Trump Wore Pajamas

David Plotz
Hello and welcome to the Slate political Gabfest, May 9, 2024. The Trump War Pajamas edition. I'm David Plotz of Citycast in Washington, DC. I have no crow update this week. I'm sorry.

From CB's daily report in New York City, John Dickerson perhaps has pigeon or hawk? Hawk or owl update, since those are the popular birds of New York. Any pigeon, hawk or owl updates? John no, but the red shouldered blackbird. We were walking a couple of weeks ago by a field that had, they were having a convention of some sort and they'd all had too much to drink.

John Dickerson
They were so loud and so happy and so springtime. It was, it was, we just had to sit there and be pelted by the cacophony. It was really great. From New Haven, the New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School, our very own wise owl, Emily Bazelon. Thank you.

Emily Bazelon
That's what a great way to start the morning, to be a wise owl. I'll take it. You're a wise owl every week, Emily. This week on the Gabfest, the extraordinary spectacle of stormy Daniels testifying about her sexual encounter with former President Trump in front of Trump. What does this testimony matter from a legal and or political perspective?

David Plotz
Then the Biden administration moves to make marijuana slightly less illegal. We are going to discuss the state of weed in America. And then is the New York Times screwing up its coverage of the presidential campaign? Does it matter? We're going to talk about the dust up over New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn's interview about the role of the Times at a time of democratic peril.

Plus, we'll have cocktail chatter and listeners. If you're in DC on May 14, you have to go to the Amicus live show. Our colleagues at Slate, Dia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, as well as special guests, civil rights lawyer Sherilyn Ifill. Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins and author Madiba Denny are doing a live show at six and I on May 14 on how originalism captured the court. It's about how the Supreme Court has used originalism to radically reshape the law.

If you've listened to the gabfest over the years, you know this is a, like a critical issue. Dalia and Mark are extremely interesting and entertaining commentators on it, and I guarantee you that will be a fun evening here in DC. So check it out at 6th and I on May 14 here in DC. Go to slate.com amicuslive for more info about the event. And there's also a larger package about originalism that Slate's doing, which is@slate.com.

Originalism. With lucky land slots, you can get lucky just about anywhere. This is your captain speaking. We've got clear Runway and the weather's fine, but we're just gonna circle up here a while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that.

It's just these cash prizes add up quick. So I suggest you sit back, keep your tray table upright and start getting lucky. Play for free@luckylandslides.com. Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary.

Emily Bazelon
Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. See website for details. On Tuesday, Stormy Daniels testified in the Trump criminal trial in New York City about the sexual encounter she had with Trump that led to the hush money payment at the root of Trump's prosecution. As we tape on Thursday morning, Daniels is about to go back on the stand for more testimony.

David Plotz
So, Emily, this case is about the payment and the steps taken to hide it and how that influenced the election. Why did the jury need to hear about what position Trump and Stormy Daniels had sex in? I think the jury did not need to hear that. And that Stormy Daniels was kind of a runaway train on the stand and just decided to narrate more details of this sexual encounter than were necessary. And it was almost like it all happened so quickly that she couldn't be stopped.

Emily Bazelon
I don't think it was great in terms of the relevance. You know, she is on the stand because this hush money payment to her is obviously at the heart of the case. And I'm happy to talk more about, you know, Trump, like, waiting for her on the bed and the image of that and how much, it just is completely consistent with lots of other accounts we have of how he treats women. Did you use the word happy? Well, I mean, I feel like, I didn't mean to, just like I was about to make a different point.

So I was just saying that we don't have to leave this behind immediately. However, the point I wanted to make is that the reason, the main reason Daniels is testifying is that the hush money payment to her, this $130,000, is at the heart of the case. It's supposedly what the COVID up was all about. She is testifying that she didn't make a deal and agree to be silent for the money. Right.

Like, that was her claim on the stand. And that just seems, like, hard to understand how she would say that she took the money. Like, why else was she making the deal? So I, if given the part of what's at issue here, is her credibility. That did not seem good for the prosecution to me.

And I wonder if they will try to clean that up when she goes back on the stand on Thursday after our taping. I think you're exactly right that her credibility is at issue, but I wonder why that's the case for the purposes of the legal case. And then secondly, one thing about the excruciating detail, which I think you're right, is on the one hand, it makes this case all about sex. And it would seem to me to make it pretty easily dismissible to say, look, he didn't want to get caught having this sex thing, and it's embarrassing, but that's no big deal. But on the other hand, in the excruciating detail that she told it, it does put the lie to his claims that he didn't do it.

John Dickerson
So I wonder if it's a way to undermine his credibility. But the main question I wonder, Emily, is why as a part of a legal matter, is her credibility important? Because the check got written, something was being hushed up. And so whether it was actually a sex act that got hushed up or the claiming of a sex act actually is immaterial to the false records case. Right, that's true.

Emily Bazelon
I mean, there was some speculation about why she was testifying at all. And I kind of went for the theory of, well, the jury is going to want to hear from the person at the center of this and understand why she took the money and what actually happened. I think you're right that Trump's denial that he had sex with her at all means that her account of it, if the jury believes it, makes him less credible. And you're right, like, in the end, he's the one on trial, not her. One thing I didn't understand about Trump's denial that he had sex with her is they're introducing that by just having him in the public record saying that he obviously has not testified.

David Plotz
Cause he hasn't testified yet in this case that he hasn't had sex with her. So they're just using him, saying publicly, I didn't have sex with her to tarnish him. Wait, so far, I mean, there's a question about whether he is going to testify. I mean, he can't. There's no chance he's going to testify.

How could he possibly testify given the set of facts that she's presented? I mean, he's going to say none of this happened. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to. There's two possibilities. I mean, if you're his lawyer and you're trying to make sure he's not convicted, then he should not testify.

Emily Bazelon
I actually am not sure how much Trump cares about that. Here's why. I mean, he's already paying ginormous sums of money from his civil judgment in the, you know, other case against the Trump Organization that Tish James brought for the state of New York. I find it very unlikely he is going to go to jail if he gets convicted of this felony. So what's really at stake here, it's like a smaller fine, probably.

He has. It's not a very good set of facts for him. Maybe his primary concern here is not whether he's convicted or not. It's how this plays out in public for his political fortunes. And in that case, he might testify, because first of all, he loves the attorney.

Second of all, he can say all kinds of things on the stand, and maybe he thinks that will be better for him politically. And the sort of legal consequences are. Actually, like, lesser but a criminal conviction. For one thing, he wouldn't be sentenced, I presume, by the time of the election. So it's like, he's sentenced by the.

Time of the election. We have months. Well, okay. He won't have gone to jail by the time of the election or prison by the time of the election if he's sentenced, because there's gonna be appeals. To not have to jail.

Right. And also, yeah, the appeals are good. Like, I know, best bet is an appeal. I know. But if you consider this as a political matter, does he really want a criminal like, you are convicted felon, like running for president?

I'm a kid. Really? Do you think it matters that much? I mean, I don't mean this is, this is, I don't mean to say that I think it's so what? But, like, in his calculus, this is where we call in our expert, John Dickerson, who has so good on how this affects an electorate.

David Plotz
But there have been these polls consistently that say if he's convicted of a felony, that would affect a certain set of people. Now, you could say it wouldn't. And so he's. We've been kind of scoffing at those polls. I know we've been scoffing.

Emily Bazelon
Okay. I like how shocked you are. And now I want to. Well, I would like John's explanation about whether they're going to matter if he's actually criminally convicted. Well, all right, let me just answer that.

John Dickerson
So CNN had a poll and said 28% of those polled think the hush money case should disqualify Trump from the presidency, you could imagine those numbers increasing, but somebody has to make those numbers increase. And so it has to either be the press. Hard to do in a bifurcated media, or an atomized media environment where trust in the media is low. Biden would have to make that case. Doesn't really want to talk about icky sex stuff all the time.

Not really people's central concern. Plus, he's not a very good communicator. So is that 28% number gonna go. Up 28% of the whole electorate? That's.

I believe that's right. Really? Should disqualify. Should disqualify him from the presidency. And is that a conviction, or is that just like the case?

I guess it's. Well, since we haven't had a conviction, I think it's short of a conviction, just if you accept the facts as presented. So let's imagine a conviction increases that by 10%. Still, that's only 38%, 20% still only 48% of the country. It would not be as damaging.

Now, let's play the opposite. Let's imagine grabbing your theory, Emily. Let's imagine the fine that he gets is a campaign expenditure. If campaigns now are essentially about turning out your base in the six states that are going to determine the election, what better way to rile up the base than to present yourself as a martyr to the system? And you could argue that no better way to present yourself as a martyr to the system than a New York judge, which, again, is very funny, because Trump wins the primary in 2016 because of an answer he gives about New York values in 911.

Nevertheless, he's now on the total opposite side of that. And New York offers this foil for Trump, where liberal New York, the DA, is african american, the judge is against him. There's this litany of things he could cobble together for how everything about this case is against him. Which is funny, because you'll remember there was that winning moment for Trump in the 2016 campaign where he defended New York values. Now he's on the other side of that, and the New York values are out to get him.

He had an on the record tape boasting about sexual assault that came out before 2016, and that didn't bother him. So this is actually, you could imagine bringing a suit that his behavior, that essentially, this is an in kind campaign donation to him. Now, that's going a little too far. But I'm not. I don't think it's going that far.

David Plotz
You guys think that a being convicted of a felony for trying to influence the 2016 election in a vote of a jury is a benefit to Trump. I mean, I didn't argue benefit, though, I like, but I did. I didn't. I was arguing. I'm arguing in the alternative.

John Dickerson
I'm not sure which is true. I don't think the scenario I sketched out is insane. Me neither. Look, is this a per. Is this man acting as if his deepest fear is being convicted of this felony?

Emily Bazelon
He is not. He is not at all acting that way. He is acting as if what he cares about is the politics of this. He is baiting the judge. He's playing cat and mouse with this gag order and these fines.

He's daring the judge to put him in jail. The judge is, like, desperate not to put him in jail. That's like the sort of short term, during the trial drama. If he gets convicted, it will be on some level. I mean, I think it will be shameful and it will be up to all of us, I think, to remind people that this isn't just a sex case.

It is about influencing the election, and maybe that part of it will hit home with the electorate. But I don't know how many swing voters does this move. I go back to the access Hollywood cape, to John. Like, that seemed to me like it had the power in the moment to be truly earth shattering and damaging. And it wasn't.

David Plotz
Yeah, no, of course. Of course. But, like, for one thing, 2016 is a. Is a different set of facts. It's a different election.

And I agree that as long as this election is fought on, is, should Biden be president? Trump is in great shape. But if the ground shifts to should Trump be president? The 2016 election was fought on, was fought about Hillary Clinton, rather than about Trump, mostly. And the 2024 election so far goes back and forth.

Insofar as it's about Biden, Biden is having a real problem. But if it can be focused on Trump and Trump's danger to the system, and Trump is literally a convicted felon, it seems to me that there's got to be, I mean, some voters who are affected by that, maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong. Can I just say one quick thing, which is important for me to maintain my view of the race? We've been talking about this as a political matter and how it will play out, which I think is important.

John Dickerson
But going back to actually what we've learned in the case, to me, it's not even the hush money payments, although those are important. What we are seeing, and this is a window into is pattern in practice, of a person who cheats. And in this case, what? By cheating, I mean, sets up a system with David Pecker in the National Enquirer to salt the primary of 2016 with lies about his opponents and then use those lies to beat those opponents. He cheated before getting on the field at all.

He enters into engagements with a cheating mindset, and then when caught, of course, he cheats. But the point here is not, well, anybody would lie when they were caught having sex. No, he lied before he even got into the 2016 primary. He is wired to act dishonestly and to make the situation and the rules of the game not work for him and create his own set of rules so that he can advantage and that the rules of the game are themselves undermined. That's the window we're getting into him.

And he's done that inconsistent. He's done it in this instance. And then when he got into public life, he did it as well. So this affirms his instincts, and those instincts are totally antithetical to the job that he wants to be rewarded with being given. So that's, to me, like the real presidential question here, which is distinct from the political matter.

David Plotz
I mean, except that there's a huge percentage of people who believe if he's cheating for us, sure, that that's, that's what America needs, is someone who'll cheat for us. Could not agree more. The problem is that when confronted with a situation where his personal self interest or the greater good is at stake, he always picks his personal self interest and cheats on behalf of that. So he's not cheating on behalf of the voters. Before we leave, can we just quickly go back to the testimony about sex?

Emily Bazelon
See, I knew that we weren't done with that. Well, it is the thing that most people, it made the headlines. It's the thing that people are talking about. Everyone knows the details of it, and I just feel it's now stuck in your head. Every detail that Stormy Daniels described will be stuck in your head.

David Plotz
You'll be able to recount it years ahead. As you can talk about the blue dress, as you can talk about the cigar and Lewinsky cases. It is, it has this incredibly prejudicial effect when you learn someone's sexual habits. I remember when Elliot Spitzer, John's least favorite person, when Elliot Spitzer went down in his prosecution, in his prostitution scandal, he'd gone to a prostitute. It was the prostitution, the fact he paid for prostitutes, that was illegal, and it was really damning to him.

But one of the most damning things which I'm sure you guys can remember is there was this detail about how Elliot Spitzer wore his socks during sex. Do we know it's true? We don't know it's true. But does everyone who learned that, who heard about that case knew that detail? Yeah.

And I just feel like it's just so unfair to people. I mean, Trump is a despicable person who deserves nothing and would never give anyone any benefit of the doubt. But it's still so prejudicial to have one's sexual behavior put out in the world because it's intrinsically embarrassing. No matter what it is. No matter what it is, it's embarrassing.

John Dickerson
That intrigues me from this standpoint, you're in the jury. Does it create a sense of sympathy? And especially since it seemed to me from Stormy Daniels testimony that she was twisting the knife in the details that she was choosing to give, particularly with respect to the alpha male presentation that Trump puts forward, and in fact, indeed, in front of the jurors is trying to put forward. And whether along the lines of what you're saying, David, humans in the jury box would think, like, it's gross, even though, I mean, sorry, it's embarrassing, even though the way she presented the exchange or whatever the hell we're calling it in the hotel room or whatever it was, was obviously a bullying kind of. It wasn't assault, but it was not the vulnerable romantic advances of a.

Emily Bazelon
It was not seducing her, according her. Yeah, I don't refute anything you're saying, David. I also, however, was very alert to how she was reversing the power imbalance here. Like, it really hit me that this woman who, you know, he made her feel used, and she remembers that and doesn't appreciate it, and she was turning the tables on him. And there was something, like, gratifying to me for her sake in that at the same time, I also am uncomfortable with the prejudicial impact of it in a courtroom.

Like in the political sphere, I don't have a problem with it, but in a courtroom, I kind of did. I suppose if people found it offensive in the jury that she could just say, it's locker room talk. Do you want to hear more from us after this episode? Absolutely not. You should stick around for a bonus segment today.

David Plotz
We're going to be talking about the Detroit Free Press's ambitious effort to actually talk to voters. The Detroit Free Press is decided to talk to voters, and we're going to talk to an admiral. We're not going to talk to the voters. We're not going to talk to the voters. God forbid.

God forbid we would do that. But we are going to talk sometimes, just not on the gabfest itself. Continue. Anyway, this segment is just for slate plus members. If you are a Slate plus member, thanks a lot.

And if you're not a Slate plus member, please sign up. Go to slate.com gabfests plus to become a member today. You get bonus segments on every gabfest that we do, and you get bonus segments of other podcasts. And you don't hit the paywall in the slate site, and you get discounts to live shows like the Amicus show. So if you're a member, thank you.

If you're not a member, go to slate.com gabfests plus to become a member today. It's hard to imagine a world where we leave future generations with fewer rights and freedoms. The Supreme Court has stolen the constitutional right to control our bodies. Now politicians in nearly every state have introduced bills that would block people from getting the essential sexual and reproductive care they need, including abortion. Planned Parenthood believes everyone deserves access to care.

D
It's a human right. We won't give up and we won't back down. Help ensure the next generation can decide their own futures. Donate to Planned Parenthood. Visit plannedparenthood.org future.

David Plotz
This episode of the Gabfest is brought to you by Zbiotics. There's now a game changing product to use before a night out with drinks. It's called zbiotics. Lets face it, after a night out with drinks, it is tough to bounce back the next day because you have to make a choice. You can either have a great night or a great next day.

Z Biotics is a surefire way to wake up feeling fresh after a night of drinking. Zbiotics Pre alcohol probiotic drink is the worlds first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Heres how it when you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It is this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day, zbiotics produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down.

Just remember to make zbiotics your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Go to zbiotics.com Gabfest to get 15% off your first order. When you use Gabfest at checkout, Zbiotics is backed with a 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked.

Remember to head to zbiotics.com gabfest and use the code Gabfest at checkout for 15% off. Hi, this is Dalia Lithwick, host of Slate's legal podcast Amicus. If you're listening to this show, you might be interested in amicus live show that we're hosting in Washington, DC on Tuesday, May 14. My colleague Mark Joseph Stern and I will be talking to some amazing guests, including Sherilyn Ifill and a sitting state Supreme Court justice, all about how originalism, a relatively recently invented way of interpreting the Constitution, has taken over the Supreme Court and radically reshaped the law. It's been doctrinal rocket fuel for the console conservative legal movement and facilitated the rolling back of abortion rights, the expansion of gun rights, and the obliteration of the separation of church and state.

D
And as another wildly consequential Supreme Court term careers to its end, the court's originalists are on a tear. But there's something you can do about it, and we hope you'll join us in DC on May 14 to explore the possible pathways out of the current situation. Go to slate.com amicuslive. For tickets.

David Plotz
The Biden Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DEA have proposed to reclassify marijuana from a schedule one drug, the worst category next to heroin and cocaine and I assume methamphetamine, to a Schedule III drug alongside ketamine and steroids. This would not make pot legal, but it would make it somewhat less illegal, and it would make it somewhat easier to run a pot business, make the tax burden lower if you're running a pot business, and it would generally signal an easing up on pot by the federal government. Marijuana legalization and decriminalization is wildly popular. A vast majority of Americans think pot should be legal in some form, either medically or recreationally or both. But because federal law still criminalizes it, and because of the vast gray market, pot remains a mess in this country.

And we're going to talk about that mess. But first of all, can either of you smell pot right now? Yeah, like it is. It is one of the basic facts of modern living in a city that if you are outside in a city now, all of us are inside, you generally can smell pot, like 50% of the time. Can either of you smell pot right now?

John Dickerson
If I open my window of Columbus Avenue, it would definitely. I would certainly smell it. I mean, it's every morning we go on a walk and I would say 80% of the time. Well, maybe 70% of the time. And this is in the morning hours, which somebody somewhere is getting baked along our route.

Emily Bazelon
Do you ever wonder about the effect on pets? I wonder sometimes if my dog is like a constant secondary high. Oh, my gosh. Hannah, my ex wife's dog, ate some pot that it found on the street, and it was incredibly dangerous and like, found on, knocked the dog for a loop. I think the dog ended up in the hospital.

David Plotz
She wrote a piece, I think, for the Post about it. All right, how big a deal Emily is rescheduling and isn't the only thing that would really change the status of pot in this country, full legalization at a federal level? Well, there's two things. There's decriminalization and then there's full legalization. And decriminalization is really important.

Emily Bazelon
You know, you don't get charged, the federal government doesn't bring criminal charges against you. Like, that's important and good. And it's not a big factor in decarceration anymore because not a lot of people are in jail for pot, and states can continue to make pot illegal. This doesn't change their ability to do that. But it's notable.

I think the thing I find confusing about this is that we're at this weird moment where we have a black market, illegal marijuana business and a semi legal one in a lot of states, including where I live, and a lot of questions about how to properly set up and regulate the legal business in hopes of shifting the way that people buy pot into the legal sphere and out of the illegal sphere. And one of the important parts of that is taxes. And it does seem like this is going to change the tax burden. But another really important part of this is banking. And from what I understand, this is not going to, like, wholly fix the banking part.

And I am confused about that because that has been a really big burden and obstacle to, like, fully legal. Right? I mean, don't we, ideally, in the end, I think, want pot to be like alcohol. Where you go into a store, there are rules, you know, children are not allowed to buy it. You bring it home.

People are not, like, selling alcohol on the street the way that they still sell pot on the street. And so I'm a little, and banking seems important to switching over to that. And so I'm a little mixed up about why that's not directly addressed here. What I wonder is if you could deschedule whether descheduling, which essentially makes it, like alcohol and nicotine, would also require you to decriminalize. There might be a higher bar for decriminalization for whatever legal reason.

John Dickerson
But descheduling gets to your point, Emily, which I didn't really. I kept asking on our show, like, everybody's saying, this is historic and this is a huge deal. Why is it a huge deal if it's not decriminalized? Like, help me understand this. And it took a lot, and I still don't really understand it.

But one thing that did help was the podcast search engine, which had two episodes on why there are so many black, sort of black market, gray market pot shops in New York. I mean, you guys are everywhere, on every block. As far as I could tell, there are so many of them that they're opening up pot stores within pot stores because they've run out of actual room. But I think this gets to your point about banking, Emily, and what I think I've come to understand, although it's fragile, which is that there's a huge number of people who would benefit in the business of cannabis distribution and growing, that, um, when the barriers lower, like, you can. Tax deductibility is huge, right?

Like, if you can't deduct any of your expenses as a business, that's a huge cost. And the only people who can carry that cost are people with lots and lots and gobs and gobs of money. How do you get gobs of money? You either start as super rich or you get a bank to help you out. But if you're a person in the legacy pot market, which is to say you were selling it when it was illegal, or you're a person in California who can sell it legally but doesn't have access to capital because banks won't loan to you because of these federal.

The federal schedule, then you can't participate in this booming new business. Only people with gobs and money can do it. So presumably, this lowers the barriers. Not all the way. And as you point, Emily, the banking thing's not totally fixed, but it lowers the barriers so lots more people can be engaged in the legal business.

David Plotz
So, John, you and I met decades ago in the late nineties. And the reason we met is that I was in South Carolina. You were covering a political race. I was covering political race, but I was primarily there to write about gambling in South Carolina. And in South Carolina in the late nineties, this really weird thing happened where gambling existed in a gray area in the law in South Carolina, and as a result, it metastasized it became.

It was everywhere because it was basically unregulated, so anyone could do it. And so you had literally more places to gamble, to play video poker, in particular, a form of gambling that was pervasive in South Carolina than there were in Las Vegas. Every store in South Carolina suddenly had a mini video poker casino in it. And it was because of this quasi legality. It wasn't getting taxed, it wasn't regulated.

The authorities didn't know what to do with it. And it took a real willful act by the South Carolina legislature, eventually driven by conservative christian organizations, to just get rid of it. Things that exist in a gray area in the law are often the worst possible incarnation of them because people are just uncertain. And so most of the bad acts that you associate with a black market continue, but you don't get the benefits of a white market, which are taxation, regulation. You know, that knowing that the product is good.

One of the things that I'm in edibles, I use, like, I love edibles. I love marijuana edibles. You know, I'm an infrequent user, but I think they're great. But. But the stuff that's sold in DC, which is basically an unregulated market, I won't touch because you just have no idea how much actual THC is in it.

You just don't. Can't trust the product, whereas the stuff that comes from states, which have a bit more regulation, you feel like, okay, this has been lab tested. I can trust that. If it says it's five mgs, it's five mgs. And this uncertainty and this chaos is so bad for everything, man.

John Dickerson
Do you hear a dog bark? Oh, my God. Dude. One thing I think we should note here, and maybe this is why the marijuana has not been descheduled. There are still these questions out there about safety, especially related to frequent use, especially.

Emily Bazelon
Especially related to children and adolescents, like, driving. A lot of things we have not figured out yet. It's not like this is some, like, benign flower that has appeared in our mist. It is. And it's gotten much more potent.

Like, there's some real health and safety questions that are kind of getting glossed over in the, like, pro legalization movement and moment. Although isn't one of the benefits of scheduling it to three from one is that you can now do research in a way that you couldn't before. Right. And my understanding from people reporting on this is that research is seriously lacking. Yeah.

David Plotz
I mean, Emily, going to this point about the danger, we have lots of things that are dangerous but desirable. We call them vices, and many of them are regulated and taxed, and we make it hard for kids to access them. Do you think that can we successfully get there with marijuana, or is marijuana worse than these other ones? And we shouldn't get there, we shouldn't allow it, because we all know, like every. The kids who are using marijuana a lot, or adults using marijuana a lot, it is just ruining them.

Emily Bazelon
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I had an idea, which has proven to be wrong, that, well, this was all okay because alcohol is worse, and people are gonna shift from their alcohol use to their marijuana use, including the teenagers, and, like, they're self medicating, it's fine, but that's not happening. Actually, the alcohol use and trouble in the country from drunk driving and alcohol related deaths is continuing, and we seem to have more pot use. So I'm concerned about that. And I don't really know the answer, partly because I think we just don't have enough research, including internationally, even, about the effects of marijuana.

And it may turn out that especially these more potent strains of it are more damaging and have even a greater effect on adolescent brain development than one knows now. So I do think it's really important to understand more about it and then try to have public information campaigns that address the excesses of it. I say that very aware of the fact that we all grew up in an era of don't do drugs, in which public service announcements about drug use seem to be counterproductive and really bad. I guess I just don't know how you ever put this back in the bottle. Right?

I mean, all the things we're saying about how these smells and the reality of it is wafting around us all the time are just the case. So it seems to me it is important to treat it as a vice and figure out how to do some serious risk management about it. Do you think if you could smell alcohol in the same way you can smell pot, that you would smell as much of it? In other words, are there people who are drinking during the day and you just can't see it? Yes.

John Dickerson
Yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean, we find, when we go on our morning walk, we find liquor bottles, like bottles all the time. We just kind of sweep them out of the way, and then we open the door and go out on our walk. Before we go, I actually want to make it somewhat different point.

David Plotz
So when you think about what are the major vices in this country, you know, cigarettes, booze, pot, hard drugs, gambling, the thing that is actually the actual catastrophe in american life right now that we are not seeing that is going to be, it's going to be like the sacklers. It's going to be like the opioids. Is sports gambling. Sports gambling is the addiction that's going to be disastrous for us. The deregulation of sports gambling over the past decade and essentially the universality of it, the partnership of all the leagues with sports gambling, the easy access that everyone, including kids, get to sports gambling is going to go down as one of the most catastrophic public policy decisions that this country has ever made.

I am laying a marker down on that. And you can blame the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court allowed all of this development at this moment where it's so easy to make it very addictive. I watch a lot of sports, and basically every ad in sports is for beer or sports gambling. Most of them are for sports gambling.

The amount that people are being encouraged to gamble and the amount that young people are being encouraged to gamble is shocking. And we're going to have a generation of broke kids ruined kids ruined adults and all young men, and it's going to be five years away from when we start to feel it in a terrible way. And I don't think it's wrong to think that a lot of what we think of as suicides, deaths of despair, that the financial problems that gambling is going to create is going to contribute to that. I don't know what to do about it, but it's just. It's awful.

It's worse than booze and pot. I have the same fear you do, David. Also, it has all of these baleful effects on the sports themselves and creates funky incentives for people to look away from gross, weird parts of sports as well. I think that's a really smart point. Can I just make another couple of points about pot that intrigued me when we did our work during the show the last couple of weeks, I learned that according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, arrests related to marijuana have dropped an average of 11% each year since 2012.

John Dickerson
So when we talk about federal legalization or decriminalization, it's becoming decriminalized, sort of by lack of prosecution. In a way. I understand that that doesn't remove the barriers that we've already talked about in the show, but I was intrigued that there's, there's that data that it's basically just not getting prosecuted at all in that way. That was a lot. So we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back.

David Plotz
This episode of the Gabfest is brought to you by home chef. Are you drowning in a sea of meal kit options? You feel like you're in a bad dating game where every contestant looks the same. Fear not. Amidst the chaos, there is one shining star in the meal kit world worthy of your culinary affection.

And that's Home chef. I have been cooking from Home chef recently and I am absolutely delighted. Home Chef has introduced me to new ways of cooking, things that I've been curious about and done it in a way that's like incredibly easy, incredibly fun and quick. Home chef has fresh ingredients and chef designed recipes, and they're conveniently delivered right to your doorstep. And whoever has done the recipe design and the steps at Home chef has done a fantastic job.

The recipes were very, very, very clear. For a limited time, Home Chef is offering Gabfest listeners 18 free meals plus free dessert for life and of course, free shipping on your first box. So go to homechef.com gabfest. That's homechef.com Gabfest for 18 free meals and free dessert for life. You heard that right, Home chef.

You must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. This episode of the Gabfest is brought to you by aura frames are you looking for the perfect gift to celebrate the moms in your life? Aura frames are beautiful Wi Fi connected digital picture frames that allow you to share and display unlimited photos. It is super easy to upload and share photos via the Aura app. And if you're giving aura as a gift, you can even personalize the frame with preloaded photos and memories.

Aura frames, in the notes that I have here, says moms like aura Frames. I am here to tell you that is like the truest statement in the world. I gave my mother an aura frame. She absolutely loves it. Shes also always hectoring me to keep adding new photos to her aura frames so that shes got great new photos every week.

So think about giving your mother or grandmother or aunt or sister or friend an aura frame for Mothers Day. It was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter and selected as one of Oprah's favorite things. Aura frames are guaranteed to bring joy to moms of all ages, and right now, aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $30 off plus free shipping on their best selling frame. That's aura frames.com.

Use code gabfest at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. Joe Kahn, the executive editor of the New York Times. Emily's boss's boss's boss probably is catching heat from various people this week for an interview he gave to Ben Smith of Semaphore about the role of the Times in covering the election. Khan said, and I'm going to gloss this a ton, more or less, that journalism is a pillar of democracy, and as a pillar of democracy, it can't really take sides in an election, even if one candidate may be an actual threat to democracy.

He also said that the Times coverage of the election was fair, in part because it reflected the interests of voters who are more passionate about immigration than they are about protecting democracy. Khan was also clearly trying to distance himself in the paper from what happened to the Times around 2020, when there was a perception that the newsroom and the paper itself went too full throatedly for progressive causes, which, which led to Barry Weiss, the rise of the free press. Emily, you work at the time, so I'm gonna imagine you should understandably be cautious about what you say. Yes, this is my boss we're talking about. Continue.

Yeah. Jon, you don't. Okay. Yeah. Was there anything right or wrong in what Khan was articulating about the role of the times?

John Dickerson
Let me narrow in on that specific quote, because I think it says two important things. He said the job is to cover the full range of issues. One of them is democracy. But he said immigration also happens to be at the top of the polls and the economy. And he said, quote, stop covering those things because they're favorable to Trump and minimize them.

So two things. First, this is reductive. So it's a rhetorical trick. It's not a serious claim, which as an editor, it's his obligation to make serious claims. Dan Pfeiffer, the political operative who with, in whom he's in a kind of conversation publicly, has no such obligation.

But as a journalist, you have an obligation not to use those kind of rhetorical tricks. Nobody's suggesting that the Times stop covering those two issues. So that's a problem because it's an emotional, defensive reaction. And if your coverage is emotional and defensive, then you're not on the right foot. But the more important point, I think, in terms of our coverage, is the second part of it, which is that it highlights a larger question for the profession, which is Kahn says the job is to cover the full range of issues that people have.

Should the issue that people have drive coverage? Is that the only thing that should drive coverage? Of course it should drive coverage at some level. But is there any other standard? I would offer a couple of other standards.

What are the issues that affect the most people? What is an issue that affects the most people that people don't really talk that much about in polls? The environment. A president and an administration has a lot of effect on the environment. And so our job and our obligation in the press is to cover the issues that affect the most number of people and over whom the president has a lot of control.

That has nothing to do with the polls. And so a poll centered view of what you covered is bad with respect to that. The second thing is, what are the issues that the next president's going to face? The polls don't show anything about that. There's a war in Ukraine and a war in Gaza.

Neither of those two things would have shown up on polls. Foreign policy doesn't show up very much on polls anyway. But boy, does the next president have to deal with those kinds of problems. So your coverage should be framed around the kinds of problems the president will face, not the kinds that people think that they face now and then. The third thing is, obviously, the thing I banged on about for years, but it's really important, which is what are the requirements for the jobs, the attributes, the mental faculties that are required?

Because the presidency is an unpredictable job, we don't know what the next president's going to face. So a newspaper, anybody who cares about creating a set of facts that people can use to make their decision, has to cover a presidency based on what are the attributes of these people for this job. So those are three different sorting techniques for what you cover, none of which are driven by what people care about in the polls. Now, obviously, what people care about is important. They make the choice in the end.

And also, this is really important. As my final point, the reason you want to talk to voters is that they pierce a lot of our phony, baloney, insular, journalistic thinking. That's really important. But to use polls and what people care about as the sorting technique for your coverage, I think, is a major flaw. And it's a flaw that's dangerous, because it hides a misapplication of our resources under doing something noble.

Well, we're just doing what the people care about. I don't think that's the right way to cover it. I don't actually think, when I look at the times, that the Times is guilty of not covering the threat to democracy or not covering the environment, Trump or not covering the environment. I think they've done it. I think the problem is the Times is very critical of Trump.

David Plotz
But that is sort of the baseline condition of media. And when it is critical of Biden, it just pops out. And it also fuels the right, because the right can then say, even the liberal New York Times says that Joe Biden is doddering. Even the liberal New York Times says that Joe Biden's immigration policy isn't working. And the whole, the huge amount of coverage that the time does of the ways in which Trump is dangerous, the ways in which Trump is failing, is almost ignored.

It's like the air where you breathe. And so when the critical stuff about Biden just stands out so much more, but there's not that much of it relative to the critical stuff about Trump and what a threat Trump would be. Yeah, that relates to a critique I'm interested in, which I think a bunch of people have made, but I associate with Matt Iglesias, which is basically here. I think this is what it is. It's that in 2016, the mistake the Times the media made was Hillary's emails became this dominant issue and got way disproportional amount of attention.

Emily Bazelon
And there is a danger in every election that something like that is going to emerge. And I think there is legitimate concern that Biden's age could play that role in this election. It's very easy to grab onto. A few months ago, we did cover it a lot. Maybe even that was a few weeks ago.

I can't remember exactly. It could come. It was literally yesterday. It was yesterday. It could come back.

It's memorable. The rest of this critique is that all of the criticism and bad Trump behavior is all over the place and doesn't quite, like, make a clean narrative line, whereas Biden's age is just like two words. You remember it, you pick up the thread with the next story, and it kind of hangs together in people's minds and has a deeper impact psychologically than the coverage, which I think is really clear about the threat that Trump poses. So I think part of what's going on in this media conversation right now is just, like, warning the New York Times and every other media outlet, like, don't fall into this trap again. And I think that's, like, a worthwhile thing for us to think about, even though I don't think that it defines our coverage by any means.

David Plotz
Like, just to point fingers at us. Yeah, we often, on the Gabfest cover stories that we've seen in the Times, the Times has a defining defines things. And where we, we talked about Biden's age and we, maybe there was, maybe there was a, you know, a kind of asterisk around it somehow, or it's like. But, you know, we're talking about it as an issue, not about, we're talking about it as a media issue, not about as an issue. Yeah, but we were totally, we were.

Still totally doing it because this Robert Herr report comes out. And you know that whatever the Robert her report, the Times is also biased towards reports. Right. The Times loves reports and documents. And so Herb puts this document out, which says that he's a senile old man who's very kind to small animals.

And so we're like, he's a senile old man who's kind of small animals. Yeah. And that actually is the bright, shiny object that I think has done the most damage in this election cycle because it turned out once we had the transcript to look very different, but everyone chased her's account of the transcript because they didn't have the transcript at first, including us. And I found that really frustrating. And it made me really worried about that kind of manipulation of breaking news reporting.

Emily Bazelon
And let's just remember that, like, breaking news reporting for political reporters is the hardest thing. Right? Like that. Let's like, you know, I mean, John among them, like, it's just really hard to get it right in the moment. I don't have that job.

And I just want to, like, recognize that that is hard. And the people trying to do it at the New York Times and elsewhere are really trying. Like, of course they're going to make mistakes, but they are trying and they are smart. Right? It's a lot of this, as you both are saying, is about expectations of the Times.

John Dickerson
And the expectations are mismatched for a bunch of reasons. And the Times gets blamed. I mean, if voters know everything that they know about Donald Trump and still want to vote for him, that's not the Times's fault. People did not go uninformed about Donald Trump's flaws in 2016. And also, for somebody who talks about standards and context as much as I do, it's really important to talk about what the Times does more broadly.

I went after that one answer. But I mean, the Times does, as you say, Emily, the Times does cover the environment quite a lot. It does cover the implications of Trump's policies as he's articulated them, not just on things like detention camps, but also on what his policies would do with respect to inflation. And then also, like, if you want a full takeout on the homeless problem in America, that gives you a sense of the humanity and the policy choices and puzzles that people face. The New York Times has you covered and what politician and campaign talks about the poor people who don't vote and who go unseen.

That's the central job of journalism, is to elevate issues that are important but don't get looked at because they're not the latest and loudest. And the Times does an amazing job of that also with foreign policy coverage. And I think that a lot of the criticism which focuses around, as you say, Emily, it's a very difficult job to cover a moving political picture. And the time gets a lot of crap. And rightfully in some cases, but that larger context cannot be lost because in a lot of cases, the Times is the only thing on the planet covering some of these things in the way that they cover it.

And we would be far worse off if they didn't do it. Yeah, there's one strain of coverage of the times, which is like, they think they're so much better. They're standing up. There's the standoffish elitist, we're better than you institution, and we are democracy, and we know better than you how to cover this. And there's a populist strain, a lot of us that is like, knock them down.

David Plotz
And we all know times people that we can't stand because they're me, chief of mugabra, overbearing, arrogant, like entitled pricks. I hope I'm not those things. You are not one of those things, Emily. But we all know. We all know people like that.

But you know what? I kind of love it. I think it is good to have a snobby, elitist were better than you institution in american media. There's so much populist crap. There's so many institutions now that are just fully partisan, fully just in it to persuade their team they're not necessarily propaganda, but they're not not propaganda.

And to have an institution that is holier than thou, at least one seems okay. I'm glad to have it. Two things, that is not my experience for working at the New York Times at all. Just getting that on the record. And secondly, one part of this conversation.

I feel like, you don't think the Times is sanctimonious? You don't think times people are so full of themselves about, oh, the times. They don't. You've never heard a times person say a timesman, like, give me a fucking break. Times people don't say that anymore.

I've had people say that to me. I'm not going to get into the never. And I am not going to, of course, course, your lived experience, David Bloatz, is totally valid. I'm just saying my experience of working at the New York Times, like, includes a lot of humility and a lot of trying to, like, understand how to do it better. Yeah, just say it.

John Dickerson
Yeah. And also, as somebody who comes from television, I mean, I think we in the pecking order of people who have undeserved arrogance. The television news, for sure. Tiffany network friend, beats out the Times. And also in superficiality, I mean, the, her report is a perfect example.

The shiny object reflexes, and a lot of it is reflexes for attention in the attention economy is the visual mediums. I don't know what we want to call ourselves now are the worst perpetrators of that. I mean, if you want to. It's just that the Times happens to be read by a certain liberal audience that has these sets of expectations that we're wrestling with. So of course, we shouldn't become like the organ for the Biden campaign, et cetera.

Emily Bazelon
That's easy. But also, it wouldn't, I don't think it would work. I never understand how people think this is going to be effective. Right. Like, many times readers are liberals.

They don't need to be convinced that Trump is bad. There are a slice of our readers who are conservatives. If you force feed people things that make them feel like you are telling them what to think instead of giving them information so they can make up their own minds, they recoil and rebel and don't find that persuasive at all. And this includes friends of mine, not necessarily about, like, whether to vote for Donald Trump, but lots of other decisions about american life. When headlines seem really slanted to them or they're being led by the nose in the way a story is written, they tell me about it and they don't like it and they get suspicious.

And so the notion that, like, a more full throated defense of democracy that isn't really laying out the facts and letting people judge for themselves is going to work seems wrong to me. And last thing, one of my colleagues, Charlie Homans, wrote a piece for the magazine a week or two ago where it's really just like, what is Trump saying at his rallies? It's like Trump in his own words, and it's extremely effective in making you understand what is different about Trump this time around and the threat that he would pose. But it's also a good piece to read because it's very vivid in the scenes that it's describing. It takes you into these rallies.

And Charlie is a great guide, but I don't think that it's leading you by the nose. And I know that there are people who want that kind of coverage, but they can go somewhere else for it. And my hope is that as people read Charlie's piece or as he goes on television talking about it, that people who aren't fully convinced or who haven't been paying a whole lot of attention might like, tweak to this a little bit. And that's kind of the point of journalism, right? Like, it's to look at things in a way that makes people think.

I feel like that's our obligation. It's to make people think. It's not to make them think a certain thing or vote a certain way. And to subscribe to the New York Times, 1800 N. Y.

John Dickerson
Times.

David Plotz
Or go to nytimes.com, use promo code. Bazelon I think I have three responses to you, Emily. One is, I think you've identified a part of this viewpoint out there that if people just heard that Donald Trump doesn't tell the truth, they would realize that doesn't exist. So that's one thing. The second thing is there is a legitimate concern about the way we cover the normal course of a campaign in a campaign that is not normal.

John Dickerson
So I know I've used this analogy before, but when we cover things like the Veep stakes or things like debates, we're covering it like it's a, or, or even the primaries, it's like it's a chess match. And like, we cover it like the rook takes pawn and, like, King moves to knight or whatever the hell the chess match is taking place on the Titanic. Like, this is not a normal campaign. So when you talk about the vice presidential sweepstakes, for example, with Donald Trump, it feels like the article should start by saying his previous vice president thinks he shouldn't have the job. That may, in part be because the president's actions led to some of his supporters wanting to hang the previous vice president.

Like, if you recapitulated everything that makes this such an otherworldly campaign, you'd never have time in the story for the thing that's actually happening. Another example is Christy nome is disqualified because in part because of the kooky dog story, but also because she claimed to have met Kim Jong un, which she didn't do. So she's getting disqualified. It is the weirdest thing, cackling over that. It's just, but here's the thing.

It's disqualifying. A lie is disqualifying. Her. Okay. But when it comes to the top of the ticket, an easily verifiable, dangerous lie about the 2020 election told constantly, is elevating him.

So, like, that seems like it should require comment. Why? And now my third and final point. For me, the idea of protecting democracy needs to be much better defined. When there are active efforts to weaken the signal in the democratic process, when people are actively trying to confuse voters, it's our job in the press to make the signal clear, because our job is to give people clear and clean information for them to make their choice.

But if the information is muddied, then that is a time where we have an opportunity to step in and say, let's try to cover those things that are making the signal weak. And that means calling out, examining, making plain the special dishonesty that's going on in this race right now with respect to Donald Trump, not just him, but his enablers. I mean, they are promoting an election denier whose platform requires undermining the three central tenets of democracy, free and fair elections, rule of law, and the quality of verifiable information. That's not just a thing that's. I'm not making that up.

That's happening. And it's not just a thing that's happening in and of itself. It's a thing that diminishes the ability to have the commerce that's required in an election, which is to give people clear information and let them make their choice. So that's a way in which the press does have an obligation to protect democracy. If you think of democracy as providing information to voters that they can make.

David Plotz
Their choice on, let's go to cocktail chatter. When you, Emily, are at the New York Times Club and you're sipping on a snifter of extremely expensive brandy, as you do at the end of the day, every day at the New York Times, what will you be chattering? I mean, I suppose you probably don't use the word chatter at the times. What will you be conversing with your times colleagues about? The wine will have orthogonal notes.

Emily Bazelon
Orthogonal? Our listeners haven't even heard that yet. John oh, right. Get ready, listeners, for Emily's use of the word orthogonal, or orthogonal. In the slate plus segment, you say.

John Dickerson
Tomato, I say orthogonal. I am chattering this week about a book called Vision by Judge David Tatl, who is one of the kindest and most decent minded people on the federal bench, and it's a memoir of his time on the DC circuit, the Court of Appeals, the important court of appeals, in Washington. It has some really good commentary about the current supreme court and why Judge Tatl is concerned about its lack of constraint, as he puts it. And it's also about his loss of vision. Like his actual blindness, he doesn't consider himself a blind judge.

Emily Bazelon
He considers himself a judge who has blindness, which I think really is an important distinction. But he's also very honest and quite winning about how he tried to hide this from for many years. And really, it's only been lately, as a person who's more elderly, that he's really come to terms with how much being blind has affected him. He didn't get a guide dog until he was 77, which is a kind of tragic detail because he's obviously taking tremendous joy and pleasure from the independence the dog provides, and she is on the COVID photo with him. So, anyway, this book is called Vision.

I'm really enjoying it. John, what's your chatter? Well, I think I may have chattered about this before, but it's an update. So when Beethoven was in the real throes of his physical agony, when I guess he had. I think he'd gone deaf.

John Dickerson
And then what I had forgotten was that he had severe, crippling gastrointestinal issues. And he wrote a letter to his brother, brother or brothers, I can't remember which, called. I think it's like, I'm sure I'm going to mispronounce this, but the healing stat statement. And he basically said, when I die, please have my doctor look at what the hell is up with my body, because it will. A, we want to know what was up with me, and b, it might lead people to think better of me.

And it's unclear whether he wanted people to think better of him as a human because he'd been so dyspeptic because of all of these problems, or think better of his work, that he was able to achieve the work that he did, given that he was riddled with infirmities. So it turns out that over the years, there have been various scientific experimentations. To answer this question, based on the locks of Beethoven's hair that were cut when he died, and there were theories for a while about various liver diseases and blah, blah, blah. Turns out now, as a result of some investigation and DNA analysis, they have found that it's very high. There's a very good chance that what caused the deafness and the gastrointestinal issues were super high levels of lead and arsenic.

And that they believe that this lead poisoning came from the fact that Beethoven often to ameliorate the difficulties in his life. Drank a good deal of wine, daily wine, which was quite cheap, and the cheap wine was adulterated with lead to enhance its sweetness and prevent spoilage. So the thing that he was drinking drop by drop, day by day, to cure him or at least escape him from these maladies, was in fact, the root of his doom. Oh, my God.

David Plotz
Not going to drink any lead fortified wine for my chatter. Okay, I have a different chatter, but I just want to note that I live in DC, and I see ads when I watch local tv, which I do infrequently for political races, usually Virginia or Maryland. But we also pick up the West Virginia ads because West Virginians watch DCTV sometimes. And the ads in the West Virginia governor's race between the republican candidates are so disgusting. They're all running anti trans ads, and it's just so gross.

Each one is more despicable than the next. Chris Miller and Patrick Morrissey are the ones that I've seen ads for, and it just makes you so depressed about where we are as a country. I mean, this is an issue which is a tiny issue affecting a small number of people. And the idea that all the gubernatorial candidates in West Virginia are spending their millions of dollars just demeaning LGBTQ Q and trans people specifically is just gross. That's not my chatter.

My chatter is this. It's a little exercise that we're going to do. John and Emily, I gave you a tiny bit of a heads up earlier, so you may have noticed. I've seen headlines in the New York Times that Drake and Kendrick Lamar are feuding, and Drake and Kendrick Lamar are two artists I know nothing about. I know they're very famous.

I probably heard songs of theirs. I know nothing about it. I haven't read anything about this. I assume, knowing the two of you, neither of you has read anything about what Drake and Kendrick Lamar are feuding about. But it seems to be a really big deal.

It seems to be a huge deal. So I would like us three to speculate, and our listeners can then correct us, or we can then go read an article. And what do you think that Drake and Kendrick Lamar are feuding about? I mean, I have some theories, but either of you have a theory about what they might be feuding about? Why were these two musicians, what are they so angry about that it's on the COVID of the New York Times?

John Dickerson
They are angry about their collective lack of sales and so have engaged in a joint agreement to have a big public fake fight to jack each other's sales and streaming up through the roof. I think it's ice cream flavors. They're deeply pitted against each other about the best ice cream flavors. Interesting. So I had two thoughts.

David Plotz
My first one. Well, three thoughts. One is, I assume one of them said something nasty about the other's mother. That just seems like you shouldn't never say anything nasty about someone's mother. The other is that one thing I know about Drake, or at least I think I know about Drake, is that he was bar mitzvahed and that he's jewish.

Or I guess maybe he's jewish and maybe there's some kind of antisemitic thing or some fight about the Gaza war that's going on between them. That's one theory. But then I thought if that were the case, it would be a bigger deal and the Times would signal that in any headline because it would anti semitism. So then I thought, maybe. Here's my theory.

The Olympics are coming up. I also know that from what I know of Drake, Drake seems to be big on sports. Is that Drake? All right, I'm going to speculate. Drake had a spy in Kendrick Lamar's camp and realized that Kendrick Lamar was about to release some new French Olympics themed album.

And Drake was like, I want to do an Olympics theme album. I want to be the person who's got the french and Olympic theme. And so Drake released some who's canadian, so maybe he speaks french, released some french Olympics theme thing first, and that sparked conflict. Are we correct about any of this? I'm looking it up.

You're going to have an answer. Are we right? It's a feud. Each rapper has made numerous unverified allegations according to Time. Okay, so it's like, gross.

Emily Bazelon
And Lamar is claiming. Do I really want to even say? It's like, about. No, I think. I don't want to say this because it seems like it's all not true.

They're having a fight and it has to do, in part with sex and sex with underage people. Oh, that's a lot worse than I thought it was going to be. Okay. All right. But maybe John's right, that it's all just a setup.

David Plotz
Maybe John's right. All right. That was only a partially successful chatter. I thought it would be more interesting than it was. Listeners.

You. However, thank you for responding to our request for more listener chatters. Please keep them coming. We need more listener chatters. You sent some really good ones.

Also, thank you to the several people who sent me the set of videos about nuclear submarines and the nuclear submarine video about how you get a nuclear submarine in and out of the ice and the Arctic. I really enjoyed watching that. But our listener chatter this week, which was emailed to us@gabbestlate.com comma, which is where you hopefully will email your listener chatter, comes from Justin in Columbus, Ohio. So you wouldn't expect a through line from an accidental drug discovery to the pope and an unimaginable deluge of nun piss. But it turns out there is so the article in question this week is called the Vatican's secret role in the science of IVF, and its author is Caesarea ware.

E
It tracks the discovery of this drug, which is called HMG, which stands for human menopausal gonotropin that can only be derived from the urine of post menopausal women. It was soon determined that the only source that was really reasonable to get this from would be nuns, because they could be ensured to not be pregnant. Any kind of pregnancy in any of the substances that were titrated together would cause a corruption of the entire batch. In the end, they had to gather more than a water tower full of nun urine, and the backstory behind it is incredible. You really, really should read the article.

It is spectacular.

David Plotz
That's our show for today. The gabfest is produced by Shayna Roth. Our researcher is Julie Hugh. Again, our theme music is by they might be giants. Ben Richmond, senior director for podcast operations.

Alicia Montgomery is the vp of audio for Slate. Emily Bazelon and John Dickerson. I, David Plotz, thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.

Hi, Slate plus, how are you? We've had a bunch of Michiganders on the Gabfest recently, including on Slate plus. We have another one today. Emily Lawler is the state government and politics editor at the Detroit Free Press Press, which is, I believe, Michigan's biggest paper. And the DFP has launched a really interesting project where they're actually going to talk to and have started talking to voters.

So, Emily, why would you start to talk to actual voters? Listen, actually, my answer is pretty simple. In our post mortem from our 2022 cycle, which is our gubernatorial year, you know, I'd sort of asked my reporters what we could do differently, what we could do better. And Arpan Lobo, one of the folks on my team, had said, hey, we did a lot of pieces where we called the same three pundits and maybe we could talk to more people. And I said, perfect.

F
That sounds great. Good feedback. Let's find a framework. So we started coming up with a framework and have basically identified eight counties that are sort of representative of different archetypes of Michigan voters. Michigan is flyover country to some, but it's actually got a really big diversity.

You know, if you're living in Wayne county by Detroit, you have a vastly different experience than someone living in, say, rural Newgo county or schoolcraft county up in the upper peninsula. So we really wanted to kind of capture all of that in one lens, talk to voters. I'm a huge fan. I spent most of my career doing that. How do you manage this challenge?

John Dickerson
One of the things that I spent most of my time since the 92 race covering republican politics, it just happened to be that way because of who was running. And one thing that republican voters told me all across the country spent a lot of time in Michigan, lots of other places, is that they really cared about personal character in the candidates, and particularly in places like South Carolina, where evangelical voters are really important. If I had listened only to what they told me, I would have missed Donald Trump because his personal characteristics seems to be exactly the kind of thing they were defining they didn't want in office. How do you deal with that? Obviously, that was just a snippet from our slate plus conversation.

David Plotz
If you want to hear the whole conversation, go to slate.com gabfestplus to become a member today. Hello, it is Ryan, and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on jumbacasino.com dot. I looked over the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing? They were also playing Jumbo Casino. Coincidence?

I think not everybody's loving having fun with it. Jumbo Casino is home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play. For free anytime, anywhere, even at 30,000ft. So sign up now@chumbacasino.com to claim your free welcome bonus. That's chumbacasino.com.

And live the Chumba life. No purchase necessary. VGW.

D
Hi, this is Dalia Lithwick, host of Slate's legal podcast Amicus. If you're listening to this show, you might be interested in amicus live show that we're hosting in Washington, DC. On Tuesday, May 14. My colleague Mark Joseph Stern and I will be talking to some amazing guests, including Sherilyn Ifill and a sitting state Supreme Court justice, all about how originalism, a relatively recently invented way of interpreting the Constitution, has taken over the Supreme Court and radically reshape the law. It's been doctrinal rocket fuel for the conservative legal movement and facilitated the rolling back of abortion rights, the expansion of gun rights, and the obliteration of the separation of church and state.

And as another wildly consequential Supreme Court term careers to its end, the court's originalists are on a tear. But there's something you can do about it, and we hope you'll join us in DC on May 14 to explore the possible pathways out of the current situation. Go to slate.com amicuslive for tickets.

Trump Wore Pajamas

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Opening Discussion

2: Stormy Daniels Testimony

3: Marijuana Legislation

4: Media Coverage

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Content Warnings:

Transcript