With election day just days away, we’re looking at what could be one of the closest elections in U.S. history. The question is: Will people show up to vote or is the apathy just so strong that people can’t make a decision between over the typical “lesser of two evils” stance? While Vice President Kamala Harris makes a case against former President Donald Trump and a case for unity, Trump is pulling out all the stops (and stunts) to get those middle-class Americans to vote Trump once again. To break it down and attempt to make sense of it all, H. Alan Scott is joined today by Newsweek’s Jason Lemon and Jenni Fink.

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A late-night comedy show on CNN? Yes, and it's a game show, too. Have I Got News for You, hosted by Roy Wood Jr. with Michael Ian Black and Amber Ruffin serving as team captains, tests players' knowledge of the news. "On regular late-night shows, you have to teach the audience what the news story is and then you can talk about it," Ruffin says. "But here [on CNN] there's way less learning. You're all people who love knowing what's going on in the world, so it is a lot faster moving." For Ruffin, coming up with material on a news cycle is the exciting part. "You are just you, and however it hits your ear, and it makes you say whatever comes out of your mouth." Considering the show is all about reacting to the news, what's Ruffin's reaction to the presidential race? "I suppose Vice President Harris is going to win by a lot and Trump is going to pivot to even crazier old coot, and we'll all live happily ever after.... But it has to be said that I am a severe optimist, and the night Hillary Clinton lost, I was shooting a big, beautiful video about her winning." [laughs] 

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For Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, “it’s all about the work.” lately, she’s been working a lot. In the reimagining of CBS’ Matlock, Bates plays Madeline Matlock, a woman rejoining the workforce at a prestigious law firm in her senior years. The first season of the show, which “has caught fire with 10 million people,” says Bates, is such a success that CBS has already renewed it for a second season. “I feel grateful to play the role. I feel grateful to have this opportunity. I’m just thrilled with the numbers.” Those numbers represent a portion of society who might feel unseen. “The boomer generation has been pushed to the side. But in fact, we are a powerful force to be reckoned with.” While Bates says she was “absolutely terrified” to see her face on a billboard, she’s aware this moment in her career is rare. “To have this happen is just absolutely unreal.” “From the very beginning, I knew that the work speaks for itself. I made a choice that I was going to become the best I could be, and I was going to make it impossible for them to say no, because of what I could do as an actor.”

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In the span of a week, former President Donald Trump went from working the drive through at McDonald’s to allegedly praising Adolf Hitler’s generals while president. Can you tell we’re just mere weeks away from election day? And in some ways, it feels like everybody is looking for an October surprise, yet it feels like with every new shocking piece of breaking news, voters keep saying–to borrow a phrase from another popular fast-food chain–“Where’s the beef?” Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris should consider changing her campaign theme song to “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls, because they’re pushing out all the men like former President Barack Obama and Eminem to try and shore up those male votes. Will it work? To break it down and attempt to make sense of it all, H. Alan Scott is joined by Newsweek’s Jason Lemon.

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Bridget Everett never thought she’d be the lead of a TV show. “I come from the downtown world in New York, a cabaret singer, and these things just don’t happen, you don’t find yourself with three seasons of HBO. It just doesn’t happen.” But it happened. On Somebody Somewhere (October 27), Everett plays Sam, a woman struggling through a midlife crisis with the help of her family and colorful friends in rural Kansas. Set in her actual hometown, Everett says, “it’s a lot of me that you’re seeing, warts and all.” “Even if you don’t look like the people on the screen, you can relate to the things that they’re going through.... Whether we’re fat or we’re short, or we’re queer or whatever—we happen to all be those things—but that’s not the focus. The focus of the story is just the human condition.” And in season three we see just how far Sam has gone in her funny (sometimes uncomfortable) journey to find herself. “Her in season three is learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all. Whitney [Houston] said it first, Whitney said it best, but you know what? It’s still true.” 

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George Lopez has done a lot in his long career. But now, with NBC’s Lopez vs Lopez, George knows what’s most important “is the people you get to be around and get to talk to.” One of those people includes his daughter, Mayan Lopez, who he created the show with. The two play fictionalized versions of themselves as they rekindle their estranged relationship both in the show and in real life. “Everything came very difficult to me, and I think everything’s meant to be.” One thing he never expected to be is the rare example of a Latin American success story on network TV. “When I sat at my grandmother’s house and I saw I Love Lucy and Chico and the Man, I never really thought that I would be that guy.” But now that he is that guy, thanks to the success of this series, his stand-up and his popular first self-titled series, George knows what connects him to his audience. “You don’t want to forget people have real lives, and if for some reason they find you and you give them comfort, and if you can make them laugh, that at the end of the day [is what matters].”

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This week saw Kamala Harris entering enemy territory with her Fox News interview. Will it help or hurt her? As that was going on, everyone was still reacting to former President Donald Trump jamming out to a playlist that seemingly hasn’t been updated since 1993. Oh, and are we close to Erik and Lyle Menendez being released from prison? H. Alan Scott breaks down all of this and more with Newsweek’s Jenni Fink. 

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Asher Grodman is perfectly fine playing a ghost on CBS’ Ghosts who walks through the afterlife without any pants. “I don’t really want to die in the state that Trevor died. It would be nice to have pants on.” But for now, Grodman is OK with it if it means he gets to continue to play Trevor, a former stockbroker who died of a drug-induced heart attack and is destined to haunt a mansion with other ghosts. “I still remember reading the pilot and thinking, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever read.’” Now in its fourth season (October 17), Grodman said it’s “the most creative, out-there and surprising start to a season that we’ve ever had.” And being part of a large cast just adds to his excitement. “I don’t know that I ever anticipated that would be so joyful about being the character actor—you get to be part of this ensemble. And the cast, we’re all really friends when a season’s over.” Because of the success of Ghosts, he’s been able to do other projects...wearing pants. “When you’re used to not wearing pants, wearing pants feels like the biggest power move in the world.”

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Jenny Slate is ready to be herself. “I think what is [evident] in my work is that through my own journey, not just through motherhood, but my own connection with myself as a developing artist, is that I just don’t feel myself flailing anymore.” She’s writing about this confidence in her new book of essays Lifeform (Little, Brown and Company, October 22), which depicts her unique journey into motherhood. She began writing the book out of a fear for losing her old self: “Just wanting to hold on to a life, my professional life and my identity within that, because I was very newly pregnant.” She found that it wasn’t her old self she was looking for, but this new person. “I feel that I increasingly have things to say, but really little to prove. And that is such a different thing. I don’t feel a desperation that I felt in my 20s and 30s.” And now, the comedian says, this new self is providing her with strength. “I have noticed whether I’m doing stand-up or I’m writing a book, I just have this sense, for the first time in my life, that there’s a super nice, stable mommy in the room, and the mom is me.”

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Mikey Madison has been dreaming of a film like Anora since she started acting as a teenager on Better Things. “It’s been a dream of mine to have that kind of collaboration with a filmmaker like Sean [Baker].” That dream has come true in a big way, with the film and her performance picking up a lot of awards buzz. “I’m so happy that people are excited about the film because I’m so proud of it.” Madison plays Ani, a young sex worker who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch. But the Cinderella story quickly turns dark. Madison and Baker collaborated on creating the title role. “I did a lot of work to bring her to life, I knew everything about her, and I was able to just very easily slip into that character and feel all the things she was feeling.” Because of her careful preparation, when it came time to film, she just wanted to get it right. “I think any pressure was pressure that I put on myself, just because I’ve fallen in love with this character and really wanted to represent her in an honest way and just do her justice and the story.”

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