Are You There God? It’s Me, Melania (Live From Pittsburgh!)
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Pittsburgh! Great to be back! Thank you! Thank you very much! Welcome to Love It or Leave It Live from the Roxian Theater. Why'd I bring the energy down? French fries and the sandwiches. Paris is also on a river, but who gives a fuck?

We've got a great show for you tonight. Our Eric Thomas is back to find the hero in all of us. Congressional candidate Janelle Stelzen takes her sweet time ranking sour news. And Matteo Lane answers our sauciest questions to date. But first, let's get into it. What a week. In Tuesday's vice presidential debate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz slammed Ohio Senator Jury Duty Vance for refusing to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election.

It's really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power. He is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election? Tim, I'm focused on the future. That is a damning non-answer. That's a damning non-answer. I need a clip of that for when I asked the Love It or Leave It team if we'd be friends outside of work. Vance did have this moment of which he was proud.

Vance continued,

President Biden visited Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas this week to survey the impact of the hurricane and took the opportunity to say this. Nobody can deny the impact of climate crisis anymore. At least I hope they don't. They must be braindead if they do. When we reached for comment, congressional Republicans responded with this. All right.

And we're all just going to know that that's technically a heart thing. And I actually was trying to figure out, like, well, what are we trying to, how do I convey, that's the joke, right? But how do you, that's not brain, but that's heart. But it still works. You know, it's not right, but it worked. But I just want us all to acknowledge that, like, we know. Speaking of non-functioning prefrontal cortexes,

Courtesies? A former aide to Donald Trump told Politico on Wednesday that Trump initially balked at sending disaster assistance to California following 2018's deadly wildfires because California is filled with Democrats. And it is. And we're very annoying. But it's not right. It's still not right. Trump only agreed to release the disaster money after being informed that the heavily damaged Orange County cast more votes for him in 2016 than in the entire state of Iowa.

Saving California because of and not in spite of Orange County? That's like saving a historic home because you love asbestos. On Thursday, Kamala campaigned alongside Liz Cheney in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party. It's interesting. A lot of people believe the Republican Party evolved on one of those anaerobic sea vents, but no, it was on land and involved people. Cheney kicked things off. I tell you, I have never voted for a Democrat.

But this year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. Thank you. But mostly we're not going back. Congratulations on your first vote for a Democrat, Liz Cheney. Here's a coupon for a deeply unsatisfying sweet greens experience and a bandana that says adopt, don't shop for a dog you cannot control. The love fest continued. As a conservative...

As a patriot, as a mother, as someone who reveres our Constitution, I am honored to join her in this urgent cause. As a bitch, as a lover, as a child, as a mother, as a sinner, as a saint, we must defeat Donald Trump.

In what was somehow both weird and convenient timing for the Trump campaign, Melania Trump came out as a supporter of abortion rights in her forthcoming memoir. The memoir is loosely based on her life in which she actively campaigned to have those rights stripped away for millions of women. I thought Ryan Murphy took liberties with the Menendez story by making those brothers kiss, but this is ridiculous.

Writes the former first lady, it is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government. The book continued, all right, look, it's me, Melania's ghostwriter. I'm trapped in a house. All I can see out of the windows are Oregon license plates. I think there's another writer here somewhere, or that might just be ChatGBT. Either way, we use Morse code to talk through the pipes. Melania is actually pretty nice, though, truth be told.

In the book, Melania says that restricting a woman's right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire life. Oh, have you? Have you carried this belief with you? In the same sense I carried gym clothes with me to Pittsburgh, but decided to have a roast beef sandwich with french fries in it at 10 a.m. this morning? You carried it with you? I used the gym clothes. I went to the gym. But for the sake of the joke, I pretended not to.

Then I had my roast beef sandwich with French fries in it. I have to tell you something. I want to talk about this sandwich for a moment because, oh wow, you put French fries in a sandwich. Like we all put potato chips in our peanut butter and jelly when we were kids. You're going to build a whole city around it? And I had them a couple times when I'd come to Pittsburgh in the past. I never had them like at the store, at the counter. And I think that what I was having was room temperature Primanti's because the sandwich I had today, it all made sense.

Truly made sense. Because when I was over here, I thought the bread was too thick. What are we doing with all this bread? But over here, when you really smush it, when you really smush that sandwich down, and at first I thought, you're not going to be able to finish this whole sandwich. And then I thought, should I get a second sandwich? LAUGHTER

Somebody shouted, "Another place is better," which is why I normally don't tell you people where I eat in your cities, because everybody's got a fucking opinion. Oh, you didn't go to this place, this secret that only seven of us know? I guess you should have spent another hour on Reddit.

You can't go to the top restaurants anymore on the internet. You can't go to the fancy websites and what they recommend for you to eat because they're all too sophisticated. They're all like, oh, this restaurant really changed Pittsburgh's take on Italian. No, thank you. Like, yeah, this avant-garde combination of Thai and French, no, thank you. I want someplace very old that killed most of the men in this community. Yeah.

On Thursday, Melania, who we're still talking about, released a video about abortion. Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard. Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth. Individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?

What does it really mean? I'm not sure I can actually say this next part. Kennedy, could you come out on stage for a second? It means vote for Kamala Harris, you dumb, evil bitch! Kennedy, everybody. What the fuck is that video? Why is it shot like a Chanel perfume ad? Fucking bargain basement Philip Glass music, black and white, lit like diamonds are forever. What the fuck?

Who does she think she is? Mu Deng? She probably doesn't even bite anybody.

Melania, if you want to come on Love It or Leave It, we can offer you a $500 stipend and parking validation. You will have to play a game called Would You Fuck This Private Jet, though. It's part of it.

On Thursday, candidates in Pennsylvania's Attorney General race were asked if they prosecute women under an abortion ban in this state. Democratic candidate Eugene DePasquale answered first. In 60 seconds, if an abortion ban were to take effect in Pennsylvania, would you prosecute a person who has had an abortion or a doctor who performs one? We start with you, Mr. DePasquale. I want to be very clear.

I will never prosecute a woman or a doctor that performs an abortion. If you want someone that's going to put a woman in jail that has an abortion, you're going to need another attorney general because it's not going to be me. "I'll do it," said Rudy Giuliani wearing two different shoes before sitting on a freshly painted park bench. Here is Republican Dave Sunday's response.

Mr. Sunday, the same question. Would you prosecute a person who has an abortion or a doctor who performs one if a ban took effect in Pennsylvania? You have 60 seconds. Thank you for the question. I talk about this with my wife on a regular basis. I talk about it with my mom on a regular basis. I'm sorry. You talk about abortion with your mom on a regular basis. What's that third conversation about?

I don't know why that bummed me, but it really did. Are you talking about abortion with your mom on a regular basis? Bi-weekly? Quarterly? What are we talking about here? Anyway, this guy danced around it for a while and then he said this. I have enough belief in the citizens of Pennsylvania to believe that what you're talking about just would never happen. It would never happen. And that's something that I feel very strongly about. I will absolutely support the abortion laws in Pennsylvania. Thank you.

Yeah, I feel strongly that would never happen is not a policy position. It is a magic eight ball answer. Oh, Pennsylvania would never do that. There is literally no telling what Pennsylvania will do. You're the home of the Amish, gritty, and not one but two passionate convenience store fandoms. I have been in Pittsburgh for 24 hours, and my impression is that you are some of the nicest people I've ever met who could explode at any moment. You are a wild card state with absolutely no internal logic.

You know it. And anyone who says otherwise is fucking lying. Speaking of internal logic, on Wednesday, special counsel Jack Smith filed a brief arguing Donald Trump was fundamentally acting as a private citizen when he attempted to overturn the 2020 election. Yeah, of course he was. It's not the president's job to overturn elections. I actually think you can make a case that Trump never acted as anything but a private citizen. It's like you can make the dog the mayor of your town.

But he's not presenting his paw for a handshake because he believes in the values of the Veterans Day parade. He's doing it for peanut butter. The filing makes clear that Trump knew his claims of voter fraud were lies, and he spread those falsehoods in a bid to retain power. That's key, because there's obviously no plausible official reason to overturn an election that wasn't stolen. It's actually contrary to the job's responsibilities. I'm not just doing my job as the manager of a pet store when I set all the birds loose and scream, "'Avenge me, my parakeet army,' even if I'm technically on the clock."

According to the filing, when told that Mike Pence had been rushed to a secure location on January 6th after Trump attacked him for refusing to question the election results, Trump replied, so what? It's actually kind of a hard question to answer because it forces you to go to first principles. Like, why should you, the president, care that the vice president was chased through the nation's capital by a mob of your most fervent supporters at your behest? Okay, well, Mr. Trump, he's a human being. Also an important one.

It would reflect poorly on your legacy if he were murdered to please you. Are we getting anywhere, buddy? What? No? Okay. So what? So what? Well, he raises a good point. So what? There's a lot of damning evidence in this filing. The special counsel's team has text messages from a Trump campaign member telling a pro-Trump group who tried to stop the counting of votes in Detroit, make them riot, do it.

Prosecutors also have a timeline of Trump and his cronies making up voter fraud numbers from whole cloth. In one instance, Trump and company claimed 36,000 non-citizens voted in Arizona. Then they changed that number to a few hundred thousand five days later before bumping it back down to bare minimum 40 or 50,000, then changing it to 32,000 before landing back on the original number of 36,000. It's like they say, destroying democracy is like jazz. Scooby-Doo-Wah. Scooby-Doo-Wah.

Prosecutors also detail Rudy Giuliani's seemingly nonstop butt-dialing and phone-related mishaps. In one instance, he sent a resolution to Michigan lawmakers declaring the election results to be in dispute, but sent it to the wrong number. Giuliani, I think, now is building to his magnum opus, a message that will be sent to all of our phones, his inevitable silver alert.

Fox News' framing of the filing was, in a word, refreshing. In this newly unsealed court paper, we're learning that former President Trump resorted to crimes that have been to cling to power after the 2020 election. Maybe you're learning that, Neil Cavuto. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Wrong tone. Welcome to the resistance, Neil Cavuto. If you're looking for someone to talk to, Liz Cheney is over there. Taylor Swift is a member, but she never comes to these mixers.

She just pays the dues. Speaking of musical idols, on Thursday, the New York Times reported that it has photos of Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, who's locked in a tight race for re-election in New York, wearing blackface while dressed up as Michael Jackson for Halloween while a college student in 2006. Here's what I'll say about this. To do blackface for a Michael Jackson costume, you gotta really want to do blackface. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. No, no. I don't know. I don't know.

Lawler didn't deny the authenticity of the 2006 photo, saying in a statement that the costume was meant to be truly the sincerest form of flattery. A genuine homage to my musical hero since I was a little kid trying to moonwalk through my mom's kitchen. Now, here's the twist. He's telling the truth. That's the twist. Lawler isn't just a Michael Jackson fan. He's an insane super fan. This is real.

Oh, no!

No, but he really went to the trial as a high school kid. He went to the trial. This congressman was so obsessed with Michael Jackson, he flew across the country and went to Michael Jackson's trial. The biographer wrote, this is also real, Lawler was so disgusted by testimony against Jackson that he couldn't help but mutter something derogatory under his breath and was removed from the courtroom. So this guy really fucking loves Michael Jackson. Yeah.

Congrats, Mike Lawler. Learning why you did blackface doesn't make it better, but it does make the whole situation so weird that we want to stop thinking about it. And he's not even close to the weirdest Republican member of Congress. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Thursday implied that Democrats were responsible for Hurricane Helene, tweeting, "'Yes, they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done.'"

In Marjorie's defense, it's possible we're jumping to conclusions here. She may not be blaming Democrats, she may be blaming the Jews. Shana Tova. And it is true. Liberal elites do control the weather. And we like it when it's 130 degrees in LA in October. We like how it makes the pumpkins smell. I love a world where Democrats are powerful enough to control the weather, but not so powerful as to stop Marjorie Taylor Greene, a garbage pail kid that an evil genie brought to life, from being a sitting member of Congress.

Former Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison this week for her role in orchestrating a data breach to aid Trump's re-election fraud scheme. Peters allegedly stole a county employee security badge to help an associate of my pillow guy, Mike Lindell, gain access to Mesa County's voter system. I get it. Mike Lindell asked you to commit a felony and it's like exciting. It's intoxicating. He's so charming and hot. But now you're going to jail? And then where's Mike Lindell? Oh, he's screaming outside the courtroom? Okay. Okay.

But still, Mike Lindell, my pillow guy. It's actually unfair to pillows that this guy's like, even calling my, he didn't invent pillows. He just shoved some phone in a fucking sack. Said the judge, and this is a real quote, I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You're as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen. You are no hero. You abused your position and you're a charlatan.

The judge went on, "And I can see you pretending to be a juror. That's not gonna work either, Ms. Peters. Come back over to the defense table, you lunatic." It's like almost beside the point, but it's like, this woman threw her life away for Donald Trump. Just threw it away for Donald Trump. And I don't think, does he even know this is happening? Doesn't give a fuck. You're gonna throw your life away for somebody they gotta really care.

Back in 1993, a French author hid a bronze owl statuette somewhere in France to promote his book on the Trail of the Golden Owl. The author, Regie Hauser, said that the 11 puzzles in the book would reveal the statuette's location. Unfortunately, the hiding place he chose was the engine block of Princess Diana's limo. But... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. That was a tough one. It's okay. You did great. You did all right. Hauser was the only person who knew where the owl was buried, and he died in 2009. 31 years, five months, and nine days later, someone has finally found the owl. So congratulations to Glenn Powell. Come on. No, it doesn't go that guy's way.

And finally, on a recent episode of Kelly Ripa's podcast, Let's Talk Off Camera, director Barry Sonnenfeld revealed that during the filming of Men in Black, Will Smith produced a fart so disgusting that they had to evacuate the stage for about three hours. You know what the difference is between Will Smith and me? He makes that look good. All right. All right, we come back. R. Eric Thomas is here to serve up a big slice of humble pie. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

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Now we're back! Like me, my next guest is a man of words, though in his case, those words probably aren't. We have to turn this Uber around. I left my wallet, phone, and laptop in the bathroom of Wiener World. I don't know what that means. All right, please welcome to the stage, our Eric Thomas. Hi. Hi, John. Good to see you.

Thank you for being here. Welcome back. Of course. Oh, my gosh. Look at this luxurious sex couch. I know. It's so nice. Would you say it's a settee? Is that a settee? Yeah. Or is it a... What is it? Is it a... It's not a chaise. No. The chaise doesn't have the other side. I don't know. I don't know furniture. I'm not that kind of gay. I just... I feel a little bit like Kate Winslet in Titanic and a little bit like my grandmother. Yeah.

I'm stressed. I'm mostly not going back. I like those shoes. Thank you. Yeah. These are so comfortable. I'm wearing these Converse that are... It's some designer. I don't know anything. So you write in a device column. I do write in a device column. And I find this a very, like, kind of...

oftentimes the person writing it is writing it because they kind of know the answer they want. How often does it feel like that, that people are writing because they kind of want to be confirmed or affirmed? I want to say like 50-50. I do feel like, I thought it would be a lot more. I started writing this advice column in July. So like the genealogy of this column, so Ann Landers...

She wrote her column for decades. She, uh, well, after she retired, Amy Dickinson wrote her, wrote the column. And after Amy Dickinson retired, I started writing the column. So I'm Ann Landers' grandson. Um, which is surprising to people because I am a black person. Right. Um, so, uh,

We all think of ourselves as intrepid protagonists of realities, too. But are we? No. Now, we all have seen and heard of Am I the Asshole? Where people write in questions where they say, am I the asshole? Usually, yes. But sometimes, no. But we're going to play a segment called Am I the Hero? I love this. And here's how it works.

Oh, it looks so good. Before the show, a few of you submitted stories where you are, as far as you're concerned, the hero. If I call your story, raise your hand and we'll decide if you're right. All right. Kennedy is going to go out there. Let's see you first. First up, where's Matt? Matt, who volunteered at a local large animal rescue ranch. Oh, here's Matt's up front. Matt's up front.

So Matt, you volunteered at a local large animal rescue. Yep. Correct. And you think that makes you a hero? I wouldn't say hero. You did. Well, no, no, no. That's the question on the screen. Oh. We didn't tell him the question. Do I know an elephant? What do you do for... And do you know an elephant? I don't. What kind of animals? It was like a lot of farm animals, like cows, horses. Not large. Not large.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. When we all heard large animal rescue, we thought tigers, right? Did we all picture a big tiger? Like an unconscious tiger on the table being treated and helped? That's what I pictured, Matt, you fucking liar. Sorry. Large animal rescue, were they all cows? No, they had mini horses, ostriches. A mini horse and a large animal rescue? What was the other one you said? Ostriches. Ostriches? Yeah. What the fuck?

That's what I said, too. Rescued from where? So just like neglected animals, like people would keep them in their basements and stuff. In the basement? Basement ostrich? Basement cows. Basement cows? Yeah. That sounds so stinky. What? Send me their address. I would like to speak to them. They are not the hero.

So they take any big animal? Yeah, anyone that's been neglected. Any other kinds of animals? They had goats. Goats are small. Yeah, very small. Lots of random birds. Birds are not, nope. Large animal. I have a note about the name. What kind of fucking bird? Pterodactyl? Was there a California condor? What wingspans are we talking about? Not a hero. Just a nice person. Next. Sorry. Next.

Many horses. I'm disgusted. Matt knows a goat calls himself a hero. Okay. Where is Lindsay? Lindsay. Lindsay, this is a really pretty moving personal story. Thank you for being brave enough to write it down. I put an abandoned shopping cart away and no one saw me. Wow. Wow.

And yet no cape. Something for all of us to keep in mind. You never know, like, you know, you never know people. Lindsay, abandoned. That work is a dramatic word. Yeah. Was it in the middle of the suburbs? It was cold. Lindsay, when you say that the car was abandoned, do you mean in the parking lot of the supermarket? Yes. So you...

So it's not like there was a shopping cart in the neighborhood and you brought it back. You just, you push it. I never do that. No one does that. You live long enough to become the villain. How long? How far did you move the shopping cart? A hundred feet. A hundred feet? How big is it? Where were you shopping? I don't have a lot of space. 33 yards? Yeah.

- You should have hit a car. I don't think you understand. Nobody saw me. - Nobody saw you, you just did it. - Nobody saw me. - And yet here you are getting the praise you were so desperate for. - I just need to know why you were shopping at an abandoned Costco, I'm gonna assume. - Oh, I can't afford that. - A two-level Targets in Shady's Eye. - It was a Whole Foods, not to brag. - A Whole Foods? Well, you can't afford Costco. - Reverts. - And you're shopping at a Whole Foods? Knock the hair out!

Wealth tax. Heroism revokes. There's been a whole thing going on with their Chantilly cake that I'm not going to get into here. I'm not getting into it, but they're trying to pull a move. Jeff Bezos is cutting smaller slices of Chantilly cake. People know about this? You know about it. Jeff Bezos got in there and he's like, there's more money to be made on this Chantilly cake. Smaller slices. Get my big strong arm to cut smaller slices. Going to really get more money out of this Chantilly cake. Hero. Okay, next.

All right, where is Molly who had a tail of a dog? Oh, right there. Okay, okay. Hi, Molly. It says here that you successfully performed CPR on a dog who's had something wrong with his spleen and you got it to surgery to stop the bleed. Is this mouth-to-mouth? Did you do mouth-to-mouth on a dog? Yes.

No. No. You did mouth to spleen? Snout to snout. Snout to snout? How do you... Wait, that doesn't... Mouth to snout? No, you intubate the dog. Oh. With like a tube and stuff. You didn't come across the dog. Is that work? Right, we talked. You're a veterinarian. Yeah, I'm a vet. So you save dogs all the time? Yeah. That's your job? 50-50. Would you do it if it wasn't for money? I want to know. Another... Saving dogs for money.

Because there's money in it. You're a 50-50. Another highfalutin veterinarian making money off of dog love. What is, okay, you're a 50-50 for dogs. What's your save rate for large animals? He says, all good, 100%.

I don't operate or anything. You don't do a fucking thing for these animals. Molly saves their lives. Molly, have you ever seen... They're all alive as far as I know. Matt, we're done with you. As far as you know.

Back to a veterinarian with real skills. You're just a guy that saw a goat. I did help do... Molly knows what to do if a goat's in trouble. I do, actually. We did do an MRI on the lion once. Oh, really? Large. Large, yes. Wow. Wow.

And I did help with some camels when I was in school. Help? Like got them insurance or something? How many humps? Well, they have different kinds of camels. I've helped with both, two and one humps. Nice. Two and one humps. Yes. Name of my band. They're J.D. Vance's favorite. Nice. Or Fergie's, whatever. Right, right, right. Well, you're a veterinarian. It's a wonderful thing to be. So it seems like you've chosen. Sure. Sure.

I do love it. It's great. Yeah. It's cool. Lots of therapy. Does it hurt your feelings sometimes that the dogs are terrified? So usually in our case, because it's life or death, they're not usually that terrified of us. It's more the dying part that they're not happy about. Okay. Sorry. I didn't realize you were dealing with a fucking hardened veteran Jesus. The dogs aren't afraid of me. They're afraid of the great beyond. The things I fucking see.

So you're the all dogs go to heaven vet, right? Yes. Okay. That's interesting. All right. Well, Molly's clearly a hero. Yeah. You're a hero. Can I get a recording and put it to get a raise at work? What? Yes. Give Molly a raise. Dog hospital. You must've, you must've been in America for a while. We pay all of our heroes really well.

We had a lot of animals. Dog man, dog, goat. Yeah. Well, because a lot of these are really serious.

And so I'm skipping those. Sorry, people. I can tell you funny stories. Yeah, tell us one funny story. I had to wrestle a kangaroo once. Oh, yeah? Yeah, he woke up from sedation early, and he was in a stall, so he was going towards where the straw and stuff are supposed to go, and I had to jump up and tackle him back into the carrier that the owner brought him in. You tackled? Kangaroos are like the Vanderhall of the animal kingdom. Was he going clockwise or counterclockwise? Yes.

It was more just down. Right, right, right, right. Because of the choreo. Yeah, exactly. And centrifugal force and stuff like that. Sure. Right, right, right. This is incredible. Okay, wait. Was he trying to punch you or is that a myth?

So he was more just trying to get away. Oh, great. He was like hopping and you were like, ha ha. Yeah, but he had been sedated and it was wearing off so he was now drunk trying to hop away. A drunk kangaroo. A drunk kangaroo. That's a Winnie the Pooh book. I've read that. Yeah, sure. All right, let's go do one last one. Where is Abra? Abra.

Oh, right there. Everyone in the front. Hi, I'm Abra. Abra. Hi, Abra. Hi. It says here that your mom was the Dem Party Chair in J.D.'s hometown, County, and she hosted a VP watch party for the debate that absolutely embarrassed the shit out of the Republican watch party. Yes, that's correct. That's my mom, Kathy. Oh, my. Hero. Hero. Can I ask, what was on the menu at that party? Do you want to talk?

What was on the menu was the Butler County, Ohio GOP, I guess. Yes, queen. That's a great applause line, but are we talking are there many hot dogs? Like, is there a snack? We have some turkey sandwiches, some cookies, some little cakes and stuff. Turkey sandwiches, mayonnaise or no mayonnaise on the turkey? I mean, it was on the side, whatever you wanted. Okay, this is interesting. That's great.

That's cool that they're all pretty... You felt like you embarrassed them? So, Butler County, Ohio. I'm the Democratic Party chair there, which is just north of Cincinnati, yeah. Um...

Middletown is the city there and that is the hometown of JD Vance, right? He really hasn't been back in many years. He just pretends he cares about Ohio or Middletown. But so it's traditionally been a Republican county. We're a suburban Cincinnati, but we're growing. The Democratic Party is really growing and we're doing great things. And our watch party was huge. We had

120 people there and the Republicans were just down the road and they had about 20 people there and they were asleep. It was really great. What did they serve to eat? I don't know what they were serving. They were pretty boring. Wasn't cunt, I'll tell you that much. Just going for a little joke. Just going for a little joke. So, dear Abby, thank you. You're a hero, sure. Congratulations. We'll give it to you. I mean, we'll give it to you. Because the political... It's October. We'll give it to you. It's October.

I would love to come see you. So, Ann Landers. Oh, yeah. I forgot. I got lost. So, you're now writing the advice column that Ann Landers once wrote. And her sister was also an advice columnist. Yeah. You're Abby. That's funny. Yeah. My brother does... My brother actually would be pretty good at advice, I think. People would like that. Right. And then, you know...

You'd be Dear Eric or something. Yeah, well, yeah, it's Asking Eric is the name of the column. And my one brother is a school principal, elementary school principal, so he'd make a very good advice. And my other brother is a veterinarian for large animals. I'm just kidding. LAUGHTER

No, but my one brother is a assistant principal. Yeah, but the column's called Asking Eric, and it's in over, it's in a couple, I think a couple hundred papers across the country. Wow. Which is very exciting, and people write in with their problems. Please write into the, even with the big, large problems, or, you know, like an animal, your problems can be big or large. Your problems can be goat-sized, bird-sized, tiger-sized. It can be drunk, they can be fighting you, whatever you need.

Eric, thank you so much for being here. Eric will be back for the Red Wheel. We come up, your next congresswoman, Janelle Stelzen is here. And we're back. This just in, my next guest is ready to be your congressperson. Please welcome to the stage the incredible Janelle Stelzen. Hi, thank you for being here. Come on in. It's deep. It's a deep, low couch. This is a deep show. It's a deep show and a deep couch. So, you're running against Congressman Scott Perry. Yes, sir.

Okay. It's like a no-for-onto pronounced it wooder. No-for-onto? Yeah, no-for-onto. Like the devil? Yeah, sure. We wanted, so first of all, you were a newscaster. You are a newscaster. Was. You have to be non-partisan on local news, so once I declared I was running, no job. Gone. Gone, so it's all on the line. Tossed.

And you actually, I found this really interesting, you moderated a debate. Not just one, two of Scott Perry's last two debates. You moderated. I know where his soft underbelly is. I'm going to get him. Because you're debating him. Next Tuesday. Next Tuesday.

Well, we were supposed to have two debates, but he backed out of the second one already. Wow. I think he's scurred. You know, you're talking about what it takes to reveal someone's character. We want to walk you through your opponent's character in a game we're calling Drop It Like It's Scott. And here's how it works. I'm going to have you rank...

The following true facts about Congressman Scott Perry. You have to place them on a scale of seven, being ghoulish, to one, which is downright spine-tingling. One's the worst. But they're all pretty bad. And it's blind ranking, so you won't know what's coming. Okay. Sort of fair. It's not. It's not fair at all. It's okay. I feel the temptation to clean up the mess, sort of like I hopefully will be sent to Washington to do. Nice. I like that. I like that.

LFG, as the kids say. LFG. All right, first up. LFG. Scott Perry posted an anti-Semitic meme to his campaign's Facebook page this summer, and

We're not going to show it to you. Amidst all the AI-generated Minion photos, we're not going to show you what he actually posted, but it's your usual scheming, bearded Jewish bankers standing over a Monopoly board, resting on the backs of naked figures, accompanied by the text, if the people stand, the game is over. Perry captioned it, says it all. It's actually true. True. True.

And there are seven things you have to rank, and that's the first one we're going to make you rank. And one is the worst? One is the worst. Man, okay, one. I don't know what's coming, but it's pretty bad. That was pretty bad. I think give yourself some, I think do two. Give yourself space. All right, two. Thank you very much for the assist. Yeah, all right. It's going to take all of us.

Next up, he had his phone taken by the FBI as part of a federal investigation. That's right. Congressman Scott Perry has tried desperately to conceal the many emails and text messages he allegedly sent about interfering with Pennsylvania's election results at the behest of Donald Trump. Perry's phone was seized in 2022, and he's engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the federal government to keep a lid on the messages.

However, a federal judge has ordered that his phone data, including 1,600 emails and texts, should be handed over to the special counsel's office. Then in June, a federal judge ruled that those emails and texts could be released to the public. Now a federal court will decide, and I, for one, say gimme. However, there is a silver lining, kind of an optimist, and I will say we out-raised the six-term incumbent by double last quarter.

So I'm thinking part of the problem was it was hard for him to dial for dollars without his cell phone. Right. Can't turn his phone over. So I'm going to give that one a five. All right. That's a five. Great.

Next up, he allegedly planned January 6th. According to Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Perry was central to the planning of January 6th. She also said that Perry allegedly asked Trump for a pardon. In May, it came out that Perry's campaign finance report, he spent $300,000 of his campaign's money to hire two law firms to defend him

around the federal investigation into his involvement in the insurrection. He also voted against awarding congressional gold medals to the United States Capitol Police. So...

Thank you very much. And that's sort of a two-pronged situation. I don't know if I'll do it like five and five or what, but I will say the fact that, you know, he's being investigated by the FBI and said that Italian satellites screwed with the voting machines and turned Trump votes into Biden votes, even though his votes were in the same machines and they seem to be fine, untouched.

There is all of that, you know, and he's the guy who tried to install Jeffrey Clark, his friend who was an environmental attorney from Philadelphia, I think, at the head of the Department of Justice, thinking that he would be more amenable to the fake slates of electors across the country. Yes, and just so people remember, Jeffrey Clark is the person, if you have an image of him in your mind, he's the person where the FBI came to his house and he was standing outside in his shirt sleeves. Remember that guy? Yeah.

Jeffrey Clark. Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to give this one, I think, a six. This is not the worst. Okay.

Next up, refused to denounce QAnon. In 2020, Congressman Scott Perry voted against a non-binding resolution denouncing QAnon. When asked about his vote, Perry said, a lot of people dislike a lot of things in this country. Some people don't like certain vegetables or what have you. I thought we'd get through this year's tour before I had to say this, but most eggplants don't believe the government is run by a cabal of satanic child molesters that only their messiah Donald Trump can save them from. In other words...

In other words, this is really mean to vegetables to compare them to QAnon. He's saying, oh yeah, some people don't like broccoli. You're saying Jews control the weather. They're different. What do you think? Won't denounce QAnon. It's all so terrible, but I can't give everybody a one. Let's put a three on that.

Next up, he tells veterans to kick rocks. Twice voted against the PACT Act to expand VA health benefits. He was also the only member of PA's congressional delegation to vote against the bill to help homeless veterans, even though your district has 45,000 veterans consistently voted. This was a bill to include burn pit and other toxic substance exposure as part of VA health benefits. Voted no. One of very few Republicans to even vote no. This is... Glad it's not lightning round, but I will say...

I have several veterans who have joined my campaign who are Republicans, who served under Scott Perry, and have said, "You gotta get rid of this guy. You don't know what a favor you'll be doing the country." What do you think? What number? Serious stuff. It's just, you know, it's all mind-bending. You say four? Yeah, I would agree. Four.

Spread Dominion voting machine conspiracy theories. At one point Perry texted Mark Meadow that maybe British people were using Chinese malware to control the election. He said, this is a real text, "DNAI needs to task NSA to immediately seize and begin looking for international comms related to Dominion. Was China malware involved? And Gina is still running around on the hill covering for the Brits who helped quarterback this entire operation." That's a reference to Trump CIA director Gina Haspel.

Oh my fucking God, this guy is out of his gourd. He is. And I would just remind everybody that this guy who the FBI is investigating because his deep involvement in the deadly insurrection January 6th

is now on the previously nonpartisan Intel Committee, which oversees the FBI that is investigating him and the CIA, which he basically wants to burn down with the Education Department and the IRS. You know, I'm all about listening to creative solutions, but when you never offer...

you know, anything in their place. I'm pretty sure we're not going to stop educating people. Pretty sure we need taxes to do the people's business. All of that. It's just, he's absurd. Okay, you want a number. Having said all that, what did we say? Five? Yeah, we're at five. Less egregious than, you know, a whole burning down a democracy and taking away women's rights, et cetera. Well, that's the last one. That's where we're going to land, which is

Perry has supported a near total ban on abortion without exceptions for rape or incest. He voted for legislation that would prevent women from being able to access mid-perfusion. Number one. He's a co-sponsor of a bill that would impose restrictions on IVF, much like what happened in Alabama. Like many fellow Republicans, he's trying to obscure his record, but that's his record. Number one. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That's not a question. Now...

This is a guy, and this crosses party lines, my 89-year-old Republican mother says, you will not tell me what to do with my body. While I'm pretty sure I'm not having a little sister anytime soon. That's just, it crosses party lines, the fact that he has for the past seven years sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which is a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, life of the woman.

Thank you. It feels the same way about IVF. I have, we have one of my team members, campaign team members tonight, and his fabulous husband who are in the audience. But they have the most beautiful son named Simon who they got through IVF. And, you know, it touches everybody. Oh, I see you pointing. Hi, Evan. Anyway, and hi, Eric, backstage. Thank you.

This Simon is the cutest boy with the fattest cheeks. I mean, the fact so many families, any, who here has been touched by IVF in their family? Yeah, a lot of people. They are some of the most precious people in the world to me. And the fact that he wants to take that away, that's also a one, man. That's tied for one. Number one. Number one. No way. What made you decide to want to go from being somebody that covers politics to...

getting in the muck, you know? Yeah. Putting on the boots and getting in the filthy, filthy swamp. Well, some of my colleagues have suggested, why you run into the dumpster fire instead of away from it? And, you know, I said, if good people don't stand up, where are we? And...

Thank you. I will say, I can cite three examples. One is, I have been out where the yellow tape is on the scene of gun crimes. I have been hugged by mothers too long and too hard, frankly, because they know they're never going to hug their child again. So I've seen close up the public health emergency that is gun violence. I was live on the set two years ago when the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision.

and I had to look out into the camera at my time in my best non-partisan way. You know, like all of us who were just watching this unfold in disbelief, I had to look out into the camera and tell every woman watching that her rights had been rolled back 50 years.

And a couple of things happened that day. It took a big chunk out of my heart. I went back up to the newsroom after our live coverage, and a gentleman I worked with who coordinated all our coverage, so he's seen a lot of trauma. You know, you go report on the pond where the two kids drown. You go to the fiery crash on the interstate. And I've never even seen him blink. He was in the corner with his shoulders hunched over, put my hand on his shoulder, and asked what was going on, if he was okay.

And he looked up with tears in his eyes, and this is a big, works out all the time, tats all over, crazy hair, and he said, Janelle, you don't know this, but my wife was raped. And had we not had abortion available to us, our lives would be ruined. And it's a really good thing to remember on the campaign trail because this is not a women's issue. It is, but it's not. It's also the men who love us and the families we surround ourselves by.

And it gets even better. We had to interview our local congresspeople and get their reaction to the Dobbs decision. And one Scott Perry was basically dancing a jig because, as I already outlined, he has sponsored a nationwide abortion ban for years. He thought it was a magnificent decision. The other thing is, you know, I covered all of the watched in horror with everybody January 6th, covering that from the front lines too. And...

I just, you know, how do you stand by and not do something while you watch the bastion of democracy, you know, while you watch them try to rip it apart?

And the fact that Scott Perry was the only one who voted not to give medals, as you said earlier, to the Capitol Police who defended the Capitol, who protected him, who protected his colleagues, so that a few hours later he could safely walk back into the chamber and vote to overturn your vote, your vote, my vote, all of our votes here in Pennsylvania. I'm so mad. I'm so mad. I know. I know.

You should be mad. One thing that I just love about news anchors is you have an ability to kind of close out a story in a way that makes us all feel really good. And so we have a few that I've, that I think kind of capture a vibe about local news that I love. And I was hoping that you could just give us the experience of what it's like to hear those stories reported. All right. If I must. All right.

The dog was retrieved from the neighbor's roof unharmed. But the same cannot be said for that Christmas ham. Let's do two more. So stupid. Alma Jenkins may not have hit bingo on Wednesday night, but she won a prize even sweeter. A Christmas ham.

I love it. All right, one more, one more. Okay, one more. I have to say I love these because it has been suggested by some people, even though it's a little insulting, that I could be a ham sandwich and they would still vote for me over Scott Perry. Yeah. Okay, here we go.

Local shopkeeper Daryl Mason may be too humble to call himself a hero, but tell that to the kids of the Allegheny Middle School marching band who marched all the way down Main Street to bring Mr. Mason a Christmas ham.

Thank you so much. You know, what's the website where people can go? Where can they go to support your campaign, to volunteer? They want to come help. Oh, yeah. This is going to be close. So I won my six-way primary by 20 points. This ain't going to be that. This is going to be close. This is a street fight. I need all the help you can give me, whether it's making phone calls.

Come a couple districts over and do some door knocking for me. And the other thing, of course, you could write a big fat check. I will say the individual maximum is $3,300. You can go to JanelleStelson.com to learn more about anything. To help Janelle, this is the race that could decide whether or not Hakeem Jeffries or that man with his phone app and his son is Speaker of the House. Janelle, thank you so much. Thank you. Such a

Such a pleasure. Thank you. One more time for Janelle. Janelle Selson, everybody. Come on. How great. Thank you so much. When we come back, Mateo Lane is here. My next guest is a hilarious comedian, a talented singer, and an illustrator because God doesn't give with both hands, but he does occasionally give with all three hands. Please give a warm Pittsburgh welcome to Mateo Lane. Thank you.

Hi! Thank you for being here. - Thanks for having me, hello. Hi. - Hi. - Hey. - So. - Okay. - We asked what topics you might want to discuss on our show, and the response we got back was Mariah Carey and pasta. Were you worried we wouldn't know you were gay and Italian? - Ciao. - If you had to choose one to disappear from Earth without a trace, Mariah Carey or pasta?

They said it for me. Okay, yeah. Well, no, I have to eat pasta. Like, I can't imagine. I mean, I love Emancipation of Mimi, but I can't imagine, like, going to Rome and watching everyone eat pasta and being like, that's okay, I have my all at home. Like, no, I just, I'd have to go with pasta. Right, right, right. Because I feel like there's other music you could listen to while having ravioli, but it's like...

What are we doing? We're listening to Mariah Carey and eating rice? You know? Something's wrong. Something's missing. Okay, yeah, so I would pick pasta. Carbonara, specifically. Okay. I like that. I think you're right. I think you're right. Now, you also, you're a gamer. Yes, I am a gamer. Play Fortnite. I love Fortnite. And if anyone plays, it's the gay version of Call of Duty. And you're literally building and decorating at the same time. I, uh...

It's like weird. You're shooting and all of a sudden you're like, cease fire. We need a bay window. I'm like, what? It makes no sense. Yeah. Isn't it true? Call of Duty is so, it's too intimidating. I don't know how to play Call of Duty. It's too real. Yeah. When I played Call of Duty, first of all, every once in a while I would play Call of Duty and I would be like, realize that because you're playing with random people on the internet and then all of a sudden you realize you're playing with like,

like 15 year old somewhere in like the Midwest and then at some point like they would kill you and be like gotcha you faggot and then and then like you killed them and you're like you were killed and guess what I am a faggot I'm so gay and I just sniped you well what's funny in Call of does anyone here play Call of Duty

Listen to how sad they were about it. Okay, so when you play the game and you kill someone, you can hear three seconds of their audio. So when you're on the battlefield, you're just like, faggot, faggot. I'm Sony. If I'm like, how do they know? Like, I just, I look like everybody else. Well, that's not true. I had a Nicki Minaj skin. Nevermind. They knew. They did know. They can tell by how you walk around. Well, in Fortnite, you know who else is gay because you'll see like another Ariana Grande skin on the battlefield. I'm like, I won't shoot her.

By the way, this set is very Mariah Carey-esque, isn't it? Yeah, she's always laying down singing. I love her. I like it. Now, I like how many pasta shapes there are, but I think some of them are unnecessary on a culinary level. It's too many shapes. No other food gets this amount of shapes.

Well, Italians are very indecisive people. Oh. I love this because I think I said this last time. I love that sometimes, like, the closer you get, it does feel like a Jiminy Glick interview. Yeah. You did say that. Now I'm remembering. What do you know, boy? You did say that. And it hurt my feelings both times. Now, back to my question that you're dodging. Oh, Mariah Carey was in the news.

So I'm glad you brought it up because this is the video she put out. Oh, I've already seen it. You think I turned gay yesterday? This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard, Mariah. We are headed to the North Pole. Not yet. Sorry. In October, she starts the, not yet. November 1st, she's Santa. So what's interesting about this video is that

She's just unapologetically on a private jet. Just like, there's so many, you know what I mean? Just like, so many people are like, she's just like, I am Mariah Carey. When I'm on a plane, I'm addressed by the captain by name.

I felt like Mariah Carey because there's only one airline that flies direct from LAX to Pittsburgh, and it is Spirit. You got to work. Hey, by the way, don't applaud. Work on it. What do you guys have some respect for yourself? Pittsburgh, one direct flight a day at its fucking Spirit Airlines. What? What's under construction? The air, the sky, the airport is under construction. So Delta is not coming. Only Spirit is willing to fly where there's...

Check next year? I'm not coming next year. I'm here now. And I was sitting in basically a folding chair. It's under construction. I flew Delta here. You had to connect? No, no, no. I flew from New York. Oh, well, must be nice. I was so late for my Spirit Air flight here. I arrived at the airport at, I think, 1047. Flight leaves 1120.

I am running through the airport. You know when you get that kind of running tunnel vision through an airport? Like, anything could be going on around you. It doesn't matter because there's a project. You're the McAllister family. Yes, I was the McAllister family. And do you know who was ahead of me in line at security? Mariah Carey? Martin Short.

Actual Martin Short. Martin Short. Me and Martin Short are standing like this, and I'm in such a fucking rush. I literally am thinking to myself, while my bag is going through the thing, say nothing. Ignore it. Keep going. If you talk to Martin Short for even one second, you're going to miss this fight.

So Martin Short was just some fucking asshole to me. Nothing. Didn't even make eye contact. Gone. We're this close. He was one ahead of me. I feel like everyone here would forgive you if you said I missed this show because I had to say hi to Martin Short.

Everyone would totally understand. He's a legend. And so all I got instead was the experience of Martin Short being charming to other people around me. I just like, you know what I mean? Like I just like heard like a security person said something to him and he did. I don't even know what he said, but it was so charming. It was like, well, you know, he just was so, he did one of these. And I was like, oh.

That could have been me, but there's no time. Have you ever seen his movie Clifford? Yes. It's genius. Incredible. He plays a seven-year-old. He's just on his knees the whole time. With Charles Brodin. Yes, it's a genius film. He did have pre-check. Of course, Martin Short has pre-check. What kind of question is that? What kind of question is that? Of course, you think he's going, you think he's taking, you think Martin Short is taking off his fucking shoes? Yes.

What planet are you on? You're lucky he's in commercial. You should ask him if he had global entry. Hey, would you have global entry? He'd be like, woo! Ah, effervescent. Effervescent. He's like, out of my way, Martin Short. I've got to get to Pittsburgh. It's the only flight today. Too many pasta shapes.

Every pasta shape is for a certain kind of sauce. And there's so many different regions in Italy. Every single region makes a different kind of sauce. And then every town makes their other kind of sauce. And so every pasta shape is like an homage to their ancestors of that town. Right. Sure. No, I get that. But I will say I don't like linguine. I hate that pasta. I think it's not. I said what I said.

It's not parpadele, it's not tagliatelle, it's not fettuccine, it's not spaghetti. I don't respect linguine. So this is such an important point. There's fettuccine. Mm-hmm. There's linguine. Mm-hmm. Stupid. Yeah, I guess you're right. Let's do this. Let's get rid of linguine. Okay. And also farfalle, the bowtie pasta. Like, go away. No one...

You can't say that in Pittsburgh. You can't cook it al dente because the center is weird. The center is too hard and the outside is too soft. It's going to be too soft or the center is too hard. But ironically, farfalle means butterfly and I like Mariah Carey, so I guess I should like it.

I really screwed myself over here with that pasta. No, I'm glad you brought up bow tie pasta. It also makes so often an appearance, a surprisingly frequent appearance in Kasha Varnishkis in Jewish food. And it's like, why did we land on bow tie pasta? It's fucking ass. It sucks. Oh, angel hair pasta. It has to be cooked. If it's not cooked right, what are you doing? Like it just turns into a pile of mud. You're like, well, this ruined my dinner.

I think that we should go through Marie Kondo style and just go through pasta shapes and just like, this one doesn't spark joy. This one doesn't spark joy. It's gone. Why are there different spaghetti rankings? It's like pen thickness. You know what I mean? There are different types of sauces. Is there anyone from Italy here? Wow. Okay.

Bar Marco's great, by the way. We went there tonight, so I love it. All right. It's really good. In honor of your twin passions, Mariah Carey and pasta, it's time for a game we're calling Pass the Mariah Nara Sauce, a.k.a. All I Want for Christmas is Fusilli, a.k.a. The Emancipation of Ziti.

Oh my God, that's so good. And because we thought you might need some help with this very difficult quiz, wanted to bring out your podcast co-host, Nick Smith. Want to join us? Come on out, Nick. Hi. Thank you for being here. Podcast, I never liked you. It's so luxurious. It's so nice. We live in New York. We don't have couches.

And so it's time for a game where you're going to have to decide, is this pasta or Mariah Carey? Oh, great. First question. She was born in the 1960s and she's been a fucking star ever since. Mariah Carey or pasta? Mariah Carey. Pasta.

Well, they can't both have been wrong. Pasta's right. The radiatory pasta shape was developed in the 60s. It's ruffles inspired by the radiator grill of a Bugatti car. They look like little Christmas trees. I thought you were showing us a picture of Mariah Carey. Nope, that's pasta. That's...

That is pasta. Brian Carey was born in 1969, but the answer we're looking for was this pot. Like, this sheep needs to exist. She was born in 69. She looks great. She looks amazing. Well, she's flying private every week. So far, Nick has one point. Next, take a look at this photo.

My kiss study show. That's Mariah Carey. Yeah, that's Mariah. Or angel hair pasta. It's Mariah Carey. Is it the, oh, work. I think we should have zoomed in more. That was too easy. All right. During her charm bracelet era. I've seen her live 12 times. 12 times? I know. Her fans shouldn't be called lambs. We should be called enablers. But I just love her so much. Nick, do you like Mariah Carey? I tolerate her.

I like her music and I think that she is one of the greatest singers of all time. I just like others more. That's allowed. I'm a Celine girly. I'm a Celine and Whitney girl. I respect that. I like, I do like pop stars and pop icons who are willing to

to just embrace that they believe, like are not faux humble in public. They just say, I am the best. And I'm just like, I am the best one. And that's something you need to accept. But I also like someone like Cher, because Cher is so real. Like one time she was being interviewed for that Christmas album last year. She was being interviewed and this guy was like, why a Christmas album now? You know, celebrities usually are like, oh, because it reminds me of my childhood. Cher just goes, my manager made me do it.

Harrison Ford always does that when he's interviewed about movies he doesn't think is good. He just did it for the money and it's not a good movie. I remember he was interviewed by Letterman and Letterman said, why is it called K-19, The Widowmaker? And Harrison Ford goes, I don't know. It's a terrible title. The title's going to kill this whole fucking movie. LAUGHTER

I like that Mariah Carey writes all of her own songs though she wrote every single one of her own songs I'm not kidding you she literally has written every single one of her songs she wrote it's true and that's why she should get more credit because she should get more credit I didn't know that in every interview she's like yeah I write all my own songs and no one believes me and it's like I do

You are an enabler. Yeah. Do you believe her? No. And I'm going to say a controversial statement. I don't believe Taylor Swift does either. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Get him out of here. Bring in the Stasi. Get it out. Just a red dot shows up behind her. I was just going to say the same thing. Next up, name this Mariah Carey song. Fantasy. You got it. Are you kidding me? Oh, when you walk.

Wow. Don't enable him. Next up, name this pasta shape. Farfalle. Farfalle. Yeah, it's Farfalle. Okay, well, I said bow tie. That's the English version. We'll give it to both of you. Thank you. Next up, name this pasta shape.

I can't see it. It's very zoomed in. Looks like an ear almost. Conchita? So close. Campanelli? Campanelli. I don't know it. Do we have the zoom out? I think they're right. Kind of looks like an ice cream cone. Next up, she's a business savvy icon who once collaborated on a buzzy project with Justin Bieber. Pasta. Yeah. It is pasta. Let's play the clip.

What was the collaboration? Trying the Justin Bieber pasta from the iconic Il Pasto in Beverly Hills. Damn, Justin Bieber smells good. Get out of here with this. All right. I just want to talk about something very specific, which is people trying food in their cars.

Have some decorum. Well, we ate Sonic in our car today. We did do that. You ate Sonic in your car? We literally went to Sonic. You went to Sonic? Mm-hmm. But we don't have that in New York. Right. Do we? No. We don't have that in New York. He eats Chipotle every day, and he got kicked out of Chipotle once because he got into a fight in line.

I stand by it. By the way, he sounds like a gayer Squidward. And also...

I'll tell the story. He went in line. He goes every single day. He knows the whole staff. He walks in, and the person in front of him was ordering 40 burritos for a birthday party, and Nick started screaming and yelling. What happened? I got the whole line to turn on him. If you walked in on your lunch break, and there's a mobile app, and someone is standing in there ordering 40 burrito bowls for snot-nosed kids that don't need them, but I got to get back to work, yeah, I'm going to turn the whole restaurant on you.

And they said, ma'am, we need you to leave. Do I have two seconds to tell you a story that he said? One time Nick called, he was like, well, I got into a fight with Verizon today. I'm like, why would it happen? Well, I was waiting in line. I was talking to him and I was on hold forever. And she goes, hi, this is Sally. How can I help you? He goes, Sally, I'm going to need you to get your manager because I can tell you're not going to be able to help me. And then she transferred me to the fraud department. She thought I was a fraud. She was right. Yeah.

I don't like it. He says that and said, we're playing Fortnite. He goes, I'm like, I beg pardon. I'm like, Nick, stop it. So now he goes, I beg your pardon. I don't like it when people use their phones in the few seconds before they're supposed to be ordering. Like, like,

Hey everybody, that time of like, oh, that time of like the, oh, I'm sorry, oh, all of us are doing it. All of us should be put to death. No, the worst is, the worst is like a summer day and everyone goes to like an ice cream shop and everyone's waiting. They have like 800 menus and by the time they get up there, what would you like? And you're like, what? Like you had all this time to pick. It's also, hey, I know these are interesting flavors with words like olive oil.

and honeycomb and your mind is blown.

You're getting the chocolate chip cookie dough, or you're getting the peanut butter chocolate. That's what we're all getting. The rest of these are fake ice creams that exist to be tasted. And you get to try one. Try one. One. You get to try one new flavor before you go to your fucking standby. You know your ice cream flavor. You know what you like. You know what you get almost every goddamn time. You get to try one. One. One. And then you eat the one that you always fucking eat. We're done with these many spoons. We're done. Fuck.

Fuck you. And we're all on the topic of food. One more controversial take. I don't want to eat outside. Enough with eating outside. If I wanted flies and mosquitoes in my pasta, I'd go camping. I'm here to sit in a restaurant.

Nick doesn't have many friends. I have no friends. He's terrible. Very nice skin from being inside. It's nice that you've taken care of yourself. You don't want to eat outside. I don't. He doesn't go in the sun. He wears giant sun hats. And yeah, when you go hiking, you wear dress shoes, your boyfriend's shorts. And I'm not outdoorsy. Who could tell?

One time we were trying to pick up a cab in New York and we all looked so gay. And we were with our friend Patty and Patty's, you know, he's always wearing really gay stuff. And Nick was in a backless. You look like you're wearing like a hospital gown. So, and I'm always dressed like a deli worker. So we call this cab and he stops and he looks at us and just shakes his head no and drives off.

And our friend Patty's running after the cab. He's like, fuck you, motherfucker. Nick goes, no, no, he had a point. I would have turned us away too. Wreaked of trouble. And the podcast you two do together is called Nobody Wants This? Or is that the Netflix show? No, it's We Never Liked You. I Never Liked You. I've never liked him. You never liked each other? No, and I only contractually have to be here. Well, Nick, you won the game.

Thank you. Everybody, go see Mateo's Can't Stop Talking Tour this Sunday, October 6th at the Bynum Theater in Pittsburgh. Yes. And check out your upcoming tour dates at MateoLaneComedy.com. One more time for Mateo and Nick. We come back.

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And we're back! It's officially less than a month until election day and if that didn't make your chest tighten a little bit, it should.

Deal with that. Whether you've moved, turned 18, or just need to check your info, checking your registration is the first step to winning in November. Your voice matters. Selection will be decided by people showing up. So go to votesaveamerica.com slash vote to register, check your status, or request a mail-in ballot. It's quick, it's easy, and it's guaranteed to give you peace of mind. If you haven't checked, check. You'll be surprised how often people are like, I wasn't going to check, and then I checked, and oh no. So check. Also, because of the storm, we set up a fund, the Votes Save America Fund,

Helene Fund. The organization goes to groups like World Central Kitchen, Organizing Resilience, America Hears Foundation, and more. VoteSafeAmerica.com slash Helene. I believe we've raised a good amount of money, so thank you for supporting that fund. VoteSafeAmerica.com slash Helene. This message has been paid for by VoteSafeAmerica. You can learn more at VoteSafeAmerica.com. And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. There was a time where we didn't have lawyers. And then we got some. And now I say this.

Please welcome back to the stage our Eric Thomas and Janelle Stelson. Now it's time for the rant wheel. Here's how it works. We spin the wheel and rant about a topic related to Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, something. Something about our experience here. Let's spin the wheel. They play the Olympic music again. Mateo, you're up first. What would you like to rant about? So I love Pittsburgh. This is one of my favorite cities. It really is.

Why does it take 62 minutes to call an Uber? Why does it take, it takes so long to call an Uber. That's my only thing. That's literally all I have to complain about Pittsburgh. Everything else is fucking great. I like Pittsburgh. I do. I love it. I just say that. I just say that. Pittsburgh!

I like it too. It's a good town. But I love that Pittsburgh has its own vibe, because it's not the East Coast, it's not the Midwest, it's literally its own flavor. It's cool. It is. It also just seems like you just come out of the woods and then you're in it. I like that. All right, let's spin it again. Eric, what do you got? Well, I'm from Philadelphia. Oh! Ooh! Ooh!

But not to be a poser, but I also really love Pittsburgh. I think it's one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world. I think every city should be like Valhalla where you just have to like descend into it and you're like cradled by verdant hills. But every time I talk to somebody who is from Pittsburgh and doesn't live here anymore and I tell them how every time I come here, it's so beautiful. The sun's always out. The sky's always clear. They're always like, ugh.

It wasn't like that when I was a kid. Okay, yeah, I guess not. When you were a kid, we had to tape songs off of the radio onto a cassette. And now there's four gay people on stage on a podcast. Who asked for this? The future is weird. Things have changed. Things have changed.

I love it. I think it is... There is... In the hotel we're staying at, there's this building that looks like a cathedral. I don't know what it is. It's like black glass, and then you look in the back, and there's green hills. It's incredible. I love this city. I think it's so beautiful. Everybody who moved away is like, it was ugly when I was a kid. Everything was ugly when you were a kid! Totally!

Times are bad. I'll tell you what. I was doing research for this project. I wrote a TV show that was set in Pittsburgh, and the network did not pick it up, and I'm really upset about that because I wanted Quentin Brunson money, but I didn't get it. Anyway, Charles Dickens came here in the 1800s, and he described this place as heaven rising out of hell because of all this smoke and steam. And it takes a lot for Dickens, author of Bleak House, to be like, this place is bleak.

But you turned it around. Beautiful. Let's spin it again. Janelle. Okay, I'm going to do a Pennsylvania rant. And very specifically, Trucker Magazine, which I do not subscribe to, but for years have done this story on the news, Trucker Magazine calls Pennsylvania's roads the worst in the entire nation.

So my rant is that my current representative, and I should say representative, Congressman Scott Perry, he voted against the infrastructure plan. So I'm thinking maybe he's so busy in Washington causing chaos that he doesn't even drive on the axle-bending potholes that the rest of us do.

We have six or seven bridges that go, that's just from Harrisburg over to Cumberland County. One of them is the world's longest stone arch bridge, which just carries trains. But I know you've had some bridge problems here also. Covered that in the news. And I'm saying that this guy would vote against improving our roads, improving our bridges. And these are good union jobs doing all the work as well. So my rant is against Scott Perry. Wow.

That was good politics right there. That was good. I like that. It has landed on Nick. Am I the dog? Nick, you're from Pennsylvania. I'm from Pennsylvania. I'm from Northeastern Scranton area. Let's not cheer too much. I also love Pittsburgh. I'm going to do a Pennsylvania rant as well. I-80, can we get some more rest stops?

Give me some Chipotle's. Give me some Dunkin's. I mean, literally anything. It's an endless drive of nothingness. Yeah, there should be more stuff on that drive and other restaurant options than the ones you mentioned. Pasta options? Yeah, pasta.

Nothing keeps you going on the road like a big, rich bowl, a nice carbonara. I love to, here's the thing, when I'm driving along, just like to jump out, eat a carbonara, get back on the road. Let's spin it again. I wish we could complain about Ohio. It has landed on me. I want to talk about how much I hate Ohio. And how much I enjoy...

the pittsburgh accent which gets a lot of i think uh mockery for being honest uh but can we play this clip yeah dad somebody sent me flyers while i was working down case today i wonder who that could have been you jack i love you you're my favorite color too see that i remember your favorite keller when you gonna take me down the strip

That accent.

Which is Pittsburgh's own, but does run. There's a version of it that runs from here down through Baltimore over to Philly, into southern Jersey, into Delaware. It's this little strip of an accent. And it doesn't get the credit it deserves for even existing. It surprises you every time. It surprises me every time. It's just like, you walk into a place and you're like, you think you're going to get East Coast? And you're not. You're getting...

You're getting a vowel shift like you wouldn't fucking believe. American English to Pittsburghese is as far as American English is from Spanish. In terms of what you're doing with vowels here, it is a different vowel. If you want to do the Pittsburgh accent, you need to go through and just switch the vowels. Slide them all the way over. O's or A's.

E's are O's. I's are E's. I met a man named Jim today. Jim. What was it? Jim. What? Jim. My name is Jim. Jim. His name is fucking Jim. Took me 15 minutes to crack it. And I like that you put folding chairs in your parking spots to keep them, which is actually very interesting if you think about it, because the folding chair doesn't do anything that nothing would do.

Wait, I have a question because I'm from Chicago. So is the folding chairs thing just during the winter, like when you dig out your spot? No, anytime. Okay. All right. So what we do in Chicago is we snow so much. So we dig out our parking spot and then you put like a lamp or a chair or something. But what happens is if you move it, then what happens is you have to egg the car because when you egg a car in the winter and it freezes, it scrapes the paint off. So in Chicago, when you see a chair, you're like, they did the work. I'm leaving it alone.

I like that you're gangsters about it. Like, in Philly, we also do the chairs, but we are not resorting to egg violence. Oh, yeah, yes. The kind-hearted, mild-mannered. Give me a fucking break. What fucking stolen valor bullshit about Philadelphia? Oh, in Philadelphia, we have rules in Philadelphia. They have to grease the light poles to keep you from celebrating good things. That's nuts.

that's just normal behavior. Okay. You put the chairs in the parking spaces, even when it's not snowing. That's ridiculous. Shame on all of you. That's just taking public land for yourself. I'm for it. It's supposed to be about you did the work of

digging, that you moved something, you made something, and that's your space. That makes sense. I dug this. This chair symbolizes that I did some fucking work. I tilled this ground. If you're just putting chairs when you go to work, that's just claiming public land as your own. You did nothing to make that land yours. You're just taking it.

Are you really doing that? As the creep from the winter? Are you fucking kidding me? You're just claiming parking space as yours because you're at work? In front of your house? Oh, is that... Because there's not enough parking. Maybe there's a... Do you see a connection? Do you perhaps see a connection with the fact that there's not enough parking and claiming a place in front of your house as your own? It's shared space? No? Not drawing a fucking connection? No?

One more time, please give it up for our guests, Mateo Lane, Janelle Stelzen, Nick Smith, our Eric Thomas. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. When we come back, we'll end on a high note. And we're back. Let's do some high notes. Kennedy's going to come out there. What's your name? What's your high note? Hi, my name is Marie. I'm born and raised in Puerto Rico. I've been in Pittsburgh for about 20 years. Woo!

My high note is that I recently talked to my mom, who has been a social worker for 50-plus years. She, quote-unquote, retired and then started being a FEMA worker. And so she is someone who's gone to Louisiana for Katrina, to New York for floods, and who's now, in her 70s, going to help people for the Helene Hurricane. Well, that's really nice. Thank you.

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Hi, what's your name? What's your high note? My name is AJ. And so my high note was the last time I came to your show, I was about to be adopted by my stepdad. And here I am a few years later, adopted by him. I escaped. Thank you.

I escaped a very abusive household and I live with my mom and my now dad who are very supportive of everything, especially whenever I came out as gay and trans. That's a great place. AJ, thank you for telling us that. Thank you for sharing that. Thanks for coming. I think we should just leave it there. Thank you, AJ. Like Pennsylvania.

We'll be back in Philly for the Pod Save America show. So great to be here for this show. You have so much fucking power in this election. It is all in your hands. I don't think it's an exaggeration that for every AJ out there, for every trans person out there, whether or not they have access to gender-affirming care will come down to what happens in Pennsylvania. Whether we have abortion nationwide will come down to what happens in Pennsylvania. Whether we will have a democracy may come down to what happens in Pennsylvania. We are in the homestretch.

Do everything you can. You are ambassadors for Kamala Harris. You are ambassadors for bodily autonomy. You are ambassadors for democracy. You are ambassadors for this movement of people to convince our friends and neighbors that this is a party and a movement they want to be a part of, that this is a joyful and exciting and hopeful and kind and generous and welcoming and open group of people that want everybody who needs to be a part of it to be a part of it.

People that maybe weren't always with us, people that were maybe Republicans, people that were independent, people that don't follow politics, people that aren't engaged, people that don't have the right words, people that don't even know how they're supposed to care or what they're supposed to care about. It's our job to bring them in. You can do that. You have, you as people that are from this state. I, I...

This election will be won by friends and neighbors. It will be won by friends and neighbors. People don't trust the news. People don't trust politicians. People don't trust what they see on their phones, and rightly fucking so. People trust their friends and neighbors. And I really don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the people in this room and the people you talk to are the people that are going to decide what happens, not just in Pittsburgh, not just Pennsylvania, but in the country. So please do everything you can. Knock on doors. Please help. VoteSaveAmerica.com if you haven't signed up yet. Pittsburgh, I love you. What a fucking blast.

Thank you so much. Thank you to all our guests. There are so few days until the election. Have a great night. And thank you to the Roxian.

Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer. Chris Lord is our producer. And Kennedy Hill is our associate producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer. Sarah Lazarus and Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, Will Miles, and Mohamed El-Shiki are our writers. Evan Sutton is our editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis provide audio support. Stephen Colon is our audio engineer. And Milo Kim is our videographer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure.

Thanks to our designer, Bernardo Serna, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And to our digital producers, David Toles, Claudia Shang, Mia Kelman, and Matt DeGroat for filming and editing video each week so you can. ♪♪♪

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