Latest / The Daily Sarcast / July 27th, 2026: Putin's Meltdown, Legionnaires Disease And My Roommate Visiting Our Apartment

Transcript

July 27th, 2026: Putin's Meltdown, Legionnaires Disease And My Roommate Visiting Our Apartment · The Daily Sarcast

• 0:00
  Today's episode is sponsored by the New York Survival Kit.
• 0:04
  The New York Survival Kit now comes with every new lease signed and includes,
• 0:08
  but not limited to, a portable fan, a rat whistle, a rent calculator,
• 0:13
  and a small pamphlet titled How to Kill Your First Cockroach.
• 0:17
  The New York Survival Kit, because your apartment comes with amenities you didn't ask for.
• 0:22
  She said, can you sign this autograph? And then she held it to her heart and
• 0:27
  she goes, I just loved you in Avatar.
• 0:29
  A fan to Joel Egerton, who was very much not an avatar.
• 0:33
  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Starcast. I'll give you the news and maybe a laugh.
• 0:39
  I'm Lindsay Vernick, and today is July 27th, 2026.
• 0:43
  Good morning. I hope you guys had a great weekend.
• 0:47
  I'm starting to put out feelers for guest hosts for the pod while I'm away for
• 0:52
  work. I'll be on location for a few weeks.
• 0:54
  So if you or someone you know would like to be a guest host on the Daily Starcast
• 1:00
  later in August, early September, please let me know.
• 1:05
  So in real news, Russia's annual Navy Day celebration was supposed to be one
• 1:10
  of Putin's biggest displays of military power.
• 1:13
  Instead, it turned into a very uncomfortable meeting where Putin appeared very
• 1:17
  frustrated after the parade was canceled.
• 1:20
  So the Navy Day Parade in St. Petersburg is basically Russia's version of a
• 1:25
  Super Bowl halftime show.
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  Like, except instead of pop stars and fireworks, it's warships,
• 1:31
  missiles, fighter jets, and thousands of sailors marching around while Putin
• 1:35
  stands there and, like, acts like he literally owns the world because, you know, ego.
• 1:42
  But this year, the big show was called off. Apparently, there was a ton of security
• 1:46
  concerns, including the threat of Ukrainian drone attack.
• 1:50
  And when Putin met with the naval officials afterward, it got really weird.
• 1:56
  Like, during the meeting, Putin was questioning why the parade had been canceled
• 2:00
  and pushed officials on whether the security concerns were actually serious
• 2:03
  enough to stop the event.
• 2:05
  The problem was that the entire purpose of Navy Day is to show Russia's military
• 2:10
  strength, So canceling the celebration was just kind of creating a very embarrassing visual for them.
• 2:16
  Putin wasn't upset about losing this parade. It was about losing his image.
• 2:21
  Like, Putin literally had a meltdown, reminding me of some other people,
• 2:25
  some other world leaders that you may or may not know of.
• 2:28
  And he was freaking out, like, why couldn't we still have this parade?
• 2:32
  And you're telling me that it's not even safe to put ships in the water for our own celebration?
• 2:37
  I mean, it's kind of rough for a country whose entire brand is,
• 2:40
  look at how powerful our military is.
• 2:43
  So that was really awkward for him and pretty embarrassing.
• 2:47
  Former CBS news anchor Cecilia Vega says that it's been brutal behind the scenes
• 2:53
  at CBS after the network became caught in the middle of a legal battle with Trump.
• 2:58
  So the drama started after Trump sued CBS over a 60-minute interview with then-the-VP Kamala.
• 3:06
  He said that the interview was very deceptive. CBS obviously denied any wrongdoing,
• 3:11
  but Paramount, who owned CBS, eventually agreed to settle the lawsuit while
• 3:15
  also trying to get federal approval for its merger with Skydance, a.k.a. TikTok.
• 3:21
  But now Cecilia Vega says the mood inside the newsroom has completely changed.
• 3:26
  She says journalists have been wondering whether they'll still be able to report
• 3:29
  independently or whether corporate decisions are starting to outweigh, like, the actual news.
• 3:36
  This is literally every newsroom's worst nightmare,
• 3:39
  like you're spending your career chasing stories asking tough questions and
• 3:43
  trying to hold people accountable for things only to realize that the biggest
• 3:47
  story is happening in your own office,
• 3:50
  it's kind of like finding out that house hunters they don't really buy the house
• 3:55
  in the episode they already have it picked out but that's not true.
• 3:59
  As someone who works in TV, I can tell you there is always drama behind the
• 4:04
  scenes, sometimes even a lot more drama than what's happening on the TV show.
• 4:10
  But this is a little bit more concerning because it's still like,
• 4:13
  can we report the actual news?
• 4:15
  Because once the people reporting the news are worried about whether they're
• 4:19
  actually allowed to, that's a story.
• 4:22
  Like, can we make a reality TV show about this?
• 4:26
  LeBron James is another person that proves to us retirement is just a suggestion.
• 4:32
  He will be joining my hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers,
• 4:37
  with Joe Embiid, Therese Maxey,
• 4:39
  and Jalen Brown to create what can only be described as an NBA version
• 4:44
  of a team where everybody has already won all of the awards.
• 4:49
  At this point, LeBron is just like collecting teammates like a fantasy league. He is 41 years old.
• 4:55
  Instead of saying, you know what, maybe I should probably take a break,
• 4:59
  he's just going for another championship run and trying to take another team to the finals.
• 5:04
  LeBron has been in the NBA since 2003. He has played against multiple generations
• 5:10
  of players, watched a lot of teammates retire, and he's still somehow one of
• 5:15
  the biggest names in the league.
• 5:17
  So big congrats to Philly fans. You now have enough star power to make every
• 5:22
  sports analyst spend six months arguing whether this team is a championship.
• 5:27
  Contender or disaster waiting to happen.
• 5:30
  In Lindsay life, if you don't know, now you know that my roommate is like this
• 5:36
  really amazing musician and she's literally always on tour,
• 5:40
  but she came home for the day and visited the apartment for a couple hours on Friday.
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  So that was fun to run into her. And while I'm talking about Gabby,
• 5:52
  she just dropped a merch line earlier this summer.
• 5:55
  If you go to nrose, e-n-rose.shop, she's selling like a really cool,
• 6:02
  line right now so if you're interested in like metal music and you're that kind
• 6:06
  of girly definitely check that
• 6:08
  out and stay tuned because there's definitely going to be more on that,
• 6:12
  so thing of the week this week is legionnaire's disease and it is so underratedly
• 6:18
  talked about but i really wanted to get this on the pod because it's like a really big deal.
• 6:25
  So we're living in New York, right? We're paying an insane amount of rent.
• 6:30
  We're fighting for sidewalk space.
• 6:32
  And we're dodging rats that probably have their own Facebook page at this point.
• 6:37
  So there's currently a Legionnaires disease outbreak on the Upper East Side, which is where I live.
• 6:44
  And mom, I'm fine. Don't freak out.
• 6:47
  But five people have died, though. And there has been more than 80 cases that have been identified.
• 6:53
  Health officials have found Legionella, I hope that's how you pronounce it,
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  bacteria in cooling towers across multiple buildings, which are now being cleaned and disinfected.
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  And if you don't know what Legionnaire's disease is, congratulations,
• 7:07
  you were very blissfully unaware.
• 7:10
  It's basically a severe form of pneumonia caused by breathing in tiny water
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  droplets contaminated by bacteria.
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  It's not spread person to person,
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  so thankfully you don't have to like completely dodge your neighbors.
• 7:24
  Although, let's be honest, we've all been doing that for years anyway.
• 7:28
  So the cooling towers are just these giant machines sitting on top of buildings.
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  It's the same building where someone's paying $4,500 a month for a one-bedroom
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  view of a view of another building's wall.
• 7:41
  It's really astonishing that our mayor seems to be way more interested in arresting
• 7:47
  a prime minister from another country,
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  than actually worrying about the schedule and the cleaning and the safety of
• 7:57
  these cooling towers in his own city where there's literally people dying because of it.
• 8:02
  But that's, I guess, above my pay grade. Cooking tip of the die.
• 8:08
  Learn how to turn off the fire alarm for when it gets a little smoky in the house.
• 8:13
  Feedback, comments, questions, a nice Jewish boy looking for a date,
• 8:16
  email me at lindsay at thedailystarcast.com.
• 8:19
  Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you guys tomorrow.