Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, December 12, 2000, after a month-plus state of limbo with vote counting and legal procedures and finally an intervention by the Supreme Court,

the 2000 election finally comes to a close.

We've talked a lot about that contested 2000 election on this show, the razor-thin number of votes

in Florida, the hanging chads on the ballots.

We haven't actually talked about how it finally came to an end.

And that was with the Supreme Court intervening late at night

on the night of December 12th and then a concession speech by Al Gore on the morning of the 13th,

in which he conceded the race to George W. Bush. And that is really the focus of today's episode,

and we will get into the many fascinating things that Gore said in that speech.

The salient line is probably this one, where he says, quote, let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. And then he would say in the end,

partisan rancor must now be put aside. So let's revisit that speech now, maybe discuss how the idea of setting aside

partisan rancor after losing an election, how that idea plays today here in 2024. And of course,

we will touch on the twisty tourney run-up to that speech with us to help do that is one of

our favorite guests, friends of the show, Leon Nafoc, creator of Slow Burn and host of the Audible series

Fiasco. Fiasco did a series about Bush v. Gore several years ago, and it was recently brought out

from behind the Audible Paywall and available for all to listen to now wherever you get your

podcast. So Leon is putting his fall of 2000 hat back on to join us. Leon, thanks for doing this.

Thanks for having me.

And here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wesley.

Hello there.

Hello, Jody.

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