This episode of The Gab Fest contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for November 19th, 2020, the COVID-Sunami edition.

I'm David Flots of Citicast.

We've had an exciting pre-show morning here at the Gab Fest. John Dickerson of

CBS at 60 Minutes is wearing the most astonishing, amazing sweater, which I hope we capture a

screen grab of. It's like the coat of many colors, really. And we learned that it is a sweater

that Bob Dylan once wore, but not, I think, I think not the exact sweater. No, it's not, it's not the exact sweater. It is a design based on a sweater that Bob Dylan once wore. How about that? But I would think that Dickerson would be a lot slighter than you, and you're just broader than him. So you'd probably bust any sweater of his out in the shoulders. You just said Dickerson instead of Dylan. I'm Dylan. I think, sorry. I really want to get that joke in there. You got to get the new rate. That's all right. We'll just leave it as it is. And that's Emily Bazelon of the New York Times Magazine in Yale University, who's herself been rather coy and withholding this morning. But okay. So rare. I never withhold. I'm usually

the first to blurt out anything. Yes, it's true. On today's Gab Fest, we will have a show,

which will have nothing to do with sweaters or whatever Emily is refusing to talk about.

We will talk about how COVID is swamping the country. We have a category five hurricane of COVID. We have schools closing, conservative governors mandating masks,

and we're all holding our breath for a vaccine. There was so much good vaccine news, too,

this week. Then Republicans, I know, yeah, Republicans, I guess, we can say, continue to attempt to undermine electoral democracy in grotesque service to the pathetic president who will burn America down to solve his own fragile ego, part 78.

We will talk about that.

Then Tana Hossi Coates joins us to talk about the new HBO adaptation of Between the World and Me, his magnificent book, and many other things, including the results of the 2020 election.

Plus, of course, we will have cocktail chatter.

It has been the best and the worst week of the pandemic.

The second wave, or whatever you want to call,

this entirely anticipated fall surge of COVID has arrived. Americans have been spending more and

more times indoors. They have been gathered, often maskless in workplaces, in restaurants,

and gyms. And the infection rates are astonishing. One and ten residents of maricopa county the largest

county in arizona have had the virus at some point and in chicago one and fifteen chicagoans

is infected new york city schools announced peremptorily on wednesday that they are closing as of

...