Crooked Media’s Jon Lovett joins Sam to debrief the DNC and why Chicago is the perfect combination of sweatpants and sandwich town. They discuss his decision to go on Survivor and why it’s the best way to see how democracy works up close. Plus, Sam and Jon get into why movies are too long, the best way to moderate debates, and the power of young people persuading other young people to vote.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Samantha Bee, Jon Lovett

Samantha Bee  00:19

I don’t know about you, but I’m still riding high from the DNC DJ Cassidy, still playing in every corner of my mind while I clear out all those excess balloons for a liberal, coastal elite cynic such as myself, the DNC did pretty much exactly what it needed to do. Kamala Harris cannot be everything for everyone, but she’s trying pretty hard to show that she will at least try to be something for so many, which is why I have some serious choice words for undecided voters. What the hell? How? I just don’t get it. My mind cannot, cannot comprehend seeing the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee and thinking, hm, same but how are they different? My God, traditionally, I have the least amount of patience with ambivalent, undecided voters. I can’t help it. I think that they are drama queens who literally want a candidate to march up their driveway and hold their hand and personally give them a coupon for a Quiznos, and that would pretty much decide it. Look enjoy being the belle of the ball for the next few months. Swing voters, we are spending the GDP of a small nation for an exercise in brand identification to teach you Kamala Harris’s name, because we all know that you’re going to go in that booth and whimsically pull the lever for whoever’s name you heard last, or maybe more likely, is that you’re not undecided between the candidates. Again, how could you be? They are not even close, but you’re undecided if you’re going to bother voting at all. And to that, I say, Oh, how nice, how quaint. It must be nice not worrying that your freedoms or the freedoms of your loved ones or your neighbors aren’t at risk of being taken away. How confident you must be that some element of your life might not be in danger if we don’t elect vice president Harris. And if that’s true, don’t vote for your own sake, vote for the sake of someone you may not even know, please.

 

Samantha Bee  03:58

This is Choice Words. I’m Samantha Bee, my guest today is Jon Lovett, former Obama speechwriter and current host of Love it or Leave it and pod save America and co founder of crooked media, John join me live from the DNC to take a listen and make good choices.

 

Jon Lovett  04:20

Hi.

 

Samantha Bee  04:21

Hi, how are you?

 

Jon Lovett  04:23

I’m good.

 

Samantha Bee  04:24

Listen, you’re on survivor now.

 

Jon Lovett  04:26

That’s true.

 

Samantha Bee  04:29

Which, as you know this, this podcast is largely about choices, and we are going to talk about that choice.

 

Jon Lovett  04:35

Happy to I can talk about, I can absolutely talk about the choice.

 

Samantha Bee  04:38

I just got invited to go on Dancing with the Stars. And I said no, but I want to talk to somebody who said, Yes, reality show experience. Tell me what you can tell me, I know the NDA is insane. Did it live up to expectations? Can you just say that?

 

Jon Lovett  04:55

It was a fascinating and worthwhile experience that’s all that, but I will say, right? Here’s, I will tell you about the decision to do it, which was, I had been watching Survivor for a long time. I watched the first season live as a kid, like when a kid, I was about to turn 18. It aired like, right as I was graduating high school, and I loved it, and I was hooked on it. Rediscovered it in the last couple of years, caught up, and there was something about the challenge of it, and the fact that, like, you have no control over what happens, that was interesting to me and so many, I’m, like, very proud of my career. I’m proud of where I’ve gotten to and I and I get to say what I want, when I want, in studios, whenever, like, you know, I like, I’m in this position where, like, I have gotten to have all this success, and yet I still carry around this fear of how I look, this fear of making a mistake, this desire to control how I’m perceived. And I was sick of it, sick of it, and like I put a lot of my insecurities into how I look and the idea of putting myself through this challenge in which I’d have to let go of that completely, truly let go of it completely, and know that, like, whether it’s the deprivation or the intense physical challenges or the social dynamics that, because it would be on camera, you can’t just walk away. You have to finish what you’ve started. You sort of are binding yourself to the mast and like that was really interesting to me the other the other part of it was I knew, like, I’ve been paying attention, obviously, ferociously, to the news since I was a teenager, and the idea that I would basically step outside of that in the spring, before this election, and have a chance to, like, disappear into this completely alien, isolated experience. What was exciting and then Survivor, is democracy. It is a group of people forced to be together, set against each other by the rules, finding a way to work together, and deciding which one of them deserves to go all the way, right? It’s a vote every episode ends with a vote, and I just like the idea of being part of that in the run up to this election and getting to talk to people as it airs, or in the run up to it airing about, like, why we like Survivor and we like Survivor because it’s a social experiment, yes, in like, hunger and competition, but also in like democracy.

 

Samantha Bee  07:57

Your answer checks all my goddamn boxes today, and like, it was actually, literally thinking about this in the this morning, just in my own life, it was so stupid, but it’s like, Oh, I love it when someone else is in charge. Like, love just to surrender to something. And it’s kind of right, like, in your position, it’s kind of rare that you have to surrender yourself completely to something.

 

Jon Lovett  08:28

It’s also like, I’m when I start thinking about doing it, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I had, like, recently turned 40 and decided, look, I think people can do their midlife crisis however they want. This is how I’m choosing to do my midlife crisis.

 

Samantha Bee  08:42

And then a yellow Lamborghini. It’s fine.

 

Jon Lovett  08:46

That’s what’s next, absolutely.

 

Samantha Bee  08:49

Are you’re in Chicago right now?

 

Jon Lovett  08:51

In Chicago.

 

Samantha Bee  08:52

You are in Chicago.

 

Jon Lovett  08:54

I literally ate a personal size deep dish pizza before this recording.

 

Samantha Bee  08:59

Just thank you for doing that, just to power this recording with a deep.

 

Jon Lovett  09:04

With a little lactate on the side, obviously.

 

Samantha Bee  09:06

Of course. I mean, that’s a necessity. This is not going to air the week of the DNC. It’s going to air after but still, I want to know what is your setup there? Are you the bell of the ball? Do you have this special so Cricut?

 

Jon Lovett  09:20

We have four walls made of curtains next to the Newsmax booth. So it’s listen, it’s lovely team. Did we have a great studio set up? But we’re, there’s a, like, a media area. You know, they’re like the networks have their fancy booths inside the arena. We are in the kind of radio, podcast, lower rent section. We’re in the podcast budget section, not the TV budget section.

 

Samantha Bee  09:53

Okay, it used to be like radio row, yeah, you would like, years and years ago you would go and there were just people with their tape recorders, and now it’s better than that.

 

Jon Lovett  10:03

There’s still radio, but then there’s saddle, there’s satellite radio, there’s, all the digital places. We’re literally next to Newsmax.

 

Samantha Bee  10:11

Okay, oh, great. Well, that’s, you know what? There’s a kinship there. And I think that reaching across the curtain for her friendship commandership. I had watched a bunch of it last night. It was very hard to maintain my cool New York cynicism was pretty good.

 

Jon Lovett  10:30

So first of all, it’s worth remembering how different this convention feels than how we thought the convention was going to feel.

 

Samantha Bee  10:41

Yes.

 

Jon Lovett  10:43

The just a few weeks ago. It’s first. It is amazing how much things have changed in the last two months.

 

Samantha Bee  10:50

Like, what the hell?

 

Jon Lovett  10:51

That debate was at the end of June? IIt’s has not been two months. It has not been two months.

 

Samantha Bee  10:58

What? Wait, it hasn’t been two months. It has felt like five years.

 

Jon Lovett  11:04

The debate, I believe that’s right. I think the debate was the 26th or the 27th of June. So we are two months. It has been two, not even two months since that debate. And in between, so much has happened. But, so there is this feeling like, I think going into that convention, we were so worried about enthusiasm. We were so worried about unity. We were so kind of worried about how we were going to persuade people to turn out, how we were going to make this exciting, and everyone has come together. So there’s this place called the CNN grill.

 

Samantha Bee  11:41

Love the grill.

 

Jon Lovett  11:42

Love the grill, and get a free hot dog and a pro game, and then run into like a million journalists, but so some of whom you want to see, but I like the idea that, like under the protection of the CNN grill, the five democratic families are meeting together to make peace the Bernie Bros, the Biden or bust, the K hive, the anti Trump Republicans, Dean Phillips, you know, like everybody getting together, and making peace, and so that, like, kind of enthusiasm is infectious. I will say, like, this is the first night, you know, Joe Biden didn’t take the stage until, after Prime Time on the East Coast, they made that man stay up so late. Everybody’s speeches were so long. And there’s a real problem in democratic politics that everyone has slowed down. Is this just a pet peeve of mine? And maybe this is going to seem persnickety and like a small thing, but I think it’s a big thing, which is at a time in which we know that people’s attention spans are in the toilet. If you go on Tiktok, it is a person telling a story side by side with someone making a cake, because just a person telling a story is too boring. You have to have something visual and stimulating on the side, like that’s the state of our attention spans. And speakers are speaking slower. They are they are speaking as if the mics aren’t working, like they’re speaking just to the crowd, but not to television. They’re waiting for the applause breaks to die down. They’re interacting with the crowd and all of it means that, from television, it is interminable, and people are just not getting through these speeches. So every speech went incredibly long. The night got pushed really late. It’s less exciting. AOC did an amazing job. AOC is like 10 out of 10 the Pro. She is passionate, she is excited. She is working the room. The room is fully invested. She’s making an argument, and she’s moving. She’s moving. It is working for the audience, and it’s working for television. And like, I just everybody’s gotta pick up the pace. Gotta pick up the pace.

 

Samantha Bee  13:54

I agree with you so hard. Like it definitely it’s like, move the videos, good. Everything’s great. Love it, love the change. I like that we’re excited. It gives a great but it is too much like I could never I would not sit through the whole thing, as it’s much better to watch it the day after, in little clips and stuff because, like, why?

 

Jon Lovett  14:16

Are you ready to elect Kamala Harris?Let’s Let’s go, we got places to be. We got voters to talk to, got ads to run.

 

Samantha Bee  14:31

We got the three more days of this. Can we just tighten tight, tighten up the speaking just a bit, just a touch.

 

Jon Lovett  14:37

Are we going to elect the felon, or are we going to elect the prosecut or like.

 

Samantha Bee  14:44

Like, hold.

 

Jon Lovett  14:45

Let’s keep it moving people.

 

Samantha Bee  14:49

Yeah, no, I am 100% with you. Wish that you get in there and like, just like, edit the whole thing and just be like.

 

Jon Lovett  14:56

I want to take over the prompter. I want to take, I want to keep, I want to get it up, speed it up.

 

Samantha Bee  15:00

Just crank it.

 

Jon Lovett  15:01

Speed it up, crank it’s not a criticism of speeches. Just like, they have a great team there. It’s like that everything is running. Everything is good. Like, even the mess, it’s all there. It’s just like.

 

Samantha Bee  15:10

Half of it is pace. Half of it is like, half of anything is pace. Movies are all like, two hours and 45 minutes. I’m like, if you all talk faster, we can be out of here in an hour and a half. And it’s the same story.

 

Jon Lovett  15:21

Give me three hours and somebody knows how to move the dials. I’ll cut 30 minutes at Oppenheimer. You won’t fucking miss it.

 

Samantha Bee  15:27

Oh, I’ll cut an hour and a half. Hour and a half, gotta tell you something, please. I just can’t, yeah, please. This is my

 

Jon Lovett  15:33

like, you know what character you could just cut out of Oppenheimer and you wouldn’t miss him? Robert Downey Jr. I know he won an Oscar. I’m sorry, what’s he even doing in this movie?

 

Samantha Bee  15:44

What’s he doing here?

 

Jon Lovett  15:45

No, he’s just the guy that’s aware of what’s going on. Good performance. But I don’t need it.

 

Samantha Bee  15:50

I go see things with my eight teenagers, and they go and who wasthe Iron Man guy? Like, they just go, like, who was iron Why was Iron Man in the movie? I’m like, that’s a great you know what? That’s just a review of the movie.

 

Jon Lovett  16:02

Oppenheimer is making a bomb over two hours. And there’s an hour Robert Johnny Jr, misconstruing a meeting, I don’t.

 

Samantha Bee  16:08

I don’t get it. No, I want to talk to Christopher Nolan, you and I sit him down. This is an intervention at this point.

 

Jon Lovett  16:14

Yeah, he doesn’t text, he doesn’t email. So we’re gonna have to, like, write him.

 

Samantha Bee  17:57

I definitely feel like I don’t know this is going to air next week, but it’s fine, like, what on Monday? What’s Donald Trump going to do to bring the attention back onto himself? Like, what’s the Monday surprise? This is going to be nuts.

 

Jon Lovett  19:07

Really interesting watching Donald Trump flail a bit. We talked about we talked about this a bit on pod save America, we’ve been talking about it. So I’m very confident that that this dynamic will continue, which is, what Kamala Harris and Tim Walzare doing. You can tell that it’s working. And there’s some people that quibble with weird. Is it too negative? I don’t agree with any of that.

 

Samantha Bee  19:32

No.

 

Jon Lovett  19:33

They are making Donald Trump seem unrelatable, and they are connecting his policies, which are, you know, for the corporations and for the wealthy and for polluters and for the, you know, the far right extreme with his personality. Same thing for Vance, and so Tim Walz gets up there and like, can you picture Donald Trump doing anything normal, going to having a picnic, working a McFlurry machine, you can’t. They just don’t seem like the kind of people that do normal stuff. And it’s really undermining their politics, because their populism is fake, and it really exposes it, and it makes them feel confident. It puts them on offense. It puts Trump and JD Vance on defense. And the flip side of that is is Trump’s strength is not coming up with nicknames. It’s Trump’s strength is throwing his opponents off their game. He finds somebody’s weakness and he makes them think about it. He makes Marco Rubio be strange. She makes Ted Cruz lose himself like these, people get on their heels, and they don’t know how to be and Walz and Kamala are not giving trump any of that. They are brushing off his attacks, and it is clearly driving him nuts.

 

Samantha Bee  20:58

Yes, it is driving him nuts. And that’s I like that you say that because I definitely was thinking this morning, like, Why can’t anyone ever you know when it comes time, when we’re all going to be watching the debate, when that happens, and no one can ever really moderate a debate with Trump, because he’s so discombobulating, like it’s so hard to just like it’s so hard to deal with the way he is. It’s very difficult for moderators to correct the record and not get involved in all of his bullshit. It was occurring to me today, I’m like, they should not have news people moderate the debates anymore, because news people are great. They’re so skillful, but it’s not a normal person. And they have jobs that they have to think about, like, they have to not get fired from their awesome jobs, but they really should get someone who’s kind of unemployed, or, like, halfway employed, to moderate the debate, who could just be like, shut the fuck up. Like, shut up. That’s a you’re lying like no one can do that. And it makes debates so asymmetrical.

 

Jon Lovett  22:09

I guess the question I think that I don’t really think it matters, and I think that’s because in a debate with Donald Trump, whether it’s a debate taking place between dueling rallies and Trump saying something inane and terrible in a rally and then the Democratic campaign responding, or a debate that takes place in one room. It’s really about what is the most effective way to persuade people seeing this unfold to vote for Kamala Harris, and it’s not fact checking, and it’s also not being so offended and taken aback when he makes abhorrent comments about her race or about women. You can do that. It’s worth doing. It’s worth having people doing that, or reminding people how obscene he is. But in the end, there are a lot of people out there who are already pretty well decided that Donald Trump sucks, and most of those people have decided they’re not voting for him. Some of them are deciding whether or not to vote at all. Some of them are still on the fence about whether or not they could sort of suffer through a few more years of Trump’s nonsense, because they retain some notion that, because he comes from business, and because the pandemic is a unique event that they don’t lay at his feet, that he was good for the economy. It’s been baked in from the day he came down the escalator. How do you persuade those people? And it is not about fact checking Trump or being offended by Trump. It’s about being annoyed by Trump. Are you sick of this? Aren’t you exhausted by this endless, endless complaining and whining, you make him small and embarrassing, which is what the Harris campaign has been doing so well. And the moderator actually can’t do that. The candidate has to do that. That’s not the moderator’s job. You have to make him seem small and embarrassing. Maybe it’s by saying he’s not telling the truth. I mean, look after that first debate. You know, Joe Biden kept going out there and saying he lied 26 times. He lied 26 times. It doesn’t seem to matter. Wish it did, wish it did, but.

 

Samantha Bee  24:33

You were not shy about thinking that Biden should not continue running for reelection. I was not shy about it, like we were all talking about it. Are you surprised that it actually happened? Were you shocked I honestly opened up acts, and was like, this is fake. This is AI.

 

Jon Lovett  24:53

When we were watching the debate, I was watching it with my fellow hosts, with John and Tommy and Dan and a few of our producers. Yes, and at first it was confusing and shocking. Then it became terrifying, and then at a certain point it became clear that this was such a hinge point, that this was such an unfortunate debate performance that we would have no choice but to have a conversation about whether or not he could be the nominee. You know, going into the debate you you there really were three options. One, he performs like he did at the State of the Union, and everyone’s like, we’re in for Joe. Let’s go, the most likely was actually one where he kind of muddled through. But what we got instead forced us to have the conversation, and as we were getting closer and closer to this convention, I would never have said it out loud, because everyone was so sure it was unlikely. I really did believe that in Joe Biden’s patriotism, very earnest. You can call me a neolibern shill, whatever, but I believe in Joe Biden’s patriotism. I also think he has an ego, as all people do. I am sure he was enraged. I’m sure he was defiant. We know that, but at root, I believe the conversation was worth happening, happening because I believed he genuinely wanted to defeat Trump. That’s why he ran. That’s why he was running again. And it was incon. It was so impossible for me to imagine going into this convention without having made a change that I right. Had this, I had this little candle, and I just, it was lit, and I just, I thought it would do the right thing.

 

Samantha Bee  26:40

You did.

 

Jon Lovett  26:41

I really did.

 

Samantha Bee  26:43

I was shocked having been just like, um, having had elderly relatives, you know, pre deceased me, I just felt like it’s very hard to change the mind of an older person who feels very strongly about something. It’s very, very difficult. So I actually, I kind of thought that we would be in a much different position this week, just in a real different kind of struggle.

 

Jon Lovett  27:09

And by the way, like now that we’ve now that we have Kamala leading a ticket, it’s still a toss up race, I really is, and that’s just obviously like so hard to be like, but God, why? But it is. And you can, we can lament it, but it is. And so this was a toss up race that leaned Trump before the debate. It is now a toss up race that leans Democrat out of this convention. Most likely it’s still a toss up. We were actually too dour right before, and I’m a little worried about irrational exuberance now we like poll came out by time you heard this a whole bunch more, some of them, really kind of hopeful. Some of them make you wonder, hold on a second. These numbers seem a little too rosy, or hold on a second, if it’s this close. In Virginia, things can’t be that good. In Wisconsin, right? There are signs everywhere pointing us towards uncertainty, towards believing this thing really will come down to what happened in 2020, and 2016 which is a few 1000 votes, literally dozens of votes per precinct, right? Just a dozen votes per precinct, just like really small numbers, individuals making calls to friends, really mattering. So we just have to stay just vigilant.

 

Samantha Bee  28:30

Vigilant and offer rides to voting like, I feel like I’m just gonna drive seniors.

 

Jon Lovett  28:38

You should be driving seniors, and that’s content, and that’s inspiring other people to drive seniors.

 

Samantha Bee  28:43

Right, it feels like the single greatest thing you can do is get people to the place and wait for them and give them a lift home. I don’t know. I mean, we are the polls. I mean, my God, what do we do with them between now and the elect? Because I’m addicted to them. And when they when they’re good, they’re good. When they’re bad, they’re terrifying. I don’t think any of it’s healthy.

 

Jon Lovett  29:04

We should assume that we’re 1000 votes under in every swing state. And this is my I’m in a plug. If you go to votesavemerica.com and sign up now, wherever you are, whatever your level of engagement, we will point you to the most effective ways that you can help. Right now, we’re trying to get 100,000 people signed up. That number is the number of people that will help turn out, people that might not vote or need to be persuaded or are right now undecided. You can call them, you can knock on their door. You can text them, we’ll make it easy for you. Please sign up, votesavemerica.com.

 

Samantha Bee  29:46

And this is also the substance of your book, partially because you put out a book, democracy or else. And that is, I mean, is that like a primer for people?

 

Jon Lovett  29:55

Yes, so we wrote this book with. All democracy, or else. Basically, it’s 10 steps that each of each person can take to protect democracy. The 10th is becoming president so, you know, some of them are harder than others, but it’s really proud of it, because it’s genuinely useful. And I think there’s a lot of very funny, cynical people, and then there’s a lot of very earnest, engaged, optimistic people. And sometimes the cynical, funny people are talking about how nothing matters, and sometimes the earnest people are always, kind of writing their own version of the Federalist Papers. You know, they’re always crossing the Delaware. It’s a lot of hydrogen and, like, what I’m really proud of is in this book, like, it’s funny without being cynical. Oh, and also, I should say, all the proceeds from the book, there’s a legal way I’m supposed to say it, the profits from the book. I don’t know. We’re not making any money on the book. We’re giving the money to vote save America so that that can help we have, we have a program called the Anxiety Relief Fund, which, every month, gives money to organizations on the ground, registering and organizing voters. It supports the volunteer campaign. So just if you go to votesameramica.com you can learn more about it. But please stop scrolling all day. It doesn’t do anything. You really will feel better if you just devote a little bit of time to being actually part of the fight. It’s good for the world, but it just feels good.

 

Samantha Bee  31:30

I do feel like there were because, you know, we’ve all been doing these calls, like big zoom calls, with all these people and the majority of the questions, and it’s like 1000s of people are on the call, and the majority of the questions in the chat are, what do I do? Tell me what to do?

 

Jon Lovett  31:46

Yeah, I would say this, stop asking, go to votesaveamerica.com, or go to the campaign and like, I think that, like, everybody needs to just try. I think people also it’s like, I’ve never done it before. I’ve never knocked on doors. I’ve never made calls. I’ve never canvassed, whatever it may be like, just do it once, and see how it goes, and you’ll quickly find that I think it was, um, easier than you thought. You sometimes somebody will close the door in your face. That’s happened to me, but so what?

 

Samantha Bee  32:14

That’s okay?  People hang up at you.

 

Jon Lovett  32:16

Fine, they do.

 

Samantha Bee  32:17

You do? I have phone banks, lots like when you phone once you you just have to break the seal, you just have to do the thing that’s hard, like one or two times, and then you go, Oh, it’s fine. And also they’re not, no one’s gonna hurt me. They’re just hanging up, or they’re just slamming the door. It’s normal. I was just talking to Simone Sanders about how much the Harris-Walz campaign is like embracing social media and how good they are at it, but Tiktok is not the voting booth. It’s not the same, do you think that kind of engagement is really gonna translate to people voting like how many 18 year olds do you think are gonna try to vote by text, and then realize that they can’t.

 

Jon Lovett  33:02

So I first of all, is a game of inches. I think it matters. I look I’m old, and I’m not trying to seem young, but I want to like I don’t, as I get older, trying to under understand the difference between remaining curious and engaged and trying to seem young, and the difference between not being swayed by trends and remembering my my increasingly lengthy life experience, and then not seeming old, you know, not becoming stuck in my ways. Right? It’s like, just the challenge. And for me, it’s been really, I like, really, am interested in how this conversation not between Millennials and Gen Z or Gen X and Gen Z, but the intra Gen Z conversation is unfolding, and I saw it a bit in the last couple of years around work. Millennials were the first generation to be online, and millennials were also the first generation that were young and became old on the internet.

 

Samantha Bee  34:09

All right.

 

Jon Lovett  34:10

And so Gen Z is watching the things that we that millennials did become old, which is and become cringe, which is another word of just like, you know, getting older and doing things that aren’t as cool as they used to be. And one of the things I think millennials did by becoming the first generation to be online is to try to perform perfection, right? Like Pinterest boards and perfect Instagram lives and vacations and and putting a version of yourself into the world that is kind of perfect. That’s what it meant to be overexposed. And that carried over into how millennials worked professionally, right? Like, you don’t bring your problems to work, you hide them. You were pro you hustle, you make it. And I think Gen Z has reacted to that in a bunch of different ways, and one of which is say, like, no, like, I’m gonna bring my self to work. I’m going to not be a professional if I’m having a mental health crisis. I’m not going to pretend I want to be here when I don’t want to be here. I’m not going to hustle if I don’t think that there’s a future in this country where I can buy a house and have the success that you had, or my parents had. But then what you saw is a kind of, I don’t know, like a conversation that was like, well, you know what? Maybe previous generations were too afraid to be honest about their vulnerabilities, but maybe also there’s something to be learned about being able to kind of show grit and power through your vulnerabilities sometimes, like, maybe there’s a place to meet in the middle on politics, there was a lot of very strident anti democratic politics that basically said, like, these people aren’t for you. This process isn’t for you. We need to be organizing outside of the electoral system. We you know that that Democrats are bad and Republicans are bad and plenty people defying that. But I think that there was a sort of a like a cynicism around politics, and when it switched from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, all of a sudden, you saw a similar kind of nuance inside of this debate that basically said, hold on a second. Like we all have valid criticisms of Democrats. Many of us are deeply angry and frustrated with the Democratic position and the Joe Biden position on Israel and Gaza, but we have to save ourselves right now, right? Like we all want to take this boat across the sea, but right now it’s sinking, and we can all row as hard as we want, but it won’t matter if the boat sinks. So right now, we’re going to bail out the boat. And there are still people that are arguing about whether or not they want to support Kamala Harris, whether or not Kamala Harris has earned their vote, but a big collective conversation about the importance of some pragmatism in politics about what it actually means to be left, that you show up and you stop the fascist and then you keep organizing, and you keep pressuring you vote for Kamala Harris in November, and then you protest Kamala Harris in January. Do I know if that’s going to make a huge difference? I have no idea. It’s really genuinely moving, because what it is is a bunch of of young people on the left waking up to being honest with each other about the danger Donald Trump poses, and not Millennials or their parents or older people coming in and trying to persuade them, but young people trying to persuade each other. And I hope it, I hope it matters. And I think it could.

 

Samantha Bee  37:41

Oh, I hope it matters. I really hope it matters. I try to persuade them, and they don’t listen to me at all. Nobody gives a shit what I say.

 

Jon Lovett  37:51

I think one of the most frustrating aspects of participating in politics over the last decade, I think it is what makes a lot of us feel angry and frustrated and confused about our country is it feels like we are desperate to persuade millions of people to a position that we view as blitheringly obvious, that Donald Trump is a threat and he has to be stopped, and once he’s stopped, once we have broken the back of this fascistic, authoritarian radical right, once we show the country and the Republican Party that this style of politics is a failure once and for all, and they decide to moderate or or disregard this sort of heinous period, once they start to do that work, We can get back to the infighting. We could. We could get back to to a less like good versus evil style of politics. But right now, there is a threat it is real, and the challenge of getting people to see it, it does feel a little bit like a dream where you you’re screwed, you’re shouting and you’re shouting and you’re shouting and nobody can hear your voice. And that’s enervating and dispiriting for people, and I get that, but that’s why we got to have fun and, you know, make fun of Trump and make the most of it, because it’s extremely frustrating.

 

Samantha Bee  39:15

It’s extremely frustrating. And I feel like ever since, I mean, the beginning of my career and political satire, whatever. What have you? For me, it was always undecided voters. Like I felt every election that I was like, the choice is so clear, I literally can’t understand how you cannot see such a deep contrast between these two people. Like, how can you be in the middle going, I’m not, I don’t know. Let me think a little hard. Can you please spend more hundreds of millions of dollars just to convince me one of like, 100,000 odd people, or whatever the number is, of people who are just, like, not sure yet?

 

Jon Lovett  39:55

Yeah, no, I know but that’s it.

 

Samantha Bee  42:52

Yeah, that’s it.

 

Jon Lovett  43:23

To do.

 

Samantha Bee  43:30

I do think that it’s such a whirlwind and it’s such a truncated period of time, which is really what other countries do. They have limited times what they call an election, they have a limited time period in which to in which to campaign. It’s lovely, as a person who grew up in Canada, that’s what they do there. It is very hard to live in a place where campaigning is takes two years and it never seems to it never really seems to stop. Is there a way for this to be the new normal? Probably. I mean, the answer is no. Let me wish upon a star. Let me light a candle for shorter election seasons.

 

Jon Lovett  44:12

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to have a much shorter election season the amount of money that candidates have to raise make things push earlier. But then you see in a moment like this that the enthusiasm and the tight timeline made everybody kind of dig deep and donate a huge amount of money very quickly the primary dates have, like, slowly creeped up. Yeah, maybe it would be better if they were later, and maybe if people could announce later. I mean, even Joe Biden, right? Like, there was a whole like, everyone’s like, Oh, wow, it’s so great. How short this campaign is. There are a lot of people saying, hey, like, President Biden, like, you need to start campaigning now. Where are you? Where are you? In January of this year, there was news cycles about how the campaign was getting off to two slowest. Start and President Biden, I think, instinctively wanted to wait as long as possible, because he believed that his most valuable role and like political position, was not as partisan figure, but as President, as a president, doing his job. But then Trump had the stage all to himself and and was campaigning and hogging the spotlight. So I don’t know the answer, yes, it would be great if we had really short, condensed elections, but I don’t know the incentives seem to push it earlier and earlier.

 

Samantha Bee  45:33

I know, would you ever go back to an administration, or do you prefer to be on the on the outside looking in.

 

Jon Lovett  45:41

Look, I think that I’ve built up a an archive of takes that has made me unhireable. And that was, and that was the goal. I don’t know, I probably not. I, you know, I’m not civilized anymore. I’ve gone feral. The idea of like, waking up and putting on a suit and going to an office, it just seems like, I don’t know. It seems like dressing up a dog in a suit, like, I just don’t, you know, like, it’s like, yeah, like I’m in a suit, but like, I might pee on the carpet. You don’t want me in a meeting. Like an actual meeting. Imagine me having a I can’t have a like, I was barely manageable when I was in my 20s and desperate for approval and success. Now, who’s gonna tell me what to do?

 

Samantha Bee  46:24

You’re gonna hulk out and rip your sleeves off survivor god damn it.

 

Jon Lovett  46:29

I’ve been on survivor.

 

Samantha Bee  46:30

Come on, would you? Is it when you can you turn your brain off, like when you watch, when you watch speeches and stuff like that. Are you like, Well, I’m gonna rewrite that let me, I gotta dissect that. That’s, I mean, well, you obviously want to edit. You want to do some edits?

 

Jon Lovett  46:46

Yeah, no, always, always look, I listen. I don’t know about you, but I genuinely believe there’s not a creative project on earth that wouldn’t benefit from my notes. Everything should just kind of run through me, you know, like I just have little tweaks, just little I’m just, little I’m just, I’m not, listen, I’m not gonna pull a thread. I’m not gonna pull a thread, but just let me get in there first few minutes. Just let me get a favor, some notes as a favor to you. As a favor, you. Chris Nolan.

 

Samantha Bee  47:12

We don’t have to pay me necessarily. You know, it’s better if you do.

 

Jon Lovett  47:15

I and you should, but you should, but, I mean, but why don’t we? The first one’s free, and then you’ll realize how valuable it was to get my notes.

 

Samantha Bee  47:25

I’m a collaborator, I’m just collaborating.

 

Jon Lovett  47:27

Mr. Coron.

 

Samantha Bee  47:31

Are you good at making decisions for yourself? It seems like you were so definitive about your decision too, so thoughtful and definitive about going on about pursuing I’m sorry, I’m a little upset. I’m not going to be obsessed with the fact that you’re on survivor, but I will watch the hell out of it.

 

Jon Lovett  47:49

I feel like it was impulsive. Was it decisive? Sure, but it starts by being impulsive, but then once I got into it, I got, like, really excited about it. So I really, it’s a really in getting on the show is a very lengthy process. They didn’t, it wasn’t like, I was I just made a video, I just made a video and submitted it. There’s no, like, special, you know, podcast host side channel to get onto the thing. I just went through the whole process. I think that, like, I have a sale, you know, my I come from sales people, my parent, my family, is their salespeople. And, you know, you start telling a story, and really you’re selling yourself. And so I started imagining what I would say to get on survivor. And then I started really believing it.

 

Samantha Bee  48:28

Do you like making big decisions for yourself? Are you like or you do dither? Do you?

 

Jon Lovett  48:35

The smaller the decision, the harder I will prevaricate. I guess would be the word like I’m trying to buy, I need to buy a dresser, and I have, right now I’m looking up at this thing, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, tabs open.

 

Samantha Bee  48:52

Oh, my God.

 

Jon Lovett  48:53

Of possible dressers. But big decisions, I can be very I think it’s part of what I bring as like a host, which is I just, I can, I have the passion will carry me. And so if I, like, I wanted to be a speechwriter. And like I there was no deliberation about what path I wanted to take. I really never, I saw the West Wing and I thought I want to be a speechwriter, and I really just never considered, I mean, I, you know, I applied to law school and all these things, but like, speechwriter was this, this sort of like a North Star that I was heading towards, and I felt like hell to get there, and, you know, then I wanted to be, I remember, I was in politics, and I had now had this amazing job, this job that I had wanted, and it happened faster than I could have hoped. And then all of a sudden I find, after whatever, six or seven years of being a speechwriter, that now I’m, like, kind of fantasizing about doing stand up, writing comedy, like really focusing on that part of what I love to do, because I never got the chance outside of, like, writing jokes for politicians. And then I sort of became into. Intensely focused on that, and then after do that for a bunch of years, and then we start this podcast as a hobby. Trump wins and John Tommy and I are driving to do our next day podcast that we assumed would be about Hillary winning. And we’re driving to the studio, my car actually runs out of gas. We push it to the set, because I was completely beside myself and totally forgot. And we start talking about this idea of a media company, and we never really moved off of it. We know I never imagined once. It was once, the idea was there. It was so felt, so right. That was within days we were planning it. Within weeks we had launched it.

 

Samantha Bee  50:44

I’m amazed that you have 11 tabs open for dressers. You know what I mean? Often you can be so clear about certain types of decisions and so foggy about others. I want to I’m so good at picking dressers for other people.

 

Jon Lovett  50:58

Oh, I’ll send you, you some options.

 

Samantha Bee  51:01

Please send me some options, because I’m going to choose for you. I’m gonna do a really good job for you. I can’t do a good job for myself, but I’m great at other people’s decisions. I’m better at other people’s decisions than my own. Are you like that?

 

Jon Lovett  51:14

I feel like we all are because we’re, you know, the we because our ego isn’t involved. And ego is the reason we are bad at making decisions. We can’t step out of it. And so without that, the only parts of you you’re using to make the decision are the good parts.

 

Samantha Bee  51:33

The good parts, the best parts, all the other stuff falls away. Oh my god, okay. Well, have a have a great time in Chicago. What are you gonna what does the rest of the week look like for you?

 

Jon Lovett  51:45

I’ve already eaten one deep dish pizza. I have not, haven’t had a Chicago hot dog because it’s like, oh, I just think once you have a Chicago hot dog, you’re it’s like, you’re having it for the rest of your life. You know what I mean? It just lives with you it stays with.

 

Samantha Bee  51:56

Oh, it lives with you. It stays with you. It’s, you know what I mean, have just have two Chicago hot dogs and then don’t eat for three days, and you’ll be fine. Not another bite.

 

Jon Lovett  52:07

But I love a food town. I gotta get a I gotta get an Italian beef sandwich. You know, there’s LA is a sweatpants town, but it’s not a sandwich town, New York is a sandwich town, but it’s not a sweatpants town, Philly and Chicago are sweatpants towns and sandwich towns and sandwich but Chicago is kind and Philly is mean. So it’s one of our two great sandwich towns that allow sweatpants all the time. But in Chicago, God, there’s a people are in a good mood. Everybody’s in Philly, they’re furious.

 

Samantha Bee  52:39

They’re furious. They’re beating up the friendship robot.

 

Jon Lovett  52:42

Yeah, they’re light poles, and Philly’s got one of my favorite sandwiches on Earth. But my God, it’s like, Philly, what happened here? Why is everyone so mean?

 

Samantha Bee  52:53

I feel so good when I’m in Chicago that and I can’t even I’m like, I guess I should live here. I have a smile on my face the entire time, any time I’m in Chicago, so I’m jealous that you’re there, because I love it.

 

Jon Lovett  53:05

And Boston, they’re just as rude as they are in Philly, but no sweats, no sandwiches, which is why, at least that explains it like Philly, you got these great sandwiches. Why it’s such a bad Moon all the time, Boston, I get it. You’re basically in the tundra. You’re surrounded by college kids. The roads, the roads are too narrow, the cobblestones are silly, it’s a mess.

 

Samantha Bee  53:28

Yeah, it’s a mess. Your bones are creaking from all the salt. It’s not it’s not possible to have a good time. Chicago is golden. Well, listen, thank you for taking time out of your very, very stack scheduled to talk to me, this was.

 

Jon Lovett  53:43

Thanks for having me.

 

Samantha Bee  53:50

That was John Lovett, and I had no choice but to look up one thing we talked about, our love, hate, hate relationship with political polling, so I had to check when polling even began. Turns out the first record of a political poll was in 1824 the ghost of Nate Silver had Andrew Jackson over John Quincy Adams by 335 votes to 169. Thanks for joining us. I’m Samantha Bee see you next week for some more Choice Words.

 

CREDITS  54:35

Thank you for listening to Choice Words, which was created by and is hosted by me. The show is produced by […], with editing and additional producing by Josh Richmond. We are distributed by Lemonada Media, and you can find me @realsambee on X and Instagram, follow Choice Words wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.