Less is Macklemore

You might drink it every day, but did you know that the history of tea is steeped in Skolduggery, Colonialism and Industrial Espionage? I'm Greg Jenner, host of Your Dead To Me with a comedy show that takes history seriously, and in our latest episode we spill the tea on tea. Join us to unpack the ancient Chinese origins of the drink and find out how it became the national drink of modern Britain. Listen to Your Dead To Me wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us on YouTube. Welcome to Love and Relieve It Live from Hollywood to MSNow viewers, I am not a random guy. I was actually once a presidential speechwriter, and now I do this. I'm John Love It, and welcome to the nation's number one late night political gay live comedy podcast. Let's get into it! What a week! On Monday, the Supreme Court block President Trump's plan to use the post office to potentially withhold millions of mail-in ballots, which would have been so messed up, if Democrats lose them in terms, we should not have to wonder if it's because of missing mail-in ballots. We should know without a shadow of a doubt that it is because of a son-piker. While this ruling did not come with a vote count, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, while Brett Kavanaugh issued a concurring opinion, whereas he'll be known at the next No Kings Rally, the notorious BMK. You might not like it, but well-behaved men seldom make history. Brett! Brett! Brett! Brett! Shame on you. Trump then singled out the three justices he nominated. Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, saying, quote, "These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court. They are merely a shell of their original selves." At it, Trump, you are not the people whose names I picked off a list presented to me by the Federal Society, who saw me as a useful idiot to sack the court with right-wing ideologues, who I then talked at for an hour, you were nodding! This wasn't the only rebuke by a Trump nominee, two weeks ago. Trump issued an ultimatum to the Federal Reserve. Cut interest rates, or he will cut off U.S. trade with the world, which would obviously be terrible for the economy. It was a smart threat, since if you work for the Fed, you probably really like the economy. Trump wrote on true social, "Lower the rate, or I'll stop trading with countries with which we have a deficit, along with an AI photo of Trump holding a leash attached to former Fed chairs Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen, and Ben Bernanke, as they crawled like dogs." Now I made the photo up. That didn't happen, but it's plausible, and that tells you where we're at. And yet this week, the Fed, now led by Trump's pick, Kevin Warsh, raised interest rates for the first time since July 2023. If the revolutionary guard of Iran can call Trump's bluff, "Why can't we shout at a board member? Let's be as brave as the Ayatollah," making several other members of the Federal Reserve quite uncomfortable. Now let's go to Trump and see if he can catch how he's subtly trying to save face. "I do, I mean I'm relying on Kevin, but he's got a very tough board, he's got a board that was put there by a lot of other people. And the interest rates are too high, they're not appropriate, and I told I talked to Kevin, and I said, "You might as well vote with a board because it's not going to matter." Look, when I'm sitting in the cuck chair, it's like I'm part of it. It's really my idea. And that's a big reason why I feel so good about it and not upset when it's happening the act. And then on Tuesday, a federal judge once again blocked Trump from adding his name to the Kennedy Center, said the judge, "Hey, my ruling is, this is too stupid for a society. The Kennedy Center is a literal memorial, and even if it weren't demanding your name be added to a building is very embarrassing. And even if that weren't true, it obviously requires Congress, which created the Kennedy Center to pass a law. Am I a judge? Is this real? Did I die?" The judge Christopher Cooper actually said, "Simply put, the defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress is blessing." Unlike John F. Kennedy, this judge is obviously very close-minded. In retaliation, the Trump Stack Kennedy Center board voted to close the art center completely effective immediately, which is too bad because tomorrow night's Kennedy Center performance was going to be Mack Lamar. Oh, man, that guy cannot catch a break. Trump is now explicitly saying he will not allow the plan $257 million renovation to proceed with the name change telling reporters Wednesday, "So for the Trump administration, for me, to get involved and to take that on long term and to carry it or to raise money to carry it, I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition because, frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down. It's in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape." Why save something if you can't put your name on it? It's like how Jane Goodall carved your name at every single one of those chimps. And look, buddy, none of those other buildings with your name on it actually filled the void, huh? Should we try something else? Should we try calling your son who is also named after you? Just to say hi, a son is like a building that can love you back. And then on Wednesday night, Trump was photographed through the window of his guitar air force one, looking at a big signboard with a picture of the D.C. skyline above which, in big letters, it said Kennedy Center demolished. Many wondered if this was a way to bully the judge into allowing the name change, when, in fact, the real explanation is far more innocent. This is his porn now. Yet, there is one last Trump bastion on earth not willing to call the president's bluff, and that's the Republican Congress. On Tuesday, Republican Godfly Thomas Massey introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. "Ugh," said Hegseth. This is just like that time, my friends and family ambush me to read a bunch of lame letters about how much they love me or whatever. Massey's charges against Hegseth include violating the War Powers Act, retaliating against critics like Senator Mark Kelly, kidnapping Nicholas Maduro, and committing extradudicial killings. Well, it's five o'clock somewhere, said Hegseth before bombing a school. Yep, that's right. Massey told CNN he hid his impeachment resolution from Republican leadership so they wouldn't try to stomp him in the only place they'd never looked, the Epstein files, said Massey. So I didn't want to show my hand. I didn't show it to anybody. I was afraid that they would do something to subvert me getting on the floor for an hour and twenty minutes in reading these articles. And subverting Massey is exactly what the GOP did. After all, this isn't how Speaker Mike Johnson's first rodeo because he's a friggin clown. I got rodeos, devoid having to call a vote on the resolution, Johnson ended the legislative session early, effectively preventing a vote until after the midterm, similar to when Johnson prevented a vote on the Epstein files last July by sending Congress home early for the summer. Pulling out before anything happens is Johnson's favorite move, and he also uses it in Congress. Ending this session early also means that the House left town without taking any action on a number of AI safety bills, but here too, Johnson is following Trump's lead, echoing the AI backers who have his ear, Trump has come out against any regulation, a sentiment repeated by JD Vance to the AI investors who host the all-in podcast. What I would say to those people, if you're building Frankenstein, stop. Or maybe build, you know, if the cat is out of the bag, then build the defensive mechanism against Frankenstein. Look, if there's a lesson from Mary Shelley, that she was trying to convey in Frankenstein, it's that Victor needed to stop being so emotional and just build a bigger, lonelier monster to protect him from the murderous one, Frankenstein 2 practice makes perfect. Meanwhile, Nate Silver has Democrats up 8.2% with likely voters according to the latest average. We just got to keep our heads down, do the work, and avoid blowing it, said Chuck Schumer before heading out on stage to open for Ed Sheeran. Now you have Republicans trying to remove Trump's name from their websites and putting out last-minute ads criticizing Trump on immigration, but it's hard to distance yourself from Trump when you spent years enabling mass deportations, the war in Iran, and shocking brazen corruption. So JD Vance is left making pleas like this. Give us another chance, or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. Give us another chance, bitch, you didn't get drunk and kissed your work wife at the office crisis party, you lost a war in Iran, and then to really close the deal, Vance tried this. And the second argument I'd make is, even if you don't agree with us on every issue, the other party is consumed by craziness. Craziness I tell you. Anyway, gotta go see about blowing up the National Performing Arts Center. And speaking of performances that are blowing up, last week Ben Haggerty, better known by his stage name, Maclamore, opened for Ed Sheeran, better known by his stage name, Ed Sheeran. Maclamore played his protest song, "Hins Hall," accompanied by graphic images of Gaza and this statement. One of the reasons why I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart, free Palestine. And look, we have to be able to separate the art from the artist, in the sense that the songs are bad, but the message is good. Soon, Robert Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, where the tour was set to appear, threatened to cancel the show unless Sheeran dropped Maclamore. Kraft also rallied other stadium operators to make the same demand. And as a Jewish American myself, thank you, Robert Kraft. The best way to fight anti-Semitism is for a Jewish billionaire to join forces with a cabal of other wealthy stadium operators to prevent audiences from hearing a pro-Palestinian statement by a performer largely regarded until now as a "brand-safe" version of fucking M&M. Macklemore then announced he was no longer part of the tour, calling Sheeran a friend who wanted to avoid taking sides to stance which, like Sheeran's hairline, wasn't holding up. And I'm allowed to say that because I have had three hair transplants. A wave of anger and condemnation followed, even Fox News host Jesse Waters was sympathetic to Macklemore. So what did he say? It was bad. He said free palestin? Is that all? No, that's not it. No, that's not it. You went on. No, that's not it. No, that's not it. Okay. Okay. Well, all I heard was free palestinian. I don't think that's hate speech. Say what you will about Jesse Waters, but he was wearing the hell out of that kaffir. On Tuesday, Sheeran issued a statement claiming it was his promoter's decision to remove Macklemore and not his own. And I appreciate Sheeran's transparency of his skin, the statement was embarrassing. Said Sheeran, I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict just because I choose not to speak publicly. It doesn't mean I don't have them and that I don't care. He then specified that the song "Shape of You" was actually about Israel returning to its 1967 borders. It must be frustrating for Sheeran. Dolly Parton never had to take a position on Israel and Palestine, but she had the bazongas to pull it off. By the end of the day Tuesday, Sheeran's other opening acts for the remainder of the tour, Ro, Graham and Phineas, all announced that they were dropping out in solidarity with Macklemore. But Sheeran is managed to replace them with, it says here, Ben Shapiro playing the clarinet. That's tough. On Wednesday, Macklemore announced that he was donating the $1 million he made from the tour to six organizations, aiding Palestinians, adding, "I invite Robert Kraft to match my donation." Then Kraft responded, saying that before Macklemore challenged him to match the donation, Sheeran asked him to commit $2 million, saying that Sheeran was reaching out to other venue owners in order to build bridges. Sadly, Israel has since bombed those bridges. And finally, Lady Gaga welcomed her new baby into the world. The name Rose Bean. She's named after her father, Mr. Bean. All right. We've got a great show for you tonight, and we'll be right back with the son, Piker. 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 Willie's Remedy. If you want to destress after a long day, but don't love the idea of a hangover tomorrow, now you can have fun and relax without through regrets. Thanks to Willie's THC infused social tonic. 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Get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com/loveit. That's Q-U-O.com/loveit. And we're back. Please welcome to the show, the star of this year's midterm elections, America's sweetheart, Hassan Piker. All right. Let me just, let me just, I do want to get this out of the way. I denounce you. I was about to say, thank God, I denounce myself as well. Great, great. That's so important. Thank you for doing that. Oh, that's a big, I need some more questions. All right. I see online today that you're releasing your most contentious interview yet today. We're supposed to be recording this episode. What the fuck? First of all, you're everywhere. Are you promoting a movie? Do you have a book coming out? Do you have a project? Are you in the Emmy run? What's going on? I have no idea what's going on. Half the time. It's just people are constantly blowing up my phone and being like, we have to talk. We have to talk about what you've done. And I'm like, what have I done? Like, what's going on? You're like, oh, well, I'm Tim Bulk with The New York Times. Right, right, right, right. It turns out the Republicans don't really have a good midterm message. So they decided to go with the craziest message of all time, which is just my meat. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. Thank you. They decided to say, look at this radical Islamic jihadist terrorist. He's butt naked in this photo. But they blurred out the meat. They did, but as if there was something unsightly about the photo, but the photo was just of underwear. Yeah. And I think that's the best I've ever looked. Like, I don't look that good right now, so I can't even like show more shirtless photos for Debbie Dingle. Raise a lot of money. Maybe in a future where you could use that to raise money if you weren't being denounced so frequently and condemned. So I do want to stipulate. I think you've said shit that is very stupid and bad. I also think you've had a lot of your words taken out of context. The reason I'm stipulating all this is like, I just don't want to do another round of that conversation. I think that conversation is important. I'm glad you had it with-- I'm sorry. That was the most sander scooped you. No, but I'm glad they had, look, I totally-- yes, that is actually what happened. But I also-- but I'm not-- that is not to say this conversation is important. I'm just that you had it. And I think you should go listen to that version of it, which is fine. So this is the thing I wanted to talk to you about, which is I see you mixing it up with some people in the center left with some former Trump Republicans. And so my view is I am part of a pro-democracy coalition in the fight against fascism, and it includes everyone from former Republicans like Nicole Wallace and Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell. It includes establishment politicians. It includes Nierotand. It includes Shannon Watts. Am I right or am I wrong about that? No, you're absolutely right. And I have the exact same mentality about this as well. I have my frustrations with the Democratic Party. It's very obvious. I let it be known. But my criticisms of the Democrats, establishment Democrats and the failures of the campaigns are never that they are worse than the Republicans. I want them to be better than the Republicans. And sometimes I think we are far too close to the Republicans. We're far too conciliatory to their made up hysterias, and we keep falling for the bait. And in some respects, I think this campaign of denouncement is a version of that as well. We're living through unprecedented crisis after crisis in America right now. The Republicans know that they have no agenda that they can run on. Donald Trump is under water on immigration. He ran on mass deportations, and now he's under water on immigration, which by the way was very predictable, ironically enough, this is what I was talking about in the lead up to the election. I was like, we should not concede on this false framing that immigrants constitute a national security threat. It's not real, and the prosecution of this mass deportation initiative is going to look like Hitler's Germany, and people are going to get frustrated inevitably by that reality. And it turns out lo and behold, that is exactly what happened, right? So I understood the severity of the crisis. I understood the impact that Trump would have, and I really wanted the Democrats to be a competent anti-Trump force and thoroughly dismantle his agenda. And even after the defeat, I expected Democrats to at least rise up to the moment and fight back. And they were nowhere to be found. And I think that is the main reason why I got more active and more hands-on in campaigns. And there were a bunch of wonderful democratic socialist candidates that were running all around the country. I think it was Zoran initially that kind of sparked my interest in this. So if you guys want to blame anybody, blame Zoran, I'm Donny, but yeah, there was tremendous success there. And I mean, he's unbelievably charismatic, he's very successful, and he's also a great mayor. And he's done the unthinkable. He's become a popular mayor of New York. I think the last time a guy was a popular mayor of New York, they put his name on the airport, right? Yeah. Yeah. And even then, they destroyed his legacy because this is the worst airport of all time. Never get to fly out of the Guardian. So yeah, look, I hear what you're saying, right? But you also have people that are part of this coalition, like Roy Cooper is a very popular governor. Josh Shapiro has been very popular. We had victories because people like Abigail, Spanberger, right? Like when you say, oh, you know, Democrats, they weren't showing up, right? Look, we lost. Like, we didn't have power. We're trying to figure out how to fight our way back to having power, which is what we're trying to do now. And I'm wondering how you think about Fox News has made you the main character. And I agree. It's because they don't know what else to do. But that is because they must be seeing something that says, oh, this person seems like a crazy person to people. He seems radical. We can tar people with this person's image. What do you think about that? So I forget who it was who said this, but it's like, if Republicans are using it as an attack out, that means they tested it and it's working, right? And my answer to that is they have nothing else. So this might be their only thing that they have. Just because it's their most successful narrative doesn't mean that it's going to be successful in winning elections for them. And I don't think it will be successful in winning elections for them at all. Because look, I've gone all up and down the country. I have fans in many places all around this, this beautiful country. And you know, there's obviously a lot of Republicans that don't like me and maybe even some liberals that don't like me. But by and large, the idea that a Twitch streamer is supposed to be held to a higher standard than the president is such an insane phenomena that it could only be concocted by a bunch of out-of-touch people in mainstream outlets that think like, this is a salient narrative that will definitely work. Because people don't care. Like I have a lot of followers that are still very active on these campaigns that are doing canvassing and in phone banking and every now and then in Michigan, because I'm apparently an ad that they blast on the airwaves like every commercial break numerous times throughout the day, that there will be a guy that will bring my name up when talking about Obdolosa where they're like, well, what's up with this was song guy? But by and large, they just don't care. They're like, yeah, okay, that doesn't, I don't really care at the end of the day. Like that's not going to change my decision as far as like voting for him because people are voting for the economy and the economy is in tatters. I mean, I saw a billboard in Texas that said that they were out of diesel. I didn't even know billboard said out. It was like one of those digital billboards and it said out under diesel. I was like, that's a thing. I mean, we're seeing like $9, they're maxing out on gas, buddy. This is what Americans are frustrated by and it's not great that Donald Trump is not great for the Republicans, that Donald Trump goes on television almost daily and says, yeah, the poor's need to eat shit and die. Well, so I agree with what you're saying, right? They're using it because they're out of ideas. It's ridiculous. The standard they're holding YouTube versus I agree with all that. People sometimes have Fox News on in our office and it is amazing how much you are all over Fox News. But every once in a while, we'll do an interview with somebody or have a conversation and we'll be talking about what's wrong with the Democratic Party or we had, there was a, we joked about a age being ultimately the thing that takes down Trump and we were laughing about what would happen if you know Trump had deep feint on both of something to that effect. And then you turn, totally defensible conversation. So then you turn on, turn on Fox News the next day and look there it is, right? And sometimes, and when that happens and I feel like, you know what, fuck them. Use this. Who cares? It was fine and they're wrong. But there have been moments where you don't say something the way you wish or you're like, you know, there have been times where I've done interviews where I'd wished I phrased a question differently and then all of a sudden they're using it. It's useful to the opponent of that candidate who ultimately I would rather see when. And so that means that I don't want to cow to right wing nonsense and propaganda. But I also, I'm proud of the platform I have and the people I get to talk to and to get to do this show. And that means I do have a responsibility and I wonder if you think about that. No, absolutely. I do. There's two different versions of this, right? You have the out of context clips, you have moments where I flub in my answer or I get too wordy with it and they can like chop it down and reduce it to something. I mean, this has literally happened to Abdul as well. He had this very thoughtful piece that he delivered. I believe it was a couple days after the synagogue attack where he was talking about the cycle of violence and how to put an end to it, right? And they reduced it to a choice, quote, hurt people, hurt people. The argument was not to make it seem like this was an agreeable act or justifiable act. He calls the person a heinous monster a small individual and of course this also came after a direct condemnation the day of the attack and yet they reduced it to hurt people, hurt people. And the media does this all the time. So they're back to you, but not the point was yet. But then there's also, there's also the third thing, which is like actual positions that I hold actual opinions that I have that are unbelievably antagonistic to those in positions of power that when they hear that they like lose their minds. I don't know how to deal with it. And when I'm faced with a question like that, I have to in my mind make this calculation of should I be honest about what I believe? Should I take a principled stance on something or should I portray myself as a campaign surrogate and act as though I'm running for office? And I've definitely dialed down, I know it doesn't seem like it, I've definitely dialed down my commentary with that in mind for sure because it's totally ridiculous. I'm not being paid by any of these campaigns. There are literal white supremacists and white nationalists working inside of every single Republican campaign. Some are running. Yeah. Some are running. Yeah. But the entire discourse seems to be around myself and my affiliation with these candidates even though I mean, Abdul came high yesterday and was like, I'm not planning on campaigning with a son and I've already made it clear like this is a Twitch streamer whose opinions are utterly immaterial to the campaign that I'm running which is focused on Michigan. But the media won't let go. Right. Yeah. It's but I hear you're saying and like right before we came out, we were seeing sort of more from this interview you did with Axios, right? And there's all these headlines going around, you know, the US is pound for pound worse than al Qaeda is one of the ones that's going around and I then you look into what you're saying, I understand the point that you're making. And there is a space between acting like a candidate and not saying what you think. And kind of obtuseness about what happens when you say something like that, right? Because there is the substance of what you're saying in a moment like that and as a streamer and as person who the audience, trust to just say exactly, you think totally get the point that you're making the argument that you're making. But as you have a bigger platform now, do you stink yourself? You know what? The most helpful and persuasive way for me to make this argument to the people that will hear it is not to be so antagonistic in the framing or am I just too kind of poisoned by sort of campaigns and politics? No, I think you're, I think there's truth to what you're saying, absolutely. Because you want to be helpful to people you want to support and really that's, there are times in which you've become a problem for people like Abdul. And the problem isn't necessarily what I'm saying. The problem is that I become a distraction because you have a finite amount of time where you are supposed to make your case to the people. And some of those people are going to be 65-year-old white ladies living in places like Macomb County. Maybe the name Abdul Rahman Muhammad El Sayed being blasted over and over again and they like him, they like that he's a doctor, they like that he's a father. But then they're a little bit worried because, you know, I mean, he's jacked and also on top of that, he's, you know, he's very brown, he's, he's very Muslim and he's, and they're seeing, they're, they're being inundated with a barrage of hateful racial agit prop on a daily basis and they're like, well, I'm associating Abdul with this. And then all of a sudden they're like, well, he can't paint with this guy. The deck guy do 9/11? I don't really know what's going on. I just want to say there is, at this point, no evidence that you had anything to do with 9/11. Yes. I was an ambitious 9-year-old, but that would be ridiculous. So so there is obviously the Islamophobia angle as well because like these candidates and Zoran went through this, he was the first that went through this because the American of 911 soundbite originated or resurfaced as like a big salient attack at against Zoran and the New York race, and it failed, but that didn't stop people from going, "Oh, this is something that we could test out further." It is yet to succeed in every single primary, but this is the true test because it's a purple state, right? It's a statewide race, it's a center race, it's a pivotal race. So I think this is their big last Hazard. They're trying to see if this will actually work with the candidate whose name is Abdul Al Sayed. So I understand that, and I understand that anything else that I say about American foreign policy is always going to turn into, "Oh, he loves our enemies and he hates America and he wants America to suffer." The way to get around that, in my opinion, obviously my own personal responsibility is first and foremost, to either go away or to never do an exeos interview. So that's the point. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's a particularly bad idea for you, but let's talk about your strategy with the media. We can have a little bit more of a plan. Yeah, no, the exeos interview, the exeos interview. You have a PR person, you talk to and run these things, but yeah, I'm getting the sense. Yeah, clavicular, clavicular's publicist got mad at me on the timeline. It was like, because Hassan famously doesn't hire a publicist, and that's why he's doing this stuff. That's a big boy. I know I can handle contentious media interviews. It's just that there's still a coordinated effort behind the scenes to be like, "We're going to clip this out." They went to Abdul Al Sayed before the video was released. Yeah. That was smart. Yeah. They're making a moment out of this interview. Yeah, and I think they leaked it to status as well to be like, "Oh, it was a contentious fire interview," because immediately my phone blows up, they're asking me like, "Why was it contentious? Why did he give fire?" I was like, "Yeah, it was a contentious interview. It was the most contentious interview I've done so far, because it was 45 minutes of just being like, "These are the clips," and they were just hammering them. I guess there's nothing that you can do to go, like, people, you stream all the time, I think it's insane what you do. Just madness. Just madness. Just madness. But there's nothing you could do to, there's people can have combed through and they're going to find things that you said, either take them out of context or not take them out of context, but I'm curious like going forward, right, like, you're joking about not just not having a public as fine, but there does seem to be two paths for you, one in which you have this platform that you take seriously, not just where you say what you think, but to be kind of useful at persuasion and being more directly involved with politics, or you can be someone who just says the thing in the way that is not necessarily the most helpful in a political arena outside of core people, and I'm curious if you see those paths. No, I do. I think there's two different schools of thought on this, like, I not only want to be persuasive, but I think the testament to the success of a lot of these DSA candidates, as well as my success individually as a content creator, is a testament to the persuasive capabilities of this platform in general, but yes, entering the realm of political campaigns is an entirely different beast, right? I totally understand that it's far more vicious and it's an unbelievably hostile media environment. I don't expect them to treat me in the same way that they treat even Republicans. There's two ways of dealing with this is what I always say, and not everyone can handle this hyper-contentious media environment, but what I wish liberals would do more frequently is to expose the double standard and to also tackle the form, because at the end of the day, like, over the eight-hour broadcast, I'm not just talking about politics, I'm burping into the microphone, I'm making dick jokes, like, it's not always super serious, right? It's not supposed to be super serious, there's serious commentary, and then there's very unserious moments as well, but they're elevating my status as this super serious political commentator and campaign consultant, campaign surrogate, when I've never wanted to be that. I didn't even think that campaigning with Abdul or going on a rally with Abdul was ever going to be this much of a media moment from the start. And I was very honest about it, too, because I had had Abdul on numerous times the fundraise for him. We went to the gym together and stuff like that, and I never realized that, like, Adam Ray of Politico was going to take our campaigning together as, like, a big step that really terrified a lot of people and positions of power for some reason. Yeah. I guess I just think the question for you is what responsibility that creates for you now that you like it or not are in this place. But Hassan Piker, thank you so much. Everybody go check out his stream. He's at @ Hassan Abbey on YouTube and Twitch and we'll be right back. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We all have those persistent bad habits. We wish we could change. We want to stop anxiety, spirals, learn to better cope with the stressors that come our way or be more present with our friends and family, whatever you feel needs to change in your life therapy can help. BetterHelp therapists have at least three years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. They also hold all required education, training, and certifications across a range of mental health specialties. BetterHelp makes it easy to get started, answer a few questions, get matched with a therapist based on your needs and switch therapists at any time if it's not the right fit. Better is a feeling defined by you and for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. Therapy is great. Everybody needs it. I'm not in therapy right now, and that's a problem. We could all use it. It's a shame that it's hard for some people to access, but with tools like BetterHelp, more people can get therapy. And that's a good thing. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/loveit. That's better-h-e-l-p.com/loveit. Hey everyone, my name is Elijah Cohn and I've been a producer here at Cricket Media for a decade. I love making our shows with the smart creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who listen every week. But the thing that I'm proudest of is that video we've made of you vegramas while me grunting while hitting baseballs. No wait, sorry. The thing I'm proudest of is the work we do through Vote Save America. See, we don't want our shows to only leave you feeling anxious about the state of the world. We want to give you something you can actually do about it. Just this year, our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteerships to help candidates and causes in the 2026 midterms, and we have no plans to slow down as we head into 2028. As far as I know, there's no other media company that does what Cricket does. We make entertaining, thoughtful content that brings people into politics, and then we give them a direct way to get involved. And if you believe in that mission, one of the best ways to support us is by becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows you love and building a media company that doesn't just talk about politics, but helps people change them. And if the mission sounds great, but you feel like you need some sweet subscriber benefits to get you over the finish line, we've got you covered. Let's get ad free shows, plus excellent exclusive podcasts, newsletters, and much, much more. So thank you for listening and supporting what we do. Head to Crooked.com/FriendsToday to learn more and become a subscriber. So I have to tell you something. I was at the Minnesota State Fair for the last week in Labor Day weekend, and because of your recommendation, I ate the gizmo sandwich. What do you think? It's great. It's fantastic. It's great. I will say. No burps. I mean, you have more practice. I will say like a big hoagie filled with sausage and beef and melted cheese and sauce at three o'clock on a blindingly hot summer day, and the main cities was perfect. It's all meant to be shared, though. Yeah, I mean, this is my whole, I mean, nobody should be walking around the state fair eating an Amish donut, a bucket of cheese curds, a bucket of fries, two foot longs, gizmo. You go with people, and you share. Absolutely. Absolutely. I put that bad boy out. I think the larger takeaway for everyone should be that, arguably, the single greatest annual cultural event in America, and it's an argument I make all the time, is the Minnesota state fair. Yeah. And you're all out of plotting because you're going to have coastal elite freaks. But you don't know how great I've married into Minnesota, and the state fair is the best. I don't believe it. I mean, the 4-H buildings, it's 160-year-old permanent fairgrounds. There's a grandstand that seats 40,000 people that, you know, Bonnie Rates is there one night, Alice Cooper, the next, the black keys, the next. I don't think people understand. This is, the Minnesota state fair does not just take over an area. It exists year-round for the purpose of the two weeks of the fair. It has its own zip code in all of its buildings. It only stands up for the period of the fair. It's basically a ghost town, the rest of the year, there were a time where people lived on the grounds to take care of it. But then it comes alive for this two-week period, and there are all these businesses. It's like, "Well, what do you do? We get ready for the fair. We sell our corn at the fair. Then we get ready for the fair." But the cow barn, I take people to the cow barn all the time to look at eight-year-old blonde-haired kids with straw coming out of their mouth, sleeping on top of their prized heifer that they're going to show on day three, and they're just, they clean it up and they sleep with their cows that don't want anyone near their cow gets judged all the time. And then right next to them are architecture students from Germany sketching the cantilevered interior beamwork there because it was the first roof of its kind. There's the miracle of birth center. There's an art gallery. In Waxburg, Minnesota, art all year long. From animals. It's unbelievable. And beam art. I will tell you, there was when the miracle of birth opened, it's ten different types of farm animals and they have lots of pregnant ones brought in so that everyone can see how these animals are birthed and veterinarians speak and it's a really pro animal thing. And it's a anti-smell. It's unpleasant sometimes. But about 18 years ago when my son was four, I had him on my shoulders and other people were just awestruck that there was a pig, birthing 8, 9, 10, 12 little piglets in a row and know what, everyone is very quiet. My son screamed out, my daddy eats all of those and the whole, I mean the room just went silent and turned around and I had to shrink away into another part of the building. It's like, yes, I've eaten that animal before but that's the bad guy. We walked into the, we walked into the miracle of birth and there was a cow there and someone standing nearby said, that's the placenta. We missed it. It's true, you were in gross. So you were in Washington speaking out about toxic chemicals in food. There's a legislation called the Fresh and Affordable Foods Act and it sounds great but it actually could potentially weaken some state safety, food laws, what should people know about it? And not potentially and like a lot of other legislation that's been put forth by this administration especially surrounding things like the environment and food and farming and the farm bill and anything else that we participate in every single day. It has a really, really rosy happy name around it. What is actually designed to do is to take away the state's ability to protect its citizens by not allowing foods that will harm you, cause cancer, cause birth defects in women who are pregnant, et cetera, that they now have the right to do. It can preempt those existing conditions. The idea by backers of the potential legislation say is, well, we just want to streamline everything with the FDA and not have 50 separate voices out there. I seem to remember from my high school education that was called federalism in Washington, kind of like states to have the right to do that. It's also a check in balance that we desperately need. I'm sure everyone who's listening and knows about all the food outbreaks that are now coming almost every single day. This morning it was Caramel's World Ice Cream from a fairly reasonable size provider. The FDA has been gutted the various other mechanisms within the 14 to 20 other agencies that have a say in different types of food issues, way too many for my blood to begin with, which is part of the problem. But the FDA has been gutted, inspections have been gutted, inspections of internationally imported foods, I think are down by 80% since 2024. The last time we have data on this, and so to take away the state's rights, to be able to say, no, you can't do that here. You can't put those dies into our kids' candies. To me, it's just more of the same slop that this administration has been peddling, which is let's relax the laws that have put handcuffs on big business for so long. I mean, it's just a very obvious con job. So you have RFK Jr., who ostensibly cared about basically two big issues, food health and safety, make America healthy again, right, and vaccines. He seems to be getting what he wants in undermining vaccines, but is now the kind of face of administration that is not doing anything about the weed killer round-up that seems to be undermining the glyphosate. Yeah. I saw a take talk, it was in the oat milk, and I'm like, oh, I like oat milk. What do I do? Don't drink oat milk. Goddamn it. I mean, here's-- It's the best of the milk. Is that an oat milk? It. True, because almond milk, I mean, I just have to say, you know, there's no single thing that we grow that requires as much water, which we are in desperate need of protecting than growing almonds. So I mean, there's about a moral dilemma there, you know, I mean, I kind of liked almonds until I realized how much water energy that it took to make them-- That makes it take better to make-- You raise oats very easy to grow. Are they? Yeah. So you're good with your oat milk, except you have to make sure that it comes from reliable supplier and one that has a conscience. And how are we supposed to vet that as citizens? We can't. The role of federal government is the protection and welfare of its citizenry. And this administration and RFK junior, especially, has been embarrassingly weak, almost criminally weak. And in the case of something like addressing the hunger issues in America, genocidal. We have, by definition, if you have the ability to solve something like childhood hunger in America, $17.5 billion, that's how much it costs, roughly, give or take a billion, to statistically eliminate childhood hunger in America. And no one will take a stand for it. How is a starving child somehow politically untenable to stand up for it? It absolutely is boggling my mind every time I speak about it. This administration seems to be gleeful about some of the cruelty of their lack of work or their work. In the case of RFK junior, I think he's a pin-up doll for the Trump administration. I think like so many other cabinet level positions, I think Trump has 35 of them, 35 or 36 of them. And not that education is everything, but at a certain point in leadership, I'd like to have maybe one with a Ph.D., you know, I mean, something like that. We're getting outscored all over the world when it comes to running our country. And my fear is, by the time we get to an election that might have some consequence, and it might not be this one, it might be 2028, what will we have lost by then? We're getting people sick with our food, 20 plus percent of Americans are hungry. Prices, food prices are through the roof. It's going to get worse, a lot worse when it comes to food prices before it gets better. The growing season around America is coming to a close very shortly. And we're now going to pay the price for everything that's going on for the last six months. So if you think beef prices and vegetable prices and fruit prices, healthy, nutritious ones, fresh ones, were high before they're going to get higher. My fear for the average American family is, you know, I mean, you guys were talking about gas prices before. It's always been over the course of my lifetime. I'm 65, been around for a lot of elections. You know, kitchen table economics was always a conversation point that started out with gas prices. I think the actual kitchen table issues around this election, I hope come home to Roos for this administration because they're under serving Americans. One quick thing to add, I referenced before that there were 14 to 22 depending on how you calculated different agencies and washing the control, what we eat and drink. That's a fact. We need just based on GDP alone and I've called for it for about eight years now is a secretary of food. Why we don't have a cabinet level secretary position and put all the food making and all the beverage issues and everything under one siloed, experienced human being that I should be really fat. I hope well. I want it to be really fat. Never really fat. Never trust in person. It should be. It should be heavy, orson wells, orson wells, reinforced chair for the fucking Saturday. I am a big dude. I am one lady. Yes. I am willing to put on 200 pounds if I can have that job, but I would like to, I would really honestly hope that whoever sits in that oval office next understands what a mass, I mean just to give everyone an idea, independent restaurants, not including ag, no hotels, nothing else. No other piece of income other than independent restaurants. So that's not change. It's just independent restaurants alone is over 6% of GDP and employees 11 million Americans and the only business other than independent restaurants that's that big is the Pentagon. That's how big it is. That's so crazy making. I didn't know that. I finally learned something on this show. So you are also along with your advocacy, your hosting pit masters on food. I'm getting a panic. -Pitmasters, you said you wouldn't host a competition show. What caused you to abandon your values? Filthy Luka? -I'm being denounced. -Yeah, you're being. -I love this. I denounce Andrew Zimmern. I got a call from some friends at a production company that I've tried to work with for 20 years. They wanted to work with me. I wanted to work with them. They said, "We got this new show. Can you shoot it in April?" And I said, "It's March." And they said, "Yeah, they've moved up the calendar on us. We don't know what to do." And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm in." And I think it's an awesome show. It just concluded. It got phenomenal ratings from what I understand. I'm really excited about it, and I'm knock on wood. We get a second season. But yeah, it's. Look, at my age, I wanted to work with my friends, because I'm not a flip flopper. And I also felt that a straight-up competition show underserved the audience. They talked down to the audience. The audience didn't get to see a real. The barbecue shows were live fire shows. It's really not a webber, right? This, we actually. It's 24 hours a day. The fire never goes out. Eight straight days go. If you need to cook a brisket for 18 hours, you could cook a brisket for 18 hours, and they're in pairs, so they can strategically think about rest and sleeping. And we saw some incredible food, and I'm really excited about it. Wild Game Kitchen, which is my "Taste Made Show" that's also my ears on my YouTube, just got nominated for two Emmys, so I'm really excited about that. So the TV career, surprisingly to me, has never been better after 25 years of doing it, is sort of nuts. Maybe you finally came into your own in ways you don't fully comprehend. I wanted, as you're speaking of TV, coming full circle, you were mentored by Jacques Papin. Yes, I'm old. I love him. Me too. He wasn't a jerk or anything, was he? Not at all. One of the greatest human beings of all time, and in fact, the stuff like any great mentor, the stuff that he taught me about being a dad, about being a good citizen, about caring about your family, and then your community, and then your city, and then your state, and then your country, and about the joy of living are the things that I take away from him, as well as knowing how to dice an eggplant. But my dad was doing the advertising, my late father was doing the advertising for Howard Johnson's when Jacques was their corporate chef, and so I got to meet him and be around him enough over the course of, because he didn't get back into restaurants. He started doing TV shows, and he started writing books. He started doing things that were absolutely unbelievable, and he's such a brilliant and kind and engaging man. And during the early days of parenting, when I was away from my family all the time, it was Jacques who put his arm around me, and said, "You don't get to decide what time you spend with your kids." He said, "When I was on the road, all of those years, I never saw Claudine, his daughter, ever." He said, "I was away 300 days a year. Now I come home, she turns 24, she moves into a house on the same block as me, and I make TV with her, and I'm with her 24 hours a day." The magic of that, the his ability to make me feel comfortable allowed me to be a better dad. That's beautiful. Well, thank you, chef Andrew Zimmern. Catch up on pit masters, on HBO Max, and head to Andrewsimmern.com for his substack recipes and other updates. We'll be right back. Love It Or Leave It is brought to you by SimplySafe. Today's savvy burglars aren't deterred by traditional home security systems. 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That's SimplySafe.com/loveit for 50% off. And when you order, please write in Love It Or Leave It in the how did you hear about a survey to let them know we sent you. Don't forget, there is no Safe Like SimplySafe. Hey everyone, my name is Elijah Cohn, and I've been a producer here at Cricket Media for a decade. I love making our shows with the smart creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who was in every week. No wait, sorry. The thing I'm proudest of is the work we do through votes of America. Just this year, our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteer chefs to help candidates and causes into 2026 midterms. And we have no plans to slow down as we head into 2028. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows you love in building a media company that doesn't just talk about politics, but helps people change them. And if the mission sounds great, but you feel like you need some sweet subscriber benefits to get you over the finish line, we've got your cover. Subscribers get ad-free shows, plus excellent exclusive podcasts, newsletters, and much, much more. So, thank you for listening and supporting what we do. And we're back! Here with Hassan and Andrew, two people that I have denounced. Gentlemen, it's time. Time to spin the rant wheel. We'll each get 60 seconds on the clock. So let loose on the topics of our choosing. Let's spin the wheel. Andrew, what would you like to rant about? I would like to rant about the horrible nature of our behavior towards people in restaurants when it comes to prices. Restaurants are dealing with a jobs crisis, they're dealing with a rent crisis, they're dealing with a cost of goods crisis, and they're dealing with the same food cost crisis that we all have. And this idea that somehow restaurants all across America have conspired to create a $24 cocktail and a $30 piece of chicken and are forcing everyone to buy it is simply untrue. Restaurants don't owe us anything. We have to change our behavior when it comes to what restaurants we are going to based on what we can afford. That is absolutely the case. But it's not a restaurant industry cabal trying to fix prices and eliminate people from going out. And I see restaurants being blamed right and left for things they have nothing to do with. And it's a really important point. I'm so glad you made it. I will say, I think the prices at Arts, Deli and Studio City have become insane. They're insane everywhere. I've not seen a restaurant. Yeah, the places that have come down in price are the ones where the food quality is crap, they're not taking care of the product. The cost of doing everything in America, the cost of bowling has gone up. Yes, I know you're shattered. Your Tuesday night league wants a shirt. Yeah, that's why no one's dividing me to bowling. Let's spin it again. Oh, boy. I don't know where to begin. I don't want to start off by turning this into a campaign crisis for any number of different candidates around the country. Oh, this is a good test for you. Don't do that. I'm not going to do that because at first I was going to say the IRGC is the greatest green new deal for God that this world has ever seen by raising the cost of oil around the world. They are doing true. Stop it. True. This is eco-terrorism. They watched how to blow up a pipeline and thought, and thought, that's my shit. Okay, all jokes aside, I want Democrats to stop capitulating to right-wing framing. That's my rant. I don't want them to be dominated. I don't want our news media to succumb to Fox News as his news desk editor. I think everyone should be on Twitter a lot less and I should probably take my own advice. Yeah, straight up, we have some of the most psychopathic people out there. The algorithm is run by a racist billionaire. It's making us all stupider. I agree with that. Let's spin it again. And it's landed on me. I have a brief rant, so I flew to New York on Friday night, then I flew back Monday night, then I flew back to New York on Tuesday night, and then I flew back last night. did that? I don't know. But I have a very specific request, which is, I believe, on red eye flights, we should all be able to agree, even if it's a science of sort of contract that says, "We don't care if we die, we don't need announcements." That we don't care where the exits are, we don't care where the weather is, we don't care if we're going to be on time or not. That we won't get on that plane, we sit in our seats, the light goes off, and we're in the hands of the pilot, and if not the pilot, God. And if we die, we die sleeping. If we are going down, I do not want anyone to say a fucking word. Why do- oh, thanks for waking me up. The plane's going down. Fuck you. Let me sleep this one beautiful moment where I can be asleep and die asleep rather than fucking terrified. I think we could all get to the point where just only the red eye flights were ball flown before. No one flies a red eye for the first time. Silence in the evening on the red eye flights, that's it. As a travel guy, I think that's the hottest take I've heard in a long time. I loved it. That's actually, I did not think that we would agree on so much. Oh, wow. See, this is what's happening. This is the coalition building. Big tent. And we'll be right back with "Second Dots." And we're back. It has been another grand slam of a show. However, my producers always need to point out the foul balls. And boy, where are my balls? This sucks. So here's how this works. Fucking ass. I have a list of places where they believe I've fucked up during this episode. If you have places where you have second thoughts about tonight, this is the time to share them. My first joke was at the expense of Hassan who brought a lot of people to pack the audience. That was rude. And I'm sorry. JFK's caught some strays for a change. You guys didn't want to laugh about Hegseth bombing a school and you were right. I'm sorry. That was wrong. I'm sorry for making fun of Ed Sheeran's hairline and skin. Those were unfair digs, even if accurate. Other people have the same hairline and have done nothing wrong. Other people have the same skin and done nothing wrong. Can't make fun of people being ugly or not him. We can't say, "I'm not that bad." But you know what I'm saying? Ted Cruz is so ugly. There are good people who look just like him. I feel like not a lot of people look like Ted Cruz. I made fun of Macklemore's music, but not Ed Sheeran's. It says here is also bad. By the way, I feel like I've said, "I just want you to all know." I know you clocked it. I probably have said the word Macklemore tonight more than all the other times in my life combined. We had to make sure it was in fact not Macklemore, which is how I was raised saying it. But it's in fact supposed to be Macklemore, which I think sucks. Also, I had to say it a lot. It felt weird, right? You feel like how many times I had to say Macklemore? I'm sorry about that, and that's the last one. Oh, Hassan, during our conversation, I said that you said things that were dumb and bad. I left out what I was going to say, which is in that way we're a lot of like. I just want to make sure I add that, which I had written down in advance. I attacked your media strategy, even though I stand by that. In part, because it's not clear that you have one. I said to my guest, quote, "I think it's insane what you do." Just a question from the producers. Has Hassan seen the tweet with a photo of him in the suit, and it says, "Why does he look like he's dating Elaine Benes for one episode?" I did. It's a high praise. That's a compliment. That's going to be at the next jumbo tron at the next giveaway. We were like, "Look at this sexy guy who looks like he's in Seinfeld." Yeah, the 90s. Great 90s guy. Handsome 90s guy. I said, "The water cost of almonds make them taste better to me." I'm sorry. I said that. Let's see. I fat-chained an imaginary cabinet secretary. That's it. Do you have any second thoughts? Yeah. I would have liked to have mentioned the fact that we need to vote. Oh, yeah. And I'm trying to remind people, doesn't matter what you believe, we just need to vote. The fact that we have what's left of an amazing democracy here in 2026, and that we still can't get the kind of turnout that you would hope to have. And I don't want to tell anybody who or what to vote for. I do. We can, I think we're safe to do that. But I think, well, on this show. But I think we need to vote. And I talked about kitchen table issues, and I think that we need to expect our candidates to actually be asked about food policy. It's never asked in a debate for them. What's your food policy? Do you have any? Do you know how many local politicians I saw at the Minnesota State Fair? None of them had a food policy. Yeah. While I'm doing intermittent fasting, not like that. That's not a food policy. Yeah. What's interesting about what you just brought up also is that it leaves the environment wide open for people like R.F.K. Jr. to season. And that's how they do the Maha. Maha think. It's interesting. I think AOC recently was making inroads with like a bunch of Maha moms to bring them back into a sense of normalcy with something along those lines. So you're absolutely, you're absolutely correct on that. Yeah. And I'll just say, you know, why aren't people showing up? Well, part of it is because the media environment is so terrible. And the kind of conversations we're having are being had on platforms that do not have our interests or they don't have a son's interest, but aren't don't have the interest of helping build a pro-democracy progressive liberal movement. And so if you want to have conversations like that where we can have these disagreements without having to worry about people approaching it in such bad faith, I hope people will sign up at crooked.com/friends to become a friend of the pod and join the community. We're trying to build here an independent pro-democracy progressive media company. And to your point, if you go to VotesaveAmerica.com right now, there are ways that you can get involved in a race right by you. We are in the home stretch. The election is less than two months away. This is the moment where even listening and angry and anxious now is the time to step in and do something because you can't, yeah, the polls look great. We have no idea what's going to happen. And by the way, you wake up the day after the election. And we got so close in a few key Senate races, but close won't matter if Alito or Thomas decide to retire next year. So please sign up at VotesaveAmerica. And that is our show. Thank you so much to Sampyker and Andrew Zimmer. There are 46 days until the midterms and we'll be back next week with Lewis Patel, Nina Parker and Lisa Gilroy. Love it or leave it is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Kendrick Gaines, Bill McGrath, Kelsey Gante, and Meijon Love it. Our production team includes Halley Heifers, Sarah Lazarus, Robin Borsalino, Peter Miller, David Tolls, Claudia Scheng, Jay Banks, our old Calderon, Gavin Borsal, and Matt DeGroat. And our production staff is proudly unionized with the Ryder's Guild of America East. Hey everyone, my name is Elijah Cone and I've been a producer here at Cricket Media for a decade. I love making our shows with the smart creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who us and every week. But the thing that I'm proudest of is that video we made of you vegramas while me grunting while hitting baseballs. No wait, sorry. The thing I'm proudest of is the work we do through VotesaveAmerica. Just this year, our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteer shifts to help candidates and causes into 2026 midterms. head to crookin.com/friends today to learn more and become a subscriber.