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Alito Retirement Bombshell? The Timing Could Be Huge · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Karambas of Radio America
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: Three martinis coming up. It is the Three Martini Lunch.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: I am Craig Colonese for one day and one day
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: only more. He is Jim Garrity. Greg Karambas will be
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: back tomorrow. I think a lot of the regular listeners
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: will probably be thrilled.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: To hear that.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: One of the surprising stories to me out there, even
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: though it makes so much logical sense, is the Samuel
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Alito could step down discussion. Alito has been probably one
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: of the more loyal of the Supreme Court justices to
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: President Trump. He has nominated some others that haven't worked
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: out as well as he wanted on some pretty big issues.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: So having a chance to place one more on the
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court and doing it now before they lose the
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: ability to do that, it just all makes a bunch
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: of sense if you're President Trump and others. But I
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: don't know if Alito's actually fully said anything he's going
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: to do this. Is this something that's actually out there?
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: What's going on with this one, Jim?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Well, Craig, as of 8.18 this morning, Brian Krassenstein, who's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a left-of-center guy, and I would not usually put so
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: much stock into a tweet or an ex-post from a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: left-of-center guy, except that it just makes a lot of sense.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And he's saying, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is reportedly
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: considering retirement potentially before the midterm elections. Now, that is
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: less than like three weeks away, so there's not that
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: much time. The timing could be critical. If Alito steps down,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Trump and Senate Republicans could rush to confirm his replacement
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: before January 27 when Democrats could potentially take control of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the Senate. We've been talking all week about how the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Senate polling does not look great for Republicans.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: It's going to be very close one way or the other.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I suppose it's possible John Fetterman could flip, but all
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: in all, it looks like there's a good chance that
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: either the Republicans will not have control of the Senate
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: or there'll be a 50-50 with Vance breaking the tie
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: or something like that.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: So it makes sense.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Alito has done interviews, including with my colleague, Dan McLaughlin,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: where he did not say, I'm going to retire, but
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: he did kind of just acknowledge, yeah, I'm at the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: age where I'll probably be thinking about retirement at some
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: point in the not, like he didn't commit, you know,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: he didn't sound like he was immediately ready to go,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: but he also kind of recognized his age and the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: amount of time he'd been on the court.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And it just kind of makes sense to that.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So I think of that, by the way, if you're
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a Republican saying, you know, There's going to be an
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: opening on the court. One, this would galvanize Republicans because
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: there might be a lot of Republicans who are really
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: frustrated with gas prices and cost of living and the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Iran war and all kinds of things.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: But they like the decision.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Generally, they like the decisions coming out of the right
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of center majority on the Supreme Court. Would not want
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to see that done. And the idea of, oh, well,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I could see this being galvanizing.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: For GOP parties. GOP support.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: But it sounds like this retirement announcement could come, you
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: got to figure it'd be really soon. You wouldn't want
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: to do this on like the Monday before the election
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: or something like that. So it's intriguing, something to keep
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: an eye on and something that if you're Alito and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: you like the direction of the court and you know
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: at some point you're going to have to step down
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and there's a chance, God forbid, you know, he's 70...
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: He was 70.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: A few years ago. 76, I think. He's 76.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And Clarence Thomas, he's never said it, but he keeps saying,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I have no intention of retiring. Thomas is having the
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: time of his life. He's going to stay on there,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I suspect, until he meets his maker. And that's his decision.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: He can do it the way he wants. I can
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: see Alito. It just makes sense for Alito. So I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: think this cannot be ruled out.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: And I like the way you point out Clarence Thomas,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: who's 78 years old, too, because if you think about
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: the logistics of this, and I hate to be dark
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: for a second, let's say that Democrats take over and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: then in another two years, Democrats do quite well again.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: The odds of having a Democratic opportunity there to place
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: two seats in the Senate in like 10-ish years is
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: fairly high. That sounds potentially troublesome for the Trump administration,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: for Republicans in general.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I was going to say Republicans had the presidency, House
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and Senate, 2017, 2018, and then lost it. They had
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: it very briefly in 2000, and then Jim Jeffers switched
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: parties in 2000. Then they went back and controlled the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Senate in 2002, then in 2006. So when you're the Republicans,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: you just don't have House, Senate, and presidency all at
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the same time. It just doesn't happen very often. It
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't last very long. You just can't assume you're going
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: to have those majorities forever.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Long period. So it just, it makes sense.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Look, I don't know if he's necessarily going to stay
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: around like that, but I will just observe if you're
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: a Alito clerk, I assume you're probably not buying a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: green banana.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Fair enough. Speaking of bananas.
• 4:55
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• 4:56
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• 6:14
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• 6:20
  Speaker 3: And we move on to our bad martini. The Kimberly
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Guilfoyle fallout is still kind of a thing in the news.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Vice President J.D. Vance was asked a question, I believe
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: by CBS, about this, in which he said, selling access
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: to the White House, bad. Okay, he said a little
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: bit more than that. But anyway, I do think that
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: this is probably an obvious take on an interesting story.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: But our bad is... Kimberly Guilfoyle out and certainly in
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: a deserving way. What do you got on this?
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think this is a sign.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So apparently she's threatening she's going to take down the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: rest of the Trump administration.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: We'll see what she has.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: But like you look, this this puts everybody else, the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: administration in an awkward spot. Vice President J.D. Vance is
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: doing an event about combating fraud, you know, keeping high
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: ethics and stuff. CBS News Jennifer Jacobs asked him. do
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: you have any reaction to a U.S. government official, in
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: this case, a U.S. ambassador, asking someone to pay off
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: debt in exchange for access to other government officials? Now,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Vance's first answer is, I don't know exactly who you're
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: talking about.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know the full detail. Oh, like there's a
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of them. It could be anybody who's offering now.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: And then he says, of course, I don't like anybody
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: selling access to another government official, certainly a high-level government official,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: but I assume you're talking about a specific case, and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I can't say with confidence that the case you're talking
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: about is actually reflective of the way you're describing it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I'd like to get the full story before offering a
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: real opinion. Look, on the one hand, you feel for Vance.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I don't usually say that very often. My understanding is
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it's a State Department Inspector General investigation. She resigned, but
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: there's still facts to be established in this. I suppose
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you could bring charges for either solicitation of bribes or
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: offering influence peddling or something like that. Um, and the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: fact that she keeps saying in these text messages, don't
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: write this down. Well, that's a sign that not everything
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: is on the up and up and that she feels
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: she's putting herself and the other, some legal jeopardy here.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So I've heard people saying that the guy is, uh, she's,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: she was texting with this Tennessee business.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: He's a nut.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe he is, but that doesn't, still doesn't reflect well
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: on her saying, dear nut, please pay my 100,000 American
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: express card bill.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: And yeah, And then you have some shots, yeah.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I just left looking at this. I don't want to say, Craig,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: if you hire for looks, you end up with crooks.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: But just a situation in which I don't think anyone's like, oh, wow,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Kimberly Guilfoyle.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: She'd be a great ambassador to Greece.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she wasn't on my short list.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: You hire folks like this, you end up with problems
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: like this.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and my favorite part, too, by the way, when
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: you reference the text messages, is you would think that
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: someone typing out on a phone, don't write this down,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: would know they shouldn't text it. They're like, man, I
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: probably shouldn't text this to this person. Maybe pick up
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the phone and call them. I'm not trying to help
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: them make the crime go better, but this seems uniquely
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: crazy in general. But yeah, no, she seems very deserving.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: of being canned. And honestly, I think it was the
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: saving grace for the next topic that we'll talk about
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: in just a minute, the White House press secretary's debut,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: because it was generally newsworthy announcements, and it does seem
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: to make sense. And it's a bad look for the administration,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: but it's a bad look on one specific person who's
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: now fired.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Listeners and viewers, that's today's Crime Tips with Craig Cullinane.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Don't go out and commit crimes like an amateur.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Please, if you're going to say something illegal, at least
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: do it on the phone.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: There you go. Unless you're being wiretapped. You know what?
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Face to face. Not in your shop.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: In a parking garage. Have we not learned anything from history?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: There we go. Not that we spend a lot of
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: time thinking about these things. All right. No. That's enough levity.
• 9:59
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• 11:06
  Speaker 3: And now we move on to our crazy topic, and
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: it has not been a good first week for the
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: White House press secretary, Katie Zachariah. Not only did she
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: not do great at the job itself, and that could
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: get better, and it could get better fast because it's
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: going to have to, but some baggage has come out.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: We talked about just the other day her own ties
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: to the Chinese government, potentially, and now her husband has
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: ties to North Korea. This is a one-two checkbox list
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: of bad, Jim. How do we go about talking about
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: this one?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Well, just to quickly review yesterday, from 2011, 2013, she
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: was working for this law firm in Beijing. She had
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: moved out to China with her husband. And that by
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: itself is nothing illegal or.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Something like that. Now, this firm.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: does have the Chinese Justice Ministry as a client. And
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they are the police in the police state over there.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Almost just about every member of the firm is either
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: a member of the Chinese Communist Party or takes a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: loyalty oath to the Chinese Communist Party.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Now, as I said, this is 2011 to 2013.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I've heard people say that the work she was doing
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: was more like a paralegal. If she came out and said, yes,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I was overseas. My husband was working at this place.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I was looking for a job. This is what I did.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, fine.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: You know, it'd be nice to know what her clients were,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: what kind of cases, stuff like that, to the extent
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: she can disclose that. But it's possible this is just
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: routine things that you do when you're overseas.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: And you're working.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Like, it's a little unusual, but it's not inherently a problem.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: What does make this a bit more of a problem,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and I wrote about this in the National Review Corner today.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: So her husband is named Tyler Zacharia. He was the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: guy who was out in working in Beijing. While he
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: was working in Beijing, he was the vice president of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Shoals Global Investments, a global emerging markets private equity firm
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that was successfully bought by Cerebus Capital. Now, this is
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: from his official biography and his current employer, 2521 Entertainment,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: which is a film studio. During that time there, he
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: led or participated in over 20 direct equity investments in
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: six countries across four continents. He helped expand the business
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and build teams in Ethiopia, Brazil, Mongolia, and North Korea.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Now that last one kind of jumps out off the page.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So I went back and I, by the way, according
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to his LinkedIn page, he worked at this firm from
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: 2007 to 2013. This is not someone alleging that he
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: did work in North Korea. This is him stating in
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: his official biography on his current employer, I did work
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: in North Korea. Now, under that time, North Korea was
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: under a heck of a lot of sanctions by both
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the United Nations and United States. doesn't necessarily mean that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: any of the work he was doing violated it. I
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: would say, though, that if you're a U.S. businessman based
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: in China and you're doing some work in North Korea,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you're only there if the North Korean government wants you there.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: You're only there if they signed off on it, and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: this is benefiting them. So while what he did there
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: probably wasn't illegal, it may well have been somewhat unethical
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: or a moral gray area.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Charcoal.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: It's not squeaky clean.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so again, you'd like to know more. I
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: also went back and checked.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Rahm Emanuel, who was chief of staff in the White
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: House of Barack Obama, also likely to run for president,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: because on Facebook he says, look, back when I was there,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you had to have a security clearance with an FBI
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: background check to be a White House press secretary, or
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: at least you used to. I suppose it's possible that
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: they've waived that. FBI background checks, and I've had a
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: bunch of friends who've gone through this process. The range
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: and how much time it can take can be a while,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: but usually it's 30 to 180 days, average about 60.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And they say, like, look, if you've worked overseas or
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: something like that, that doesn't mean you can't work in
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the White House.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean you can't get a government.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Job, but it usually takes more time to check that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: stuff out and to say, who were your associates? Was
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: there anyone who could be a suspicious character?
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: You look at this.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: It sounds like she got hired in three days. There's
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: no way she went through the traditional FBI background check.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And I think that's been... The China work, eh. North
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Korea work, eh. Again, even if she's not.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: I don't think she went through any background check, Jim.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: That's what it looks like.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I don't think anybody even asked her for a resume.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: I think they just hired her. It'd be nice if
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: they turned that in. By the way, she was also...
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: really challenged by Sean Hannity, which was interesting to watch.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Because out of all the people on Fox, the person
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: who seems to have the most loyalty and the closest
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: tie to President Trump is Sean. So if Trump wanted
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: this to happen, Sean would do it. If Trump didn't
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: want this to happen, Sean wouldn't do it. Those are
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: my questions about it.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: That's, as I say, the idea of Sean Hannity going
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: rogue and suddenly doing, you know, Sam Donaldson to a
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Trump White House, that doesn't seem, particularly when she's already
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: in trouble. I've heard some people characterize the interview as
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: more in sorrow than in anger, but still hard questions. Now, again,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of this is over the, did she ever
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: pass the bar? I don't think that's the most interesting
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: controversy here. If she was not legally permitted to call
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: herself a lawyer, she should not have called herself a lawyer. Yesterday,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: one of my colleagues said, oh, there's no real distinction
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: between an attorney and a lawyer. Another one who is
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a lawyer said, actually, yes, there is. I'll leave that
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: for the lawyers to sort out. I do think work
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: for entities tied to China and North Korea, that is
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: something that I want to know more about. I kind
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of feel like those are indisputably hostile states. If you're
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: going to be around the president, you've got to get that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Stuff checked out. And at this point, it does not
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: have to be the case.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: And again, I've heard people speculating that Maybe she isn't
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: going to stay in this job very long.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: It just feels like it's been a really rough start
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and just a sneaking suspicion that there's got to be
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: somebody else who doesn't have these kinds of issues who
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: you could put in that job.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Right, and by the way, if anybody tells me that
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: a lawyer is someone who has the correct degree but
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: doesn't practice, an attorney is someone who practices, as a
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: person that just walks around on earth, I don't really
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: talk about it that way.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been weird to see. I keep finding this stuff,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: which strikes me as kind of a bigger controversy. The
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: entire White House press corps is, when did you pass
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the bar?
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Who are you? That's your prior? Okay.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Well, it is what it is. All right.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: And as I take a deep breath here, Jim, I
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: actually just want to take the chaser topic to complain
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: to you because I am falling asleep to the voices
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: of James Tallarico, Ken Paxton, and the infighting between the
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: two of them as I am hearing. And everywhere, it's
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: not just even on the radio station that I work at,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: all the television, all the pop-up ads everywhere, so many
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: political ads right now. I want them to stop.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Craig, you have my sympathies.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I do kind of wonder if the gravelly-voiced announcer in
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: all of those attack ads does something like goes to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Starbucks and says, I would like a venti dark with
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: room for Korean. And bagel toasted, everything bagel, with cream cheese,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: but only lightly toasted. Kind of like the movie voice
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: guy who gets to do this stuff. I don't have
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: it quite as bad as you do in the state
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: of Texas, but here in Virginia, Mark Warner... is running
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: up against, no offense, but a tomato can Republican who
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a shot.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: But he's got money, so he.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Might as well run ads and sell on the streaming
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: services that run ads. I get at least one Mark
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Warner ad per streaming one. And he's all about companies
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: using algorithms to dynamic pricing, like the idea of raising
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the prices if they think you can pay more. I
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: don't like this, but he's made this the centerpiece of
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: what is a deeply uncompetitive campaign. And my kids have
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: kind of observed like, boy, you want to run a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: campaign that like on topics that nobody, there aren't a
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: lot of people like, no, I think corporations should charge
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: people more depending on what their income is. And I
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: like the surveillance state, people knowing my tax returns and
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: how much I, you know. So like Mark Warner, I'm
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: pretty sure you've got it 10 times worse than I've
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: got it.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's definitely terrible. And at this point, I
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: really do wonder like how much this is actually breaking through.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Like part of me also like, Right. Not at all.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: So why not? They could give me the money. I'd
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: spend it on something better.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And my suspicion, I don't have a lot. This is
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: your last day of the week, Craig. I'm going to say,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: don't worry. You're almost to the end. November 3rd, November 4th,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: your life will go back and all the commercials will
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: be about this product will clear up your skin, but
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: may have thoughts of suicide and explosive diarrhea.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I always like, oh, this is sad.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And they're always running through a field and they're always
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: feeling great or at the farmer's market. They're doing, they're like, wow,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that's an amazing stuff from my irritable bowel syndrome or something.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It's just the thoughts of suicide that are like, yeah.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you have allergies? We can clean that right up.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: You might have a heart attack and die.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks, guys. You balance it out.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: All right, well, I'm going to have a bunch of
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: martinis next week because I won't actually be on the show. Thanks,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: as always, you guys for hanging out.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Terrific guest host. Thank you for being here. And everybody,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I will be back Monday. Greg will be back Monday.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And we'll be back to our usual three-martini lunch.