1077 - doormat mother! feat. Alex Nichols (10/5/26)

Will Menaker (0:33)

Hello, everybody, it's Monday, October 5th. This is your Chapo for today. Joining Felix and I once again, been too long. Alex, back in the show. Alex, how's it going?

Alex Nichols (0:44)

What's up?

Will Menaker (0:45)

Great to have you back. Just a few things to start us off here today.

I woke up today, Dennis Hastert, dead.

SPEAKER_3 (0:54)

No! Diddy Hastert.

Felix Biederman (1:00)

Fuck 2026

Will Menaker (1:02)

Felix, I remember I made a joke on the last episode we recorded about Dennis Hastert, but I got to admit, I fully thought he was already dead. So, nice to have confirmation that he finally is.

Felix Biederman (1:14)

If that was the case, why was he scheduled for a Thursday episode?

Will Menaker (1:21)

Well, you know, you dropped this on me now. I didn't approve that guess, Felix.

Felix Biederman (1:26)

Yeah, no. I mean, yeah, you didn't react to it yet.

Will Menaker (1:29)

I didn't give the thumbs up in the chat. But no, I just want to highlight the way CBS News, the headline that...

Felix Biederman (1:39)

Oh yeah, I saw this.

Will Menaker (1:41)

This is great. CBS News, former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who represented Illinois for two decades in Congress and was later jailed for violating banking laws, has died. And I think that's a great piece of headline writing because it's just like...

Felix Biederman (1:56)

It's not technically wrong.

Will Menaker (1:58)

Yeah, no, it's like it's technically true.

Felix Biederman (2:01)

Yeah, it's like... Yeah, if like Jimmy... Like after, you know, Jimmy Saville's death, if Utrea had happened before that, they were like, guy who is rude to Louis Thoreau passes away.

Will Menaker (2:13)

Cigar and running enthusiast Jimmy Saville passes away. Yeah, but yeah, like jailed for violating banking laws. And yes, of course, the banking laws he violated were to cover up payoffs to all of the wrestlers that he molested as a prolific pedophile in Illinois.

But like, what's so odd about this? Like, just thinking back of the life and career of Dennis Hastert, is it an odd that Democrats don't talk more about this? And like, I know it's always like an easy argument to make, like, if one of the longest serving Democratic speakers of the House were like a serial child molester, like, don't you think that would come up more often? Like, I don't know, like, certainly in light of the Epstein stuff or, you know, midterm elections.

Alex Nichols (3:00)

He's kind of mid, isn't he?

As like a Republican pedophile, there are way more interesting ones. There are richer ones, more prolific ones. He's just, I don't know, he's been outcompeted.

Felix Biederman (3:11)

That's sort of one of the more most interesting things about Hastert's scandal to me, besides the obvious, is, so you mentioned that he broke the mortgage laws, and that's how people found out about the pedophilia case.

He was Speaker of the House, like during Tom DeLay's run, but he was like when Uncle Junior is like nominally the boss of the family. Like Tom DeLay and Mitch McConnell were making millions, and he was making, like he was probably getting something, but not enough to where he, you know, could avoid committing this incredibly obvious federal crime that uncovered his sexual abuse that he committed from like 40 or 50 years before. Like if Mike Johnson had to do this, if Mike Johnson had to like pay his son to be like, tell people that we don't, like just erase those last five jack-off reports that I gave you, that we did with each other. He would like, he would probably already have the money. But Dennis Hastert, no, yeah, he just, he was like one of those street bosses in the mafia who goes to prison.

Will Menaker (4:22)

But like, isn't having someone like that be like, someone who is a child molester? Like, it doesn't, wouldn't it suit the purposes of like Tom DeLay and Mitch McConnell to have that guy be like the figurehead?

I mean like, the fact that like, it doesn't suit the purposes of lets people know he's a child molester. But the fact that they probably know means that he'll just be like, I don't know, like the perfect figurehead, right?

Felix Biederman (4:44)

I mean, if I was starting a business, I would not pick like a morbidly obese pedophile who committed crimes with an ice cream baron to cover up his molestation.

Well, I wouldn't make him like the mascot. I mean, are you saying like, that they like had something on him?

Will Menaker (5:04)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.