Will Meneker, Brace Belden, and Liz Francik dissect the chaotic 2024 U.S. election landscape—from JD Vance’s rise to missed crises like Trump’s assassination attempt and Biden’s health rumors—while framing inflation and abortion access as "consumer choices." Amid jokes about their vacation-induced absence (dubbed "work illness") and Keir Starmer’s UK leadership, they speculate on a fractured America, with Meneker recalling Trump’s post-shooting defiance from a wedding trip. The episode blends sharp political takes with irreverent humor, exposing the election’s underlying volatility. [Automatically generated summary]
And I gotta tell you, I can't wait to debate the guy.
That is, if he's willing to get off the couch and show off.
Greetings, friends.
It is Tuesday, August 6th, and we've got Chopo coming out.
You know, it's me, Will Meneker here, joined by Brace Belden and Liz Francik of the popular podcast Truan here to talk a little bit about the election and the Veep Stakes for both the Democrats and the Republicans.
Brace, Liz, thanks for being here.
Let's go see.
I love a mashup because we're in like the long 20, we're in the, you know, the tail end, hopefully, of long 2014.
So we're still kind of living in the shadow of girl talk.
Right.
And so I think it's important for us to continue the tradition of the mashup.
Girl talk is like when this podcast does an episode about economics.
That's right.
What is economics other than but shopping?
But shopping.
Like what is it?
If we're talking about inflation, what are we talking about here?
We're talking about shopping.
Why are we shopping and can we shop?
Yes.
Do we shop and how much?
And what are we shopping for?
And can we shop for the things we want to shop for?
Like an abortion.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Shopping around for names.
My name is, what the fuck was that?
I was a tough.
Listen, I want to come out before we even say our names here.
We already did, Will did.
Brace is intimidated by Will's ability to intro a podcast.
Will is the GOAT podcast.
I think you might have done the first podcast episode I ever heard of any podcast.
You know?
That's nice.
You know, the wolf on top of the mountain, you know, he's less hungry than the wolf coming up the mountain.
That's so funny.
But when he wants the food, it's there.
Yeah.
It's there.
What does that mean?
I don't know.
It's from Pumping Iron.
It's something our own person in Pumping Iron.
My name is Brace.
Of course, I'm joined by my girl talking co-host.
Liz.
And for some reason, I thought you were going to say Young Chomsky.
By, of course, producer Young Chomsky.
And we're welcoming Will Medeker.
Oh, fuck.
I thought of a good one for you earlier.
Oh, fuck.
What was it?
Will Medeker?
No, I don't have that.
Well, it's a joy to be here regardless.
Yeah.
God, I'm just fucking faceplaining in front of my goat.
We're talking about JD Vance today.
Yes, and other things.
We're doing a little bit of a election episode.
Got Goat Trump Almost Dying00:01:57
We are doing election coverage this year.
Cue the music.
Do not come.
Look in that tree.
Because I like an excuse to play this little ditty.
And.
And so we're going to keep it on rolling.
Since, as Brace mentioned to Will before we started recording, which we like to keep mentioning, we missed out on one of the most important events.
You did the election, but in American history.
He went on a brief hiatus due to illness when all of the most, you know, game, when all the game changing happened.
Yes.
You know, Trump nearly dying, Joe Biden actually dying.
We got a whole new chessboard here.
It wasn't even illness.
It was work illness.
We were on vacation.
We were like, plan this out.
We're like, all right, we can take two weeks off there.
I won't really.
You're like Keir Starmer.
Dude, we just saw that in school being like, damn, they shot Trump.
But you know what?
Whoops.
We got goats going down left and right.
Got the goat Trump almost dying.
And we got the GOAT Joe Biden actually dying.
And we got Brother Keir under fire.
Yeah, Kira is incoming.
It's crazy because he's in the trenches with the Tommies fighting the far right.
I see the UK being by these race riots.
And I just thank God that Keir Starmer is there to heal that broken nation.
Yep.
If Keir can't do it, who can?
You know what?
I don't want to know the answer to that.
He's in the Starmer bunker right now.
And leads will be brought to heal.
But it's funny, to bring up the Trump shooting, I know it's been said before, and people are kind of repeated this at this point, but it really, him getting shot.
Do you remember when people were like, all 50 states?
Okay, Catherine and I were in a car on the way to a wedding when I saw that on my phone.
I saw the photo of him with his fist up going, fight, fight, fight.