• The latest battle over abortion rights is set to begin in Ohio. On August 8th, voters in the Buckeye State will decide on Issue 1, a ballot initiative about ballot initiatives (yes, you read that right). The outcome will determine whether or not Ohioans can decide in November whether to enshrine abortion access into the state’s constitution.
• And in headlines: Russia’s military says it brought down three Ukrainian drones over Moscow, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago charged in the Trump classified documents case will appear in federal court, and rapper Cardi B threw a microphone at a fan who tossed a drink at her on stage in Las Vegas.

Show Notes:

• Vote Save America: Ohio – https://votesaveamerica.com/state/ohio/
• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

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TRANSCRIPT

Tre’vell Anderson: It’s Monday, July 31st. I’m Tre’vell Anderson. 

Josie Duffy Rice: And I’m Josie Duffy Rice and this is What A Day where we are actively questioning why J.K. Rowling gave Harry Potter the same birthday as Tre’vell. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Now, you know, I don’t want to give her too much credit, but she may have been on to something, you know? 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah. Said like a truly Leo. [laughter] And that is a birthday compliment. [laughter] [music break]

Tre’vell Anderson: On today’s show, Russia’s military says it shot down three Ukrainian drones over Moscow. Plus, Cardi B responded to a concert goer throwing a drink at her in just the way you’d expect. 

Josie Duffy Rice: But first, you may have heard from our friends at Vote Save America that there are no off years and 2023 is living up to that. As the month of July comes to a close we wanted to put the spotlight on a special election that’s coming up in Ohio. On Tuesday, August 8th, voters in the Buckeye State will head to the polls to decide on a ballot measure known as issue one, which will ultimately affect whether Ohioans can enshrine abortion rights protections within the state’s constitution. In a nutshell, issue one would make it harder to change or amend Ohio’s Constitution. Right now, it takes just 50% of voters plus one vote to pass a new constitutional amendment. But if issue one succeeds, it would raise that threshold, make it more difficult to put measures like these on the ballot. 

Tre’vell Anderson: I do not like the sound of any of this at all. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Not feeling democratic to me. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Right. But tell us, how exactly does this tie into abortion rights? 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah, it’s a good question. And our cohost Priyanka Aribindi recently talked to Crooked’s V.P. of politics, Shaniqua McClendon to get a better picture of what’s going on here. So take a listen to their conversation:

Priyanka Aribindi: So what I want to talk to you about is this upcoming election. The people of Ohio are heading to the polls on August 8th to vote on a ballot measure called issue one. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about issue one. What exactly is included in this and why is this so important? 

Shaniqua McClendon: Democrats have or progressives, I should say, or people who think people should have access to abortion, um have successfully gotten a ballot initiative on the November ballot that will put abortion access in Ohio’s constitution. So that’s a good thing. But what we saw last year were there were several ballot measures on ballots throughout the country and red states that actually, you know, depending on what they said, it was either to make abortion access less accessible or more accessible. But all of those went in Progressive’s favor last year. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

Shaniqua McClendon: And so Republicans know that despite how red their state is, there are people on both sides, in both parties who want to protect abortion access. So progressives were able to get this on the ballot in November. So Republicans decided to try to put a roadblock in the way, which is the ballot measure that is taking place on August 8th. That ballot measure, what it will do right now in Ohio, if you get a ballot measure on the ballot, voters vote. If it gets, you know, more than half of the votes, then it’s passed and it’s passed into law. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

Shaniqua McClendon: Republicans are trying to raise that threshold from 50% to 60%, saying now you need 60% of the vote if you want to pass a ballot measure, which if this ballot measure passes on August 8th, that means the November ballot initiative that would protect abortion in the Constitution would go from needing a 50% threshold to a 60% threshold. And guess what support for the November ballot initiative is is roughly around 60%? 

Priyanka Aribindi: Oh, God.

Shaniqua McClendon: Yeah. So that’s why it’s important and that’s everything that’s going on. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Okay. So what does you know, I think the verbiage of these of these ballot measures is very important as you highlighted. It’s not always like a yes is good, a no is bad. What does a yes or a no vote mean specifically on issue one? I don’t want people to kind of get tripped up on the semantics here. Like, what side are we on? 

Shaniqua McClendon: So in this situation on August 8th, for issue one, voting yes means that you do want to raise the threshold to 60% to pass future ballot measures. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Got it. 

Shaniqua McClendon: And that means in November, it will be harder to pass protections for abortion. So you want to vote no, not to raise that threshold and maintain it at uh 50%. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Got it. So we are team no. Totally understand. I suppose we can imagine here, but who have been like the biggest supporters and opponents of issue one here, who are the people who are trying to get this raised and who are the people who are like uh this does not sound like what we signed up for? 

Shaniqua McClendon: I mean, this is kind of running along partisan lines, especially because this exists only to stop the ballot measure at the end of the year that would protect abortion access. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

Shaniqua McClendon: Republicans actually got rid of August elections because turnout was so low and that was earlier this year. And then once Democrats said, we’re going to work on this abortion measure, they completely reversed course and put an August uh ballot measure. You know, that kind of tells you where it is. But generally, people who are interested in protecting abortion access are trying to make sure that this ballot measure does not pass. And Republicans who want to make sure that it’s harder to protect abortion access because they know people support it are for raising the threshold right now. Um. And this has implications beyond just the ballot measure that we see coming at the end of the year. It means that unlike our normal elections, where, you know, if you have two candidates, the person who gets the most wins. Now we’re, you know, raising the bar and making it even harder to pass some of these laws. And that just means that the things that people want, it doesn’t take a simple majority, you know, now you have to like, get a lot more people to support these things. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. What is expected to happen here? Like what does the polling look like so far? Is this something we need to be really worried about? How are you feeling? 

Shaniqua McClendon: I would never tell people not to worry about tricks that a Republican–

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

Shaniqua McClendon: You know [laughter], legislature is trying to pull. But typically, voter turnout in these August elections have been around 8%, which is why Republicans initially said we don’t need to have elections now. Enough people are not participating. But early voting has already surpassed that 8% mark and it’s already surpassed early voting for 2022. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Wow. 

Shaniqua McClendon: So, um you know, people are paying attention. And again, people who want to protect abortion access, which we’ve seen in places like Kansas and Kentucky, are not just Democrats because there’s not– 

Priyanka Aribindi: Totally. 

Shaniqua McClendon: –enough Democrats in those states to do it. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. 

Shaniqua McClendon: Um. Are paying attention and working hard to make sure that the threshold remains at 50%. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Got it. Is there anything that Ohio voters need to know in advance? I know August 8th is rapidly approaching. You know, when do they have to be registered by if you’re interested in voting, or not quite sure if you’re registered and all set up. What do you need to know if you’re in Ohio? 

Shaniqua McClendon: People should know that voting has already started. They should go out to their polling location and cast their vote and so, you know, the actual election is on August 8th and they have a little bit more time in early voting to participate. But if you want more information on what you need to do to vote, if you live in Ohio, you should go to votesaveamerica.com/ohio and you can get the information you need to vote. And if you are just interested in helping and you don’t live in Ohio and you want to donate to these efforts or you want to volunteer, you can also go to votesaveamerica.com/Ohio and find information there to do that as well. 

Josie Duffy Rice: That was what a day co-host Priyanka Aribindi with Shaniqua McClendon, Crooked’s vice president of politics. And we also want to mention that shortly after we recorded that conversation, Ohio Republicans filed a new lawsuit to try to block the abortion rights measure in November. By the way, Ohio’s secretary of state already gave the amendment the green light to appear on the ballot last week. So this is what we like to call a last ditch effort. Essentially, they argue that the abortion amendment does not specify which existing laws would be rolled back if it passes. It’s not like a stellar legal argument for a lot of reasons, including like laws are willy nilly man, and nobody knows the answer to that question for basically anything. But here we are. They’re doing what they can, and it’s not a lot, but they’re doing what they can. We will, of course, bring you any updates on this story as we get them and link to some resources in our show notes. In the meantime, that is the latest for now. We will be back after some ads. 

[AD BREAK]

Josie Duffy Rice: Now let’s wrap up with some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Russia’s defense ministry said that its forces brought down three drones that were headed to strike Moscow. Two of the drones crashed into and damaged a pair of office buildings and one person was reported injured. Yesterday’s attack was the fourth such incident in the Russian capital in just the past month, which the Kremlin has blamed on the Ukrainian government. And while Kyiv hasn’t directly confirmed this or previous drone strikes within Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted in his nightly national address on Sunday that, quote, “The war is gradually returning to Russia’s territory. And this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.” Got to say, don’t really feel like Putin gets to complain that people are entering his territory, especially Ukrainian people. You started it. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Right.

Josie Duffy Rice: You started it. 

Tre’vell Anderson: If he hadn’t started it, we wouldn’t have been here.

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. We wouldn’t be here, Boo-Boo. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Over a year later, you know. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Huh, yi, yi. At least 44 people were killed and nearly 200 others were hurt after a suicide bomber attacked a political convention in northwestern Pakistan yesterday. It happened in a region close to the border with Afghanistan and appeared to target members of the country’s Islamist political party, the JUIF. Police said the attack happened near the convention stage, close to where senior party officials were gathered. As of our record time on Sunday evening, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, though investigators suspect it may have been carried out by the Islamic State group. It’s one of the worst attacks on Pakistani soil in recent years and comes as political parties in that country are gearing up for elections later this year. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Carlos de Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager who is now the third person charged in connection with Donald Trump’s classified documents case, is set to appear in federal court in Miami later today. Prosecutors allege that he helped move boxes of documents and even asked an IT worker to delete recordings of security video at Trump’s resort after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for it last year. We don’t know much about De Oliveira, except that he doesn’t appear to be part of Trump’s inner circle. CNN and other outlets have reported that he was involved in a strange incident last summer where a drained pool at Mar-a-Lago ended up flooding the room where surveillance video servers were kept. However, that incident was not brought up in Thursday’s superseding indictment, which outed De Oliveira as a defendant and tacked on new charges against Trump and his longtime aide, Walter Nauta. Look, it’s tough when you work for the former president, and the former president says do this it’s cool. You probably assume it’s cool. Then again, you work for Donald Trump. So maybe maybe [laughter] your judgment has been compromised along the way. But, you know.

Tre’vell Anderson: You know. And finally, consider this a textbook case of fucking around and finding out. On Saturday, rapper Cardi B struck back against an audience member in Las Vegas who threw a drink at her during a performance of her 2018 hit Bodak Yellow. Keeping with the spirit of that iconic track, which is all about hitting back at haters, Cardi responded by chucking her microphone at the drink thrower. Now, I don’t know what folks were expecting here, but it seems like an appropriate response to me. But what do I know? 

Josie Duffy Rice: Using your judgment when making decisions is very important, and I can think of very few people I’m less likely to throw water at than Cardi B. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Listen, I am right there with you. Videos of the exchange from different angles have been making the rounds on social media, though it’s not clear if Cardi’s mic actually hit anyone. It is, however, the latest in a string of incidents where performers have been hit by things thrown at them by concert goers. Singer Bebe Rexha needed stitches after she was struck in the face by a cell phone while performing in New York City last month. And Harry Styles was smacked by objects at least twice while on tour this summer. Of course, we here at WAD do not condone violence against anyone. But really, people do not pick a fight with someone who is both ambidextrous and has good aim. Just ask Nicki Minaj. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Just ask Nicki Minaj. 

Tre’vell Anderson: When you throw the first hit, you can’t get mad that you get hit back. Okay. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Some of these rappers might be playing around. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Listen. Cardi B is from the streets. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Tre’vell Anderson: As they say. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Um. Now, some of y’alls favorite Internet rappers these days may be faking it and just playing along. In the words of you know the great songwriters, Crime Mob, run up, get done up. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Correct. 

Tre’vell Anderson: And here we are. 

Josie Duffy Rice: And here we are. Don’t do this. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Yeah. Just don’t y’all. Just don’t. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Don’t. 

Tre’vell Anderson: And those are the headlines. 

[AD BREAK]

Josie Duffy Rice: That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Keep your drink to yourself and tell your friends to listen. 

Tre’vell Anderson: And if you are into reading and not just Mar-a-Lago security camera logs like me. What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Tre’vell Anderson. 

Josie Duffy Rice: I’m Josie Duffy Rice. 

[spoken together] And it’s Leo season baby. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Listen. That means I’m celebrating all month long. You will deal with it and you will be happy. 

Josie Duffy Rice: I’m ready. And today may be your birthday. Happy birthday. We love you. But I will continue to celebrate you through the month of August. 

Tre’vell Anderson: As you should. Period. [laughter]

Josie Duffy Rice: Period. [music break]

Tre’vell Anderson: What A Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our show’s producer is Itxy Quintanilla. Raven Yamamoto and Natalie Bettendorf are our associate producers. Our intern is Ryan Cochran, and our senior producer is Lita Martinez. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. 

[AD BREAK]