Sunday, February 08, 2015

Meet The Press – February 8, 2015


Guests:
John Kerry – Secretary of State
Masoud Barzani – President of Kurdistan
Michael McFaul – Fmr. Amb. to Russia
Jon Meacham
Richard Engel
Stephen Henderson - Detroit Free Press
Katty Kay
Andrea Mitchell
David Brooks


Todd: welcome Secretary Kerry

Kerry: good morning Ted

Todd: how is the war on
ISIS coming along?

Kerry: the coalition is strong!

Todd: are you having any success?

Kerry: we've already taken twenty
percent of the land back and we
haven't even launched a major offensive yet

Todd: have they suffered
any cool losses I can report on?

Kerry: they don't travel in 
a convoy any more

Todd: 10-4 on that good buddy

Kerry: we're gonna blow
them out of the sky!

Todd: they're on the ground

Kerry: whatever

[ break ]

Engel: Obama says we have
a strategy to destroy ISIS

Barzani: it's not good enough!

Engel: but all the bombing

Barzani: we must crush ISIS
with one swift stroke!

Todd: sounds to me like 
Barzani is not a happy camper

Kerry: heck even he said it's
working just going slowly

Todd: okay but why can't we 
have a quick and easy victory 
like on tv and in the movies

Kerry: we're training the Iraqi
troops which takes time

Todd: does it take fifteen years
to teach someone to fire a gun

Kerry: well also to throw a grenade

Todd: Lindsay Graham says
you're not intimidating enough

Kerry: oh okay like he would know


Todd: oh he knows

Todd: he says you moved too slowly
and now ISIS controls all of Michigan

Kerry: with all due respect
Linsday Graham a fucking idiot

Todd: when will you finally send
heavy artillery to Ukraine?

Kerry: there is no military
solution to Ukraine Chet

Todd: is Vladimir Putin irrational?

Kerry: he's a little crazy but that's
very common among world leaders

Todd: true

Kerry: he's doing enormous
damage to Russia itself

Todd: perhaps

Kerry: it will eventually bite
him in the ass

Todd: how are the talks
with Iran coming?

Kerry: if Iran doesn't make a
agreement in the next few
weeks well then fuck them

Todd: would you run for
President in 2016?

Kerry: no

Todd: so would you say never?

Kerry: well no one ever says
never to running for President

Todd: actually most people do

Kerry: really?


Todd: thanks for coming Jim

Kerry: you too Chad

[ break ]

Todd: welcome Mr McFaul

McFaul: nice to be here Todd

Todd: is Putin rational?

McFaul: he's cold-bloodedly
rational but also highly
emotional and unstable
- he can make good decisions 
for his people but is given 
to extreme violent outbursts

Todd: just like Rick Grimes

McFaul: exactly

Todd: Sasha Baron Cohen's
cousin says Vladimir Putin
doesn't have Aspergers

McFaul: there's a sentence
I never thought I'd hear

Todd: just address the issue sir

McFaul: Putin is obsessed with
the secrets of the CIA and it
plans to control the world

Todd: he must watch the History Channel

McFaul: he thinks all the unrest in
Ukraine is because of American imperialism

Todd: he really should get a blog

McFaul: he also thinks America is a
decadent enclave of empty soulless
pleasure-seeking gossip-driven idiots

Todd: that reminds me – did you
hear the latest about Bruce Jenner
and the Kardasians?!?!

[ break ]

Todd: Democrats and Republicans
agree that Ukraine should have guns
but Angela Merkel says no

Mitchell: Americans are jonesing
for a war and this one looks like fun
plus it's got more white people

Todd: those are all pluses

Kay: the British are worried Ukrainians
can't win and more U.S. weapons will
just create foreign cannon fodder

America: fuck yeah!

Todd: is Europe appeasing Putin?

Brooks: I'm for arming Ukraine

Todd: well of course you are

Brooks: I know Ukraine can't win
but we haven't a good war in a while

Henderson: getting deeply involved
in a war between Ukraine
and Russia is a fool's errand

Brooks: that never stopped me before

McFaul: the Ukrainians want
guns so we should give it to them

Todd: so we're all agreed - 
off to another war!

[ break ]

Todd: the age old philosophical
question of government interference
versus personal freedom was raised
again with vaccines of all bullshit things

Todd: the nanny state question was
raised with seatbelts, sugary drinks
and not getting smallpox

Government: vaccinate your
fucking kids morans

Todd: measles is at a twenty-year high!

Mnookin: vaccines worked
so people think we don't need them

Todd: people are nice but
god they're stupid sometimes

Anti-Vaccine Mother: I don't 
trust the government so I've 
decided to expose my child 
to a raft of deadly diseases

Todd: she seems like kind of an idiot

Mother: if we get a cure for 
polio where does it end – 
slave labor camps on Mars?

Paul: I personally have seen kids
that were walking and talking and
were normal and then got vaccinations
and became libertarians

Todd: but even Obama and Clinton
were cautious in 2008 proving Democrats
are really to blame for all this suspicion
of government and not the party 
that runs on suspicion of government

Brooks: exactly

Todd: only Americans could ever
be this stupid right – not Europeans

Kay: actually the original
discredited study was British

Henderson: this is not a freedom
issue – it's a health and safety issue

Todd: perhaps

Henderson: the pandering is pathetic

Todd: I blame the Internet
specifically Facebook and twitter

Brooks: that sounds right

Todd: but liberals are most at fault

Brooks: we need a vaccine
for pandering

Panel: ha ha

Brooks: it's about lack of
trust in institutions

Todd: you are so wise

Brooks: but Rand Paul and
Glenn Beck know better than 
to peddle these anti-vax lies

Beck: vaccines are part of a plan
to round-up your children and 
put them in labor camps building 
paper mâché effigies to Barack Obama

Mitchell: Rand Paul is a 
doctor for god's sake

Todd: it's sad cause the 
media wants to love him so much

Mitchell: well maybe we still save 
Rand Paul by falsely arguing 
Obama and Clinton hedged in 2008

Todd: because they raised 
money in Beverly Hills!

Mitchell: my parents had polio!

Kay: third world countries have
higher vaccination rates that the U.S.

Todd: because of pointy-headed liberals!

Henderson: it's emotional beliefs

Todd: it's intellectual elites!

Brooks: young people don't trust
important institutions like the Government
or the New York Times

Todd: it's truly shocking

[ break ]

Todd: ever since Obama was elected
President the National Prayer Breakfast
became suddenly controversial 
like everything else

Obama: the Crusades and slavery
and Jim Crow laws were justified 
by Christianity!

Santorum: Obama insulted all faiths
which is fine but then he insulted my faith
by bashing the Crusades which were
necessary because Jesus' home was
ruled by people who view this guy
Abraham the same but differently

Jindal: Muslims are bad!

Giuliani: the Crusades never happened
but if they did they were necessary
because the Arabs were stockpiling
Weapons of Different Religion

[ break ]

Todd: welcome Parson Meacham

Meacham: blessing unto
you brother Charles

Todd: please fact-check the President

Meacham: the Crusades did in fact happen

Todd: okay are you sure

Meachem: they were Christian
and atrocities indeed took place

Todd: wait let me write this down

Meachem: but the President didn't
mention when Dante was born and
how Christians made up for that
little incident and saved civilization 
by creating the Renaissance  
and inventing capitalism

Todd: this is all fascinating

Meacham: then Leonardo wrote 
the first computer program proving 
the Jesus was real called the Da Vinci 
code and Galileo built a space 
satellite so the Pope could 
get a closer look at god and 
then Steve Gutenburg made the 
first movie about the Bible thus 
bringing religion to the masses

Todd: I have a theory that Obama
hates the Prayer Breakfast and
just likes trolling religious nuts

Meacham: Christianity reformed itself
and we all hope that Islam can someday
do the same and Muslims can be good
like all Christians are now

Todd: conservatives want a religious war
and coincidentally so does ISIS

Meacham: yes but Obama is bad
because he made it seems like
Christians think they are good and
on a high horse and they are not

Todd: you just said Christians
reformed themselves and Muslims haven't

Meacham: I only said that because
Christians are good and Muslims are bad

Brooks: I'm totally pro-Obama on this
I thought it was great speech

Todd: really?

Brooks: we all need humility –
especially in Washington

Mitchell: you don't talk bad
about Christianity – you just don't!

Todd: first rule of Jesus Club
is don't talk about Jesus club


Kay: exactly – Americans can't hear that!

Henderson: also Americans aren't
big on hearing about slavery and Jim Crow

Todd: oh you think Americans don't
like to hear about how they might
be less than perfect?

Henderson: damn right they don't

Brooks: it was a beautiful speech
and we need to hear it

Todd: but he bashed Pope Urban
who I believe ruled before white
people fled to Pope Suburban

Brooks: Americans get caught
up in our own self-righteousness

Todd: Andrea help me out –
you hated this speech right

Mitchell: it was the Prayer Breakfast –
that's no place to talk about religion

Kay: I'm British – we all stopped
talking about god a hundred years ago

Mitchell: well no wonder you suck

Todd: the most important
domestic political issue is radical islam

Henderson: Obama is basically
the only adult in the room right now

Todd: it's like he thinks this big leader and all

[ break ]

Todd: on a personal note my good
friend Brian Williams has suspended
himself to let a real journalist like
Lester Holt take over reading stale
news off a teleprompter

Vinny In His Basement: oh the irony

Todd: Obama was younger than 22
years younger than George H.W. Bush
but the biggest age gap was the jump
from the elderly Dwight Eisenhower to
youngest ever elected John Kennedy

Todd: some 2016 candidates like
Rubio are younger than Obama 
while Kasich and Biden and 
Warren are older than Obama

Todd: and Jeb and Clinton are also
both older than Obama and Clinton
would the second-oldest elected
to her first term after Reagan

Todd: do we want to go backward 
or do we elect our first Generation X 
President like Scott Walker and what 
would happen if a nation were led by 
a slacker raised on H.R. Pufnstuf

Todd: OMG Hillary is hiring Obama's team

Mitchell: it's so on right now

Todd: Scott Walker is the It Guy!

Brooks: it's like spring training –
Christie has wild pitches and
Walker is hitting the strike zone
and Jeb's daddy owns the team

Mitchell: we can't have two nominees

Todd: you are so smart Andrea

Mitchell: thanks Chuck

Todd: why are all these guys
going to London?

Kay: if you go to London to burnish
your foreign policy credentials and refuse
to answer questions about foreign policy
you're doing it wrong

Henderson: Clinton needs
better press relations

Todd: so you think she has
bad press relations?

Henderson did I say that?

Mitchell: she's needs to do better

Todd: she's not distancing
herself from Obama is she?

Brooks: she's moving left 
but then so is Obama

Todd: even Larry Summers 
sounds like a populist now!

Henderson: Jeb says he wants to
help poor people what policies
does he propose to do about it

Todd: Vox published nine secrets
from Congress including they spend
all their time begging rich people
for money and most members
of Congress only see it as a
stepping stone to getting a lobbying job

Mitchell: it's a revolving door
everyone knows that

Todd: and that's another
episode of Meet The Press