any alternative to donald trump, who's ragged this party through several losing elections now. you probably saw or heard some of that debate which did not seem to clarify a ton, except perhaps how much the vac has managed to alienate everyone from nikki haley to eminem, a sentence we didn't know we'd commit to here on msnbc. it was vivek who took the mic and actually told republican candidates and voters something they have not wanted to hear this week. that they are in the middle of an ongoing, rolling, epic losing streak that is not stopping. >> we have lost 2018. 2020. 2022, no red wave that never came. we got trounced last night in 2023. >> that is just a mathematical fact, whatever you think of the messenger. it cannot be spun by pundits or trolled out of existence in the echo chamber of elon musk's anti-free speech version of twitter. it can't be buried under the type of fake news that really animates so much right-wing discourse from the internet to actual insurrections. so here's what we know. step one, republicans have been losing ever since donald trump took those escalator steps down into trump tower to announce his campaign, to come on the scene. that's the politics. step two, i could tell you tonight, republicans have been losing every single test on abortion policy since trump's judges broke their public vows and gutted roe v. wade. abortion access is undefeated in states red and blue every time has been tested here, including this week in conservative ohio. it's a trend that goe through ballot measures, surging turnout across over 50 vos, now over two dozen states according to a "washington post" count. seismic shift in how the is a republican party even discusses abortion, as "politico" explained this week. now clearly rushing to moderate or muddy their message. since tuesday, republican officials and candidates are now publicly starting to at least partially say out loud what they've been denying for a very long time. that their position is a political loser, and it's dragging down many of their losing candidates. >> i'm sick of republicans losing. in florida -- >> republicans can't keep stumbling and bumbling on abortion. >> we've become a party of losers, at the end of the day. >> we continue the losing streak in the pro-life movement. >> we have lost 2018. 2020. 2022, no red wave that never came. we got trounced last night. >> but until we own this issue as a party, we will lose again and again and again. >> again and again and again. sounds like a long time. every voice you heard there, not only republicans but pretty conservative ones. not compromising moderate republicans. the trend lines here also go well beyond the backlash on choice. as we take it all in i've got great guests standing by. i wanted to start our broadcast here on this friday night by going a little deeper with you. the fact is america has rejected trumpism and the maga republican party every time there's actually been a referendum. now, there are forces that are in denial about that. obviously donald trump with his big lie and his enablers. and also some other sort of contributing factors like the parts of the beltway conflict system which stokes endless clashes and false equivalents as a kind of political business model. but this is just a set of true facts and numbers that i'm going to show you. there's also, i should mention, structural limits that do obscure some of the depth of the way the public has rejected maga. for example, the supreme court is not a democracy. so we live with those results long-term even if each of the judges you see on your screen were picked by a person who lost the total vote both times he's run, donald trump. and the electoral college is obviously not a democracy. and gerrymandering and voter suppression undercut democracy. so it's a little complicated when you try to understand all of it at once. but if you just look at votes themselves, which i'm about to show you, you will be reminded that there have actually never been more votes for trump in any of the elections he has run in. i'm going to show you the numbers starting from when donald trump first emerged in 2016. more voters picked democrat hillary clinton than trump. 3 million more votes, in fact. so that's where this all started. we had a big debate. everyone learned about these two candidates. and more people wanted a democrat in the white house. trump was saved by the electoral college. it's the only system in the modern world of democracy right now where a person who comes in second then gets to run the country. that was perfectly legal. everyone knew the electoral college rules going into it. what i'm about to show you, in five elections in a row if you're tracking what the voters chose, what the public wanted, in that first people more people voted democrat, opposed trump. next election. take this back in full because i want to let you really see this. far more people right here voting democratic in 2018. that was that huge and historic flipping of the house that blew away 40 seats, a rejection of trump, who was then of course defeated in the next election, 2020, by a larger margin than '16. so yes, we can remember that he got through the electoral college in '16. if we're looking at the trend lines since he emerged, he lost by 3 million in terms of who people want in the white house in '16. then it doubles. he lost by basically 7 million last cycle when he was up in '20. while the opposition party usually wins back over 20 seats on average in the following election cycle -- you probably heard about that. republicans going into this next one after biden won, they were talking up getting 30, maybe 40 seats like the dems did. last year brought that red fizzle. i'm sure you remember it. you watch the news, you lived through it. four house seats for republicans, which paved the way for their messy speaker fights and their narrow margin because they vastly underperformed while trump was running around talking about the big lie, doing denialism and everything else he stood for. that catches us up to this week. which you just lived through from tuesday. more democratic wins in these conservative states that have off-year elections. that's not the whole map. but in the places that voted, including red states like kentucky and ohio, democrats win again. these are facts. you are looking at the american public preferences in five, five elections in a row. in a consistent rejection of what has become a hardening of the maga republican party as the alternative. i'm not telling you how to vote. i really never do that. i'm not telling you who's got the better plans. i'm giving you the evidence that has been sometimes obscured, particularly by, as mentioned, parts of our system that are not oriented towards democracy. i'm not telling you that voters will always and consistently rejectve go back far enough, of course there are conservative and some moderate republicans who won national coalitions, who won handily. but the current maga implosion of the republican party, what it offers, what it stands for, is quite different than what was being offered then. and that is the wider context that's not coming out of the blue, and it's not even only about trump. his extreme approach grew out of a party that was already narrowing its base, its racial demography, and its appeals consider, if you go wider, pre-trump in the last eight presidential elections, more americans voted for the democrat than the republican in seven of the eight. that's across different candidates, different regional breakdowns, different economies, different foreign policies. that is quite a trend line in blue that you see. that's all the years you see on your screen. and only once do you have an actual preference in the total vote for a republican for the white house in that stretch of time, when george w. bush won re-election as an incumbent after the 9/11 attack amidst two wars. if that seems like a history lesson that you lived through or have to be reminded of, or when you hear about beltway media trying to send camera crews to some narrow part of ohio to find a trump voter, well, that's because there are a lot of trends that sometimes get forgotten. a lot of people who have a stake in trying to convince everyone those trend lines aren't happening. the descent, though, is largely obscured by the electoral college and some political forces i bet you've heard about. gerrymandering has made many house republicans more worried about losing primaries to the hard right in the red seats that they made super red artificially, rather than having to compete for the broader electorate in a red state, let alone a national coalition, which you just saw they have a hard time winning anymore. so even against these repeat losses, that's why many republicans in the political class and candidates in those gerrymandered super-red districts just keep kind of reliving their failures in a surrealtime loop, which we again saw happen this week on tuesday. it's sort of like kevin mccarthy meeting bill murray in "groundhog day." >> rita, i'm reliving the same day over and over. groundhog day. >> stop it! >> how many times can you get yourself slapped in the face on the same day? that kind of loop will either drive you sort of insane, or drive you to take action to change your reality so you don't keep reliving it. i think that is the wider context after this week's elections. the republican party may feel partly stuck in reliving this same approach to another election, even as the voters and its own leaders start to now publicly admit some of the obvious. so do we all have to relive groundhog day like a bill murray house speaker race? do we all have to get slapped over and over again? would we be better off as a democracy where we all decide things together with two healthy competitive parties that aren't just driving themselves into the same gerrymandered districts? molly and mark are my special guests on this very topic. they're here, back in one minute. their money with chase. wooo! tools that help protect. alerts that help check. one bank that puts you in control. chase. make more of what's yours. we're back with molly jong-fast, "vanity fair," "fast pot texass" podcast, and mark thompson, host of "make the plane" podcast. i mentioned a wider history, molly. sometimes it does seem to get obscure. when you look at these five races, and like him or not vivek was the one who was able to say it. that's a lot of losses. >> yeah. they can't stop losing. and i think it's really important. this off year election, this off year, 2023, they did not do well. glenn youngkin did not leave with a mandate. he lost the legislature, the state legislature. so i do think we saw -- and in kentucky, you saw andy beshear re-elected with more votes. he ran on abortion, he was unapologetic, he was talking about it. what we've seen more and more since dobbs has been overturned, since the end of roe, that is abortion is health care. women want doctors who can treat. they don't want doctors who are worried about losing their licenses. and you really are seeing this play out. and i think we really see american women do not want to die from mike johnson's religious beliefs. >> you put it starkly. mark, i'll put it this way. on the one hand, at a religious, spiritual, and personal level, people of good faith can have strong and different views about this very difficult issue. on the other hand, the supreme court ruling, the leadup to it, and the political project behind it, is a lie. i can say, respect to people's feelings. but reading from what justice alito said in that ruling, quote, we don't pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today's decision overruling roe and the related case, casey. they argued, deceitfully, that the ruling was somehow opening of democracy, but it wasn't. it was an effort to, as you just said, affect health care and change the law. the restroltd against that is a rebuke not only to the republican party but to the supreme court trying to lie people into this policy. >> the root of all evil is in the right-wing evangelical movement, which has been waging this war for 50 years. this is supposed to be a country that has no respect for any one religion. to your point, people can disagree. but i think everyone has to agree that each individual has a right to make their own decision about what to do with her own body. and that's pretty much it. this is about women's bodily autonomy. so this was an important issue. there's not been an election loss by the democrats since roe was overturned. and i think people also see, unfortunately, when this tragedy happened with the court, it also awakened people, wait a minute, they may get rid of marriage equality. >> sure. >> we've already seen what they've done when it comes to voting rights and a number of other things. of course, there were issues we do have to mention. mississippi didn't do bad, mississippi and kentucky, to health care, about medicaid expansion. i was in kentucky and mississippi with bishop barb talking to poor people. republicans wanted me caid expansion. obviously too in kentucky, while bashir ran on abortion, the only thing daniel cameron is known for is being unwilling to prosecute breonna taylor's killers, the police who killed them, and kudos to untold freedom for organizing there. people are aware of these issues, but lastly, on the issue of reasonable disagreement -- obviously americans are divided. some households are divided when it comes to what's going on in israel and gaza. some young people are saying, we don't want to vote. but i think we have to keep our eyes on the prize here. lest we go back to fascism and a lack of democracy by default allowing trump to come back in office. it's not as if his foreign policies are going to be helpful to either side. and of course, all the other issues, people are going to be threatened. >> i mentioned groundhog day. and it's great to see bill murray get slapped that many times. when we put just the years on the screen, you know -- it is not -- it's not been by any means a close call. when you actually look at what happens when voters turn out in the polls, the electoral college basically dragged several republicans over the finish line, then they got to name supreme court justices on top of that. what does this very simple chart tell you? if this is a surprise to people in the beltway, why? why do people not know our recent history? >> the thing that's amazing is these democratic ideas are popular. choice is popular. legalizing marijuana is popular. these are popular ideas. i think republicans have a handful of really bad ideas. then they have a candidate who has 92-plus counts, felony counts, against him. so i do think there really is -- this is not really a choice. i would say the other thing that i think, when i think about this lie the supreme court told us, i think about, you know, when they overturned roe. they said this was going to be states' rights. then immediately they started talking about a federal ban. >> a federal ban, which is exactly what people like johnson and others in the house are going to go for. so yes, as you say, it's lie upon lie, and it's catching up with them. even though people are busy with many issues, they're seeing through it. so this was a kind of larger picture we wanted to start with as we wrap the week. molly, thanks for being here. you, sir, get to come back. "snl" veteran sam jay, a very funny comic, will join mark. nobel prize-winner paul krugman is going to be here live. bidenomics and why he says democrats have to be more than lecture on what is a good factual environment for them. don jr. is back on the witness stand monday. i'll tell you why. i'll tell you why. to severe plaque psoriasis. now i feel free to bare my skin, thanks to skyrizi. ♪(uplifting music)♪ ♪nothing is everything♪ i'm celebrating my clearer skin... my way. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. in another study, most people had 90% clearer skin, even at 5 years. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. thanks to clearer skin with skyrizi - this is my moment. there's nothing on my skin and that means everything! ♪nothing is everything♪ now's the time. ask your doctor about skyrizi, the #1 dermatologist-prescribed biologic in psoriasis. learn how abbvie could help you save. it's easy to get lost in investment research. introducing j.p. morgan personal advisors. hey david. connect with an advisor to create your personalized plan. let's find the right investments for your goals okay, great. j.p. morgan wealth management. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ [bell ringing] and doug says, “you can customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual.” he hits his mark —center stage— and is crushed by a baby grand piano. are you replacing me? with this guy? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache! oh, look! a bibu. 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[ laughter ] >> jimmy kimmel there joking about the ongoing testimony in the civil fraud trial against the trump organization and its executives. that footage was from when the new york attorney general made donald trump jr. take the stand, then the lawyers grilled him with evidence, documents, receipts to show his signatures as they try to prove the fraud case. they drew some admissions like don jr. saying under oath that he was part of this basically small team that had the ultimate authority over firm decisions. and that team notably included convict allen weisselberg, a former trump org colleague, who ended up doing hard time at rikers. monday, donald trump jr. will return to the stand by choice because the trump org's strategy will try to use him as it begins its defense monday. they, like anyone, have any right to summon their witnesses they can get the judge to approve to make their case. one of the strategies we're going to see next week and we're following this is they want to bring back certain witnesses to try to develop basically alternative evidence and arguments about what the company did. and they're going to respond to the wider case where they are kind of on defense now, kind of on their heels after all those receipts, by the state of new york, which has tried to show the judge that the numbers never added up. not fluctuated. not exaggerated here and there with some hope. but never really added up, because it was a deliberate fraud. don jr. and others are going to take the stand next week and try to say, no, here is what we were thinking, here's why we weren't trying to fraudulently trick anyone. they have every right to make that defense. we will be covering it. there's a lot more coming up tonight. new house speaker mike johnson is dealing with republican infighting and finding he has a narrow margin, just like his predecessor kevin mccarthy. there's a budget deadline next week. we have interesting takes on that. first, as promised, the nobel prize-winning economist paul krugman, who says biden might be doing even better than you realize. he is my special guest. we always learn from him. that's next. arn from him that's next. with fewer medicines.y unde that's why i switched to dovato. dovato is a complete hiv treatment for some adults. no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato. detect this: most hiv pills contain 3 or 4 medicines. dovato is as effective with just 2. if you have hepatitis b, don't stop dovato without talking to your doctor. don't take dovato if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking dofetilide. this can cause serious or life-threatening side effects. if you have a rash or allergic reaction symptoms, stop dovato and get medical help right away. serious or life-threatening lactic acid buildup and liver problems can occur. tell your doctor if you have kidney or liver problems or if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. dovato may harm an unborn baby. most common side effects are headache, nausea, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, tiredness, and anxiety. detect this: i stay undetectable with fewer medicines. ask your doctor about switching to dovato. 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(vo) it's your vision, it's your verizon. i stood with you shoulder to shoulder on that picket line. my predecessor went to a none i've union shop and attacked you. my administration will keep working to make sure uaw has what it needs to outexceed china and everyone else. >> president biden there with the policy and the t-shirt to match celebrating this landmark labor deal with united auto workers after biden became the first president to join a picket line. biden on a roll with that breakthrough and the democrats winning elections this week, steps that will seem to initially quiet some of the angst about biden among some democrats. he's faced concerns about everything from his age to messaging to economic headwinds, including negative feelings about the economy, low approval still out there on his handling of the economy. that's a point of attack from the right. >> bidenomics is causing economic chaos. >> you know what's trickling down under biden, economic misery. >> he is absolutely going after domestic production. >> i'm amazed they'd boast that the economy is doing well, i'm the hero. what world does he think he's living in? >> incumbents tend to own the economy, and there are bumps in the road including the inflation that we've been living through theast couple of years, the wealth gap which is an ongoing issue. there are signs some of this could be the narrative. the biden economy is improving everywhere except the polls, "the washington post" notes, noting that many are upset about inflation that already happened and in no mood to forgive and forget. biden has overseen 14 million new jobs, unemployment is the best in about 50 years, under 4%. biden's job record bests trump in the first two years, although the pandemic rebound makes that a somewhat complicated comparison. if you're counting, economic growth accelerated this past quarter. in a comparison of rich countries since covid, the united states actually has the highest cumulative real economic growth. i promise we won't leave that chart up for long. the point is people say the u.s. is doing pretty good. so that's the numbers. how it all feels? well, that could range from personal experience to the information filter that people use. we know these days more and more issues are run through a kind of partisan noise machine. as we showed you, the right has made a decision to really hammer dieden on economics after some other points of attack didn't work. the new house speaker, for example, is kind of backtracking on a hunter biden-style impeachment attack. they're insisting the economy is terrible. some of the political edge on the current economy is complicated withs holding, quote, demstrably false views about the current economy, as paul kruan puts it, lecturing voters about that being the wrong way to think is, quote, not necessarily a promising political strategy. pretty important observation there. along with a little bit of advice from someone that you probably recognize. "the new york times" writer, the nobel prize-winning economist. so with that in mind what would be accurate? what would be more promising? we're happy to say that we end the week hopefully getting a little smarter because that nobel prize-winning economist and "new york times" writer paul krugman is my special guest tonight. why don't you expound on that point you wrote about and what you mean about having a handle on the facts but not lecturing? >> it just is not a good idea, politically, to go out and -- i can tell a student, hey, you're getting this wrong. but going out there to the american public and say, look, let me explain to you about inflation and wages and why you're misperceiving it. i'm not a political expert, but that doesn't sound like a good strategy. what we can do, i think, is first -- i mean, it is important to get the narrative out there. not only is the u.s. economy doing well, it's doing almost miraculously well. if you compare where we are to where the majority of my colleagues thought we'd be right now, they would have said that where we are now is impossible. we've had low unemployment, really good economic growth, and inflation coming way down. and it's the soft landing that everyone was saying was a pipe dream, and it's really happening. and the weird thing is that people know that at some level. look at how people behave. not what they say when responding to polls. people are spending. consumer spending is high. which suggests that people are feeling financially pretty secure. the rate at which people quit jobs. a kind of funny indicator, but it's an indicator of confidence. people don't quit jobs unless they're pretty sure they can find another one or they already have another one lined up. so people are acting as if they think this is a prosperous, full employment economy. and yet they're saying it's lousy. they say something bad is happening to someone else. we can think of various explanations for that. but first of all, just keep telling the truth. then i think lecturing voters is not a good idea, but maybe lecturing the news media a little bit on bad coverage? look, if i'm going to go on -- it's kind of a running joke among my professional friends and me is that a lot of the news media seem to be incapable of reporting good news straight. they won't say, "gas prices are down." they'll say, "falling gas prices may not last, which could be bad for biden." >> right. >> it's this kind of impossible -- the try and find a straightforward headline about a really good economic report, and you'll find that it's always a "but." then there's a kind of political negative spin to it. >> yeah. >> that i think we can -- that it's okay to argue. >> i think it's a fair criticism. because number one, there's a general emphasis on negative. that's why so many people sometimes feel like, okay, that's where the press and the stories go. then two, the sort of partisan part that you and i both reference. there is interesting debates over how we count anything these days. in the old days, there wasn't this sort of open-source world we live in. now everyone on twitter thinks they're an epidemiologist or an economist, and they're not, although everyone's free to weigh in if they want. i mention that as an introduction to a non-nobel economist, donald trump jr., who does say at a policy level -- not necessarily personal attack -- he says you're counting inflation the wrong way, he brought you up by name. we want to give you the benefit of responding, take a look. >> paul krugman. nobel laureate economist, right? he won a nobel prize in economics. he says, no, no, no. he shows a nice, beautiful graph. it shows inflation coming down. the problem is there's an asterisk. inflation, he says, is going great if you do not include a couple of things. if you don't include literally everything that you need to survive, things are going great, folks. >> first of all, you clearly made it, you're a topic at the maga rally. second, your response? >> that's a really funny story. because it turns out that the -- i put up a graphic that excluded food, energy, and shelter. and it turns out, if you put food and energy back in, the numbers are better. right? essentially, it's not the case if people think that the inflation numbers are being held down because they're not counting food and energy -- over the past year, grocery prices have not gone up very much. gas, last i looked, $3.38 a gallon, pay down from its peak. the only thing that is peculiar there is shelter. which is not actually kind of -- well, it's too technical maybe, but a lot of the number for the price of housing that you actually see in the official numbers is an imputation of what they think people would be paying in rent for the houses they own if they were renting them. if you take that out, the inflation numbers look great. if you use their -- there are other indices that don't do that. there's actually -- there have been some private attempts to recalculate the inflation rate. there's something called true flation that was supposed to show -- it was backed by a lot of right-wing guys -- was supposed to show that inflation was really much higher than reported. and it's a little embarrassing, because it actually comes in with a number that's lower than the official consumer price index. so no, this is just not -- it's actually -- this is a narrative that people are telling, but the reality is that the prices of things that people actually buy, they really have stopped growing very fast. and you know, it's not just left-wingers like me. goldman sachs has a new report out that says -- titled "the hard part is over." we basically got this inflation thing almost under control. and so no, i mean, that's the most amazing -- you know, that's a -- i'm not sure it's a lie. but i did actually have that chart. but the reality is that if you look at what people actually buy, the inflation news is even better than the official numbers. >> interesting. on the labor front, i did want to get your view. what does it mean to people watching who aren't in a union -- we've covered the decline of unions, we've had strikes, the president really god involved there. that's one of those important stories obviously to union households. as an economist to looks at macro labor trends among other things, what does it matter, what does it mean to other people in the economy that there are some of these union breakthroughs and new deals? does it potentially help others? >> it probably does. i mean, there's a lot of evidence over time, and you can see some of it in recent stories. some companies that don't have unions are now starting to give bigger wage settlements because they're looking over their shoulder, we should be worried about ourselves. there's just a lot of historical evidence that having a strong union movement is actually good for wages across the board. there's a big sort of an umbrella effect of having a sufficiently powerful union movement that even nonunionized companies feel they need to treat their workers decently. >> yeah. really interesting. and you sort of have the chops on that, which is why i want to get you on that as well, having seen the president in the union t-shirt and taking the victory lap. professor krugman, like i said, we like rounding out the week with the big picture and learning from you, so thanks for your time. >> thank you. up next, the clock is ticking for the new speaker, mike johnson, to deal with the same problem kevin mccarthy had. what do you do when your margin is this small? 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(vo) it's your vision, it's your verizon. there has been a lot going on. it has been a week. but i have what we think is good news around here. it is friday on "the beat" and it is time to fall back. we've got two very special guests. sam jay, the comedian, emmy-nominated writer, made waves writing smokes at "snl." these days she's front and center with her own comedy tour going on, let's take a look. >> elon musk be going to space by hisself, what the [ bleep ] is that white man doing in space alone? that's not suspicious to anybody but me? i love my wife, i do. you know, she's here. i love her. she's supportive. but it's hard. she doesn't say a lot of things i care about. i was on a cruise when i found out chuck was the president. it's not confused white ladies saying, how did this happen to america, this is my america, we were so ready for a female president. it was like, were we? because less than a year ago, we weren't ready for female ghostbusters. that's not even a real job. >> "variety" named her one of the ten comics to watch. back with us, mark thompson hosts the "make it plain" podcast, a fallback veteran. he's been here with many including the one and only master p where he ride rap snacks, remember that? >> i do remember that. >> great to have you both here. >> glad to be here. i finally made it. >> you made it. you're an old timer, what's on your list? >> you did tease it out. i'm going to say on this fallback friday, let's just have fallback someone who's already doing it on behalf of the organization he represents. the speaker of the house. they run for these offices, get elected, get a salary. but they don't work. they don't do anything. they don't produce anything. they literally do not work. i don't know where you can get a job -- they say mike johnson doesn't even have a bank account. i don't know where you can get a job, you know -- >> thousands of places. >> well, yeah, that's true. but the most check cashing places are closed, i don't know what he's doing. >> mike johnson has been trapping? is that what you're saying tonight? >> you said that before i did. >> that was a question. >> but they -- it is the party of dysfunction. they are about to shut down the government again. here's a speaker who was elected who voted for the shutdown that kevin mccarthy compromised on before they ousted him. so people running for office not trying to do any work, they're falling back, as far as i'm concerned, not working for the people. >> do you think it's wild they went further right with the speaker? he's to the right with mccarthy on a week we saw voters go left? >> that's right. big wins for women, for the country, really. because women make up at least half the country. women's bodily autonomy has won, is going to continue to win. remembering roe-vember. that's the way it's going to be from now on. >> that was a bar. >> it's not original, though. >> okay. >> rovember isn't original. >> if you're going to do a bar, it has to be original. >> the remember in is original. >> i like it. do you have anything on that before i get to your fallback? >> i mean, you know what, i'm not going to pretend to be as versed as you in that. i'll just say, i don't like how the man dresses. >> sometimes you get a vibe, though. sometimes the way someone presents themselves tells you something about them. >> that vibe. >> what is on your fallback list? >> on my fallback is vegans acting like things that are not meat are meat. it is driving me crazy. all the mushroom meals. i saw a lady roast a carrot and she called it a vegan hot dog. it was a roasted carrot in a bun. i'm over it. if you don't eat meat, don't eat meat. but don't serve me up some mushrooms and tell me that that's spaghetti sauce. >> can i tell you something on behalf of the news? we deal in facts. you're 100% right. and it's annoying that, when people try to do their thing -- do your thing, but if meat is so bad and that's what you're against, why do you keep bringing us the meatriarchy, if i may coin a bar? why are we doing this in the meat framework? i have another one. >> i agree. >> i know you're going to get into this. you know what bothers me if i can fall back with you. >> please, go crazy. >> almond milk. oat milk. >> i love almond milk. >> hear me out. it's almond water. it's fine, drink it. avoid the lactose, but you have to brand it milk even though you're anti-milk, and it's not milk. when people buy it, drink it, and hype it as much if we called it almond water. >> i wouldn't want to put anything you call water on my cereal. that would make me feel like when i was a little kid and we ran out of milk. my mother would be like, put some water on it. >> put some water on that. so for full disclosure, i'm not vegan but i'm vegetarian. i don't believe in the other stuff, but i will do impossible meat. you can hold me accountable for that. i don't do mushrooms. >> would you eat a roasted carrot in a hotdog bun? >> i like carrots, i like sauteed vegetables but i'm not going to tell you that's a hotdog. >> i hate to do this but it is friday. do you remember mace? >> of course. >> he said i'm going to give you carrots until you feel like a rabbit, walk through the mall, anything you like you can have it. >> great line. >> let's talk about your comedy. i first learned about you from watching your stand-up, it was so funny. you have your own style. funny people are just funny. but you also seem very kind of very happy, strong willed, to just be yourself, to be young and go out there, which in front of a live studio audience wasn't probably easy at first. how did you find your voice or whatever? >> i kept getting up. i knew i was going to fail more than i like succeeded at first. i kind of put in my head, this is going to be awkward for a while. you're not going to get it right but that's okay. as long as you keep doing it and don't give up, as cliche as it sounds, you'll find your way and figure it out. i think i prepped myself by being like, prepare to suck at this. when i didn't feel so confident, it wasn't as jarring as if i think i went in going, i'm going to defeat this thing and, you know, i'm going to be the best at it. sometimes people go into things and they're like, i'm going to rule this thing. when it doesn't work out that way, they're devastated. i tried to give it reasonable expectations. >> you did some political jokes. but do you think of yourself as a political comic? >> no, because see the thing is, i try to tell people this, don't hold me accountable because i don't like to read. most of what i'm saying is just my opinion. based on a few things i saw and i read something, you know, kind of on twitter. so you can probably blow any of my theories out of the water if you read one book. >> when people go to a show, right, they're not taking what you're saying as gospel. they're there to be entertained. >> i think i speak to the temperature of things and talk to the feeling of things. that is always honest, right? when i'm speaking political, i'm like this is how this makes me feel and this is what i observe. but i don't do a lot of this is fact. because i don't really believe in that. >> yeah. >> well, some are reading things now, and are terribly misinformed. sometimes there's wisdom in knowing what to read and what not to read. >> there is a lot of misinformation. it's hard to know what's real. you have to do triple fact checking. and most people don't want to, you know, that's a lot of work. >> you're great. you're a natural. you shared with us your process and how you get used to it. you're very natural to all of us. and hilarious. >> thank you. >> look at this. this is nice. >> how do you figure out whether people get your punch line or your references? you're coming up, a younger style comic. how do you figure out, is that trial and error that everyone knows what you're talking about? >> sometimes i don't care. sometimes i'm just like, this is funny to me, and people who get it will get it. people who don't, don't. i hope it has enough context that people can follow it, but a lot of little references are for me, they make me giggle. >> the sweater you mentioned with you sat down is actually bespoke, homemade. who made it? >> my friend in atlanta georgia made me this sweater. she has her own business. i don't remember anything that i'm supposed to remember. she didn't even know i was wearing it. i pulled it out of the closet. >> it's hand crocheted. >> she did this all herself. >> respect. >> she makes hats and scarves. i wanted a unique piece. >> i have 30 seconds left. are you optimistic, pessimistic, or neutral as we end the week? my final thought. >> i'm optimistic. it's been a pretty good week. we still are in prayer for what's going on in the middle east, of course, and praying for all the civilians there under attack. we hope there's a cease-fire, but we'll see. otherwise, i'm optimistic. big win on tuesday. >> i'm optimistic too. i had a pretty cool week. i didn't see any rats this week. which is nice. >> you're in new york and you usually see rats. >> every day. >> that bothers you? you have to get used to it. >> not anymore. it used to freak me out. >> giving america that new york perception, like we're always just jumping around rats and mice. that's not always the case. depends on the street. i mean, i'll see rats weekly, but not daily. how about that? >> you don't see rats daily. >> i see them weekly. you see them daily? >> i see at least one a day. >> how do you want to weigh in on that? >> i'm about weekly too. >> okay. >> not daily. >> do you think it's so much rattage that you're not noticing when you see them? >> no, i notice because they're so big, you can't help but notice. >> you still -- >> yeah, i came in to the station the other night. that's where they live. >> i feel guilty like i'm not helping new york. but i didn't know that was going to happen. you never know what's going to happen oin live tv. such a fan of your work. and we see you all the time, sir. >> my cousin dana crochets too. >> i'll get a piece from her. for sure. for sure i served three overseas tours. i love to give back to the community. i offer what i can when i can. i started noticing my memory was slipping. i saw a prevagen commercial and i did some research on it. i started taking prevagen about three years ago. i feel clearer in my thoughts, my memory has improved and generally just more on point. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. kevin, where are you?! kevin?!?!?.... hey, what's going on? 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