Handel on the News

When Democrats are messing up, I say it. When Republicans are messing up, I say it. I'm S.E. Cup, a journalist and political commentator. And on my podcast, off the cup, I help you make sense of the often nonsensical news. I do this on cable news, too, but on my podcast, I can really let loose and be my honest, unfiltered self. I just want to talk about something that happened this week because it's so bonkers. So stupid. Such. Incredibly bad politics. We have to talk about it. Come for the hot takes. Stay for the sanity. Listen to Off the Cup on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Bill Handel on Demand from KFI AM 640. No! It's the news! Before we jump in, we have not... Did you know that it was a national gay pride month starting today? Big business for stores selling Boas and Tutu's. Okay, moving on. More Handel on the News. And now, Handel on the News. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Bill Handel. Good morning, everybody. It is a Wednesday morning, June 3rd day after the primary election. And I don't know about you, man. I was tired before, tired of what's going on politically and even more tired now. Interesting, I might add, but dumb. I'll talk more about what happened at 7 o'clock. Obviously, there'll be a recap. No big surprises. However, one moderately surprising aspect of the election, which maybe you'll agree or disagree. All right, quick good morning to the crowd. There is Amy. Good morning, Amy. Hi, Bill. Hi, Kono. Hello, Bill. Oh, just a t-shirt today. Yeah. It's almost summer. Suns out, guns out. Okay. Very well said. Very well said. I don't know with the view of the camera or not, but Kono has the moves, at least from what I can see over here. He doesn't have moves. I'm looking. I'm saying from this view, Michelle, he has the moves. He is very fit. It's called the chest and moves. Yeah, he is. Those are his pecks, bro. Yeah. And just a quick word about that. Since Michelle has been with me for so long, and 25 years ago, or when she started, what we used to do is comment on the fact that Michelle is abundantly endowed. This is true. This is absolutely true. And when we do the, when we did promotion photos, which we have, we had Michelle's photos simply a picture of the Grand Teton Mountains. And she would sign Michelle Cube, KFI Radio. By the way, that's true. Okay. Neil, good morning. Not after that. Sure, after that. No.

After that, Will, good morning. Good morning, Bill. And there's some great stories about Michelle, too. She's got some fabulous stories in that range. Well, at some point, we have to share those stories, Michelle. There's exactly one story about that. It is a fabulous story. Would you like to share? Was your other hold off on that? It happened in the 90s when I was drinking quite a bit and I got banned from Angel Stadium. She got banned from Angel Stadium. And why do you think she was banned from Angel Stadium? I flashed somebody. In the stands. No, well, I flashed somebody on the field. That's right. Anyone in particular? I can't remember. I can't remember. It might have been Chuck Finley when he was pitching. But it knocked out the second base coach. It really did. And if you actually listened to the audio that was recorded that day, you heard a lot of, my God, look at those. It wasn't caught on Jumbotron. It was not caught on. There were no cell phones. The worst part about that is that I had to leave the stadium, but my stupid boyfriend stayed. And so I had to wait outside the stadium for him. And that's the night that we broke up. Oh. Because he was one of those guys who like puts down all the pitches and he tracks the game. He's a dork. He sounds fun. Yeah, he sounds like a lot of fun. Okay. I said hello to everybody. Let me see. Amy, I did say hello to you, didn't I? Yep, you did. Are obviously forgotten already. Thanks. Yeah, Lindsay talks about how on this show, for the most part, I'm focused, except when I say hello to people. And then the rest of the time, I just don't pay attention. I'll say something. And she said, I told you three days ago. I told you yesterday, the day before, for the last three days. Did you listen? No. No, not at all. All right. You guys ready to do it? Sure. Sure. It's the day after election day. And of course, we are doing the news with Amy, Neil and me. It is Lead Story. California. The only surprise, I thought, was that Steve Hilton actually got more votes, or at least up to this point. I mean, all the votes have not been counted. He got 27% Xavier Becerra, 25%, give or take. I'm going to say a few words about that at 7 o'clock, because that says a whole lot about what we are thinking and where we were going. And an analogy to we're at the same place we were. What is it, six, seven years ago. Tom Steyer came in third with almost 20%. So Tom Steyer spent about $15, 18, maybe $22 per vote. And Chad Bianco came in with only 11% of the vote. So that's done. That's finished on that one. And so we'll do a lot more than that. The governor's race, the mayor's race, which are the two big races and both those races were covered nationally.

Even the L.A. mayor's race covered nationally, much like. Hugely on both Fox and CNN. 100%. It's like the mayor's run for New York. It is a big national story. Well, the mayor of either New York or L.A. instantly becomes a national figure or one of the two or both become national figures. So we'll talk more about that. Well, who to thunk? Spencer's surging in the race for L.A. mayor. Karen Bass has like 35% of the vote. And they said, that's enough. She's going to go to the runoff. So the question is, does Spencer Pratt have enough to make it or could Nithya Raman still come back? Spencer Pratt has about 30% of the vote right now. Nithya Raman has 22%. Yeah, I think that's going to be tough for her to come back. Maybe not, though, you know, because mail-in ballots and there's huge number of mail-in ballots. Yesterday I mailed in my ballot. Well, actually, I had to go to the post office because I did it at the last moment. And so went to the post office and dropped off my envelopes. And because I was carrying so much stuff in the post office to be mailed. I was holding both of the envelopes with my teeth. And they had teeth marks and spittle all over the envelopes. And as the gal behind the counter took them, I got a very interesting look. Just thought I share that with you. Not that it has anything to do with anything, but, you know, it's what happened yesterday. The teeth marks are different, but the spittle is pretty much on everything you hold. All right. This was a strange story. It's still going as far as I know. You tell me, Amy King, if things have changed. We are waiting for confirmation that things have changed. Gotcha. So you have several buildings downtown Bakersfield on lockdown. active bomb threat hostage situation you even have you know out of an abundance of caution you have the city hall and the police headquarters among those that are on lockdown uh you've got the FBI and Department of Homeland Security out there and this is just an unidentified man at this point entered the bank and barricaded himself in there with an unknown number of people Some, I think two hostages have been released so far from the building. Everyone else. It's now up to nine. Nine that have been released. Nine have been released. How many people could be having there? Right. Well, they were saying they were negotiating. What I'm waiting for confirmation on is that a SWAT team may have gone in and got him out this morning. But he had like a, what looked like a bomb strapped to his chest. And it started around 1 p.m. yesterday. So it went overnight and we'll get. confirmation on that as soon as we can and let you know. But what was the Al Pacino movie where Dog Day, dog day afternoon, which is exactly what happened here. Really? That's such a great movie. Yeah. It's a great movie. It's one of Al Pacino's early films after he broke out in The Godfather. It's fantastic. And it was this situation. Exactly. He goes in, holds a bunch of people. He's going to rob the bank, but holds a bunch of people hostage. And it was for.

his boyfriend to turn into his girlfriend, if I'm not mistaken. And this was way, way back when, where the concept of trans was, and the surgery was pretty risky at that time. Okay, I thought I'd share. Oh, we can do one more. Let's do one more before take a break. Scott Pelly sacked. CBS News has fired Scott Pelley. So they had a meeting. And things got pretty heated. So, of course, Scott Pelley's been working for 60 minutes forever. And the rather new executive producer, Nick Bilton, was having a meeting and said, you know, that what's her name, Bari Weiss? Bari Weiss? Yeah, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss loves this institution. Well, that set Pelley off. And he said, Bari Weiss murdered 60 minutes. He said she does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and she's been doing exactly that. And after that, he was fired. Fired. And I think he wanted to get fired. I'm going to do that story at 8 o'clock and then throw in a personal story about 60 minutes when I was lucky enough to have a segment of 60 minutes done on me in the mid-80s. And I'll give you some inside baseball about that. Yeah, I practice a lot putting a file in front of my face and running out in the parking lot. Yes, I did. Okay, we'll be back. Big sweat beads coming down your forehead. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. All right. U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday, Monday, rather, that talks with Iran were ongoing. Here's the thing. He said talks are continuing at a rapid pace with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And he said this on truth social because that's where he does most of it. And he then went on to say that he thinks we've been doing too much talking. And if you want to know the truth, he thinks going silent would be very good. And that could be for a long time. Separate interview with CNBC, Trump had said that he didn't mind if the talks were over. I don't care if they're over, honestly. I could care less. Interesting tact. Marco Rubio's getting grilled. The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. said when he testified before Congress that President Trump's negotiating team has not offered Iran's sanctions relief in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and insisted that any sanction relief. was tied to Tehran giving up its nuclear program. He said Iran is being sanctioned because they have highly enriched uranium. Iran is being sanctioned because of their nuclear activities. If they agree to give those things up, there will be sanctions relief associated with that commitment and compliance to those agreements.

Yeah, I don't understand a lot of this in the sense that it's now come to their nuclear program and that's it. And then opening up the Strait of Hormuz, we really don't know. Yeah, it's a free waterway. I'm going to assume we're going to go back to that. And then we want to see that nuclear program reduced or given up entirely. No more even mention. of supporting terrorists to organizations throughout the world. That's off the table. Building their drones and ballistic missiles. Those manufacturing sites. No more mention of that. That's all gone. Wasn't it always about the, it wasn't it always about the nuclear weapons? And then the straight came in later and but. That's what I thought. No, the attack initially, the attack initially was certainly about nuclear weapons, but it was also about the other litany of issues that the United States wanted. The support of Chisbalah and other proxy terrorist organizations, that was important. Regime change was part of it, and the president, of course, says we have regime change. when the senior leadership of Iran was taken out. We have regime change. You're going, what? Different regime? No, different leadership. It's like if, God forbid, our president is assassinated and the vice president comes in, that's regime change. It's not. It's still the same system. It's just different people. And so that was off the table. And then all of that, then we have then the ballistics, the manufacturing, the use of drones. All of that was part of it. That's all disappeared. Now we're back simply to nuclear weapons enrichment. And we'll see what happens with that one. Oh, and the Strait of Hormuz is now controlled by the U.S. as if the Iranians have nothing to do with closing the strait. That's weird. Although at the same time, well, there's a lot of contradictions and no surprise there in terms of the U.S. Marco Rubio does a pretty good job, by the way, of considering he has to do what the president wants him to do, which cabinet members must do. They work for the president. He's probably the most rational voice out there for the presidency or for the administration. Representative Jimmy Gomez, Democrat here in Los Angeles, being investigated by the House Ethics Committee over allegations of sexual misconduct. So this is a report that came out yesterday. Three unnamed sources told CNN that Gomez is being investigated by the committee. Panel has not confirmed. or commented at all on this supposed report kind of goes back sometimes years ago he he said years ago he made some personal mistakes outside of his marriage and that have caused real pain to his wife and family although my actions were consensual in nature and haven't violated any law or house ethics rule i don't understand

Kissing like an aid of someone else. Yeah, I don't understand. No, not his aid. I don't understand how prudish we have become. Here he is. He is ostensibly kissing, maybe stooping, a staffer who works for another congressperson, of which he didn't have the ability, I guess, to make any decisions. And therefore, sexual misconduct. Explain to me what the sexual misconduct is when you have two consenting adults. Granted, one of them is married or not. How about it's nobody's business? And for him and all these politicians to say, I made mistakes is between me and my wife and I've caused great harm. How about it's none of your business? Okay, you can talk to me about my voting record. You can talk to me if there was an issue of a subordinate. When does it become an ethics issue? But it's beyond that. It's sexual misconduct under any circumstances. Ethics means you can't have sex with someone who is not your wife. Okay, that's great. At some point, is it ever nobody's business? Well, is this part of their business, though, because it was an aid. So it really is, it was an aid for somebody else. That's right. It was an aid to somebody else. That's the problem. If it was his aid, you have an argument. Gotcha. But someone else, come on. What if it wasn't even an aid? What if he was stooping the gal behind the counter at a jack-in-the-box while he was married? Does that come out too? Yikes. That's like a talk show host leaving his wife for a listener.

Hello. A gender reveal party is going to cost millions. You know that the gender reveal parties are so popular, but this one went tragically wrong. It sparked a major wildfire that led to the death of a firefighter. Three companies have now agreed to pay more than $4 million for their role in the fire. It happened. in a park in Yucaypa. And if you'll remember, it was in 2020. And a couple used a pyrotechnic that was supposed to put out either blue or pink smoke. But the device ended up setting off the Eldorado fire that burned nearly 23,000 acres. damaged or destroyed nine buildings and killed a U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighter. Yikes. Yikes. How many of these has there been, though? There's been explosions. There's been fires. There's been... Can't you just cut the cake and it's either blue or pink inside? Yeah. You know, it's interesting with these people. I mean, it's almost like... Guess what? You know, you're that stupid. Okay, then do it. It's like kids who the fireworks and they blow their hands off. Oh my God, that's horrible. That's horrible. You know what? You got to take some responsibility for this too. Now, they're arguing a lawsuit because it blew up or it shouldn't have and the city because it allowed it. I just want some responsibility there and it never happens. All right. I saw this come over the wire yesterday, sad, legendary singer, songwriter, Peebo Bryson. has died. He was 75, which seems young by today's standards. Yeah, no kidding. Well, something, something went wrong, obviously. What a stroke. Yeah, he had a stroke. Yeah, that comes out of the blue. What a voice, though. Oh, yeah. You know, no one, I didn't know his name. You didn't know. Seriously? No, I didn't know his name. I didn't know who Pibo was or Piabo. I didn't know his name, but as soon as you talk about his voice and what he's saying. Beauty and the Beast. It's a whole new world. All of these R&B classics, you instantly, obviously, know who he was. But anyway, that's a shame. What a talent, man. What a talent, yeah. What a talent. Speaking of talent, as if Garth Brooks didn't have enough money already. He said years and years ago that he had more money than his children's, children's children's children could ever spend. Well, now he is considering a sale of his catalog. About $2 billion is what he's looking for to get the rights to his songs and recordings. It would be among the largest deals for an individual artist or group catalog.

He's been looking at doing this for a few years, recently told some investors. He's one of the few artists of his level of fame who has not sold and is considering it. Of course, he's... behind friends in low places, shameless, the dance, and tons more songs. Yeah, when you look at the numbers, I mean, this is astronomical. Well, he's asking more than $2 billion, but they figure that, well, let me put it this way. Was it Queen's catalog sold for more than a billion dollars in 2024? And I think Queen. is, would be worth more because the music goes across a large segment that maybe Garth Brooks doesn't. I mean, it's basically country music. And do you, if you remember that the Beatles publishing and ownership of their rights for the early Beatles went, they were selling half of it and for $75 million. And Michael Jackson bought that, that half. For $75 million, Paul McCartney bit on it, and he thought $75 million was too much. And McCartney ruined the day. He said, oh, my God. I think he ended up buying the last half. So what does that mean? It just gives them the rights to... Yeah, they own the song. Yeah, they just own the song. They own the publishing. For example, when you hear a commercial with an old song, that goes to the publisher. When on radio, when you hear any one of these songs played? I mean, when's the last time you heard a major song not being played on radio stations? I mean, I listen to songs, an easy listening station, and I hear basically the same song over and over again, Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. So it's $2 billion. I mean, that is completely insane. Oh, a quick word I was talking. This story came out. I was talking to Lindsay, who was a Garth Brooks fan. She went to a Garth Brooks concert. He was four hours late. Four hours. I thought you were going to say he played for four hours. I've seen him twice, and he played for three hours. He wasn't late when I saw him, but that was way in the, that was back in the 90s. That's what she said, and he has a, he's notorious for being late from what I understand. I'm just telling you, maybe Lindsay made it up. Great concerts. Lindsay quit making stuff up. Yeah, she makes up a lot of stuff, to be honest with you, just to assuage my guilt and feelings, although. You know, there are people that show up late. There are. He does put on a fabulous show. Everybody, everybody today puts on three hours with no opening acts. Do you know when the Beatles first came out and you would go to or anybody would go to a Beatles concert? You know how long those concerts were? Ten minutes. No, 30 minutes. Seriously, 20 to 30 minutes. Wow. That's funny. That was it.

They come out. I saw Paul McCartney. He did at least three hours. Oh, yeah. No, he was absolutely wonderful. One of my great regrets in my life is not going to see the Beatles. When prices were actually reasonable, I should have gone to, I think they did Dodger Stadium. I know they did Hollywood Bowl. Anyway, moving on. All right. Outback, the steakhouse we all know and love. A Virginia woman is seeking $1.5 million for what being hitting in the face with a hot blooming onion? Nope. She slipped on mashed potatoes. She fell face first. That sounds horrible. But, you know, she's saying that she has. you know, all kinds of lasting issues. Oh, yeah. No, she fell straight on her on her face. I can understand there's some, you can do some big damage. But here is a legal aspect of this. She is suing the steakhouse outback for negligence because the mashed potatoes were on the floor. And she's arguing that they should have known and should have cleaned it up. And they're going to argue it just happened beforehand. What did we do that is negligent? We weren't told. It just happened before. Let's go into a supermarket. I slipped on a banana peel. You should have known. Well, the banana peel was it was 10 minutes ago. What do you want me to do? Now, there's an argument that there should be someone walking around looking at what could cause a slip. It's a better argument against a restaurant. But again, they're saying, you know what? Someone spilled their mashed potatoes. That's all a waiter day. Here's the weird thing. Would it be in the location it was apparently by a bathroom? Is that a server that spilled it or is that? It doesn't matter. I don't think it matters. On that one, it doesn't matter. It was the fact that the mashed potatoes were on the ground. Also, I think the restaurant has a big, big problem when it's going to come out that when the order was taken and she was asked, do you want your mashed potatoes on the floor or on your plate? Therein lies the rub. Okay. Scrapping the fund. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Trump administration is scrapping plans to create the $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who they say were targeted by the Biden administration. It's that anti-weaponization fund that everybody had to fit about. Yeah, this boy did the Trump administration miss the boat on that one, underestimating the pushback that, I mean, everybody. There were a few congresspeople and senators who would have backed it up, but the leadership, but just said, you can't do that. I mean, you cannot leave open paying people who overran our capital and tried to stop an election.

And that was just a bridge too far in the red sand. Never mind. You know what's worse than paying them out of a slush fund? Hiring them as an employee and paying them every two weeks. So the Trump administration has hired a convicted January 6th rioter. to work in the Pentagon's office that oversees sensitive special operations and what they referred to as a regular warfare matters. Elias Irizari is what I'm going with. He was 19 at the time when he participated in the attack and actually he pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. was sentenced to 14 days in prison, but now he's got a job at the Pentagon. And he apologized. So how does this happen? Well, it's real simple. Keep in mind, the underlying premise is that every one of those people who was prosecuted were accused or went to jail of overrunning the Capitol and causing harm and, you know, attacking police officer, they were all patriots. Right. Every one of them were patriots and they were held hostage. I don't think he was accused of any of that. Okay. Okay, no, hold on. Hold on. No, no, no. I want to go to a point. And so this is akin to hiring a veteran that you give a veteran precedence. You give extra points to a veteran whenever hiring in government. And this is it. If you were one of the January 6th defendants, you are, you should get more. You should get more consideration than someone who is not because look at this. You were a hero, a patriot trying to undo an unconstitutional rigged election. That's the craziness here. That's the craziness. I mean, I, where do you go with this? But the good news is they shut it down. Todd Blanche. Oh, they're still defending it, by the way. Todd Blanche, no one is saying in the administration, okay, maybe we overstepped. Maybe not. He said, oh, there was weaponization, but we're not going forward. Why? Because we're not going forward. That's why. George Santos. Remember, he got himself in a little trouble. He was. Former U.S. representative. Well, he has been betting on himself, apparently. Prediction market Kalshi reported George Santos to federal prosecutors after he boasted that he would be going to President Trump's state of the union address. And then he bet against his own attendance. And he didn't show up. Imagine that. Imagine now. Yeah, of course he did. What I find interesting is he's even talking to prosecutors. These are federal prosecutors. This is a guy who was pardoned by the president. And why would they even go forward? For example, Tom Homan, who is the immigration czar. They have video of him with cash being handed over. Video.

And Pam Bondi, the eternal general, was asked about that. She says, we've done the investigation and there is no evidence there. So when you're on the side of the administration, what's going to happen? He was pardoned by the president for his craziness when he ran for office. He lied through his teeth about that. that what he was, just a bogus, total bogus resume. All right, I think we have time for one more, and this is good news. And Amy is really excited about it. Let, let Amy do this one, because this is an Amy topic. Okay. They're animals, Amy. I know. I'm just a soft. Yeah, depending on our audience, they're dinner. Okay, moving on. Amy, why don't you give us the good news here? Okay, the Great Beagle Rescue of Wisconsin continues. As animal rights groups say they plan to remove more dogs from a medical research facility, it's called Ridgelan Farms. They agreed to allow animal rights groups to remove 135 beagles from the facility on top of the 1,500 dogs that have already been removed and relocated. Yeah, it's not that they were treated poorly. I don't think that's the accusation. It's just a medical research place. Yeah. And that is, well, again, keep in mind, I'm going to give you the other side of the coin on this one. Because when you look at these things, they are, these, these beagles are so adorable being held up and hugging. And I mean, just, you love it. You love this story. And it's being covered all over the place. But when new drugs come out to save human beings. They have to go, the pharmaceutical companies have to go through animal testing. And do you not? Now, no one cares about mice. You can kill all the mice you want. But when it comes to animal testing with these beagles, I don't know what happens. Are they kill them afterwards? And I don't. Sometimes. Yeah. And I don't know the answer. But when you look at how utterly cute and you go, how can you do this? Well, and you know why they use beagles, right? Because beagles, they don't fight back. Like beagles are the calmest dogs and they can do almost anything to them and they don't fight back. That's what's sad. Okay, now you're going to make me cry. I would say just test on people. Test on prisoners. Inmates. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I'm never eating at a Korean restaurant again. Okay, we are done. Coming up, the election recap. We'll do that right here. KFI AM 640. You've been listening to the Bill Handel Show, catch my show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and anytime on demand on the Iheart radio app. From daily news to dating fails, conspiracy theories to cooking with celebrities who can't actually cook, Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts ready to entertain, included with Prime.

A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokatine's to Madagroso. And he brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all. You got to give Bruce and the guy's credit. They're Republicans. They don't give a shit about it. It's now. On this season of Drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At concerts, we dance to the same tune. At games, we hug total strangers. And yet, in these moments, there's also something we don't do. We don't act based on how they look, who they love, where they're from, or what they believe. We just act. Because the things that make us different will never change what makes us human. Go to Love Hasnobles.com to learn more. Brought to you by Love Hasnobles and the Eye Council. From daily news to dating fails, conspiracy theories to cooking with celebrities who can't actually cook, Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts ready to entertain, included with Prime. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokatines to Madagroso. And he brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush. Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe's going to trade. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, your land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all. On this season, Bruce is the guy's credit. They're Republicans. They don't give a shit about it. It's doubt. On this season of Drilled Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At concerts, we dance to the same tune. At games, we hug total strangers.

And yet, in these moments, there's also something we don't do. We don't act based on how they look, who they love, where they're from, or what they believe. We just act. Because the things that make us different will never change what makes us human. Go to Love Hasnobles.com to learn more. Brought to you by Love Hasno Labels and the I Council. When Democrats are messing up, I say it. When Republicans are messing up, I say it. I'm S.E. Cup, a journalist and political commentator. And on my podcast, Off the Cup, I help you make sense of the often nonsensical news. I do this on cable news, too, but on my podcast, I can really let loose and be my honest, unfiltered self. I just want to talk about something that happened this week because it's so bonkers. So stupid. Such. incredibly bad politics. We have to talk about it. Come for the hot takes, stay for the sanity. Listen to Off the Cup on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.