Hey everybody. It is Friday, July 12th. We've made it through another week. You're listening to the Monuse podcast. I'm Oshununu. And I'm Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts. And we read all the news and read between the lines so you don't have to. We've made it through another week. Joe Biden has made it through another week, Jill. He has Moshe, plenty about that, coming up in this podcast. Yeah, we began the Monday podcast saying this was an important week for him. If he could survive this week, that would say a lot. It appears he has though kind of eek in through. We were in Washington. We were in New York. There's a lot to get to as we head into the weekend to our French friends. You have Bastille Day on Sunday. So a happy early Bastille day to everyone over there. Okay, let's get to the headlines. President Biden holds a critical solo news conference. Is it enough to calm his critics who are calling for him to drop out of the presidential race? And what we are learning about what's been happening behind the scenes in Democratic circles. The bottom line, Jill, it's sort of a Goldilocks situation. It's not enough for some is just enough for others. It's going to be an interesting couple days to the economy. Inflation cooled further in June. What is costing more and what is finally costing less. One thing that is going to cost more Costco hiking its membership fees for the first time in seven years to the Middle East. The pier that the US built in Gaza for more than $200 million is shutting down after two months of troubles. The IRS crackdown on Zalinquent millionaires has brought in about a billion dollars for the US government. And not one, but two volcanoes are erupting in Italy. And it is Friday. Cheers to the freaking weekend. What we are watching, reading and eating. Jill's ordering an ice cream truck this weekend, everybody. Way to just give it all away, Moshe. Jill, it's very exciting. It's very exciting. If you want more details, wait until the end. Okay, another critical test for President Biden. This time in the form of a live press conference on Thursday, that press conference ran for about an hour. He took questions from 10 reporters who asked about his health, his disastrous debate performance, and whether Vice President Kamala Harris is ready to take over the presidency if needed. On that last question, he said, yes, she is ready to be president or else he would not have picked her in the first place. At one point, though, he did call her Vice President Trump. It was an early gaff getting a lot of attention. What concerns do you have about Vice President Harris's ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket? Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be Vice President, but I think she's not qualified to be president. So let's start there. Jill Trump was watching the press conference. He posted on Truth Social. Crooked Joe begins his big boy press conference with I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be his Vice President. Great job, Joe Biden responded on Twitter. By the way, I know the difference. A prosecutor and the others a felon sick burn trying to make light of that that mistake. Well, he also tried to laugh off an earlier mistake on Thursday when he called Ukraine's leader Vladimir Zelinski by the Russian president's name. And here's a bit of that exchange. On a hand of over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin, President Putin, I'm so focused on being Putin. We got to worry about it. Anyway, Mr. President, I'm better. You are a hell of a better. Moshe, at one point, you saw some world leaders kind of like looking around the room wondering if Putin was about to walk out. Yeah, we had a reaction shot of all the world leaders around the stage at that point, as he's introducing Zelinski. And when he calls him Putin, he's like, now I'd like to just present Putin, the German Chancellor moves his head so quickly to the left, like, oh, what, what is going on here? How are they going to react? Anyway, in a matter of 90 minutes, Biden refers to Zelinski as Putin and refers to Kamala Harris as Donald Trump. But for the most part, performed better when it came to the rest of the press conference. Right. And some of his supporters, by the way, say that Biden has always been gaff-prone, that this isn't necessarily an age thing. But of course, everything that he now says is under the microscope. Back to Thursday's press conference, other questions focused on Ukraine, China, and the Middle East. There were some flubs, but for the most part, Biden was defiant. And here's how he answered a question about why he is running again. I'm not in this for my legacy. I've been this to complete the job I started. As you recall, understandably, many of you and many economists thought my initial initiatives that I put forward can't do that. It's going to cause inflation, things are going to skyrocket, but that's going to go up. What do you hear now from mainstream economists? 16 economic Nobel laureates said I've done a hell of a job. And under my plans so far and what's going to happen in the future, if I've reelected, that things are going to get much better. So, Moshe, that's really his why question. Why is he still in it? What is his vision for the second term? He is making the argument that the economy is in a better place than anyone thought was possible four years ago. And just from the data, as we've talked about, we have achieved that "soft landing" in terms of inflation. The consensus here is that he did pretty well overall, but the question is, will it be enough to not only convince voters he's up to the job, but also convince Democrats that he can beat Donald Trump? Will it be enough to stem this tide of democratic officials asking him to step aside? Yeah, it's sort of a worst-case scenario. It's like not quite enough to convince people to stop the bleeding, but at the same time, not so bad that the floodgates will completely open at the same time, Jill. Within minutes of the end of the press conference last night, you had Jim Himes, a well-respected House Democrat, who's the number two on the House Intel Committee, that if they won the majority, he'd be the chairman of the House Intel Committee. He puts out a statement within minutes of Biden finishing, for the most part, a C plus press conference, B minus press conference, saying, "You know what? It's time for him to get out." And you saw a couple other Democrats say that. At the same time, you had other Democrats last night say, "You know, this is enough, but we can't also be on pins and needles all the time every time Biden does something without a teleprompter." So the Democrats here are sort of stuck in purgatory, although he stumbled and misspoke throughout. This is the strongest case in a couple weeks now that Biden has been able to make for himself, but I'm not sure it's going to reassure skeptics. It'll stem the tide here. Critics say, "You know, it's enough to buy him some more time, but of course, when will the next event be in the event after that?" This was the first open press conference he's had of this scale, Jill, in eight months, which is one of the things the media brings up is like, "You're not able to do this sort of thing anymore. You used to be able to do it." So it keeps him in the race, notably Jonathan Swan over the New York Times, who has a lot of sources within the Trump world, said the following about the Trump campaign's reaction to this. "People close to Trump are thrilled with Biden's performance. It was strong enough to keep his candidacy alive. They foresee a landslide against him and would rather not have anything introduced risk right now while they're confident in Trump world about Kamala Harris, about beating Kamala Harris. They'd rather just have Biden. They've prepared for him. They have a lot of money stored up to run against him, and this is just enough to keep him floating here. But Jill, it comes at a time where there are some senior Democrats working behind the scenes. We woke up on Thursday morning, a morning Joe, his favorite show, had the Biden campaign saying they know that Barack Obama is working against him. What did we learn in the last 24 hours? That George Clooney, we told you about his op-ed piece yesterday. George Clooney actually called Barack Obama, former President Obama, who Biden served as Vice President under, and said, "Hey, should I put this op-ed piece out saying that Biden should go from the fundraising event that we were all at?" Obama was there, Biden was there, Clooney was there. Obama, according to sources, multiple sources, confirming to Politico, meaning the Obama people wanted this out there, says, "Yeah, Clooney, go ahead. Put out that piece saying Biden should go." So you have the Biden cap saying, "Oh my God, Obama is stabbing me right now. Obama is orchestrating this whole effort to kick me out. There's a report late last night that Obama called Pelosi, former House Speaker Pelosi, and they've been talking about this. They're both frustrated by this. They both want Biden out. They don't know what to do." So you have Pelosi, who did that appearance two days ago now on Morning Joe, Joe Biden's favorite TV show, where she effectively said, "Are you sure you shouldn't be getting out?" By the way, Biden wrote a letter earlier this week saying, "I have no intention of getting out. I'm in it to win it." And Pelosi's like, "You know what? It's time for Joe to make a decision, 48 hours after that letter. It's time for him to make a decision about what he wants to do." And you've heard this from multiple Democrats, where they're saying, "Biden has to make a decision here." He's already made a decision. They're clearly telling him to reconsider the decision. So you have Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, ultimately here, two of the most influential senior Democrats working behind the scenes, according to multiple reports here, to push Biden out. But this is ultimately Biden's decision. He has to decide this. And the more he sees some of these people working against him, he's a very defiant guy. He's a stubborn guy. It is making him dig in his heels. And so you have this press conference last night that was good enough, good enough here. You're going to hear today and throughout the weekend, you know, as of this recording, there's 19 House Democrats have come out against him. It'll be number 20, number 21, number 24. There's 200 House Democrats. No major senior senators have come out against him. And so, ultimately, it's a death by 1,000 cuts here. But it is up to Joe Biden. They're clearly seeing polls right now on Capitol Hill that the voters are turning against Biden. That is what is freaking them out. That is what is getting them to come out against Biden. But clearly, Biden's not seeing these polls. And the people around him are like still with him. And so that's where we stand right now. No, and it was clear from the press conference as well that he was not seeing the polls or realizing how many lawmakers have actually come out at this point to say that they want him to step aside. One of the things that I thought was really interesting from the Clooney piece, there are a lot of people who are calling him a hero for coming out and speaking the truth. Yes, three weeks after that fundraiser. Yeah, but there are a lot more people who are kind of like, where have you been? I mean, if this was three weeks ago, and you were taking people's money, and that's what a fundraiser is, you're raising millions upon millions of dollars for this guy. And Clooney coordinates these things. So he's asking colleagues in Hollywood for their money. And why did it take three weeks for you to come out and say, hey, we've got a problem here. In addition, former President Obama was also at that fundraiser. He was on that stage with President Biden. If this was so apparent, and he noticed it, why didn't he say anything? Why didn't he speak up before the debate performance? So I think that there's a lot of questions. If this has really been going on and has been so apparent, why is the public first learning about it? Where were kind of the adults in the room who could have said something about this before July? Well, this is the bottom line. The party was loyal to him. They let him effectively go through the primaries without any real competition, no really running against him. And they were hoping, fingers crossed, that he'd be able to make it across the finish line. And what's crazy about all of this, Joe, is that this is all self-enforced. Joe Biden made the call for this early debate in June. This was Biden's call, because his campaign saw that he was already trailing Trump, and they needed a game changer. And so they scheduled this debate, the earliest debate in American modern presidential history for June. It typically happens in October, right? September and October. And so all of this mess for the past two weeks is all self-created by the Biden campaign. And so you've had this bleeding going on. But ultimately, it takes about 10 to 12 days for some real polls to come out from the field. Where are we now? We're 15 days in. So now they've seen some real polls come in. And that's why you're seeing people come out every day, a trickle, being like, "Oh my God, if Biden stays the candid here, we will not only not win the house. We could lose the house by a landslide." So while Republicans have a couple seat majority, they could have several dozen seats. The Senate, a slim Democratic majority, a number of Democratic senators defending their seats this cycle, that could likely become a major Senate majority for Republicans that Democrats won't be able to dig a hole out of for four years, six years, eight years potentially, depending on what competitive races are coming up. And so you see these Democrats saying, Biden's going to be a weight on the ticket. He's going to not incentivize people to come out. And some people are like, "I'm not going to vote for any Democrats if you support this guy." And so you see people coming out here. And so what's interesting, there's a New York Times report that came out earlier on Thursday that Biden's campaign is testing the strength of a Kamala Harris ticket. This is the campaign, the Biden-Harris campaign testing in the field what Harris would be like at the top of the ticket. Now it's unclear whether they're doing this to then bring that evidence to Biden, whether they're doing this to reinforce that Biden would be better. But still, that's very interesting. What else is happening? Politico had a report in the last 24 hours. The Biden cap is calling delegates at the convention saying, "Hey, it's the Biden campaign. Are you certain with what you're going to be doing next month in Chicago?" Just making sure, do you understand one of the questions that are being asked, do you understand what a pledge delegate means? Do you have any disagreements with the president right now? So they're literally, they have 4,000 delegates. He won 90% of them. They're calling all of them right now to make sure, "Hey, we're tracking what you're doing right now." And so clearly, this is what a campaign is doing that should be focused on Donald Trump. The goal of the debate last month was to make this about Trump. And this has become even more about Biden. And so that's where we're at. We talked to you yesterday about Project 2025. That's going to be one of the key things you hear from Democrats is, "What about this? What about this?" They're trying to pivot things back to Donald Trump to Project 2025, which is a template put out by a research think tank for a Trump administration that includes a lot of extremist ideas. Trump has tried, "This is himself several times now from this," but ultimately, has a lot of connections to it. So you're going to be hearing a Democrat saying, "Enough with the Joe Biden stuff. Let's focus back on Trump." But then you have Democrats on Capitol Hill, or like, "I don't trust it. I think Biden's going to be so bad for us in November. I'm willing to have Kamala Harris or anybody else be on the top of the ticket." Jill, I know people feel like they've been on a roller coaster ride this week. We all have. Joe Biden has. Capitol Hill Democrats have. You know, one day we think he's gone. The next day he's saved. We come out of last night. He did just enough, but not enough for everyone. So we're sort of status quo again, where we're just kind of watching what's going on. And they're on pins and needles for the next major public appearance. Biden said last night that he's going to be out there. He understands he's got to do more. And so we'll see what happens there. Most shall end this by asking you the million dollar question. What is your percentage as a Thursday evening, July 11th? Where are you? The percent that Joe Biden remains the nominee. Jill, I went below 50% before this press conference. I still think it's more likely than not that he gets replaced by a very slim margin. 45% survival. 55%. He doesn't survive. Yeah. I mean, listen, look at this. You literally have Democrats watching every single move he makes, every single gaff. And you mentioned he's gaff prone. I used to love covering him on Capitol Hill because he said stuff that like, wait, what did you say? He's like, oh, yeah, I totally meant this. I'm totally meant that. And that was Biden 20 years ago. So Biden accidentally calling Zalinski Putin accidentally calling Kamala Harris Donald Trump. That stuff he's done, but he's under a microscope. So now you're like, oh, my God, Joe Biden on a Tuesday does this stuff. I think what we saw the debate was next level. And we didn't see that in the Stephanopoulos interview. We didn't see that at last night's press conference. He has an interview in prime time with Lester Holt on Monday. That's another test on NBC on Monday. So that's the next Joe Biden open test. And we'll see what happens. And then it'll be very interesting to see where the media coverage goes with this because right now every Democrat coming out every three hours where another one bites the dust. Another one says he should bite the dust, you know, keeps the story going at the same time you have a lot of people on the left. And we've been hearing from them who are like, cover Donald Trump more, et cetera, et cetera. And what was interesting about that, Jill, what did the New York Times do on Thursday? They ran an editorial saying, you know, Trump is a disaster and should not be the next president. And they called on voters to not vote for Donald Trump a week after they called on Biden to drop out of the race. So based on the New York Times editorial board, who am I supposed to vote for at this juncture? But it was very interesting to see what the Times did times a liberal editorial board. This is separate from their news team. They run these editorials, a lot of newspapers do, endorsing candidates, not endorsing certain candidates. And they did a number on Donald Trump calling them unworthy of the presidency, breaking down these a danger to the country. And so clearly they're responding the feedback they're getting from the left, which is like, what about the other guy? Unfortunately, Jill, I don't know that that much changed this week besides Biden survived, and we go into another week of this next week. And it's a big week too in politics because the Republican convention starts on Monday in Milwaukee and Trump will be choosing his VP. And so the storyline moves to the Republicans next week, which could be a good thing for Joe Biden. I was going to say that's probably good news for Joe Biden, at least at this point. All right, a lot more to get to in today's pod. 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Use the code monews50 to get 50% off your first box, 20% off your next month. Again, that is factormeals.com/monews50. Use the code monews50. Get 50% off your first box, plus 20% off your next month. And Moshe, we're always talking about health trends and food trends and how hard it is to get all of your nutrients. Well, one way to get all the important ones is HE1 powder. It is just one scoop with a glass of water in the morning. It is easy and quick. So you can replace multiple health supplements like multivitamins, digestivates, immune support and more with just one simple scoop. There's things like folate, magnesium, my favorite, ashwagansa for stress support, vitamin C and zinc, all through your immune system. It's good to know that you could cover your nutritional bases and just set yourself up for success in just 60 seconds. So with your first purchase of HE1, they are giving Mo News listeners a free one year supply of their vitamin D and five free travel packs of HE1. Visit drink AG1.com/monews to take advance to this offer. You can get a discounted monthly subscription or try it one time for just a month. Again, that is drink AG1.com/monews. M-O-N-E-W-S for this special deal and really start to take ownership of your health. All right, time for the speed read. Let's start with the state of the economy from CNN. Americans frustrated by fast rising prices for three years just received a little bit of encouraging news on the inflation front. The consumer price index, which is a measurement of the average change in prices for commonly purchased goods and services, dropped 0.1% from May, which helped to slow the annual rate of inflation to 3% from 3.3% in May. This is all according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and their latest report. Okay, but here's what you really want to know. So we've got falling gas prices, air fares as well as a drop in new and used car prices that helped to bring the CPI down a little bit. But on the other hand, the cost of homes and shelter is still up as our food prices. So eating out and prices at the supermarket are still higher. But most the bottom line is that even though prices may not be rising as quickly as they have been, they are still quite elevated after several years. Overall, the CPI or again, the costs for goods and services, it's about 20% higher than back in February of 2020. In recent history, that index would typically rise about 10% over a 54 month period. Joe, you mentioned a shelter and home prices. Specifically, when we talk about rent, rent, I can give you some good news here, sort of good news, it had the smallest monthly increase in three years at 0.2%. So obviously, prices have gone up a lot over the last couple years, but it appears things are significantly slowing down here. The sticker shock though, leaving a lasting impression for consumers. We certainly are all experiencing it when we go to the grocery store, when we go shopping. I find it notable this week that Pepsi released their quarterly earnings. And they indicated that they're seeing shoppers still cutting back. Remember, PepsiCo also has products like Doritos and Lays. And so while even as prices soar the past couple years, consumers kind of buying those treats, they now see people starting to limit their spending. So this is where you get a sense from Wall Street as these companies report earnings, they're actually seeing how American consumers are being impacted by all these prices. Now, at the same time with this news, this better than expected inflation report, that bolsters chances here that the Federal Reserve will begin to cut interest rates in the fall. Their next big meeting is going to be in September. They, of course, increase interest rates to try to take money out of the system to try to bring down inflation. Now they can sort of declare success here, even though it hasn't gotten to a 2% number they want to see. It's a 3%. So we might see an interest rate cut, Jill, in the coming months. And one more note as I wrap up here from Washington, I was struck at NATO. I was in one of the sessions yesterday, where I was watching all the world leaders talk to one another. And it struck me how global inflation here has really impacted the politics and the number of these nations. Of course, here in the U.S., you know, Biden is at a deficit year for a variety of reasons, but inflation is among them. In Germany, you've seen the current chancellor get punished, as people still are experiencing post-pandemic inflation there. Macron, we've talked about him this week, the elections there, the economy, prices playing a factor there. In the U.K., we saw the new prime minister this week, here Starmer. Why was he elected? Well, among other reasons, because the conservatives were not able, over the course of the past few years, to deal with the economy and the economic impact of inflation there in the U.K. So it's interesting to see these numbers and how they're translating the politics, not just here in the U.S., but inflation really was a global thing. And voters are deciding to change leaders, partially because of it. It's the economy stupid, my favorite James Carvel quote. Right. Regardless of whether you're a liberal or conservative, if you were in office these past couple years, as people are experiencing inflation, they want to go with the other side. And on that news from Fox Business Attention Costco members, Costco this week announced plans to increase annual membership fees by $5 to $10 in the U.S. and Canada, effective September 1. It is the first time in seven years that Costco has done so. The annual fee was last raised in June of 2017. It would increase by $5 to $65 for gold star and business members and to $130 from $120 for executive members. So 65 and 130, those are the two new prices at Costco. The fee increases will impact around 52 million memberships. About half of those are the executive memberships. Some of the perks you still get to enjoy as a Costco member, those slightly more expensive, discounts on food, gas, home insurance, travel, grocery items, and an annual 2% reward on qualified purchases. At the end of the day, despite all the inflation we've been talking about, Costco has been able to keep prices low, but the membership fee eventually did have to go up here. Jill, they've pretty low churned Costco. The last I read is that about 90% of members continually re-up. So we'll see if they're able to hold to that with this new increase. All right, let's head overseas to the Middle East. From USA Today, plagued by looting and weather-related problems, a high-profile $230 million peer that the Biden administration said would bring massive amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza is shutting down after just two months. The National Security Advisor said on Thursday, "I do anticipate that in relatively short order, we will wind down peer operations." Jake Sullivan suggested that the temporary floating peer built by the U.S. is no longer essential for Gaza's supply of food, water, and other humanitarian aid. And that's because key border crossings have recently reopened during the Israel Hamas War. The first shipments of humanitarian aid arrived at the peer on May 17. He said the real issue right now is not about getting aid into Gaza. It's about getting aid around Gaza. Yeah, there's more than enough border crossings open, but then distributing it is tough, given the looting, the criminal gangs, Hamas, other issues that we've seen. But still, this peer much touted was a major announcement by Biden in the state of the Union in March, but plagued with problems from the start. There were weather-related issues. They had to re-anchor it. Parts of it floated up the coast into Israel, was hitting Israeli beachgoers, were seeing parts of the peer floating up onto the beaches in Tel Aviv, Assad, and some other cities. And that $230 million price, it's actually estimated it might have been higher than that, given all the repairs and issues it faced. It could be $300 million that they spent on this. Jill, this was an issue that came up when we were at the Pentagon on Tuesday. They said they were still pleased with what they were able to accomplish, but still given the cost here. I imagine they're pretty disappointed in the end of result. Speaking of the Pentagon and our visit there, our full interview with the chief of staff of the Pentagon, the brand new chief of staff, his first interview, just two days into the job, Derek Cholei. That is live over on the Mo News interview podcast. If you don't get the Mo News interview podcast, what are you waiting for? Just search Mo News interview and make sure to subscribe to that podcast. We make new interviews available with newsmakers, a whole variety of interesting experts, authors, et cetera, on a weekly basis. From the Associated Press, the IRS announced Thursday, it's collected a billion dollars in back taxes from high wealth tax cheats. It is a milestone meant to showcase how the agency is making use of the money that it received as part of the Biden administration signature climate health care and tax package that was signed into law in 2022. Part of the push for public awareness of high wealth tax collections is a growing recognition by agency officials that a potential Republican takeover of the White House and Congress could mean massive future budget cuts for the IRS. Showing the public how much work the IRS is getting done is meant to give this much maligned agency a more sympathetic image. Yeah. How much more do you love the IRS now that you know that they've been collecting back taxes from the wealthy? That was always a concern, by the way. The National Taxpayers Union Foundation says that even with this headline, two thirds of the audits last year were on people making less than $200,000 a year. Clearly, the IRS probably needs to do more here to convince all of us that they're going after the wealthy. That said, this does come as they try to give more funding to the IRS to be able to clamp down on tax cheats. There's billions and billions of dollars that are left on the table every year that could be used to fund the government, especially since we're in debt. In some cases, folks who work at the IRS are using technology systems that haven't been approved for decades, kind of imagining kind of MS-DOS processors from the 1980s, Jill. Yeah, like hold my facts, Moshe. Like we're playing number munchers and using some very simple green screens. They've been desperate for more funding. It's a very popular move as politicians to be like, I'm going to cut funding to the IRS. But at the end of the day, the IRS is like, well, we need to help fund the government. And there are a lot of people who are getting around the laws. This is a headline that they hope will convince voters and then subsequently members of Congress that the IRS is on your side. A kinder and gentler IRS. I don't know. It needs a rebranding. What was the old commercial for Sears to see the softer side of Sears? Exactly, go see the softer side of the IRS. And from the week, Italy's Mount Etna and Mount Strumboli volcanoes erupted in recent days, spewing smoke and ash into the air. These volcanoes are two of the most active in the world, but they are not the only ones to pose a risk in Italy. The country is a hotbed of volcanic activity and a larger threat could be brewing beneath the surface. Mount Etna and Mount Strumboli are about 100 miles apart. And they both erupted within a day of each other, which really put a dent in travel and put Italy on high alert. Travelers using Catania Airport, one of the main international gateways to Sicily based severe delays, thanks to Mount Etna's latest eruption. Yeah, so Etna is Europe's highest mountain. It's located on the east coast of Sicily. And they've been seeing a lot of activity there. Strumboli is located on a nearby island. It also erupted spewing lava into the sea. Layers of ash coated the towns. You can see pictures of people sweeping the ash off the streets. Jill, it turns out that there are 12 volcanoes, and Italy, nine of them are still active. And they are also prone to earthquakes. So scientists there worry that this could be a prelude to, you know, earth moving there and potentially larger disaster on the horizon. There were several small earthquakes last summer. So definitely something here to be monitoring. And it is Friday. Cheers to the freaking weekend. Long week, Mosh. It's finally here at the weekend. Time for what we are watching, reading and eating. What are you watching? Throwback, Jill, with the Biden news, the press conference. It reminded me of West Wing season two. So I know there's a lot of West Wing fans out there and brings a very aspirational version of politics. So I was rewatching a couple episodes from season two. Notably, that's a Democratic president who didn't disclose a medical issue to the country. And it has to decide whether he's running again. So decided to throw it back to the late 90s with West Wing. I'm surprised you're going with that though, because it's just kind of like two on the nose. You know what I mean? Like it's right. Aaron Sorkin wrote a plot in the late 90s that is at times, ringing pretty true in the year 2024. Jill, what you got? I'm watching presumed innocent on Apple TV. It is an eight part limited series. It stars and was executive produced by Jake Gyllenhaal, David E. Kelly and JJ Abrams are also involved. And it's based on a New York Times best selling novel. So basically, it's about this murder that upends the Chicago prosecuting attorney's office because the chief deputy prosecutor played by Gyllenhaal is suspected of the crime. I have to tell you, it is so good up about halfway through. And it's keeping me up late at night. Jill, let me know if it's it's worth me renewing my Apple TV subscription for this. I think I live last. You could borrow mine. Oh, oh, password sharing openly on this podcast. Let's see if the Apple folks will let us. All right, Moshe, what are you reading? Gyll democracy in retrograde. It's a new book by two friends of Monuse, Emily Amic and Sammy Sage. You might know that from Instagram, Emily and your phone. Sammy is also co-founder of Betch's Media. Their new book talks about how we can take back control of democracy and also provides resources and a bit of inspiration on how we can find hope again in our democracy. What are you reading? Moshe, I'm going to go with a kid's book. One of my daughter's favorites, one of my favorites. She's super into Mo Williams these days. And while we absolutely love the Piggy and Gerald series, she's been really into Knuffle Bunny, which is another kind of series that he did. So there's Knuffle Bunny, a cautionary tale, Knuffle Bunny, too, a case of mistaken identity. There's Knuffle Bunny, they're great. They're so funny. I love reading them to my daughter because there's part of them that she gets and that she thinks is funny. There's parts that the adults find funny. So I'm very excited when Olivia gets to the point where she's ready for maybe some more advanced type of books. You are just going to love the Mo Willem series. And Gyll, I should note, we got some feedback or I get some feedback online. We talked on yesterday's podcast and on the same history about reading rainbow and the anniversary of reading rainbow. And is there a version of it today? And I got a couple notes. One person sent in storyline online has filled the gap that storyline online.net. This was from a first grade teacher. And they thought that was very helpful. I heard from someone as well that said storyline online is this generation's reading rainbow. Famous people dramatizing children's book. This person said her kids love it. And so does she. I'm going to give it a shot. And then there's an Instagram account, Michael 3TS, M-Y-C-H-A-L-3TS. Somebody writes in that this account is the new generation's version of LeVar Burton. He's an incredible librarian out of Solano, California, who brings so much joy to books. So the Instagram account, again, is M-Y-C-H-A-L-3TS. Moshe just went online to follow MyChal 3TS and his tagline is in his bio on Instagram. Having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card. Very true. All right, Moshe, what are you eating or drinking this weekend? Jill, I just got word as I return from Washington to New York. Alex, my wife made a blended watermelon mint water that she says is ready for me because she presumes that this week I haven't been drinking enough water. And so watermelon juice, fresh homemade blended watermelon and mint juice, is on tap for me today. Alex really sets the bar high, I gotta say. You were thinking about my hydration while you were mothering and everything else this week, and yes, yes she was. Jill, what are you eating? Well, you're going for hydration, and I'm just going for sweets. It is my son's birthday, and I have an ice cream truck coming to celebrate. So I'm going to go for some good old-fashioned Mr. Softy. Jill, let me know how much more it costs to send the ice cream truck my way to Brooklyn. Well, you guys should come out. We'll talk offline. Much more convenient to come to my doorstep, but I appreciate the invite. Maybe we'll, we'll make our way out, Jill. But yes, you know what, we'll send the ice cream truck to Brooklyn instead. Sounds good. All right, Moshe, that's a wrap, a very, very busy week on the Mo News podcast. We were on the ground covering NATO from DC, lots of fun, and just a great experience. Thank you all for sticking with us. If you like what you hear, share this with your friends, we'll help us grow, follow us and subscribe so you don't miss an episode and review us in the app store. See you guys on Monday. Thanks for listening to the Mo News podcast. [Music]
