What happens when Dan and Maureen attempt to record an entire episode after viewing 12 hours of impeachment hearings? Well, this.
Oh no. Oh dear. It’s finally happen. We’ve broken Dan. It’s too much. It has been a week of hearings and news, and a very long day of hearings and news, and now Dan and Maureen are recording after twelve hours of hearings and they are not okay.
What have they learned? They are not sure. But they’ll try to explain it anyway.
Please help them.
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Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo
We love Darth
Maureen: Just hit record!
Dan: None of it's funny!
Maureen: It's funny, Dan! Dan, here are the things I just heard you doing. You didn't know I was on, you couldn't hear me, but you were just going... and just typing. And then, when you tried to figure out why you weren't recording correctly, I just heard you go off here and go, "ah, this is just an uninsulated wire I'm going to touch right now for a second, and oh, what's this? This is like a Mobius strip of bad over here!" So anyway... what I'm listening to is a desperate, desperate man.
Dan: I was very tired. Welcome... oh wait, we still need to do the ads.
Maureen: We need to do the ads.
Dan: This episode of Says Who? is brought to you by You.
Maureen: No, no, I'll do that one, then you do mine, and I'll do yours.
Dan: Okay, great.
Maureen: Here we go. Ready?
Dan: Yes.
Maureen: This episode is brought to you by YouPatreon.com/sayswho. Help us. Okay, you do me.
Dan: Hi. I'm Maureen Johnson. I made a movie called Let It Snow. I wrote it and I wrote the music and I starred in it, and you can see it on Netflix. It's a good holiday movie. Let It Snow, starring me, Maureen Johnson.
Maureen: I'm Dan Sinker. I'm so happy. I made impeachment at FYI. I got to watch all the hearings and read the 20,000 articles every day, and make it all make sense! And then send it to thousands and thousands of people! Impeachment dot FYI. Please help me.
Maureen: Hey! It's us!
Dan: Hey! Welcome to Says Who?
Maureen: Says Who?
Dan: I guess the music should have started. We didn't do the intro. We're good. We're ready.
Maureen: I'll do the music. We'll do the music. Blah blah blah. How's the music go?
Dan: Welcome to Says Who, the podcast that isn't a podcast.
Maureen: I'm Maureen Johnson.
Dan: And I am Dan Sinker, and Says Whovians, it is 10:00 Maureen time.
Maureen: 10:00.
Dan: 9:00 P.M. Chicago time. We normally record 12 hours ago. But I had the dumb proposal...
Maureen: Hate you.
Dan: Where I sent you, what, an email yesterday saying, "Hey, there's all this hearings happening tomorrow. We should probably record after," thinking that after meant a reasonable time, like 7:00 or something.
Maureen: It's 10:00.
Dan: It's 10:00. You're home alone.
Maureen: That's right.
Dan: You were like, "I'm alone. Whatever. I can do it any time."
Maureen: Yeah, I did say that.
Dan: Oh, my God!
Maureen: But there's more than that, SaysSuvia. If it was just late... and it's not even that late... it'd be fine. But we have both just, while working, absorbed 12 hours of impeachment hearings today.
Dan: Jesus Christ!
Maureen: They just ended, then Dan had to write the entire summary and send them out. It is still hot... as John Mulvaney says, the words are still sizzling on the screen like a can of Pepsi. Like, it's just all round... so he's still hot off of that. He's broken. His spirit is broken. His mind is broken.
Dan: Yeah, basically.
Maureen: And we're coming right hot off of watching...
Dan: I mean, as hot as possible.
Maureen: There was the lady, and there was the man in the uniform.
Dan: There you go! Perfect!
Dan: Jennifer Williams, Vice President Pence's... one of his National Security Advisors, and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman...
Maureen: Lieutenant Colonel.
Dan: Don't call him Mister Vindman if you're Devin Nunes, because he will fuck you up. That was... it feels like 100 years ago, but that was a real highlight when Devin Nunes was like, "Mister Vindman," and... cuts in and goes, "It's Lieutenant Colonel Vindman."
Maureen: Can we talk about Devin... actually, let's not talk... Devin Nunes, man.
Dan: I have something I want to contribute to the Devin Nunes discussion, Maureen Johnson, which is mostly how wonderful my 14-year-old son is, because I shared in our group chat a photograph of Devin Nunes when he was in high school. And Says Whovians, let me describe this picture to you.
Dan: So, first of all, you have Devin Nunes's unmistakably dumb face right there in the center of a head. But it is surrounded by the most spiked gelled mullet you can imagine. And it is sitting on top of a white turtleneck.
Maureen: Mm-hmm (affirmative), so it's like Sonic the Hedgehog.
Dan: That then has some sort of, like, cardigan. But it is a true... it is a remarkable photo. I shared it into our family group chat, because that's what families do in 2019, and my 14-year-old writes, "This is possibly the greatest photo on the internet," and then Janice responds, "It's too bad he is so terrible, because that picture is golden," and the 14-year-old says, "Him being terrible makes it better, like how the life of him has been sucked out of that kid is half the reason it is good."
Maureen: He's right.
Dan: That's the thing.
Maureen: He's right.
Dan: That's the thing, Maureen. We're all just husks of who we were as children. Just empty, smoldering...
Maureen: Not me, Dan.
Dan: Husks.
Maureen: I was a seed, and I've blossomed.
Dan: (laughs) You've blossomed? This is...
Maureen: You heard me!
Dan: (laughs)
Maureen: I'm a vine!
Dan: This is going to be the worst episode we've ever made!
Maureen: I'm a vine, and all I'm doing is climbing!
Dan: (laughs) Oh, my God!
Maureen: (laughs)
Dan: Help me.
Maureen: You cut me back, I grow stronger.
Dan: (laughs) I don't even understand what that means.
Maureen: You were saying! You were proposing a reductive process. Well, I'm proposing a process of growth.
Dan: Okay.
Maureen: Of photosynthesis and climbing.
Dan: I like it.
Maureen: I'll take over your house!
Dan: Oh, my word. Oh, my word, Maureen Johnson.
Maureen: Yeah, Devin Nunes... I'm just saying, now, that he really does feel like the very best 10th grade can offer. He's been in 10th grade forensics, and he's learned a few things or two that he... he's like someone in some small firm that's hired a really third-tier branding agency, and they've given them some slow jams, and they've paid for them, so gosh darn it, they're going to use them.
Maureen: And it doesn't matter that one of their little phrases they took was directly from the opposite... they literally just recycled shit they heard.
Dan: Oh, my God!
Maureen: Oh, this drug deal, this drug deal! That's from, what? Who said the drug deal thing?
Dan: It was John Bolton, said to... I believe it's to Fiona Hill when she went to him to complain that... that there's all this shady shit going down regarding Ukraine and Rudy Giuliani and stuff like that. John Bolton says I don't want to have any part in the drug deal that Mick Mulvaney and Gordon Sondland have going on.
Dan: And yeah, somehow then today...
Maureen: So, Devin Nunes decided to take that and really run with it, along with things like, "Oh, welcome to the show. Oh, welcome to prime time. Oh, it's been so boring in here." Oh, and he accused Adam Schiff of having magic minutes. He's like, "Oh, where did these magic minutes come from?" And Adam Schiff was like, "Statute 1.3.75 of the"... and there was, "Oh, that you're in a secret chamber." Is he playing D&D? It sounds a little bit like it, maybe.
Dan: He's definitely not. He has a long lineage, I'm sure of giving wedgies to people that play D&D.
Maureen: Devin Nunes is... I don't even hate him anymore.
Dan: Oh, no! You have Stockholm Syndrome!
Maureen: No, it's like hating a rock. You just can't work up any feelings about it. You're like, "Yeah, you're a rock."
Dan: It's like hating a rock that you stub your toe on every day.
Maureen: "Eh, you're a big rock. You're a dumb rock. You don't know. What's a rock going to do?" He just says stuff. They just throw... they didn't know. He's just a little whippersnapper. He didn't know he was going to have to go out there and say words in front of people when he signed up for this job, Dan. He didn't know. He's willing to do it. He's willing to do the job.
Dan: It is...
Maureen: 12 hours, Dan.
Dan: 12 hours. And you know what? I sat there, cursor blinking, staring and trying to think about how even to sum it up. I'm not sure that we learned a single thing in 12 hours that we did not know when we walked in the door.
Maureen: You're right. It was basically a wash. I mean, we got the witnesses that I thought... the RNC were like, "Well, they're going to crush it," and they came out and they were basically like... "Did he commit crimes?" They're like, "That's not our job. Once again, that is not our job to say."
Maureen: You know, there was a laugh out loud moment when the guy that looked like a cop...
Dan: Tim... whatever... Tim...
Maureen: Morrison.
Dan: Tim. Yeah, there you go. Tim Timason.
Maureen: We're just going to call him Tim. Somebody asked him, "Did you think anything was wrong with the call?" And he kind of made this little [inaudible] face and looked up for a minute, went, "Nope." And I laughed out loud. It was so der-py, and I don't know... it just struck me as very funny.
Dan: His whole thing is pretty hilarious.
Maureen: Yes, it's real weird.
Dan: Because his whole thing is basically, "Yeah, nothing bad happened on the call, but the minute it was done, I went to lawyers at the National Security Council and told them that they should fucking bury their shit in a deep ass hole."
Maureen: (laughs)
Dan: Like, literally went and told them that it should be classified... but just because he didn't want it to leak, was his explanation. There was a lot of that kind of thing happening in the afternoon, which again, like Maureen said, the two people that spoke this afternoon... it was Tim Morrison, who was very briefly like the head of, I think, Europe and Russia at the National Security Council. He only had that job for four months, so that guy got a good time!
Dan: And then the U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker... both of them had a lot of that kind of like, "Well, nothing really bad happened except that I totally didn't like any of it"... kind of testimony... Volker, of which, was just wild. His testimony was essentially, "Yeah, you know what? I found out back in March that Rudy Giuliani was doing some weird ass shit, so that wasn't great, but it didn't really stop me from connecting him with all of these people in the Ukraine that he wanted to be connected to, because what I really hoped was that he'd meet them, and then he'd realize that, oh, the Ukrainian people were great people."
Dan: And then a question would be like, "And how did that work out," and he'd be like, "Yeah, it didn't work out so great. Certainly in retrospect now, I can see how I might have done that. I mean, really, who would have known? But now that I look at it, yeah, I can see that would be an issue."
Maureen: "What did you think was going to happen, Mr. Volker?"
Dan: Well, you know, sir, I really did think that it would be... if I connected Rudy Giuliani and relayed to President Zelensky that, in fact, we wanted investigations done, I didn't think that I meant specific investigations. I didn't know that they were talking about Joe Biden. I just figured why not investigate things? That seemed cool! But now it doesn't. Now that I hear the words I'm saying coming out of my... it just doesn't seem that cool, guys."
Maureen: Also, it did seem like both of them indicated that a lot of their job is pacifying some dumb fucks in the attempt to just get anything done.
Dan: Yes, that has been sort of an ongoing story of these hearings, which is essentially just people that want to get a job done, and then the fucking idiots in front of them not letting them.
Maureen: Yeah. You know, we had to deal with Giuliani, who would come over and say... every single person was like, "Rudy Giuliani says crazy shit. He comes in, he's got weird opinions. This weirdo shows up, we don't know why. He's just babbling like a lunatic. He's just saying crazy things, and we have to just sit there and put him in front of someone who makes him feel good in order to release"... because that guy's like, "We have until the 15th to get this 400 hundred million dollars released to keep the Ukrainian army going, so somebody give Rudy some coloring books, because we just need him to feel good."
Maureen: And they also seem to always have to do workarounds with Sondland, or as they refer to him as George, or the George problem, which makes me think that...
Dan: Gordon. It's a Gordon problem.
Maureen: Whatever. I don't even care. Look, it's going to be magical tomorrow if what we're hearing is anything to go by, because this guy sounds real goddamn dumb, and I, for one... I think I might be able to muster up some excitement by tomorrow.
Dan: I hope. Yeah. I mean, so Gordon Sondland is a multi-million dollar donor to Donald Trump. He is a hotel magnate, and he became, this year, the U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. And he has been wrapped up in this shit in every fucking possible way, and has been thrown under every bus possible for the last week, by every person testifying publicly. So he has a heck of a hearing tomorrow.
Maureen: He has, as they say, some explaining to do?
Dan: Little bit.
Maureen: Yeah, everybody universally... they all say things like, "Rudy is weird; has weird opinions." Everybody seems to acknowledge the President gets all of his dumb opinions from dummies, mostly from Rudy, who's dumb.
Dan: And put specifically, from Rudy, yeah.
Maureen: Yeah. Like, "Why is the President"... "Eh, he listens to Rudy, and Rudy's an idiot."
Maureen: And then Gordon, as you insist that he's called...
Dan: (laughs)
Maureen: He really sounds like a bro. Sounds like a bro has come in, like, "I am the ambassador to the E.U., whatever that is. Oh, you want to talk to Trump? I can do that on this unsecured phone right here, right now! And he'll yell stuff to this whole restaurant in Ukraine. It's going to be great!"
Dan: Oh, my God. It is... that's happening in less than 12 hours from right now when we are recording.
Dan: It will already be an hour and 25 minutes in.
Maureen: That genuinely hurt you.
Dan: It did.
Maureen: That really hurt you.
Dan: It really did! That really hurt, right in my chest!
Maureen: It really did.
Dan: Like just taking a boot right to the sternum.
Maureen: I felt that one go in.
Dan: Oh, God. That's really soon. The cool thing is, is I only have to edit this entire podcast once we're done with it.
Maureen: We're not editing this. This one's got to go out raw. Dan must be [crosstalk]
Dan: The most remarkable thing is it will have been edited, and yet it still sounds like this! I have no idea!
Dan: The other thing that I think is probably worth a mental image is, I do all my work standing up, so I have basically been standing for 13 hours now! I can't...
Maureen: Dan, are you okay?
Dan: I don't know! (laughs) I don't know! Okay. I haven't eaten anything since lunch. Anyhow...
Maureen: Dan!
Dan: There hasn't been time! Also, Maureen-
Maureen: They really just relentlessly went on the whole goddamn day!
Dan: I think this was a terrible decision on the Democrats part, to be honest with you. I don't... I think... I think that they are trying to cram everyone into this week, because next week is Thanksgiving week; they are taking the week off. And I think they want to be done with the public impeachment hearings.
Dan: And so, as a result, they are leading us through, essentially, a three days of non-stop testimony, and I think it's a terrible decision.
Maureen: Hmm.
Dan: It just doesn't make sense; like, I can barely remember what happened this morning, because it immediately got obliterated by another fucking six hours of this shit right afterwards. We are not going to remember any part of what Jennifer Williams said by mid-day tomorrow. There's no time for any of this to gestate. There's no time for people to think about it. There's no time for it to be weighed out. And I think that it is actively going to alienate people, or people are going to tune out, you know?
Dan: I think that they are trying to sprint through this, and they should not be. It does not make a lick of sense to me why they are doing what they are doing. It could also be that I take it very personally at this point.
Maureen: I don't think you're the only one that felt that way. But I think you felt that very deeply, with things that you felt.
Dan: I do.
Maureen: How's Impeachment.FYI?
Dan: It's real good. It's good, but it's going to kill me. It's going to kill me, Maureen.
Maureen: Yeah. I know. I know.
Dan: Actively taking time off my life.
Maureen: I mean, maybe, yeah.
Dan: Yeah, probably. I mean, I love it, but it's killing me.
Maureen: That's why Dan... I was a seed, and I grew to a vine!
Dan: You mean one of those looping videos? They're called TikToks now, Maureen.
Maureen: No. I mean like a green plant!
Dan: Oh.
Maureen: That climbs up the side of your goddamn house. Little seed back then, Dan... blossomed.
Dan: Now you're a vine.
Maureen: Blossomed.
Dan: You're blossoming. You're a flowering vine.
Maureen: Dan, I got to talk more people saying words this week, because this week, there was a magical, magical interview with Prince Andrew.
Dan: Oh, good! I am excited to talk about anything that isn't impeachment.
Maureen: I feel like this is definitely worth talking about a little bit, because I watched that son of a bitch twice. It is a 45 minute interview with the BBC. It is incredibly... the interviewer is very good; keeps him just under the pin and just holds him in place, and asks him questions.
Maureen: Now, the deal with Prince Andrew is that he was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein. He stayed in Jeffrey Epstein's houses... not just house, but New York, Palm Springs, the island, et cetera. And he has been accused, by at least one woman, of... she said she was forced to have sex with him when she was underage. She not only goes into great detail about this... where they met, where they danced... it's a club called Tramps... that he got her some drinks, he sweat all over her, they went back, they had sex at this particular house.
Dan: Oh, God.
Maureen: She not only tells this whole story, but she has a photograph of the two of them together in the house. So, Prince Andrew decided, in his [crosstalk]
Dan: Now this is a royal. This is a British royal.
Maureen: This is a royal.
Dan: How far from... I don't know anything about the royals... how far from the throne is he?
Maureen: He is a child of Queen Elizabeth. He is the younger brother of Charles.
Dan: Okay, got it. Okay, there you go.
Maureen: But he has been displaced many times because the line of succession runs through Charles, down to William, through William's children, and then if we went on from there, it would be Prince Harry and Prince Harry's children.
Dan: But he is up there, he's not just some fucking Duke somewhere or whatever.
Maureen: No, he's Queen Elizabeth's son. And as a known idiot... he was married to Fergie. Sarah Ferguson.
Dan: Oh, okay, from the Black Eyed Peas.
Maureen: Correct. So, he's been palling around with Jeffrey Epstein for years.
Dan: Good Lord.
Maureen: So, he decided, in his princely wisdom, to give this interview, and everybody was like, "Do not do this thing," and he's very arrogant. He is so supremely arrogant in this that the whole... I really advise watching it. It is jaw dropping from jump, and it never stops. Everything he says just builds on it, and you think that it can't weirder than it is, and then it does.
Maureen: You know, for example, they say... everybody that had contact with Jeffrey Epstein said you could not help but know what was going on, because there were just so many people going in and out of these houses, specifically underage girls. And at one point, even he described it as being like a train station, and the interviewer... "Well, who do you think they are?" And he said, "Well, I don't want to sound grand, but I'm used to having a lot of staff around, so I don't know, just people going around and doing things. I thought they were staff." That's one of his more charming statements in this, but then...
Dan: Nice.
Maureen: I wouldn't bring this up if there weren't just amazing things in this interview. So, he was asked about these allegations that this woman made under oath, about the night they spent together, with the dancing and the sweating and the sex... and he claimed that this could not have happened because... quote, first of all, he said, "Well, I don't know where the bar is in Trance, and I don't drink; so, therefore, I could not have gotten her drinks."
Dan: He knows where the club is, he just doesn't know where the bar is within the club.
Maureen: Right, because he does all these errands for himself, and they have no waiters.
Dan: Sure.
Maureen: But then, he says... oh, that's his main argument... and then he said, "And also, I was somewhere else that night." And they say, "Where?" He says, "I was at home with the children." And she said, "How do you know?" And he said, "Because it was a very interesting night, because we went to the Pizza Express in Woking." So he's able to tell you that on March 13th that particular year, he was at Pizza Express in Woking, and she said, "Well, how do you know?" And he said, "Because for me, going to Pizza Express is a very, very unusual thing to do. And I've only been to Woking a few times, and I remember distinctly... I remember thinking, 'Oh yes, I remember going to Pizza Express that night.'"
Maureen: So, he doesn't know where the bar is. He doesn't drink, therefore he couldn't have gotten her drinks. Also, he was at Pizza Express at Woking. Also, not for nothing, he says he was there for a children's party between 4:00 and 5:00 in the evening. Now, Woking is basically where Oscar used to live. He lived in Guilford, which is the next town over. These are suburban commuter towns outside of London. The drive from Woking to London is, with traffic, about an hour. So, you could still go to Pizza Express at Woking at 4:00 to 5:00, and be in London dressed and ready to go at 8:00; so, that means nothing.
Maureen: But, it gets better, because she goes on to say, "Well, she had all this detail and knew about the sweat," and he said, "Aha! That's how we know it's false, because I had a condition... a rare medical condition... at the time where I was unable to sweat."
Dan: You what?
Maureen: That's right. "At the time, I was unable to sweat because I had what I like to call an overdose of adrenaline when someone shot at me in the Falklands War, and I was unable to sweat, but then I had taken some steps in the interim, and now I can sweat again. But I did not sweat in the '90s and the early '00s." It's a real thing that happened.
Dan: (laughs)
Maureen: It's a real thing that happened.
Dan: Oh, my goodness!
Maureen: Then... and more of his logic was... for example, Epstein first, I think, gets accused and goes to jail in 2008; so, the prince cuts off contact with him.
Dan: Okay.
Maureen: He says, "Well, I cut off contact." And they said, "Yes, but you went to his house in 2010." He says, "Yes, because I had to go there in person and tell him I was cutting off contact with him."
Dan: Oh, it's only the gentlemanly thing to do.
Maureen: "Because I wasn't going to be a chicken about it... because I wasn't going to do the chicken way"... he actually says chicken way... "of over the phone. I had to go there in person and explain to him why we weren't going to have any more contact." Again, I want to point out this is a full two years of silence, so he'd already successfully cut off contact for two years when he decided that the only gentlemanly thing to do was to fly over and explain why there would be no contact.
Maureen: But, he did more than that. He went and he stayed in Jeffrey Epstein's house for four days.
Dan: Oh.
Maureen: Including having a dinner party, before taking a walk with him around Central Park to tell him that they couldn't be friends anymore.
Dan: Huh.
Maureen: All of this is to say... oh, and then they said, "Well, do you think you should have stayed in this house for four days?" And he just said, "It was a convenient place to stay."
Dan: It's hard to find places to stay in New York City, Maureen.
Maureen: It's very... we don't have many.
Dan: Especially if you're a prince.
Maureen: So that is a failson of wealth and privilege... just a very large failson who clearly thought... I mean, you had to see the faces and the gestures... this guy has never been given an honest critique in his life.
Dan: That checks out.
Maureen: No one has ever told him the truth.
Dan: Well, Maureen, someone else actually got some justice this week.
Maureen: Oh, who?
Dan: Our long-time Babadook lookalike Roger Stone was convicted on all seven counts, Maureen, for lying to Congress and for all of his connections in the 2016 election with Wikileaks. He was convicted for lying to the Mueller investigators, and for lying to Congress, because he was also testified to Congress. It turns out that he had all sorts of contacts with Wikileaks. He had all sorts of communicating of those contacts to the Trump campaign, and he is now facing up to 50 years in prison.
Maureen: Trump had a rough day, that day. Roger Stone... it was three things that happened in the same hour. It was Roger Stone was one; there was an impeachment hearing going on; and something else happened. I can't remember what it was.
Dan: Yeah, it was... Marie Yovanovitch's impeachment hearing. I can actually look this up on my own website, Maureen, by going to the archive at Impeachment.FYI. So Yovanovitch, then... oh yeah, a report came out that Rudy Giuliani is now the focus of a federal investigation because of his work in the Ukraine, and then you had Roger Stone convicted on seven counts.
Maureen: Dan, we have to talk about what happened on Saturday, because I am a little obsessed. The medical mystery.
Dan: Maureen Johnson. The medical mystery.
Maureen: It's the best, right?
Dan: It's pretty amazing.
Maureen: So, in case you don't know, we'll give you the contour. Hit it, Dan.
Dan: Donald Trump had a weekend not going to a golf course, just a weekend in D.C. this weekend, and mid-day, around 2:00 in the afternoon, the pool reports that he is in a motorcade on his way to...
Maureen: Walter Reed.
Dan: I'm blanking. Thank you... to the Walter Reed Medical Center, where Presidents get checked out. And then, he's there for a few hours, and then the pool reports that he left. And then, the White House spokeswoman says that he was there to just get a leg up on his yearly physical, because he's anticipating a very busy 2020.
Maureen: Yes. Now, the many, many weird things about this.
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: One, it was not on his schedule.
Dan: No.
Maureen: Two, he's already had a physical this year.
Dan: Yes.
Maureen: Three, this was supposed to be part one of a physical for next year, which is not something that happens in physicals.
Dan: No. Well, phase one is how he referred to it later.
Maureen: Not a thing.
Dan: No. Plus, there is additional weird stuff, like every time he goes to Walter Reed, he takes a helicopter, and this time, he took a limo... motorcade... situation, which is a detail that I can't shake, but is weird.
Maureen: Yeah, and there's something about... I've seen the footage of them being loaded into the motorcade, and they do seem to be in kind of a hurry.
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: And at one point, they said his shirt was open. So, it sounds crazy when you start talking like that, but the fact is that he didn't just... there's no way he just decided to dash over unannounced to have part one of next year's physical at Walter Reed late on a Saturday evening.
Dan: Well, mid-day, it was like 2:00 in the afternoon or something.
Maureen: Oh, I thought it was later in the day, but still...
Dan: No, it was like the middle of the day, which is equally weird, because like... you're just hanging out, and eventually you're like, "Eh, I'm kind of bored, you know what? Let's go do some blood work. Sounds cool."
Maureen: On a Saturday!
Dan: Yeah. On a Saturday! It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Dan: Here's a mystery that we can solve, though, Maureen.
Maureen: Oh?
Dan: Dojo had a book come out this past week, and it hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. But it has a little dagger next to its number. I'm not even saying this in a way that is metaphorical. There is printed in The New York Times, next to his book listing, is a very tiny black pointed cross.
Maureen: Little wing tip of a dagger.
Dan: Yeah. That means something. Maureen Johnson, you are a New York Times bestselling author. Can you explain to me what the dagger means?
Maureen: It means that there's something slightly suspicious about the sales, and the New York Times... okay. Yes, I have hit the list, and technically, I've even hit number one on the list, with a short story I wrote with-
Dan: Yeah, you have. Yeah, you have!
Maureen: It was a short story collection I wrote with a group, though. But I've been on the list, and the list is... it's bullshit, but it's also very important. The list isn't, as many people think, an indication of who sold the most books overall, because those numbers are actually very difficult to get, if not impossible, certainly from the outside... because there's a service called Bookstand, which has some numbers but not all of them. They only get data from some outlets.
Maureen: The New York Times is based on an algorithm. It relates to books sold at what are called reporting stores, bookstores that report to The New York Times. No one is supposed to know what they are. It tends to be where you get sent on tour, but no one is supposed to know!
Dan: (laughs)
Maureen: Oops, sorry about that. That was me hitting the microphone with a glass of water because my throat was very dry, and I keep coughing.
Dan: It's because it's almost 11:00 New York time now.
Maureen: So, when you have too many books going out of a store, or an outlet of some kind, it starts to look like someone has bulk-ordered on purpose to hit the list. For example, I once sold a very large quantity... I did a promotion with a local bookstore where I did advanced orders out of one store, and I signed all the books, and all these books went out of the store; and so, my numbers weren't counted, I think? Or those numbers weren't counted from that store?
Dan: Oh, okay.
Maureen: As it was too many coming out of that store. That was what I was told. But if they're like, "Eh, there's too many"... like, nobody went in and wanted to buy 10,000 copies of your book from this...
Dan: Right.
Maureen: So, if they see that too many books are coming out of certain places, they may say, "This looks hinky to us, but"... they're saying, like, "We have certain numbers in front of us, but the pattern is suspicious,"... because that is a thing that happened. People try to game their way on the list, and some people, if they're very rich, may go and try to buy up books.
Dan: Right.
Maureen: And put out $100,000 or whatever to become a bestseller... more than that.
Dan: And then you get the dagger.
Maureen: Yeah, basically.
Dan: Do they ever remove people afterwards?
Maureen: I think they have.
Dan: Wow!
Maureen: I think that they-
Maureen: Maybe. They might remove people. But basically, for an investment of, say... all right, let's say... say your book costs 20 dollars, 25 dollars, and you need to sell... eh, you know what? Actual sales will count for some of that, but say you have to buy up 50,000 copies of that at about 25 dollars a piece. That's, what, a million? Is that right?
Dan: I have no math abilities anymore. I had very few to begin with.
Maureen: But that's about... certainly, if anybody invested a million dollars into book sales, they would get enough book sales to get on the list.
Dan: Oh, definitely.
Maureen: And...
Dan: It's always surprising to me just how few books you have to sell to show up on bestseller lists.
Maureen: Oh, yeah! It can be... people have very good senses of which weeks are going to be better than other weeks. There's certain weeks to turn up on... and there's many lists. There's adult non-fiction, adult fiction; there's a lot of lists.
Dan: Right.
Maureen: So, some lists, it might be, like, 1,000 books. And to crack the top of one of the bigger ones might be, like, 100,000 books. So, the number I've been hearing for him is, like, 70, but I don't know what number that is, if it's BookScan or what?
Maureen: So, the long and the short of it is it certainly sounds like there were a bunch of suspicious book sales, and there's stories that the RNC bought a lot of them, and maybe there were campaign funds used for it, but... yeah.
Dan: Weird.
Maureen: It's a lot of publishing insider baseball.
Dan: Wouldn't expect something sketchy to happen around Dojo and his book.
Maureen: I wouldn't expect his father to invest any money in that, so it's got to be somebody else.
Dan: He did actually tweet about the book, which I was surprised.
Maureen: Donald is not going to spend a million dollars to make Dojo feel better.
Dan: Oh, no! No, no. I could see somebody pitching him, not on it'll make Dojo feel good, but it will put his book on the failing New York Times bestseller list, and that... maybe? But then I think it would loop back to him not ever wanting to make his son feel loved, so he wouldn't do it. Somebody did it. Somebody did it!
Maureen: Dan, but what's your theory on the medical thing? What do you think it was?
Dan: I mean, he has not had a good week, right?
Maureen: It's got to be chest pains. I mean, it's got to be chest pains, right?
Dan: I don't know! I don't know! The longer this dude manages to handle himself, the more I subscribe to his "humans are a battery, and the less exercise you do, the longer you'll live." So I don't know. I mean, it could be something. The idea that it was nothing and he was simply bored, and they wanted to get the jump on a physical, feels like the world's most hilarious cover story. After that, though, I don't know. I mean, he was seen at the hospital walking around and had a visit with a vet, so it wasn't that.
Dan: Also, that night, Maureen, at the White House, he hosted a screening of The Joker movie.
Maureen: No, he didn't!
Dan: He did! (laughs) So, it's not like he was not up and around, you know? He was not like... and he was seen going into the limo, and he was seen coming out of the limo, so it's not like there was... they were wheeling a gurney into a limo or anything. I mean, I guess... chest pains is the thing that has at least been kind of mentioned.
Maureen: Well, because it makes sense, and they do have things in the White House to handle, I guess, emergent situations.
Dan: Oh, without a doubt. Yeah.
Maureen: So, if he had to go and... one thing I read was that that's basically where you go when you need to see a specialist?
Dan: Right.
Maureen: So, it wasn't that if something happens and you need emergent care, they can do most of it there, but if you actually need someone to kind of come and go and check you out for something, then they would take him over to Walter Reed, which is what happened. And he's a guy currently going through an impeachment hearing, and is finally being busted for all these crimes, and they're going to get his tax returns, and his stupid friend is being indicted, and his other friend is going to jail... and all he does is eat buckets of fried chicken all the time, and sit and rage tweet... well, then, yeah, I guess chest pains seems like a really logical conclusion.
Dan: I mean, I'm just writing about this shit and I feel like I'm dying. So, yeah, it tracks.
Maureen: Well, it's got to be, right?
Dan: It's something.
Maureen: I don't want to be one of these conspiracy people, but it's not even a conspiracy because they just lie to us all the time, and this is just a really obviously dumb thing.
Dan: I mean, that's the other part of it, right? You lie enough and there's literally no amount of truth that's possible, that feels not like just another lie. So who knows?
Maureen: It's like Prince Andrew saying, "I couldn't have done it because I didn't sweat in the '90s."
Dan: (laughs)
Maureen: All of these large failsons... all of these large failsons.
Dan: It's just that it never stops, Maureen.
Maureen: It's almost like wealth and privilege turns you into a real fucknut.
Dan: Yeah, sounds right. Checks out.
Maureen: You know what I saw on the internet yesterday, Dan?
Dan: A cute puppy?
Maureen: No.
Dan: A cute kitten?
Maureen: Dan, I saw an $1,100 Jenga set.
Dan: What?
Maureen: I was looking up Jenga for something.
Dan: Okay.
Maureen: And it somehow got a link to Saks Fifth Avenue, which has an $1,100 Jenga set, that is of a nice type of wood, that has a word written along the side of it, the name of the brand of the maker. It's $1,100. $1,100 for blocks of wood, Dan. It's a two dollar game! $1,100 because it... it's literally indistinguishable from a five dollar Jenga set. You could not tell them apart. And I thought, "This is really something, isn't it? This is us."
Dan: It is. It is! But, there's a little part of our collective imagined mind, Maureen... the town of Says Whovia where we all live away from this bullshit... and you get there by joining our Patreon at Patreon.com/sayswho. Town Watch supporters... that is supporters at five dollars and up... you will be getting another Says Who this week, because tomorrow, Maureen Johnson, is not only another day with three people testifying... morning shit and afternoon shit... but the Democratic debate is tomorrow night.
Maureen: No. No. No. There's no fucking way, Dan.
Dan: Oh, it is!
Maureen: Dan, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm not. Uh-uh.
Dan: (laughs) Well, baby, maybe Town Watch, there'll be a debate reaction episode. Maybe there won't.
Maureen: No, I'm not doing it. I'm not joking. I'm not doing it. No.
Dan: (laughs)
Maureen: No.
Dan: All right, Town Watch, there won't be.
Maureen: Dan, it is 11:00.
Dan: (laughs) I don't know anything anymore!
Maureen: What you are proposing is that this episode, which we are still recording at 11:00 P.M., and you have to still edit and put up; and then, you're going to get up tomorrow and watch three more sets of hearings like today, or three more people at hearings, and then it's going to go directly and probably overlap with the Democratic debate, which you're then going to watch all goddamn night? And then, having had no breaks from 9:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. solid of this shit, you are then going to write up during this, Impeachment.FYI, and send it out to thousands of people; and then, having absorbed all of this content until 11:00 P.M., written up Impeachment.FYI... you are then suggesting that we sit down and record our reactions to said debate.
Dan: Well, in the morning.
Maureen: Dan, there are not enough hours. In the morning, you are going to be watching testimony again.
Dan: It's true. Oh, you're right. There's testimony again on Thursday morning. You're right. Okay. Town Watch!
Maureen: Sorry!
Dan: That's not going to happen.
Maureen: I mean, we might have another one for you, but that's not going to be it.
Dan: We do.
Maureen: I'm not watching those goddamn debates, Dan. No. I'm not doing it.
Dan: You know what? You are 100 percent correct. But can we talk about something joyous for a minute?
Maureen: Yes.
Dan: Okay. There we go. I didn't want to talk about something joyous if you wanted to stay in the shit.
Maureen: No.
Dan: A few weeks ago, when we celebrated one year of our Patreon, we announced gifts for continuing support, for four months of support, at various tiers. And the first tier was another sticker if you supported two dollars or up, and a few weeks ago, we sent out 300-plus of those stickers to everyone, so I hope you are enjoying them.
Dan: But if you have been supporting at the 10 dollar and up level, which is a real significant support, we said we were getting a map of Says Whovia made. And Maureen Johnson, this week we have been getting some preliminary sketches from the artist of the various locales on this map, and they have been a joy to receive.
Maureen: Yes!
Dan: They have been amazing. I don't want to reveal too much. We'll show some sketches on Patreon soon.
Maureen: When do we see the final... ?
Dan: She still has... so there will be... I guess we can talk about the contours. There are going to be eight main, like, icons, landmarks on the map that she will be drawing, and then there's the map itself. At this point, we have approved the basic layout of the map, and now she is sending over sketches of the various landmarks. We've seen four of them, four still to come, at which point, once we've finalized what all those look like... there's often little tweaks here and there... then she will actually make the map in black and white. We will then approve that, and then she will go through some color testing and things like that. The goal is that it will be done sometime in early December. And then we'll print it up and mail it out, but it is...
Maureen: It's good.
Dan: Beautiful.
Maureen: It's really good.
Dan: It is really good. There's so many wonderful little things in it. I cannot wait for you to see it! If you are supporting at ten dollars or if you want to upgrade to ten dollars, four months will get you there and get that map to you. It is amazing.
Dan: And we are just beginning work at the 25 dollar and up level... we will be putting together coping boxes for you, and we just started planning that, and they are going to be something special.
Maureen: Yeah, Dan's excited! He's got... see, you just let him go for even a minute, and he's like, "What if I bought this machine and made these?"
Dan: It's true.
Maureen: I'm like, "Dan, should you do that?" And he's like, "I don't know. Probably not. I've already bought it. It's here and I'm setting it up!"
Dan: I haven't actually bought that machine yet. But we could customize a lot of things if we had that machine, is all I'm saying.
Maureen: See, the Dan approach is... Dan says, "I'm going to think about this," and then an hour later, you get a 15 page Google Doc with pictures of machines to buy. And mine is the... "Yeah, I'm going to answer you, Dan. Don't worry, I'll get right on that, Dan."
Dan: The best part, to me, about that document is the section that is titled Weird Shit We Could Import From China, and then a whole series of things that we could get manufactured for us in Guangdang, and then shipped over here.
Maureen: Yep. Oh, Dan.
Dan: Anyway, lots of great things for you at Patreon, at Patreon.com/sayswho. Sign up and you will get great things in the mail.
Maureen: Remember that time you had a little idea, Dan? "I'll just do this website. I'll just make a little update."
Dan: Yeah, I do. You know, it's a funny thing, because it is actually a project that I like a lot, but it was a lot easier when it was reading news reports and not watching 12 hours of testimony.
Maureen: Yep.
Dan: Whoo!
Maureen: So is this it after this week?
Dan: As far as we know, but it can't possibly be. The biggest thing that is looming, and now we have a date, is on Monday... well, there are actually two things looming... but I think the more important one is on Monday... the House actually sued back in the Mueller days; they sued to get White House lawyer Don McGahn to appear. And that lawsuit has been slowly working its way through the courts, and it was just heard by an appeals panel today; basically the last stop before the Supreme Court.
Dan: And today, the appeals panel said that they would have a ruling on Monday. And so, not only would this have some implications on Don McGahn, there's at least an open question as to whether it would allow the House to follow up with people like John Bolton, who have so far said, "We can't comply with this subpoena because we are under orders from the White House to not comply, and these are co-equal branches of government, and we are getting competing requests, and this needs to be sorted out by a legal entity." And so, it may apply to that.
Dan: So, if that happens, then it absolutely... there will be testimony after Thanksgiving. Even if it doesn't happen, Bolton and his number two named Charles Kupperman filed a lawsuit, as well, and there's a hearing scheduled for December 10th on that; so, that could well draw this out far into December, but who knows?
Dan: Did any of that make sense? I just had a moment where I realized, one, I haven't eaten any food in 10 hours, and two, I am tired. What did I say?
Maureen: You just went into it, Dan. You don't even know that you're doing it anymore. You've absorbed the stuff so fully, you can just hit a button internally and start talking.
Dan: I legitimately don't know what I just said. It was not an act. I was like in a fugue state.
Maureen: It was all about if Don McGahn could testify, and the ruling that comes on Monday... determine whether or not to open the floodgates for all the other people they've subpoenaed who are like, "Eh, we don't feel like coming in."
Dan: Sounds right. That's basically all I think about now.
Dan: Our theme music is performed by Ted Leo. Our logo was designed by Darth.
Maureen: We love you, Darth.
Dan: Darth, we love you.
Dan: You can contact us @sayswhopodcast on Twitter. You can email at hey... that is H-E-Y... @sayswhopodcast.com. You can join the discussion on Facebook at /groups/sayswhovians. Our Facebook group is moderated by Janice Dillard, and it has become a thing now on the Facebook, on testimony days, where there are two threads that people start. One is for people watching the testimony and one is for people not watching the testimony. So if you want to be around people doing either of those things as this testimony grinds on this week, you can go to Facebook... dot whatever... /groups/sayswhovians... and join in.
Dan: And if not, spread the word. Subscribe. Please leave stars and reviews on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And you can join us next Wednesday... that is... I didn't put the date in our notes. Next Wednesday... oh, the 27th! Hey, Maureen Johnson...
Maureen: Day before Thanksgiving!
Dan: We need to think about a Thanksgiving cast!
Maureen: Oh boy!
Dan: We need to stick a Thanksgiving cast in the oven, don't we?
Maureen: Yes, we do.
Dan: Maybe we should get a foodie guest. We've done well with those.
Maureen: Dan, don't think about that right now. Keep going. Keep going.
Dan: Okay.
Maureen: Oh, my God! Dan! Dan!
Dan: Oh? Yeah? What? What?
Maureen: You didn't hit record.
Dan: No, I did.
Maureen: (laughs)
Dan: I'm staring at a button that says Stop Recording, thank God.
Maureen: Are you sure? Are you sure?
Dan: Yeah. If I hadn't hit record, we would not have an episode this week, Maureen. There would not be one.
Dan: From my basement in Chicago, I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen: He really is on the edge; like, he is not well. It's not a joke.
Dan: You're talking about the President, right?
Maureen: I am Maureen Johnson.
Dan: (laughs) This has been Says Who.
Maureen: Dan, you've got to eat something and go to bed.
Dan: I can't believe now I've got to edit this episode.
Maureen: Dan, you've got to go to bed!
Dan: It's supposed to be up!
Maureen: They'll understand if it's late.
Dan: For our European listeners in, like, two hours.
Maureen: Dan, go to bed.
Dan: I'm pushing through. I don't have any time tomorrow. It's got to happen today.
Maureen: Dan!
Dan: It's tonight or it's never!
Maureen: Dan!
Dan: It's just going to do it.
Maureen: Let this man free. Oh, boy.