What in the World (Cup) w. Megan Gailey

**Erin Ryan** (0:06)
Hello, and welcome to Hysteria. I'm Erin Ryan.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (0:09)
And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.

**Erin Ryan** (0:11)
Like peroxide into a reflecting pool in direct sunlight, so are the days of our lives, Alyssa. And by that, I mean an exercise in futility. So why were they pouring peroxide into the reflecting pool in front of the Washington Monument? Why were they doing it?

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (0:27)
You go, you do.

**Erin Ryan** (0:28)
Yeah, I'll do it. Okay, because you remember that $14 million pool judge that the president was doing to paint the bottom of it at American Flag Blue.
He just hired the guys who redid his pool at Bedminster, I guess, for this no-bid government contract. $14 million, and it's already covered in algae. But here, this is the kicker. So to fix the algae bloom, federal workers were pouring just gobs of hydrogen peroxide into the pool. Do you know what happens to hydrogen peroxide in UV, sunlight, and water? Tell me. It breaks down into nothing. It literally breaks. It is a chemical reaction. It is like a thing you learn. The UV itself expedites that reaction.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (1:18)
Did you see the aerial of what the pool looks like now? It's like an aura ring because the inside is still green as green can be, but there's like a faint rim of blue around the green.
And my favorite is the new meaning of MAGA.

**Erin Ryan** (1:32)
Uh-huh.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (1:33)
Make algae green again.

**Erin Ryan** (1:36)
Make algae green again for sure. Also, you know, it kind of looks like an American mood ring. I just pulled up a picture.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (1:42)
Yeah, that's what I meant. I said aura. I meant a mood ring.

**Erin Ryan** (1:44)
Yeah, it looks like a mood ring and the mood is like, you're cold.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (1:48)
Very.

**Erin Ryan** (1:49)
Today, we round up the latest news from JD. Vance's embarrassing book tour. Has he learned how to laugh like a normal human man? Stay tuned. We'll find out. Bari Weiss's next fail upwards in the future of the US. Postal Service's independence. Then Megan Gailey joins to talk sports news from the UFC to the Knicks and the rise of hetero pessimism. Then, of course, Sanny Petty.
You're listening to Hysteria, the podcast for people who wonder if JD Vance is the only millennial to ever use the phrase boneheaded. Boneheaded. This is something he's trotting out on his book tour. He wrote a new book called Communion.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (2:31)
Yeah.

**Erin Ryan** (2:31)
Whatever.
It's a way for him to finesse his two religious conversions into anything besides just being an opportunist flip-flopper slimeball. Yep. But he famously wrote in this book that the time that he said that America was being taken over by childless cat ladies or Democratic voting base was childless cat ladies was a boneheaded thing for him to say.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (2:55)
Boneheaded.

**Erin Ryan** (2:56)
And then he said it out loud on his appearance on The View promoting his book.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (3:01)
He did.

**Erin Ryan** (3:02)
Anyway, Alyssa, tell us more about this book.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (3:04)
I mean, look, this book is just a reminder that JD's Catholicism is younger than the Hysteria podcast.

**Erin Ryan** (3:12)
It is younger than the show, just as JD Vance is younger than me, if you can believe that.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (3:16)
Yes, so much younger than me.

**Erin Ryan** (3:18)
But his Catholicism is younger than our podcast and he is trying to correct the pope on the reg.

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (3:24)
His chore is really just a just startling lack of self-awareness. You know, I mean, he's never been self-aware, but this one's really, he is out there, Erin. He is tanned. He has been resurfaced. He is toxed. He is zempicked. But with all this time, has he finally mastered laughing like a normal human being?

**Erin Ryan** (3:45)
Let's find out. Let's find out.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:47)
Okay, good.

**Megan Gailey** (3:54)
What a goober.

**Erin Ryan** (3:58)
That's my JD Vance laughing impression. Also, Rachel, our video person who does incredible work for Hysteria and this fucking guy. Rachel did an impersonation of JD Vance's quiet laughter. She was like, he did a lot of quiet laughing and she did an impression of it, and it was so funny.
It was like…

**Alyssa Mastromonaco** (4:18)
Yep, yep. No, because he doesn't have a sense of humor, so he doesn't actually know what's funny.

**Erin Ryan** (4:23)
He doesn't have a sense of humor and he laughs when he's uncomfortable, which a lot of people do, but if you're going to be an uncomfy laugher, you've got to get your laugh good, right? Like, I think of America's best laughs. Akilah Hughes, one of America's best laughs.