8/12/25: Cuomo Crashes Out, "Shrinkflation" of prices at stores, Pete Buttigieg's pathetic answers on Israel

22:08Ryan Grim:Wow. Like for the exact same products. And it was just a random day. It's real. Like the prices are not coming down. And so this like, okay, this month it's up 2.7 % annually. So that's less than it was expected to go up and that's less than it was up before. It's still up. And so people are people are noticing. And so then and Trump putting in the putting in his cronies to rig the stats. It's not going to work for him. Yeah, no, I don't think that is going to persuade this lady is at Walmart. Like, no, people know, no, actually, things are going things are going great for me. The dear leader says that the numbers are perfect.

22:54Ryan Grim:So my life is going good. I mean, I just think about it in this way. Like, Sagar and I actually covered the way that wage growth has been particularly really stagnant in recent months and years for the lowest wage workers. And so when you think of that, obviously, they're, you know, in many instances, not keeping pace with inflation. So you have that. Then you have the cost of food, the cost of housing, the cost of health care, the cost of education. Like, we know these things. So I don't know why it would be at all surprising to people that there are tens of millions of Americans who are one emergency away from complete and utter disaster, because that is also just the basic mechanics of how our economy has been set up to operate.

23:41Ryan Grim:Like that's not an accident. You know, that's the purpose of all of the union busting, for example, that's been going on for decades because business owners like big corporations want you to be desperate so that you have no other choice than to work for poor wages and poor conditions. And oh, by the way, now we also can throw into the mix the threat of AI replacing you, not just some other desperate worker out there. I think it's a good segue to Cuomo because the question of whether or not Democrats are going to be able to capitalize on this comes down to whether or not Democratic Party leaders really understand how the economy works and how the government can be used with people to make it better for those people.

24:25And Cuomo is considered to be one of the great talents of the Democratic Party. So yeah, they acknowledge he got a little handsy and had to be pushed out amid the moral panic of Me Too, but he's otherwise a political genius and really has his finger on the pulse and he's got his fingers on other things too. So he's the guy, he's one of the guys that is supposed to be able to channel this kind of populist energy. And, you know, he phoned it in in the primary. And so, you know, that can be forgiven. But in the general, he's really going to bring the heat and he's going to show that the Democratic Party establishment, you know, has lost, has not lost it.

25:06You know, they've still got it. They can still bring it. And that's why I think it's important to cover this back and forth that he's been having with Zoran Mamdani about rent control. You could put up D1. It started with Cuomo realizing or remembering from the debate or something that Mamdani had said that he lives in a one-bedroom efficiency in Queens that he pays$2 ,300 a month for and that it's rent stabilized. And so he then adds together Mamdani's assembly salary plus his wife's salary, I think like a nonprofit, and suggests that they're making at least$200 ,000. So he calls him, quote, a rich person.

25:52And then he says, you are actually very rich, which a lot of Cuomo's donors probably made$200 ,000 plus and do not consider themselves rich in New York. So then he says, you know, basically he needs to move out of this, needs to move out of his apartment. Let's play D2 here. Rent-stabilized units when they're vacant should only be rented to people who need affordable housing, not people like Zoran Mandami.

26:23Ryan Grim:You don't need to be renting rent-stabilized units to wealthy people. Otherwise, what you're doing is you're abusing the system. I'm going to propose not rent that apartment by law, except to a person who actually needs affordable housing. And I'm going to call it Zoran's Law because it's an abuse of the system. So he wants to make this race about rent control and rent. And so he comes out with this Zoran's Law. So let's put up D3 here. Under Cuomo's proposal, when a rent-stabilized apartment becomes vacant, the incoming individual income would be capped so that the annual rent makes up at least 30 % of that income.

27:04For example, if an apartment rents for$2 ,500 a month, the new tenant's income could not exceed$100 ,000. And so we can get to Momdani's great response in a moment. But Crystal, I used to live in New York and actually lived in a rent-stabilized apartment. And one of the things you learn there is that the landlords want nothing more than to get you out of the rent stabilized apartment because when they get you out, they can then bump the rental price to the market condition. In some cases, it stays rent stabilized, but you have a new floor. Now it's the new market rate, and then it can only move by the slight percentage or zero if Mamdani gets his rent freeze through.

27:48In other cases, it's taken out of rent stabilization and becomes a pure market rate apartment. So in either case, the landlord wins. So they're constantly, desperately trying to get people out of these apartments. And the renters are constantly playing a cat and mouse game of trying to stay in the apartments. Here comes Cuomo squarely on the side of the landlords saying that he's going to kick out people who don't meet these income requirements. And once it becomes vacant, there's going to be these onerous restrictions that you have to make, you know, very, you know, you have to in New York, 100 grand.

28:26Otherwise, you know, you're not eligible for this apartment. What did you make of this? And we do want to get to Mamdani's clapback. What did you make of Cuomo's brilliant gambit here?

28:37Ryan Grim:Well, the irony is, as I read it, Zoran's law, quote unquote, wouldn't even apply to Zoran because when Zoran was able to obtain this apartment, he was only making$44 ,000 a year. So he would have qualified. And the law does not actually say now we're going to kick out people who exceed this threshold, because that would be politically insane. Like the number of, you know, because I mean, just think about what that would mean for your average person. Oh, you do a little bit better, you get a raise at your job. And now you're getting kicked out of your apartment. That's, that's horrible. That's absolutely horrible.

29:11Ryan Grim:And now you're out there in market rate, you know, New York City, and it's just you've taken a step forward in your career and like 10 backwards in terms of your living standards like that would be absolutely insane. So somebody realized, OK, well, we can't actually do that. That would be really bad. And politically, it would be completely toxic. So instead, he wants to implement these new income standards that would essentially mandate that everyone who ends up in a rent stable as apartment is like rent burdened, like officially rent burdened. So it's it's ridiculous. It's utterly ridiculous all the way around.

29:45Ryan Grim:And, you know, also highlights an issue, which is rent affordability and housing affordability. That is one of Zoran's strongest possible issues. so uh there's that i mean there's also just like outside of this zoran's law fiasco situation cuomo is like melting down on twitter i don't know there's all sorts of weird posting there's speculation about they may be using bots to like automatically reply to people he's clearly brought on a new consultant team that has is trying to craft this new twitter troll persona for andrew Cuomo. And actually, I just saw a new poll in the mayoral race and Zoran continues to win to lead by a healthy margin here.

30:32Ryan Grim:This is from Siena. Zoran, this is with the five way race. Zoran at 44, Cuomo at 25, Sliwa at 12, Adams at seven. So you can see, you know, increasingly desperate tactics as we get closer and closer to election day and the polls don't really seem to be moving in Cuomo's favor and no one else seems to be dropping out. And even if they do, I mean, what the polls again reflect at this point is even if it was head to head Zoran versus Cuomo, Zoran still wins in that scenario. So I guess that's why Cuomo's resorting to also desperate tactics like reportedly calling Trump and begging for him to come in and offer some sort of assistance, which I don't think is going to go over too well in the heavily Democratic city of New York City.

31:11No. And as those polls consistently show, his disapproval numbers are so high, he's got a huge ceiling. So even if he could get this mystical, fantastic, one-on-one race with Mamdani and the general, get everybody else out. People don't like him. Like a decent number of people don't like him. Too many people don't like him. And a lot of

31:31Ryan Grim:people do like Zoran. Right. And he's at 44 already in a five-way race. So here's Mamdani responding to Cuomo's rent proposal. What Andrew Cuomo is proposing, be it the rent control he cited, the rent stabilization he intends to speak about, is in many ways reflective of the fact that I live rent-free in his head. There are important conversations to be had about housing, but this is not what he's seeking to lead. He's not looking to reflect on the fact that he eliminated more affordable housing than he created. He's not looking to reckon with his cutting of a voucher program that was then followed by a significant increase in homelessness in New York City.

32:20He's not looking to reckon with any of that. He's just looking to answer the question of how he lost.

32:25Ryan Grim:I live rent-free in his head. That's perfect. You should have come up with that, Ryan. That was there for the taking. It was right there. It was right there. Zoran's law, rent-free in your head. But yeah, so he got him. I mean, I've been thinking about, you know, in Buffalo, this tactic worked against India Walton where she won the Democratic primary and then the guy that she had defeated, who was the mayoral incumbent, he comes in and runs third party in the general election. And it actually works. And I think it is a testament to a very different political climate now, for one, and a sort of more radicalized Democratic base.

33:05Ryan Grim:And I think it also is a testament to just Zoran's appeal. You know, in that poll I was just referencing, he's head and shoulders above any other candidate with independent voters, too. So it's not just that Democrats are like, yeah, we like this guy. And we don't really care what Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer has to say about it. We're going to vote for the Democratic nominee. You also have independent voters who are like, yeah, OK, run affordability and focusing on New York City instead of, say, for example, Israel. That seems like a pretty good like let's let's try that. Let's see how that let's see how that works out for us.

33:36Ryan Grim:And then you also have the historic unpopularity of Eric Adams, the, you know, sort of run of the mill Democratic establishment unpopularity of Andrew Cuomo. and you've got the likely result that we're going to see here, regardless of whether Trump tries to pull some funny business or not. And I wonder how you feel if you're Chuck Schumer, and who is the leader of the Senate, not just a New York senator, he's a leader of the Senate, and Hakeem Jeffries, who's not just a Brooklyn member of Congress, but the House Democratic leader, both of these guys standing in Mamdani's way, And he's just barreling them over.

34:16They have still refused to endorse him. How do you think that how do you think they are reflecting on what what their position is with party voters at this point?

34:28Ryan Grim:I don't know. I don't see evidence that there's that kind of reflection occurs. There's a new poll out that I saw this morning. It was asking about support for Israel's war efforts. The number among Democrats was 8 percent. There's not much that gets you down to 8 percent. And like the gap between that and Democratic leadership has to be the widest of any issue.

35:03You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken.

35:09Ryan Grim:We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

35:48Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

36:27The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anyway, too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Boba. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Taro Reed. That's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. I don't think she was an American Pie but I still like that she was prominent around the same time then Mary Steenburgen

37:04Ryan Grim:why are you guys talking to me why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game I'm trying to set you up for success listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on Solita we share the messy stories of traveling alone as a woman. Your Duolingo is not going to come back to you when a man is inside of you. Oh no! I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility.

37:50Ryan Grim:Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, You smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

38:24Ryan Grim:This is what's crazy to me, Ryan, and I genuinely don't understand it. And actually, we could transition and talk about the Pete Pod Save interview, because I think this fits with this conversation and his response on on some basic questions about where you stand on Israel and Palestine at this point. Like if you're John Fetterman or you're Richie Torres and you're just like, I'm the APAC guy and I'm all about that life and I'm going to cape for Israel no matter what. And I'm going to make sure that money's coming in on my side. OK, I think it's disgusting. I think it's morally atrocious. I hope history judges you quite harshly for that.

39:03Ryan Grim:But I can at least understand a political logic to that. The one that is perplexing to me is the people who will go halfway. You know, they'll vote. For example, Bernie offered two amendments that you could vote, you know, for blocking offensive weapons. One of them was assault rifles and the other one was like bombs. You had some Democrats who would like vote for one and not the other. What are you doing with that? The Israel lobby people, they're going to hate you. Like, AIPAC is not going to support you if you diverge even one inch. and people who see this correctly as a genocide being perpetrated with our tax dollars and are horrified by babies being starved to death are not going to be too impressed with you being like, well, you can't have the assault rifles, but you can have the bombs or this position that, you know, AOC and others have tried to lay out of, well, we're going to support the defensive weapons, but not the offensive weapons.

40:01Ryan Grim:People who are animated by this issue, which is increasingly, I think a large driving factor within the democratic base and completely one-sided at this point, as you're pointing out at the polls in favor of, we have to stop this. Like not only we have to stop funding this, like we need to sanction is, or we need totally different approach to all of this. They're not going to be impressed with your like, well, the offensive weapons, no, but the defensive weapons, yes. And well, I'm concerned, but maybe it's not a genocide. And actually it's just Netanyahu. And if we could just get them out of there, you know, I just, I don't know who that is.

40:34Ryan Grim:Like, who is that for? Who who is what is the put it the morality aside? Like, what is the political benefit from trying to position yourself in this manner? And it just doesn't make any sense to me. And it's crazy to me that there's no obvious 2028 candidate for the Democrats who are just like occupying the Zoran lane of I'm in favor of BDS. yes, I am an avowed anti-Zionist. I'm not afraid to talk about it. I think it's a genocide. I think we should arrest Netanyahu if he comes to the country. It's mind-boggling to me, Ryan, that there is no one who is occupying that lane at this point. Yeah, Ro Khanna probably getting the closest to it.

41:15But yeah, you were referencing the Pete Buttigieg interview with Pod Save yesterday, which actually kind of dunked on him for. And Buttigieg was trending after this interview because it was so bad. So let's play, and we'll do a little trivia for viewers here. We'll play this clip, and you tell us what Pete Buttigieg thinks should be American policy towards Israel. This is B7. Sorry to be out of order here. More than half of Senate Democrats just voted to oppose the sale of over half a billion dollars worth of U.S. bombs and guns to Israel. Would you have voted to oppose sending those weapons? I think we need to insist that if American taxpayer funding is going to weaponry, that is going to Israel, that that is not going to things that shock the conscience.

42:06And look, we see images every day that shock the conscience. So much of this is complicated. But what's not complicated is that if a child is starving because of a choice made by a government, that is unconscionable. And we, I think, especially including voices who care about Israel, who believe in Israel's right to exist, who have stood with Israel in response to the unbelievable cruelty and terrorism of October 7th. I think there's a reason why so many of those voices are speaking up now, too, because this is not just something that is on its face and in itself a moral catastrophe. It is also a catastrophe for Israel for the long run.

42:53How do you think the next administration should handle our relationship with Israel? Do you think it should change based on what Netanyahu has done the last several years? Certainly Netanyahu can't be the only voice or the only compass for what should happen in the U.S.-Israel relationship. And no matter how strongly or especially because of how strongly you might believe in Israel's right to exist and defend itself, You don't have to make excuses for the choices that Netanyahu is making, especially because they are often made not only in the name of the Israeli people, but in the name of a U.S.

43:33alliance. I think that we, as Israel's strongest ally and friend, you put your arm around your friend when there's something like this going on and talk about what we're prepared to do together. and it cannot be, certainly cannot be what we see right now from this administration and this president talking about beachfront property in Gaza before he's prepared to talk about human suffering in Gaza. So the question started, hey Kat, the question started with sending weapons to Israel. So trivia question, pop quiz, how does Buttigieg feel about weapons to Israel?

44:12Ryan Grim:I mean, the truth is, I think we do know from the non-answer. I think if the answer was, yes, we should block the weapons, we would have gotten that answer. The truth is he wants to he understands because Pete's not a stupid guy, as we all know. He understands where the Democratic base is and wants to sort of signal his empathy for that position without actually taking a position that would put him at odds with, you know, where some of his donor bases. And you can only you know, when I asked the question, like, who is this for? In Pete's example, we know exactly who it's for. This is donor maintenance.

44:49Ryan Grim:That's what he's doing here. And he thinks because he's a very slippery operator that at this point he can get away with sort of like restating the question and evincing empathy for the position without actually explaining where he is. And I think I hope what he and I hope everybody else is learning is that is not going to cut it. And there's so much about his answer, Ryan, that just disgusts me. First of all, Palestinians are being murdered every day and we still have to center what's good for Israel. Can we just care that babies are being starved to death and that our government is complicit?

45:27Ryan Grim:Can we just care about the fact that, you know, people are being massacred just trying to seek aid every day in the Gaza Strip? Is that okay? Or do I need to worry first and foremost about how Israelis are feeling about this and what this means for the future of Israel. I find that posture to be morally grotesque at this point. Second of all, and it ties into that, you know, moral atrocity, in my opinion, is this idea that it's just Netanyahu who's the problem and he can't be the only voice here. Oh, really? Well, he's not the only voice. Every poll you look at says, you know what, Israeli society, they're on board with us.

46:05Ryan Grim:By and large, now there are some, okay, how should we approach the hostage? There is some dissent, but by and large, do they care about what is being done to Palestinians? By and large, the answer is no. Not to mention the people who are really driving the ship oftentimes in terms of Netanyahu's coalition are the most psycho extremists, Ben Gavir and Smotrich. Not to mention the so-called opposition figures who are supposedly more moderate say equally horrific and genocidal things. like this idea that liberals love to hold on to that oh it's just the fascist netanyahu is the problem if we just got him out of there then everything could revert to normal is a lie i mean i would i can't even say it's a fantasy because i don't believe that he believes that it's just a total and complete lie that he thinks allows him to maintain what is now a completely untenable position of thinking that liberalism and zionism can coexist and to that point in polls for the next Israeli government, of the top four, you got Netanyahu and then the three below that.

47:10The three below are to Netanyahu's right. So this idea that you're going to moderate, that he doesn't represent the full spectrum is just not accurate. A bunch of things jumped out in that quote. One of them was this fear he has of naming Israel. Right.

47:31Ryan Grim:All this passive language. One of his quotes was, if a child is starving because of a choice made by a government. A government. Which government? Which government? Which government is that? And I think I've seen you make this point, and I'm seeing normie Democrats, who Gaza is not a top issue for them, making it also, which is that they want to see somebody good on this issue because they don't want children starved. But more importantly, they want somebody who has moral fiber and they believe that this is a proxy, that if they're willing to stand up against the special interests that are pushing them to be bad on this issue and they're still good on it, they're still willing to stand up, then that means they're going to be willing to stand up for democracy.

48:15They're going to be willing to stand up for people. So Ta-Nehisi Coates had the great line that says, you know, if you can't draw the line on a genocide, why should I trust that you're actually going to stand up for democracy? And I think that - That's exactly right. When people hear him say, a child starving because of a choice made by a government, you sound scared. You sound weak. And we don't want scared and weak people now. And your point about restating the question is a good one, too. And in the next clip, he does precisely that. I hadn't noticed that tick until you mentioned it. But here, let's play B7B, where he's asked about recognition of a Palestinian state.

48:56Do you think it's time to recognize a Palestinian state? I think that that's a profound question that arouses a lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's survival, Israel's right to survival in the diplomatic scene. And many of the people who have taken that step historically have done so for different reasons than what we see happening with European countries. I think we need to step back and we need to do whatever it takes to ensure that there is a real two-state solution and that no one, not even the likes of Netanyahu, can veto the international community's commitment to a two-state solution where you have Palestinians and Israelis living with safety, with security, with rights.

49:42I believe that can happen, but we have to actually show some commitment to it. So that's a profound question.

49:48Ryan Grim:My Pete hatred is so vindicated. Yes. It's so vindicated. Yeah, that's a it's a profound question that arouses a lot of the biggest questions, Ryan. That's what that is. That's what that is. Cool. Thanks. So Ro Khanna, who has been floated as a 2028 candidate, did not appreciate that response. You can put up the next element. He says, I respect Pete. He diverges from you there. He says, I respect Pete, but we need moral clarity, not status quo. Yes, Jon Favreau, Dems should have voted for the Sanders Amendment. So there's an answer to the question. Yes, Dems should join my letter recognizing a Palestinian state.

50:28Again, an answer to the question. Yes, Trump and Biden disastrously failed on Gaza, and we need a new human rights center division. So if you believe that Kana is testing the waters for 2028, he seems his political sensibilities are sensing here that there is a lane here, that you can go after Trump and Biden here, and you can stand up here, you can go after other Democrats, and that Democratic voters will be with you. And I can't think of anybody else who's kind of dipped their toes in these waters who's being more clear than him, which is kind of disturbing. Yeah.

51:13Ryan Grim:And, you know, and I think, I personally think Ro needs to go farther. I think he needs, I think he needs to acknowledge the international consensus that it's a genocide. So even with him, you know, I think people, to your point, they don't want to see you tiptoeing around, right? They don't want to feel like they're getting weasely, slippery answers, which is what you get overwhelmingly with Pete. and Roe is miles better. Like it's not even close. I think you're right. He is leading in terms of the candidates who are sort of positioning themselves for 2028 and his approach of this issue. It seems to have some understanding of the way that this is functioning as a moral litmus test, even above and beyond the horrors that we see with Gaza.

51:51Ryan Grim:But, you know, it also, I think what is notable in particular about Roe's tweet is not just he directly answers the question. That's kind of nice. But then he says it's Trump and Biden. And I do think part of the reason that some Democrats are tying themselves into knots and not wanting to, you know, take these votes or give direct answers or whatever is because they're implicated. And they don't and they don't want to say, you know what? They were right. Biden and Harris were complicit in a genocide. I mean, that's a that's a tough pill for them to swallow. And then they have to go back and look at, well, what votes did I take?

52:32Ryan Grim:during that time period? And what is my responsibility to make right for my own complicity here? And I think that is, you know, apart, separate and apart from the money and the influence of that, which is obviously very, very real. I think there's also a lack of desire to look backwards, take accountability for one's actions, and critically to have responsibility for ending this going forward. Because if you say it's a genocide, then that would indicate, as someone who is in an elected position of power, you have a lot of responsibility, especially given our government support for that genocide, to go above and beyond the call of duty to try to end these horrors.

53:16Ryan Grim:And I think that many of these Democrats don't want that responsibility on their shoulders, that historic weight, because that's what it is, to rest on their shoulders. And from a pure cynical political perspective, the numbers make it not difficult. I mentioned that 8 % earlier. We can put up B9 here. Here's a tweet from Anel Shaleen, who was one of the State Department resignees. She resigned in protest. 30. So this is 32 percent of Americans approving of Israel's military actions. Among Democrats, the number is down to eight. And among independents, the number is 25 percent. And, you know, people who among Republicans, it's 71 percent.

53:58If you look at young Republicans, it's way, way down. Among that 25 percent of independents, you're going to have a decent number of people who are older Republicans but call themselves independents. And pollsters understand this phenomenon. The same with Democrats. There's a portion of people who call themselves independents who operate just like partisan Democrats and same with partisan Republicans. So true independents, the number is going to be much less than 25 percent. But among Democrats, 8%, 8 % support. That is, you know, politicians are always looking for 70-30 issues or 80-20 issues.

54:40It's rare they get a 92-8 issue where most of their opponents or their adversaries in the primary are with the 8%. Yeah. This is a chance to be with the 92.

54:54Ryan Grim:Chance of a lifetime for someone. There's such a thing as political gravity. that is going to bring this all down at some point. I feel like that. I do feel like that. And, you know, there's a kind of a beltway conventional wisdom that, oh, foreign policy doesn't really matter. People don't vote based on foreign policy. I don't really know how you live through the fallout from the Iraq war and continue to hold that view, let alone, I mean, prior to our time, the Vietnam War, and still feel, oh, people don't really care about foreign policy. Because not only is it important in terms of, you know, international stability and young men in particular being sent off to fight and die in these wars by, you know, mostly rich people sitting in Washington, D.C., but it does speak to these larger moral questions.

55:44Ryan Grim:And on the Democratic side, it really exposes the hypocrisy about a party that tries to position itself as the champion of democracy and liberal human rights, that you're still standing in lockstep with this rogue nation committing genocide and bombarding all of its neighbors in this hyper-aggressive fashion that we're actively supporting and participating in. And on the Republican side, it really exposes the hypocrisy of the idea that this administration would be America first and that American interests would be the priority first and foremost. So and in both instances, it really serves as a litmus test for who is willing to have a shred of integrity or stand on principle, even when there is organized money and other, you know, social and cultural interests that are aligned against you.

56:35Ryan Grim:And, you know, so far, the overwhelming number of politicians in both parties at this point are failing that test.

57:05an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning. Breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process.

57:17Ryan Grim:How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

57:54Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode, we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anyway, too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Boba.

58:26Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Tarot Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. I don't think she was in American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Then Mary Steenburgen.

58:51Ryan Grim:Why are you guys talking to me like, why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game? I just really. I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Solita, we share the messy stories of traveling alone as a woman. Your Duolingo is not going to come back to you when a man is inside of you. Oh, no. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility.

59:37Ryan Grim:Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:10Ryan Grim:All right, let's skip forward to the much anticipated gender portion of the show in this WNBA situation, which I only recently became, I guess this has been going on for a while. So Ryan, I don't know if you follow this, but basically there's some crypto company that decided it would be a fun stunt to start throwing, by the way, content warning, if there were kids watching this show. I don't really think kids should watch this show, but anyway, if there are kids watching this show, this is not really appropriate content for them. Anyway, this crypto company decides it'd be a fun stunt to get publicity for them by throwing dildos at various sporting events.

1:00:43Ryan Grim:And they claim that they did this at other sporting events as well. But the ones that got the most attention were when they started throwing these neon green, like Bratzummer colored dildos out at WNBA games. This became a whole thing and, you know, became incredibly even more politically relevant when Don Jr. shared this meme of his dad standing on the roof of the White House, which was something he did recently, throwing one of these green dildos onto the floor of the WNBA game that is miraculously below the White House here. So, you know, I guess embrace ultimately here of the phenomenon. And the reason I wanted to cover this is because, first of all, I think there's a lot going on that hasn't been discussed with gender dynamics on the right that I think are worth exploring.

1:01:36Ryan Grim:Second of all, as you pointed out earlier, you know, the Republican Party has really wrapped itself around this idea that they're the champion of women's sports. So it's a little bit at odds with that. And third of all, there is a Sagar online betting angle of this as well, which you could put E3 up on the screen. You can now bet on what color dildo via Polymarket gets thrown onto the WNBA court. You can bet on this. So, of course, people say, oh, well, why don't I just sneak? Why don't I just bet a lot of money on the purple dildo getting thrown out and sneak in a purple dildo and throw it onto the court?

1:02:15Ryan Grim:That is now a thing that is possible, which I think speaks to, obviously, this is incredibly degrading for these professional athletes who are extraordinary, who for the first time are really getting like a lot of attention. You know, ticket sales to WNBA games are up like the WNBA is actually having a moment. This is obviously like extraordinary degrading to them and to have the president's son like embracing this. And then it's also like it's degrading to women's sports, but the betting aspect of it makes it clear like this is degrading to all sports. And in the same way that the BLS numbers rigging just sort of like makes you feel like, oh, well, I can't really take any of these numbers that are coming from the government seriously anymore.

1:02:59Ryan Grim:They're all just being like hyped to please Trump. It starts to feel like that about all of these sporting events where it's like, all right, well, who's who's cashing in? Who's being paid what? Which refs are on the take to, you know, make this call or make this play or miss this free throw or whatever, because you can bet down to these individual outcomes. And it just really does degrade your sense that there's anything real about these sporting events at all. Yeah. And Trump at his press conference yesterday announcing that he's going to bring the National Guard out. By the way, he seemed a little off, like even for him at that press conference.

1:03:36But even in that one, he veered off into his defense of women's sports, which are under threat from the transgenders. Let's roll E2 for that.

1:03:51Ryan Grim:That's why they want men playing in women's sports. That's why they want transgender for everybody, everybody transgender. So I genuinely don't think, I'm curious if you would take Crystal, in his mind, that he actually sees the hypocrisy or a contradiction between his son posting this meme that encourages the debasement of women's sports with his constant invocation of his support for women's sports. Because I think in his mind, he's not serious about the latter. And so therefore, it wouldn't even be a part of the matter. even occur to him well and that's that like i don't even know if trump is aware that this meme got right that's true right but certainly don jr is also involved in all the hand-wringing about you know the integrity of women's sports and it's also always been total and complete bullshit like these would be the same people who would denigrate women athletes and never shown any sort of interest in actual like female athletics and i say this as a former you know female athlete myself division one swimmer myself.

1:04:55Ryan Grim:These are not people who ever care. I mean, they always like, this would be the type who would complain about the requirements that women's sports receive equals funding to male sports at colleges and, um, and those sorts of things. So there's that. And then, you know, I, I wanted to also, I think that the other element here that deserves, um, you know, deserves discussion is the WNBA is overwhelmingly black women and it's overwhelmingly overwhelmingly LGBTQ. So it's overwhelmingly like queer women, black women and black queer women. And I think that's part of what makes them such a target by individuals like Don Jr.

1:05:35Ryan Grim:for derision, where out of one side of their mouth, they can talk about all the integrity of women's sports, blah, blah, blah. And at the other side, outside of their mouth be incredibly denigrating. And I just have to tell you, like, as as a woman, I do feel like just outright hatred of women has is becoming increasingly normalized. And I don't think that's just you've got the whole manosphere direction. You have, you know, this like ideology that women should just be which is coming both from the like degenerate right, like the Andrew Tate right, and from the like evangelical Christian right, that women should just be like controlled by men.

1:06:17Ryan Grim:And it's a view just to make it clear. I'm not just being sort of like delusional and hysterical about this. It's a view that's being embraced by people who are at the highest levels of power in our government, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who recently, who goes to a church that has very extreme views on gender, including apparently the head pastor, believing that women should not really be able to vote. And Hegseth recently reposted and shared a segment from CNN of these people talking, about how the 19th Amendment should be repealed and women should not be allowed to vote. Let's go ahead and listen to a portion of this segment that Hegseth shared and elevated.

1:06:59Ryan Grim:Wilson says in his vision of a Christian society, women as individuals shouldn't be able to vote. His fellow pastors, Jared Longshore and Toby Sumter, agree. In my ideal society, we would vote as households. And I would ordinarily be the one that would cast the vote, but I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household. But what if your wife doesn't want to vote for the same person as you? Right. Well, then that's a great opportunity for a good discussion. There are some who have gone so far as to say that they want the 19th Amendment repealed. I would support that. And I'd support it on the basis that the atomization that comes with our current system is not good for humans.

1:07:39Ryan Grim:And we can see the way that attitudes are shifting culturally too, Ryan, if we put E6 up on the screen. So we can see in these surveys of 10th and 12th grade boys that there's a cultural shift away from just basic liberal views of gender equality. One of the questions is a woman should have the same job opportunities as a man. You can see the dramatic decline here in the number of boys who agree with this, again, basic liberal sentiment. And this other one that says men and women should be paid the same amount of money if they do the same work, also a significant decline. So that those levels are below where they were in 1990 when I was nine years old.

1:08:22Ryan Grim:This to me is very disturbing, Ryan. And I don't know what, you know, if you think about you have daughters. Also, you just, you know, care about gender equality as a matter of principle as well. A wife that you care about who's extraordinarily accomplished. Like, I don't know. Do you see this happening? And where do you think this comes from? What do you think it means? Yeah, I saw these numbers a couple days ago, and they are really stark. And I'll be a man in mansplain. You had said 10th and 12th just for the viewer. Eighth, that's their eighth and 10th. Oh, sorry. Which doesn't change the meaning here.

1:08:582018 seems to be this inflection point here where you see this real drop-off. Less of a drop-off. and so 2018 of course it's the height of the me too movement um and interestingly you see you don't see much um increase in like it's oftentimes if you're going to see a backlash like this first you'll see an increase in support um but you don't really see that like you see just an immediate fall off um you can put this let's put that element back up on the screen so people can see it again. You do see an increase in support for a woman should have the same job opportunities as a man starting, you know, a little after 2010.

1:09:47This is the period of time they call the great awokening. So while people are reconsidering, you know, gender and race and sexuality in the culture, you see an uptick there. But Me Too itself doesn't translate here to any gains at all and instead starts to push the numbers off the cliff. And so this is also around the time, I guess, that young men start drifting towards Trump. So, yeah, I think these are really profound numbers and I think say a lot about our politics. What's your thought on the connection to 2018?

1:10:34Ryan Grim:i think it's a reasonable possibility i point more to you know because you see this it's trump like it's all one big bundle but go ahead yeah yeah and and also i mean i think for everybody but for men in particular where the the cultural value proposition for men is basically like you know what what makes you a man is you can provide right you have the job you can you can provide for your family and buy the house. And that's been taken off the table, right? For so many people. And I think when you have a population that is very stressed economically, stressed about what the future looks like, which is not only economics, but, you know, the most clear cut example is like material conditions and possibilities.

1:11:23Ryan Grim:I think it makes it very easy to present a zero sum picture and to scapegoat. And I think that scapegoating, you know, again, it connects to like the women's force thing. We know who the scapegoats are. It's like trans people, it's immigrants and it's women. So I think there is a zero sum portrait of, well, if these women are getting ahead, then that's taking away from you. And if you have a population that's doing well, that's not gonna hold a lot of water. That's not gonna have a lot of appeal. But if you have a population that's really stressed, then they're going to be more open to those arguments of like, geez, the reason I can't get a decent job, the reason it's because all these women, you know, schools are designed for women and all these women going to college and, you know, women are instead of being where they should be in the house, they're taking the job that should rightfully be mine.

1:12:15Ryan Grim:I think it just makes people more open to that sort of zero sum scapegoating, which again, is not just expressed in terms of regressive views towards women, but is also expressed in terms of, you know, immigrants, in terms of trans people, in terms of anyone who could be picked, you know, portrayed as like an other who's taking away from you something that you truly deserve. So that's sort of my larger analysis of what's going on there. And, you know, the Me Too backlash play into that. It's possible. But the reason I don't point my finger directly at that is because you see this trend across groups, not just with regard to women.

1:12:56Ryan Grim:And by the way, I see the attack on transgender people as also, you know, not just being about those individuals who are easy to portray as like different, weird, other, degenerate, and all these sorts of things. I also see that as an attack on women and controlling like the bounds of what you can be as what it looks like to be a woman. And we've seen examples of this where someone who doesn't present, you know, in the like classic feminine way is scrutinized, is like, oh, you're not allowed to be in this bathroom. And it creates, you know, these tighter gender, prescribed gender roles when you go after trans people in this way as well.

1:13:39Yeah. And the questions here are just wild. Put the element back up on the screen if you have a second, just to be clear that the two things that people are agreeing and disagreeing with here, a woman should have the same job opportunities as a man. And then the other one is men and women should be paid the same money if they do the same work. And, you know, for that latter one, only 57 % of these eighth and 10th grade boys agree completely that men and women should be paid the same money if they do the same work. Now, somewhat agree gets you up to eight and 10. Okay, okay, good. But what's the somewhat here?

1:14:18Like, what is the circumstance where a man does the job and gets paid more than a woman doing the job? And the same, a woman should have the same job opportunities as a man. Agree completely is down to 45%. So you add somewhat, it gets you up to 72%, but what's the circumstance here in these kids' mind where the opposite should be the case? It's just, it's dark that this is where these boys are.

1:14:54Ryan Grim:Yeah. And I think it ties into this cultural sense I have that values that were kind of taken for granted, you know, that I thought were just like, we all kind of accepted our, and you know, that the, you know, the women should be in the kitchen idea or whatever, like, or even just that it's good to be humble. It's good to care about your fellow human. These things that I just thought were sort of like baked into society at this point, more or less, you know, is like aspirational values that they've just been in many instances turned on their head or that there's been tremendous backsliding. And that was, I guess, what disturbed me the most about this chart is the fact that in 1990, we had young boys had better just like basic quality of gender values than in the year 2025.

1:15:50Ryan Grim:that is profoundly disturbing to me because it just speaks to the possibility of like, okay, well, where does this end? You know? And that's why, again, to tie it back to the Pete Hexat thing, when you see the Secretary of Defense being like pretty much co-signing the view that women should just not be allowed to vote, it may seem preposterous, but a lot of things that I would have thought were preposterous have been put back on the table, which is why I'm trying to make a concerted effort to pay more attention to these. I can't even call it a warning sign when it's the freaking Secretary of Defense who has a lot of sway over, you know, the way women are treated, for example, in the military and what possibilities and jobs are open to women in the military and whether they are being paid the same as an equally qualified man in that role.

1:16:34Ryan Grim:So in any case, I guess I'll just wrap it all in a bow and say I find it to be part of a larger cultural phenomenon of basic, you know, value and morality backsliding. And I find it to be deeply disturbing because I don't know where the bottom is. Yeah. No, those numbers are pointing straight down. It'd be one thing if that's where they stopped. But yeah, there's no indication that a year from now, that dot's not going to be significantly lower. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with us today as we had a very, I would say it was quite a widely varied show today, Ryan.

1:17:15Ryan Grim:That's how I would describe it. A lot going on. If there was too much commie takeover for you today, don't worry. What we affectionately, tongue-in-cheek, call the fascist takeover will come in tomorrow with Sagar and Evely after the commie takeover today. So we discussed explicitly with them. They're going to cover the D.C. National Guard crime story as well. so you can sort of choose your own adventure with whether you want the lefty or the right-wing perspective on what's going on there. As always, we really appreciate you guys. Thank you so much to premium supporters who make all of this possible and have made the expansion possible.

1:17:55Ryan Grim:If you want to become a premium subscriber, breakingpoints.com, you get our live AMA, you get the full Friday show and lots of other good stuff in between. Ryan, always fun, my friend. Always good to see you. And we'll see you guys very soon.

1:18:39We'll see you next time. curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song.

1:19:00Ryan Grim:I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia AAO Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. Your Duolingo is not going to come back to you when a man is inside of you. Oh no! I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clemens.

1:19:45We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode, we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed and Mary Steenburgen. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.