Says Who?

By Maureen Johnson and Dan SinkerComedy Society & Culture News News Commentary

Says Who? episodes

November 11, 2016 THE DARKEST TIMELINE
We weren’t prepared for this episode. We mean that in every way.
We did not expect this outcome. We did not mentally prepare ourselves. We had no plan for this. Like a lot of people (we’re guessing most of you), we’ve been dealing with the emotional fallout and confusion that comes with this election result.
Without any script or any plan, we decided to record our raw reactions 36 hours after the event. There’s no cold open, no special guest, no bleeping of swear words--just two people trying to process. Dan tells a story about visiting a local library. Maureen talks about running headfirst into chaos. Mostly, we wanted to make something to make people feel less alone. We talk about building and about taking the time to process before making decisions about what’s next. For sure, the rawest episode of Says Who ever but maybe the one we’d most like people to hear.
Stay together. Reach out. Do what you need to right now.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
54 min
November 02, 2016SULLY, IT'S ME with Brian Stetler
Dan has been in England for a week and now it’s time to come back to America and Election 2016--but first, he has a nice, quiet plane ride with no access to the news. Surely that will go well.
Like Dan’s plane, this election is coming in for a landing. How will this last week go? We asked CNN’s Brian Stelter to talk us through this final week and to discuss the role the media has played in this entire, never-ending (but maybe actually almost ending?) election. Come on, everyone. We’re landing this election on the Hudson. Hang on tight.
SPECIAL NOTE: next week, at 8pm EST, we’ll be going LIVE on election night. Follow @sayswhopodcast to get that live link and to join in. It's sure to be something.
SHOW NOTES:
Brian Stelter is the senior media correspondent for CNN Worldwide and the host of Reliable Sources, the Sunday morning media program on CNN/U.S.
As CNN’s senior media correspondent, Stelter reports on trends, personalities, and companies across the media spectrum, from news to entertainment. He appears regularly on CNN/U.S., CNN International, CNN.com, CNNMoney.com, and across CNN’s vast mobile and social landscape. Stelter started at CNN in November 2013. He was previously a media reporter for The New York Times.
The intro to this episode had a number of different voices involved:
The captain was played by Simon Cole. Simon is a London-based actor and voiceover artist. Find out how to have Simon narrate your audiobook at simoncole.co.uk.
The flight attendant was played by Julie Polk. Julie is the co-founder of Rasa Advising, which teaches storytelling to public defenders and other legal advocates, and host of Story Social, a monthly story show at QED Astoria.
The first class passenger was played by Jason Keeley. Jason is a game designer and improviser from Seattle.
Resources for teens and others looking to help in the final days of this election:
Volunteer for the Hillary Clinton campaign directly.
The Harry Potter Alliance is an organization that promotes social equality. Their Wizard Rock the vote program offers several ways for you to get involved locally and nationally.
Rock the Vote is one of the leading organizations for getting young people involved in the election process.
Emily’s List is an orgnaization that works to elect pro-choice Democrat women.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo. He goes on tour next week check the dates now.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth. We :heart: Darth.
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
53 min
October 26, 2016 DONALD DARKO with Olivia Nuzzi
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
It’s Halloween! Welcome to this SPOOKY episode of Says Who. Dan is just trying to get to the basement to record, but reality isn’t cooperating. Maureen has finally broken into her many spectral forms. And who keeps calling on the phone?
Then the real chills and thrills come: Olivia Nuzzi of the Daily Beast is here to talk about her fifteen months covering Donald Trump, including her trips into Trump Tower.
You’ll need to sleep with the lights on after this one, presuming you sleep at all. Ring, ring.
Olivia Nuzzi is a writer and journalist who covers politics for The Daily Beast. You can find her on Twitter here, and read her contributions to the Daily Beast here.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
This week's organ music was performed by Josh Kantor
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Get in touch! @sayswhopodcast or email: [email protected]
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
47 min
October 21, 2016 THREE IS A MAGIC NUMBER with Molly Ball
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
We did it! We made it through the third debate! Everything is fine now. Except, who is at the door? What’s that strange machine? Did you know that there have been twenty-five debates in this election cycle? Did you want to know that? Neither did we.
Dan is eating too much pie. Maureen has been up to something. And Molly Ball from The Atlantic speaks to us, fresh off a plane from Las Vegas. Together, three people try to make sense of the third debate.
Who’s the puppet? You’re the puppet!
Molly Ball is a staff writer for The Atlantic, where she is a leading voice in the magazine’s coverage of U.S. politics. She has been awarded the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, the Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism, and the Lee Walczak Award for Political Analysis for her coverage of political campaigns and issues. She appears regularly as an analyst on NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, PBS’s Washington Week, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR. In 2007, she won $100,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire--really, that is a thing that happened to her! She lives in Virginia with her husband and three children.
Marc Evan Jackson can be seen and heard in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Kong: Skull Island, and Thrilling Adventure Hour, as well as many other places. He is the co-founder of the Detroit Creativity Project, a non-profit offering confidence-building, imagination-stimulating, life-improving improv instruction in middle- and high-schools in Detroit.
And finally, that waterslide Maureen keeps talking about? The one with the loop? It's real.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Get in touch! @sayswhopodcast or email: [email protected]
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
46 min
October 18, 2016 MINICAST: RELAX WITH SAYS WHO
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
Today’s episode is a MINICAST. The full episode this week will be up on Friday for our POST DEBATE discussion with Molly Ball, politics reporter from The Atlantic.
But! We wanted to give you something you could use to help you in this trying time. This is the official Says Who relaxation hypnosis tape. Feel your election stress melt away. Come relax with us. RELAX.
Have questions for your friends at SAYS WHO? Tweet us at @sayswhopodcast. We love questions.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
9 min
October 12, 2016 THE GHOST OF TWOoOoOoo DEBATES with Jamelle Bouie
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
After living through the leaked Trump tape and the second debate (not to mention the VP debate that feels like a million years ago but was actually a week ago), Maureen and Dan try to get out of covering the election, but a spectral visitor brings sets them back on task. The ghost that visits them is nowhere near as terrifying as reality, as the Republican party splits with Trump and the second debate goes completely off the rails. Thankfully, Maureen and Dan are joined by Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine, and a political analyst for CBS News. Jamelle joins Says Who straight from landing in New York after being at the debate--where he lived to tell the tale. Join us this week, as we dig into the dynamics of an election turned upside down and where we go from here.
As chief political correspondent for Slate, Jamelle Bouie writes nearly daily about the campaign. Read his thoughts here.. In addition, you can catch him regularly sharing his thoughts on CBS News.
Our ghost was played by Amber Benson, actress, director, producer, and writer. She played Tara on the hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her most recent book is The Last Dream Keeper: An Echo Park Coven Novel.
The theme music to the Stars Hollowcast was performed by Josh Kantor, the organist for the Boston Red Sox.
Have questions for your friends at SAYS WHO? Tweet us at @sayswhopodcast. We love questions.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
34 min
October 05, 2016 SEX, TAXES, AND AUDIOBOOKS with Farai Chideya
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
Maureen has been listening to audiobooks at night; Dan has some serious questions about where she’s been getting them from. No one has been sleeping much, not Maureen, or Dan, or Donald Trump. It has been a week of midnight creeping, late night tweeting, and general mayhem. Debate meltdowns, imaginary sex tapes, leaked taxes, and increasingly inflammatory proclamations--how to cope with it all? Enter 538’s Farai Chideya, who has been traveling the country this election season, getting to know voters up close. She shares a deeply enlightening, uplifting, and humane take on how we can come together, despite our differences (and how we may not be as different as we seem).
Farai Chideya has covered every elections since 1996 for outlets including CNN, NPR, and, currently, FiveThirty Eight, where she's doing the series FiveThirtyEight.com/TheVoters. The most recent of her six books is The Episodic Career. She lives in Brooklyn and loves science fiction and hiking, both of which have kept her nominally sane during this election.
Our audiobook narrator is Simon Cole. Simon is a London-based actor and voiceover artist. Find out how to have Simon narrate your audiobook at www.simoncole.co.uk.
Have questions for your friends at SAYS WHO? Tweet us at @sayswhopodcast. We love questions.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
45 min
September 28, 2016THE GREAT DEBATE COASTER with Chris Hayes
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
Something strange is happening in the Says Who? studio. Dan and Maureen are visited by a terrible spectre with a strangely familiar voice. Dan isn’t sleeping and Maureen walks through her troubled theme park past. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes comes along and talks about his favorite gum! Also the election. He definitely talks about the election too. Learn what happens behind the scenes on MSNBC, and get a measured take on the debate. Chris is here to set it all straight.
Get off the cyber and get into your earspace, because it’s SAYS WHO time! (SNIFF)
Special guest: NPR’s Peter Sagal
Show links:
Watch All In with Chris Hayes weekdays at 8pm on MSNBC
Get Chris’s books:
Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy
A Colony in a Nation (preorder)
Listen to our resident ghost Peter Sagal on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me
Have questions for your friends at SAYS WHO? Tweet us at @sayswhopodcast. We love questions.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
48 min
September 21, 2016SUPER PALS, SUPER POLLS with Josh Katz
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
We’ve been hanging on polls for months, but we realized that we didn’t know how polls work. So we got Josh Katz of the New York Times Upshot to explain it to us. Come walk through the process of polling with someone who truly understands how this numerical sausage gets made! This involves landlines, disembodied hands answering phones in haunted houses, and computer models that run millions of simulated elections every few hours. Maureen asks a lot of questions about the movie Wargames. Dan loses his grip on reality. And there is organ music from Josh Kantor, the official organist of the Boston Red Sox.
Show links:
Follow Josh Katz’s election forecasts at The Upshot
Pre-order Josh’s new book, Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide, here
Have questions for your friends at SAYS WHO? Tweet us at @sayswhopodcast. We love questions.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
The Super Pals Podcast theme was performed by Josh Kantor
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
34 min
September 14, 2016 MAKE ANY OTHER YEAR GREAT AGAIN ALSO with Ana Marie Cox
Subscribe on iTunes here. We are also available on most podcatching platforms, so you can listen to us however and wherever you like!
In this inaugural episode of SAYS WHO, Dan and Maureen talk to senior political correspondent for MTV news and creator of Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox.
We sing some songs. We talk of tacos, hats, haunted mansions, and balloons. Oh and also the grinding reality of the 2016 Presidential election. Also that. Ana brings the facts. Maureen sings a few times. Dan tries to find the light in a time of shadow.
Find out more about Ana and her work here .
Have questions for your friends at SAYS WHO? Tweet us at @sayswhopodcast. We love questions.
Your Intrepid Hosts: Maureen Johnson and Dan Sinker
Our awesome theme is courtesy of Ted Leo.
Says Who's Logo was made by the one and only Darth
Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho
41 min

About Says Who?

From the publisher's feed

In 2016, two friends—and author and a journalist--sat down to ride through the final weeks of the Presidential election by talking to the journalists covering it. They thought they were doing eight episodes. They were wrong. What started as a short trip has become a long and strange journey. They’ve gotten weird. They’ve made friends along the way. Mostly, the weird part, though.