lebowitz was talking in that documentary she made and she said how she used to hit every picture but within a couple years when you look back in the picture you just think, oh boy, I looked young. And you no longer remember the pictures you liked or didn't like because they all are just you being young. And it's, then you think, well then, so I look worse now. So no matter, you know? Yeah. Yeah, time's not kind. No. Time's not kind. Sometimes I think,
If I look in the mirror and I look really tired and I think, God, I look like shit today, one year from now, that's my best. Yeah. I have a theory that we're not meant to look at our faces as often as we look at our faces. 100%. I don't look at my face a lot. I'm serious. I do my makeup for hours at a time. Oh, yeah, you do. You ever know in movies they always go crazy while doing their makeup? They're always like, it's because you're not meant to look at your face that often. That's right. Yeah.
Oh, wow. My hot takes. That was a weird pause. Bob, hey, you wrote a novel. It's called Harriet Tubman Live in Concert. And that's funny. Yes.
I get how on the surface, Harriet Tubman live in concert sounds like an SNL sketch. I understand that. But when you read the book, it's actually, there's a lot of reverence for Harriet Tubman, for what we know what black people have gone through and are continuing to go through in America. So everything I do, I'm going to have a little bit of humor in it. I mean, even when my mom died, my friend Zachary Towers called me. And I was actually really distraught. Obviously, my mother passed away.
and I was really distraught, and I was just crying, and he was crying with me, and he and I like to rib each other all the time, and he goes, if there's anything I can do for you, please let me know, and I was like, if you could just quit comedy. So, you know, I'm going to use humor in everything that I do. There is humor in the book. Like on the day after my mom passed away, it was kind of crazy. I think of you as such a performer person,
I have trouble imagining you like sitting and writing for hours at a time without losing your mind. Is that fair? Well, I wrote this. It took me four years to write this book, which is embarrassing when you realize it's only like 240 pages. I want to say I don't think that's embarrassing at all. That's what everyone says. You finished a book. I did. Look at this. It's a book.
And it really is in my voice. When you read the book, if you're familiar with me, you're like, oh my God, you can hear me reading the book or you can hear me writing the book. And I mean, honestly, it's really like comedians, we write. I mean, we don't wing it. I mean, Jessica's the queen of winging it, actually. Like literally, she has built an empire, but she also is a brilliant joke writer as well. So, you know, I have
I have three comedy specials out. So I've written, I've written hours and hours of, uh, of material. So, I mean, I do write, but I, this is my first time doing this form of prose for sure. And with a difficult writing, so many sex scenes for Harriet Tubman. Oh,
My God. Putting yourself in that mindset. Not a single sex scene in the book. I mean, it's pretty. I mean, it's beautiful. I'm not reading it. It's a beautiful love. You're right. I'm sorry to say that. There's love making scenes with Harriet Tubman. You will be haunted, rest assured. What? I'm sorry. Harriet Tubman isn't a woman that had sex? Your ghost is not. You're saying that, yes, she's a revered figure, but is it not possible that Harriet Tubman loved to fuck? Your ghost will not make it on the Underground Railroad. Your ghost is not going to make the trip on the Underground Railroad. I know.
I rubbed one out to her once. She actually was a bit of a sex symbol. So Harry Tubman actually used her feminine wiles in her journeys back and forth. So it's actually not far-fetched to Harry Tubman because, you know, you usually got to do what you want. And whenever that didn't work, she also carried a gun. That is true. Harry Tubman carried a... That's amazing. So even in the afterlife, you know, she would, you know, she takes care of business. Jessica, after seeing your special, uh, uh,
Kids know nothing and you have to teach them everything. That seems like a slog. It is a lot. I didn't have any of my kids because I don't want to ruin this temple. But it's a lot. It is because I'm older. So, but I mean, it's amazing. But they'll be like, pick me up. And I'm like, pick me up. I've been on the floor since yesterday. Yeah. Yeah.
My favorite thing to do is to go to people's houses who have kids and then like have fun with the kids in a way that the parents will not want to do and then leave. Like my friend Jasmine has this daughter and we do this thing called, she has a child, we do this thing called taco where you go taco and then you pick the kid up and you fold them like a taco. And the kid go taco and then we go. And then Jasmine's like, don't fuck, I'm not doing that when you leave.
I'm not doing that when you fucking leave. That's really funny. Yeah, I always like, because the parents, when you visit, between like three and five, it's before they've been handed off to the government, you know, for part of the day. You're still on it. And I would love just sort of, you can, like three and, kids between three and five, you can really kind of, you can lift them, you know? So you can kind of spin them around and make them real dizzy. Yeah, yeah. And then they slam into a wall. It's hilarious. Parents hate it.
Yeah. Parents don't, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to get married soon. You think that's a mistake? Yes. Oh, you do? No. It's an immediate yes. Are you sure? Yeah, 100%. But you know what I've, one thing I've learned, I don't know, how many long-term relationships were you in? I've only been in them. I'm a lesbian. Right. So, yeah. They, yeah, they've ended after two years and stayed with them for 12. That's how. Right. Right. But,
But for me, it's like you have to have at least two long-term relationships because it's only in the second long-term relationship that you figured out what the problems in the first term, first relationship were your fault. Yeah, that's true.
They weren't, but I was always told. Oh, they weren't your fault? I mean, I had, yeah. I mean, I, of course, had a part in it, but I was always told that every single thing was my fault. I was with someone who couldn't take responsibility or own her part. Oh, wow. This is getting really upsetting. But I'm with someone now who's the nicest and most amazing, caring person. You said that last time! I don't know. I never said that. Okay.
I'm kidding. Yeah, she's here. My new partner, yeah. That's good. Yeah. Forget what Bob said. No, we joke all the time, yeah. I joke, I joke, I can't. We joke. Bob and Jessica, as things get progressively worse in America, conservative media gets more and more panicked about gender and sexuality because if they didn't, they'd have to cover the news.
I'm running out of things to say about it, which is why I wanted you two to say it instead. As we all weigh in on the question, will this successfully distract straight conservatives from the many terrifying real problems affecting our country? In a segment we're calling Look Over They Them There. I love... Bob and Jessica sounds like a straight couple. Bob and Jessica are coming over for dinner. It sounds like the hosts of a morning TV show. Yeah, it does. And this morning with Bob and Jessica. In Cincinnati. Doesn't it?
And that's the traffic report. Back over to you, Bob and Jessica. It does. Yeah, it does. It really does. First up, the claim that sitting in front of a screen makes you a woman. What? Yep. To be fair, Jessica is sitting in front of a screen. So one out of three chances it will work. Let's roll the clip.
When you sit behind a screen all day, it makes you a woman. Studies have shown this. Studies have shown this. And if you're out working, like, building robots like Harold, you are around other guys. You're not around HR ladies and lawyers that gives you estrogen. What do you do? Let me finish, judge. What a faggot. Can't we just look at the beginning of the clip when he goes, sitting behind the screen all day? Yeah, sashay.
That's amazing. That's good. That man knows the flavor of penis. If he did a blind tasting, that is dick. I know it is. Right, it's like, okay, Diet Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper, penis, penis, penis. No, he'd be like, Diet Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper, Jim? But he sits in front of a screen all day. He's on the news. I think he might be full of shit. Yeah.
Jessica, your Hulu special is called I'm the Man. Yeah. Is that because you do stand-up and you don't work behind a screen? That's, like, because of the term, like, I'm the man. Like, I am a female comic who's very powerful and fearless, and I, yeah, so, like, society's, you know, view of what a man is. Also, every time I've been with a woman, a straight guy has said, who's the man? And I'm like, I guess it's me because I don't listen and I'm dead inside. Woo-hoo!
I was at Taco Bell recently, not to brag. I'm there every night. I pulled up to the drive-thru and the lady at the drive-thru was like, welcome to Taco Bell. And I was like, hi, can I get the Doritos Locos and Mountain Dew Zero Baja Blast?
And then she said, yes, ma'am, absolutely. Just drive up to the next window. And I was like, I don't think my voice is that feminine. Okay, sure, whatever. So I was like, I'm not going to correct her. It's fine. We pull up to the window and I look. It's a man. Because I said, yes, ma'am. We pulled up two men. We were like, what do we do?
We didn't say anything. I just said, thank you, ma'am. He said, yes, ma'am, on your way. Kiss, kiss, kiss. That's so great. Kiss, kiss, kiss. That's an opportunity to kiss. Yeah. You should kiss. Mountain Dew Zero. That's a cursed drink. No, no, no. Let me tell you right now. I'm not one to go on and on about beverages. That being said...
I'm pre-diabetic, so I can't drink sugar full drinks. So if you're out there looking for a great sugar-free beverage, I'm going to rank them for you. So at the very, very top of the list, you have Taco Bell's Baja Blast Mountain Dew Zero. This is elite. You can't even tell it's zero sugar. Then under there, you have Diet Dr. Pepper, okay? That's a good one. Absolutely amazing. Below that, you're going to have Coke Zero and Pepsi Max. But over here in the other world, there's this group of men
and they drink Diet Coke. I like Diet Sprite. Diet Sprite is great. Diet... Dad? Diet Coke is a cult. It's crazy. It is a cult. No, drink it with anything. They're like, good morning, I have a sausage and cheese and a Diet Coke. Yeah. So, in my fridge at home, we have...
Diet Coke and one level down is all caffeine-free Diet Coke. Silver can, gold can. Because silver Diet Cokes, you can drink until 3 o'clock. Gold Diet Cokes, you can drink 3 o'clock till morning. I would say, you have reached a certain age when the caffeine in Diet Coke is sending you into a... When you're like, if I drink this Diet Coke, I'm not going to get to bed until 3 o'clock.
You are a woman of a certain age. Yeah, I am. I am of that... Whatever age you think that is, I have hit it. I am on the other side of that age. If I get anywhere near a full caffeinated Diet Coke after 4 o'clock, after 4 o'clock, two days are ruined. That's amazing. That is such a crisis. If I have a Diet Coke after 3 o'clock...
The next day is fucked. I'm not better the day after that. That's how fucked I am. I imagine you have a Diet Coke and someone walks in like, are they filming Breaking Bad in here? What is going on? This guy's cracked out in here. Next up, the idea that tariffs equal girlfriends. This week, Vox published an article titled, The Strange Link Between Trump's Tariffs and Insanity Ideology Meet the Lonely Men Who Think Tariffs Will Get Them Girlfriends.
Apparently, it's part of a larger online hysteria that claims women have cushy email jobs, providing them with a level of financial security which keeps them from having to marry and have sex with socially dysfunctional men. If tariffs tank the economy, women will be forced to marry men for economic survival, thus righting a terrible wrong against the duds.
Can someone kill me? I'm serious. Can someone just kill me tonight? I don't think maggots know what a tariff is. I don't either. I genuinely don't think they know what it is, what it does, who pays for it, where it comes from, who came first, the tariff or the product. They have no clue. And they will say it does anything. Tariffs cure cancer. Tariffs gives you girlfriends. Tariffs gives you wings. Don't drink a tariff after 3 p.m.
Yeah, I just like it's just like you're you're sitting in your you're in front of your computer and your parents house becoming a woman becoming a woman. You're gaming life isn't gone your way. You think that tariffs are going to fuck up the marketing jobs for the women and turn you into what a factory foreman.
I hate to say it, but those guys who are not getting laid, not only could tariffs not get you laid, Jesus Christ could not get those guys laid. Yeah, tariffs, that's your problem. That's your problem. You got Jersey bed sheets. Get it together. It's terrible.
That was absolutely... No, hey, hey, hey, come on. That was horrible. That was terrible. If you committed, we would have been in. Yeah, that's true. I said it's terrible is what I said. See? It worked. It worked. We're just terrific. Let's do... Next up, maybe the TSA body scanner turns you gay. Woo! Woo!
Oh my God. In a recent podcast clip that went viral, a Christian nationalist pastor expressed concern that the TSA body scanner would turn him gay with its gay beam. I had to be molested at the airport to go to Florida, right? Just to get on an airplane because I'm not going to go through the gay beam machine. I didn't let CJ do it. I wouldn't let him do it. I said, you're getting patted down too, buddy. I don't want them turning you gay.
I can't. Oh, no. I'm sorry. I just can't take it. I just don't think it's the beam, my friend. I mean... You go through, like, I'm about to go through security, and you come out, and you're like, hello! I mean, we know that's not true because all gays have TSA pre-check. Everyone knows. We would never stand in this machine. Woo!
You don't do that. Such an important point. We walk by, we're like, it's like you feel so VIP, you're like... Looking at the straight men kick their shoes off, taking out their laptops and their fucking iPad Pros and their Nintendo Switches. And finally, can white men, can white... No.
Don't finish it. The answer is no. I also, I misread it. It's not can white men, it's can men wear white jeans? Yeah, no, because they shit themselves so much. Not straight men. Yeah, maybe they're straight men shitting themselves. The Trump administration has ignored the Supreme Court, sent our nation into a constitutional crisis, attacked our universities, erased our history, but Fox News can't cover that, so they have to ask important questions like can men wear white jeans? I will say...
In their defense. No, finish the thought. Finish the thought. White jeans are, like, hot. Like, when a man wears white jeans, I think to myself, there's no way this man would ever be straight. A straight man would not think to wear white jeans, for starters. And if they do, they would be covered in mustard and ketchup. Beef jerky.
Red Bull Cheeto dust. They don't have the tact it takes to wear white jeans. It's really, the white jeans, they're high risk, high reward. If it's working, you feel like you're crushing life. Look at me in these white jeans. The other thing about the white jeans is if the sneakers are off, you look insane. You look crazy. Everything has to be right.
A lot of lesbians don't wear white jeans either, I just realized. Huh. I love that no one just responded to that. Why do you think that is? I feel very alone. I don't know. I mean, I do, but I don't know. I don't know. Let's just go over something else. Can you just agree with me? It's true. I have never seen a lesbian wear white jeans.
And if I see it, I'll say, not a lesbian. You can't fool me, bitch. You're a lesbian. No. We gotta get these cards checked. She's from Lebanon. Oh my God, you're Lebanese. Yeah, I'm Jewish from Lebanon. So anyway, I got a lot of questions about chicken tarna, so we're in good shape. Chicken tarna?
Are you Jewish? Yeah. Me? Oh. No, I'm not. Hey, do me a favor. Never ask anyone that. I was like, because you were, I was like, that's Jewish stuff he's saying. I was like, Jessica, are you okay? Well, you didn't say, are you a Jew? That would have been. Yeah, I didn't say that. Yeah. You have to show the book. Oh, that's amazing what you just said.
Just show my book. I mean, I've been getting laughs the whole time. Can you fucking show my book? The book is Harriet Tubman Live in Concert, a novel, Bob the Drag Queen. New York Times bestseller. It's a bestseller. It's true. Bestseller. Finally...
Finally, a story about what it would be like if Harriet Tubman was around now. Exactly, exactly. And we've got some great acclaim. Whoopi Goldberg loves the book. Karamo loves the book. All the black people. Yeah. Great. You gonna ask me if I'm black? Are you? You're black.
Now I'm feeling like, should I have asked at the beginning? Yeah, it wouldn't have been offensive at all. It would have been weird, but it would have been offensive. Like certain people you can ask. I met someone recently and I didn't ask her if she was black, but I did lean over and I was like, is she black? So I don't know if any of you watch, I don't watch Real Housewives.
Do any of you watch Real Housewives? I've been watching it, yeah. So I was on this TV show with one of the Real Housewives of Potomac. Her name is Robin. Yeah. And I didn't know her because she's so light-skinned. So I leaned over to another black person, Danielle Reyes, and I was like, is this bitch black? She is. Cool. Oh, what a relief that is. I'm also just thinking about, like, maybe one, like,
You're black and I knew that before I'd have to ask.
I'm just imagining how it would be received if everything about this novel was the same, but you were white. It'd be crazy. It would be crazy. So tell me about this fictionalized version of Harriet Tubman in the present. She's a rapper, I understand. So she comes back. So Harriet Tubman wants to continue her work as an abolitionist, right? Helping to get people to freedom. Now, Harriet Tubman actually did use music in her work as an abolitionist. She would go to the edge of the woods and she would sing a song very quietly. Not like in the Cynthia Erivo movie.
She's in the woods belting. Like, girl, you're going to get caught. No, girl. You go to the edge of the woods. You would sing a song very quietly. And then the nearest enslaved person would hear that song. And they would start singing. So you wouldn't get caught. Then everyone else starts singing. And that is a message that lets you know someone's going to be delivered tonight. Someone's going to be taking their journey. Someone's going to become a passenger on the Underground Railroad. So it's actually not far-fetched to imagine that Harriet Tubman would use it.
music in her work. And obviously the goalpost for freedom has moved, right? What freedom means is constantly moving, but it doesn't mean you don't keep moving with the goalpost. So Harriet Tubman is working with a semi-retired hip-hop producer named Darnell, and on the journey, she realized that he might not be free, and she's going to help him get to his freedom. That's beautiful. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. Bob's book, Harriet Tubman, live in concert is out now. Jessica's special, I'm the Man.
Hits Hulu on April 25th. Yeah. That's exciting. Yeah. Where did you film it? I filmed it in New York at Sony Hall. That's great. That's so amazing. Yeah.
I'm really proud of it. It's great. Yeah. No, it's really, it's different. You know, I pride myself on being very different on stage and, um, and I really am excited for the world to see it, you know, and I'm excited. It's with Hulu. They're incredible. That's cool. If you don't watch it, you're crazy. Jessica Kirsten is not only one of the funniest comedians of all time. She is the comedian that they call when someone needs to learn how to be a comedian. She is true. Am I lying?
I'm not lying. She is like a comedian's comedian. And you know how you know she's good? Because gay guys like her. Yeah. And we hate everyone. That's right. That's right. That's right. So check out the special. When we come back, we have one more segment. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy can feel like a big investment, but the state of your mind is just as important as your physical health. Let's talk numbers. Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session, which adds up fast. But with BetterHelp Online Therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session. With BetterHelp, you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and on time.
Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress. Your mental health is worth it, and now it's within reach.
We're therapy boys. We sure are. It's very helpful. It's benefited me. I just came from therapy. He just came from therapy. Look at that. Look at that. Doesn't he seem relaxed? He does actually. He does actually. There's a chill to him. For example, it's helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. It isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma.
With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with a click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, switch therapists at any time. Your well-being is worth it. Visit BetterHelp.com slash love it to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash love it. Three distinct all-electric Cadillacs. Some drive them for the performance. Others drive them for the range.
Hey everybody, welcome Bradley Whitford back on stage. Come back.
Hi, welcome back. Bradley Whitford, everybody. I was working on my Harriet Tubman audition. Hey, everybody. Before we get to our final...
Moments together. Quick notes. One, go to crooked.com slash store. We have new join or die pride merch. We want to get the pride merch out there so people can wear it during pride, getting ahead of the game. Really great. It's basically, look, the conservatives are trying to separate the peel the T off from the LGB. All right. And we got to keep the LGBT got to stick together. So.
Really great designs. They're awesome. We have an amazing designer, Zevi, and their whole team did an amazing job. So go to crooked.com slash store. Check out what our founding daddies would have wanted. All right.
Also, we've got a newsletter you can sign up for. Crooked.com slash daily. They're doing an amazing job. The team at What A Day does an amazing job on the podcast. They do an amazing job on What A Day, the newsletter. So check that out. Also, next week we're in D.C., which is already sold out. But we'll be back in L.A. on May 1st with Guy Branum, Beth Stelling, Edie Patterson. And so if you're in L.A., grab tickets at crooked.com slash events. All right. Now we're into our final segment.
It's been a joy to be here with Bob Jessica and Bradley Whitford. I like to say her full name. Gay icons and Bradley Whitford. So it's time to close out the show for a segment we're calling Questions About Being Gay, Lesbian, or Bradley Whitford. Here's how it works. If you have a question that you were ever too afraid to ask about what it's like to be gay or lesbian or Bradley Whitford...
Now is your chance. Our producer, Bill, is floating around with a mic. We'll take a couple questions. Then we'll get the fuck out of here. Any questions? I have a question for Bob. Okay. Bob.
You came onto my radar when you were out in New York City getting married to other drag queens? Oh, my God. I know. Yeah, it was called Drag Queen Weddings for Equality. This was, my God, maybe 15 years ago. And we used to go out every Saturday and do these protests in Times Square about inequality between the queer community and muggles. Yeah. So my question is, would you do that in today's society?
where we are now. Yeah, I mean, I am a very visibly queer person. I'm also a physically large person. I'm like 6'2", like a dainty 230. Also Trump's figures. Which I was saying, I need to go put on one of his golf outfits because that man is, we are not the same size. Yeah.
Donald Trump is not 220 pounds. Something like that. You're telling me I am 10 pounds heavier than Donald Trumpy Trump. Yes, I mean, so, I mean, yeah, I...
I certainly would. I mean, I still love to, you know, rebel. I used to do a lot of activism back in the day, like getting arrested and doing all these protests and stuff, because my voice was really small in terms of the world. So I had to make a lot of noise to be seen and to be heard. So I had to get arrested. I had to call the news there while I was getting arrested, that kind of stuff. And I remember doing this panel at DragCon, and this one lady was like, tweeting's not enough. Instagram posts are not enough. I'm like, bitch, not your shitty little tweets. Yeah.
No one follows you. Of course, yours aren't enough. But the thing is, everyone has to do their part, right? Everyone can't be in the streets marching. Everyone can't get arrested. It's also insanely ableist to be like, if you're not marching, bitch, some people can't even get out of their home. Their anxiety won't even let them leave the house.
So if everyone does their part, some people are going to be getting arrested. Some people are going to be causing scenes. Some people are going to be creating legislature. Some people are going to just be tweeting. Some people are going to be retweeting. Just do whatever it is that you can do. So it all moves the needle forward, in my humble opinion. I like that. This is a question for all of the panelists. The president has made a ton of executive orders. If you could make an executive order, what would you do? Get rid of him.
I would ban straight men from being flight attendants because I am 30,000 feet in the air. I want to feel comfortable. The last thing I want is like, nigga, you want some peanuts? I'm like... I ain't never wanted cranapple that bad.
I will be like, I'll be thirsty. On the 24-hour flight to Australia, I will rather starve than have a straight man give me a heated up Hungry Man meal. Bradley, you have any, you have any executive order? God, just give me a president without, like, creamsicle hair. It's very odd. I have a question about, so I'm bald, right? And when you have the full horse show, like Dr. Phil,
What do you say when you sit down at the barbershop? What are you saying to them? It's like a beard trim kind of thing. But is no one like, girl, just shave this part off. I'm questioning the communication going on between someone who will not just shave the back of their hair off. Because he's going to a barber. He's on TV all the time. Someone's doing his hair. I think he's going to a groomer.
I don't think he's going to a barber. Yeah, he's probably getting groomed and he's like, give me the summer cut. Yeah. It's hot out. My dad wore a toupee like that, so it's even more traumatizing. It seems like he has that and it's kind of swoopy, but also there's been reports about having scalp reduction surgery so that it closed part of the top. Oh my God. There's been a lot of different reports, but it's very clearly a very... I think that if we saw him, it would be kind of vaguely Merlin-like, you know, fully down. Is there ever a hair...
a toupee that works or... No, they have great toupees. Oh my God, toupees are brilliant these days. So I don't know why the fuck he's not going to get his hair done in a way that looks nice. But he thinks it looks good. It's all that delusional thinking. He thinks it looks good. He gets his suits intentionally. They look all ill-fitting, but they're intentionally made that way. He also knows, you ever see him on profile, he stands like this. Have you ever noticed that?
Like he's about to go in the pool. It's because he's wearing the heels. All the guys wear the heels. So he's leaning forward. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.
But also because men have decided that Pilates for fags and yoga is for fags, they all shuffle. They don't have any flexibility here. So they just shuffle because everything here is tight. So that's part of it too. My executive order of the week would be
I love, I've learned so much about cooking and I've learned so much about food from influencers. I really have. Nothing has been more helpful. I think it's an incredible tool for social media. I learn recipes. I think that like I've become a better cook faster because I have so much knowledge that I can draw on from seeing people chop and do things that I can just draw on, which I love. There are these incredible women making incredible dishes. They are beautiful chefs.
They are talented. I never want to see the men you're cooking for. Every time one of these incredible women finishes making a spectacular meal, they place it down in front of this fucking garbage bag of a man...
These women are in, they are clearly working out. They're up at five. They're taking care of this kid. Their skin is amazing. They're on top of every single part of their day. And they put this food, this little-ish, in front of a fucking ungrateful beast. And it fucking kills the fantasy. Like when Martha Stewart went to jail. She wasn't perfect anymore. That's my executive order. I don't want to see your husbands. Okay.
Let's do one more question. Ideally for everybody, but it could be for one person. Uh, yeah, this is for all the panelists. Um, if you were to make up a Republican drag name, what would it be? Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. Uh,
Tarif? Yeah, I mean, so... Tarif. So to give an... Omar Tarif. Omar Tarif. So to give an idea on how drag names work, there's a lot of ways. There's three formulas that really work for drag names. One is a very feminine version of the name you already have. So instead of Donald Trump, you'd be like Redonda Trump, right? Right.
And then you have a play on words, right? Like, this queen, she just lost her home. Her name is Lavonda Bridges. That kind of name, right? So a play on words, like Shalita Baby. And then you have really opulent names like Manuela Dupree Balenciaga. So those are typically the three ways. But there's obviously also stupid names like Papa Drag Queen. Yeah.
as well. Uh, so those, so to give y'all a framework, those are the, you know, the, the ways that, um, that people often come up with drag names. I have one. I'm ready. Anti-abortion. There it is. That's amazing. That's amazing. How about that? I have one, Lindsey Graham Cracker. Oh, that's nice. I have one, um, uh,
How about, who's the Supreme Court who just lost in Wisconsin? Or where was it where Elon Musk tried to buy all the... Susan Crawford won. Yeah, so her name would be, she need a vote. That's pretty good. She won. She did win. Yeah, she got all the votes she needed. Misinformation. Yeah. That must have been done. But it's still good, though. It's still good. Oldie but a goodie. Oldie but a goodie.
I think Brad the Drag Queen would be great. Yeah. Have you ever done drag, Bradley Whitverd? Yeah, I have. I played a cross-dresser on Transparent, and I loved it. It was very exciting to me. It was scary to me because I was like, oh, shit, like,
Am I going to like... Because you were so turned on. Yeah, I was like, I've never done this, but the fitting, I was, you know, I'm fine playing somebody who murders someone, but I'm like scared shitless going to the... And it was, I got into it. The costume person complimented my legs and immediately I was like, make my tits bigger so the hem comes up.
It's a slippery slub. That's how it starts. I once played a crossdresser and bitch, I'm not playing no more. All right. That's where we have to leave it. Everybody, check out Jessica's special on Hulu. Everybody, check out Bob's book. Harriet Tubman. Everybody, check out Bradley Whitford on the final season of Handmaid's Tale. That's our show. Thank you to Bradley Whitford, Jessica Erson, and Bob the Drag Queen. Thank you.
Next week, we will see you in Washington, D.C. There are 563 days until the midterms. 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.
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 Sure Shirt.
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 Toles, Claudia Shang, Mia Kelman, Dilan Villanueva, and Rachel Gajewski for filming and editing video each week. Our head of production is Matt DeGroat. Our head of programming is Madeline Herringer. And our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. ♪
How does Arizona become America's chipmaker? How does Arizona deliver health care professionals? How does Arizona provide great teachers for its classrooms?
With the help of AZ Opportunity. AZ Opportunity invests in Arizona's students and their families to meet workforce demands in high technology, healthcare, education, and more. AZ Opportunity, Arizona's path forward. Supported by the Arizona Board of Regents. Learn more at azopportunity.com.
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business owners meet Progressive Insurance. They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as seven minutes at progressivecommercial.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.