Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists.
Speaker 2: At Comedy Central, It's America's only source for new this
Speaker 2: It's The Daily.
Speaker 1: Joke with your host Michael Costum.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yes, welcome to the Daily Show, DJ. Michael Kosta.
Speaker 4: We've got so much to talk about tonight. The squad
Speaker 4: is down a man, the Supreme Court is cool with bribery,
Speaker 4: and a special appearance from Triumph, the insult comic dog.
Speaker 1: Let's get into the headlines.
Speaker 4: Let's kick things off with the primaries yesterday. In New York,
Speaker 4: progressive Jamal Bowman lost reelection to his opponent Money, and
Speaker 4: in Colorado, Congresswoman Lauren Bolbert won despite being caught fondling
Speaker 4: her date at Beetlejuice the Musical last year.
Speaker 1: But what can I say?
Speaker 4: In the end, she won this race handily. I guess
Speaker 4: she's just really good at work in the base.
Speaker 1: Hand job.
Speaker 4: But the biggest politics news of the day didn't come
Speaker 4: from the primaries. It came from the Supreme Court, who
Speaker 4: just made it even easier to bribe elected official sorry
Speaker 4: tip elected officials.
Speaker 1: Breaking news from Washington, the United States Supreme Court has
Speaker 1: overturned the high profile bribery conviction of former Indiana mayor
Speaker 1: James Snyder. In a six to three opinion, the Court
Speaker 1: rule that gifts to public officials can only be considered
Speaker 1: illegal bribes if they're given before the official act, not after.
Speaker 5: Justice Kavanaugh wrote that it was not a crime for
Speaker 5: politicians to quote accept gratuities that may be given as
Speaker 5: a token of appreciation after the official act.
Speaker 4: So if you give a politician money before they do
Speaker 4: a favor, it's a bribe. But if you give it
Speaker 4: to them after, the Supreme Court says it's a gratuity
Speaker 4: because they think I'm an idiot. I mean, seriously, a
Speaker 4: gratuity tipping culture is already out of control. I gotta
Speaker 4: tip at the coffee shops. I gotta tip at the
Speaker 4: dry cleaner. I gotta tip when I get takeout, even
Speaker 4: though I picked it up and I took it out.
Speaker 1: That's why they call it takeout.
Speaker 4: Okay, fine, fine, But if my state senator turns that
Speaker 4: little screen around on me, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Lose my mind. All Right, I'm still gonna give.
Speaker 4: Twenty percent, but I'm gonna be pissed about it. It
Speaker 4: seems like every few months the Supreme Court makes it
Speaker 4: easier and easier to bribe government officials. And I don't
Speaker 4: know why they would do that, but as soon as
Speaker 4: Clarence Thomas gets back from the Maldives, we can ask them.
Speaker 4: Let's move on to the tech world and talk about
Speaker 4: artificial intelligence. AI is everywhere these days, which is interesting
Speaker 4: because it also sucks. You know, it gives me bad
Speaker 4: Google searches, it gives me fake Amazon products, It keeps
Speaker 4: generating images of women with six fingers when I very
Speaker 4: clearly said I wanted six nipples. But the tech companies
Speaker 4: won't stop shoving it down our throats because they need
Speaker 4: something new to sell to us because we didn't go
Speaker 4: for the metaverse or self driving cars or those weird
Speaker 4: cyborg helmets. So now I can't sit on a toilet
Speaker 4: without it being like, hey, let AI flush your poop
Speaker 4: for you. I mean, sometimes it shoves the poop back
Speaker 4: up your butt. But it's getting better, and some AI
Speaker 4: companies are now offering songs made by AI.
Speaker 1: But now that people who actually make music, they're fighting back.
Speaker 1: The world's biggest.
Speaker 6: Record labels are teaming up to sue two prominent AI
Speaker 6: music making companies, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and
Speaker 6: Warner Music Group are among the companies that filed lawsuits
Speaker 6: against the AI companies.
Speaker 7: The lawsuits accused the companies of illegally using cup righted
Speaker 7: sound recordings to train their AI, raising concerns about the
Speaker 7: impact on artists rights and earnings.
Speaker 8: In a statement, SUNO's chief executive defended his company's products,
Speaker 8: saying that it's quote designed to generate completely new outputs,
Speaker 8: not to memorize or regurgitate pre existing content.
Speaker 4: Oh all right, Well, if the chief executive of the
Speaker 4: AI company said they're not stealing, that's good enough for me.
Speaker 4: And if the songs it's creating are completely new, then
Speaker 4: we're good.
Speaker 1: So let's move on.
Speaker 4: You know what, maybe it's better to listen to one
Speaker 4: of these songs, you know, just to see.
Speaker 9: Lawyers for the record labels wrote the prompt sixties British
Speaker 9: rock male voice by a band that rhymes with the Smeedles.
Speaker 9: Since the generators do not allow naming specific artists, still,
Speaker 9: the record labels say the AI generator spit out a
Speaker 9: Beatles song.
Speaker 2: Imagine that's no headen, It's easy if you try.
Speaker 4: Wow, that was supposed to be a completely new song.
Speaker 4: Those are the exact words to imagine. The AI could
Speaker 4: have at least used it thesaurus. Don't you think envision?
Speaker 4: There's no heaven. It's easy if you endeavor to Who
Speaker 4: wants this? Who wants this? I got AI to create
Speaker 4: a brand new song for me. Why there's no shortage
Speaker 4: of music? Did you finish Spotify? I mean, but I
Speaker 4: can make a brand new Taylor Swift song. She drops
Speaker 4: a double album every two weeks. We don't need it.
Speaker 4: But the song does bring up an important question, which
Speaker 4: is should AI be involved in art?
Speaker 1: And the answer is no, it shouldn't.
Speaker 4: We need to decide as a society that AI it's
Speaker 4: not allowed to make art. Okay, it can help make
Speaker 4: an elevator go faster or analyze medical data, that's fine,
Speaker 4: but leave art to human artists because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, human artists.
Speaker 4: They have the things that computers will never have, terrible parents, right,
Speaker 4: and that motivates great art. The bottom line is, no
Speaker 4: matter how good AI gets, it'll never need to prove
Speaker 4: that it's just as deserving of love as its sister who.
Speaker 1: Went to medical school.
Speaker 4: Moving on to a story that is truly out of
Speaker 4: this world, and it's going to stay out of this
Speaker 4: world considerably longer than it would like.
Speaker 10: The return of Boeing Starliner and its crew has been
Speaker 10: delayed again. Veteran astronautx Witch Wilmore and Sonny Williams were
Speaker 10: only supposed to be up in orbit for a week.
Speaker 10: They've now been up there for about a month, if
Speaker 10: you can believe it. As NASA and Boeing investigate helium
Speaker 10: leaks and thruster issues on the Starliner spacecraft.
Speaker 4: Just hours after Starliner's June fifth launch came the first
Speaker 4: sign of trouble.
Speaker 11: Starliner, looks like we picked up a couple more helium leaks.
Speaker 1: All right, we're.
Speaker 4: Ready to capy and find out exactly what you mean
Speaker 4: by picked up another helium leak. This guy's very chill
Speaker 4: considering his spaceship has sprung a leak. If my wife
Speaker 4: called me to say, oh, we've got a few fire
Speaker 4: situations at the house, I don't think I'd be like, copy,
Speaker 4: let's chat when you've got some more details about whatever
Speaker 4: that means. Just so you know, there's no real danger
Speaker 4: to these astronauts. They're gonna be fine. But leaky pipe.
Speaker 4: That's such a boring earth thing to go wrong. You know,
Speaker 4: once you're in space. You should be dealing with problems
Speaker 4: like a quantum overload in the di lithium crystals, not
Speaker 4: a leaky pipe. That's something you call the super for,
Speaker 4: you know what. That's probably why it's taken so long
Speaker 4: to fix. They called for the super and NASA was like, sorry,
Speaker 4: he's a little busy. We can send his son now.
Speaker 4: Tomorrow's fine. Tomorrow's fine either way. I hope they can
Speaker 4: fix this. Imagine if the helium leaks got really bad
Speaker 4: and they had to say goodbye to their families.
Speaker 12: Like, tell my wife I love her.
Speaker 1: Life is so precious.
Speaker 4: How am I going to do the rest of the
Speaker 4: act now? But good luck to the astronauts. Butch Wilmore
Speaker 4: and Sonny Williams. Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams, who I'm
Speaker 4: confident will figure this out because they have incredible astronaut names,
Speaker 4: don't they.
Speaker 1: Does NASA's screen for that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: They're like, well, your physics scores are the highest we've
Speaker 4: ever seen, but unfortunately we just can't put a Braden.
Speaker 1: On the moon.
Speaker 12: Sorr.
Speaker 1: I'm getting a little dizzy right now.
Speaker 4: By the way, you heard right that spaceship it's made
Speaker 4: by Boeing. Jesus Christ, it must be so embarrassing to
Speaker 4: work at Boeing. Right now, the engineers are meeting people
Speaker 4: at parties like oh me, no, I'm Diddy's publicists. For
Speaker 4: more on the situation at the International Space Station. Let's
Speaker 4: go are live with Ronnie Chang.
Speaker 3: Wow, we're floating.
Speaker 4: You'll floating, Ronnie, you're embedded with the cool What is
Speaker 4: the mood up there?
Speaker 1: Like Ronnie?
Speaker 13: It's fine, Costa. Everyone needs to calm down. Okay, this
Speaker 13: isn't the Mets. These people are professionals. Yeah, okay, they
Speaker 13: well a couple of leaks, but they all fixed and
Speaker 13: we'll be back on Earth soon.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 4: That's great news and perfect timing because the Trump Biden
Speaker 4: debate is tomorrow and we need you back to watch
Speaker 4: the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Oh right, the debates on tomorrow.
Speaker 13: Yeah, they're very very excited for that.
Speaker 1: Oh oh wait, what's that? What did you say?
Speaker 13: Real astronaut right over there? Oh well, Michael, they just
Speaker 13: discovered a new leak. It's going to take exactly what
Speaker 13: more day to fix it.
Speaker 1: That's terrible news. I mean that means you'll miss the debate.
Speaker 13: Oh I know, I know, I really wanted to cover
Speaker 13: two men trying to out dementia each other. But but unfortunately,
Speaker 13: now I have to stay up here and eat that
Speaker 13: cool astronat ice dream.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's okay.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, you'll be back in plenty of
Speaker 4: time to report at the convention.
Speaker 1: So that's good. Uh huh uh huh great, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, Michael has Man, No, no malfunction.
Speaker 13: It looks like the anti meta crypto wi Fi is down.
Speaker 13: Probably don't take a couple of months to fix whatever
Speaker 13: that was.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Ronnie, that's that's terrible.
Speaker 13: I know, I'm so bummed. I really wanted to be
Speaker 13: in Chicago in the summer with the team, but.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to be.
Speaker 4: Up here until then, right, you know, just take all
Speaker 4: the time you need, and you'll be back in time
Speaker 4: for the rest of the campaign season. Lots of opportunities
Speaker 4: to report on Trump and Biden. Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, I mean,
Speaker 4: Alien and I.
Speaker 1: Have taken over the ship.
Speaker 13: We'll take Ronnie exactly six months to defeat me. Leave
Speaker 13: him alone and send potato chips.
Speaker 4: Ronnie, all right, that's obviously a sock puppet.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to come back, just say so,
Speaker 1: I don't want to come back.
Speaker 4: I Ronnie chang everyone and we come back triumph.
Speaker 3: The inn thought pilot, pot of alone, don't go away.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Daily Show.
Speaker 4: You know, as crazy as it might seem, there's still
Speaker 4: a lot of voters who aren't sure with it to
Speaker 4: vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden, so we sent
Speaker 4: a special correspondent to interview some of them.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to our focused group of undie sided voters.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming to our marketing research offices. I
Speaker 2: want to stress that there is nobody masturbating behind this
Speaker 2: two way mirror, no matter what you hear.
Speaker 1: So, as undecided, let's go.
Speaker 2: Around the room. Tell us your name and what your
Speaker 2: problem is.
Speaker 1: We've never had worse choices. In my opinion, I.
Speaker 5: Don't like either candidates, same as other people said. I'm
Speaker 5: not really crazy about either candidates.
Speaker 2: Okay, I see some of you feel you need more
Speaker 2: information about the candidates, and I get it.
Speaker 1: We know so little about.
Speaker 2: Trump and Biden apart from their campaign issues, their actions
Speaker 2: as president, their handling of the global pandemic, their criminal
Speaker 2: indictments whom they've showered with and a very detailed description
Speaker 2: of Trump's penis from a former porn star.
Speaker 1: But we still don't know.
Speaker 2: Okay, if you're leaning towards Biden, please raise your hand.
Speaker 2: If you're leaning towards Biden, if you're leaning towards Trump,
Speaker 2: raise your hand. Okay, raise it at the forty five
Speaker 2: degree angle. Please, little straighter, don't pend the elbow. That's good.
Speaker 2: It's a Hitler joke, you see, because you support a fascist.
Speaker 1: We're having fun. Okay, raise your hand.
Speaker 2: If you feel like voters are easily manipulated. Who doesn't
Speaker 2: think so? Okay, now lower your hands. Okay, now raise
Speaker 2: them again. Okay, now lower them again. Raise them up
Speaker 2: one more time. Raise both hands, now lower one. Now,
Speaker 2: everyone say I cannot be manipulated. Which candidate would you
Speaker 2: have a beer? Which candidate would you go to a
Speaker 2: baseball game with.
Speaker 11: Trump?
Speaker 2: Which candidate would you let each sugar cubes out of
Speaker 2: your hand? Why? More gummy, less likely to bite you?
Speaker 2: Which candidate would you want to be behind in a
Speaker 2: human centipede? And keep in mind, no matter what you answer,
Speaker 2: we will all think you're disgusting. Okay, this is tough, guys,
Speaker 2: I mean I sent you find yourselves undecided about a
Speaker 2: lot of things.
Speaker 1: My problem is I'm not sure which one's going to
Speaker 1: die first. Thomas.
Speaker 2: I just have to ask, why are you struggling with
Speaker 2: this decision when you had no problem deciding to leave
Speaker 2: the barbershop with those sidebolates. Seriously, it's like my mom
Speaker 2: always used to say, shit or get off the lawn.
Speaker 2: It's your civic duty.
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? Yes?
Speaker 2: What is your gut? I mean, other than seatbelts do
Speaker 2: not come in my size.
Speaker 1: I can't trust Biden or Trump? Okay, I bet you.
Speaker 2: I like RFK RFK junior interesting, also known as the
Speaker 2: evidence that the candidates.
Speaker 1: For each other.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe this will help you, guys decide between the candidates.
Speaker 2: Here are two sandwiches, all right. One is old and
Speaker 2: moldy and the other has chlamydia. Raise your hand if
Speaker 2: you're eating the sandwich on its deathbed, or raise your
Speaker 2: left hand if you want the sandwich that we have
Speaker 2: on tape using the N word.
Speaker 1: Okay, they're having their first debate.
Speaker 2: Do you hope the moderators will ask Trump and Bind
Speaker 2: the really tough questions like do you know where you are?
Speaker 1: And can you breathe? On this mirror. They're probably gonna
Speaker 1: call out each other on stuff.
Speaker 2: Both sides are constantly saying this is the end of democracy.
Speaker 1: Both sides agree.
Speaker 2: So maybe instead of worrying about all this voting stuff,
Speaker 2: we should just decide on an escape plan. Does anyone
Speaker 2: have a bunker? Thomas, you look like you already live underground?
Speaker 2: Will the other more people mind if we crash? It
Speaker 2: was time to switch tactics. Perhaps if they practiced making
Speaker 2: any kind of decision, it would prepare them for November.
Speaker 2: We've all been given cheesecake factory menus to share. Now
Speaker 2: take a look at them and make a choice.
Speaker 1: You can do this.
Speaker 11: I'm crazy.
Speaker 1: I know what I usually get. Ask if I calmer,
Speaker 1: I usually get chickens. All right, you know what, forget it?
Speaker 1: Forget it. I knew that wouldn't work at this stage.
Speaker 2: There was only one option left. Look, you guys have
Speaker 2: barely given me anything, So I'm just gonna to tell
Speaker 2: you who you're voting for. Daryl, you're going to miss
Speaker 2: election day because there weren't any reminders on porn hub. Pauline,
Speaker 2: you want a safer, brighter future for your children, so
Speaker 2: you're gonna move to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Thomas.
Speaker 2: I think you should just stay home. This is a big, one,
Speaker 2: very important election. We need you to sit it out.
Speaker 1: And mark.
Speaker 2: Whatever you decide, I recommend you listen to your heart,
Speaker 2: or at least let a medical professional listen to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you all for being here.
Speaker 1: We've learned a lot.
Speaker 2: We'll see you in four years when you can't decide
Speaker 2: between voting for AOC or Kyle Rittenhouse.
Speaker 1: Thank your trial.
Speaker 4: When we come back, Sharon Lerno will join me on
Speaker 4: the show if you don't go away.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest tonight is
Speaker 1: a pro public.
Speaker 4: Reporter whose recent article, in collaboration with The New Yorker,
Speaker 4: investigates three M's use of forever chemicals.
Speaker 1: Please welcome Sharon Lerner. How are you all right? Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming.
Speaker 4: Thank you for writing this piece. This is a testament
Speaker 4: to investigative journalism. How long does it take to write
Speaker 4: this piece?
Speaker 5: Well, it took about a year, a little more than
Speaker 5: a year. But I was doing other things in the middle.
Speaker 1: What exactly are forever chemicals? What did three M do?
Speaker 1: What were you uncovering in this piece?
Speaker 5: So I was writing about forever chemicals, which are p fasts.
Speaker 5: Is the name of the compounds, and basically they're called
Speaker 5: forever chemicals because they last forever in the environment and
Speaker 5: they accumulate in your body.
Speaker 1: And we all knew.
Speaker 5: We've known for a while that three M made these chemicals,
Speaker 5: and I have been reporting on them for a while.
Speaker 5: What was new with this story was that someone who
Speaker 5: had worked in the company came to me and offered
Speaker 5: to tell me her story, and it ended up shedding
Speaker 5: terrible light really on the company and on the delay,
Speaker 5: the decades of delay for them to reveal the truth
Speaker 5: of what was going on.
Speaker 1: She was testing blood and.
Speaker 4: Was finding that everyone's blood had forever chemicals in it,
Speaker 4: and how did three M respond to her research?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: So she ended up she was asked by her boss
Speaker 5: to test all these blood samples, and these were samples
Speaker 5: of blood from the general public. So she starts testing them,
Speaker 5: and she keeps finding trace amounts of this chemical PFOS,
Speaker 5: which was made by her employer in everyone's blood. It's
Speaker 5: not supposed to be there, right, right, And then she
Speaker 5: tests different parts of the country, she tests animals, and
Speaker 5: she finally brings her results to her boss, and in response,
Speaker 5: her superiors were not happy with her.
Speaker 1: Work.
Speaker 5: She thought they would be happy you found.
Speaker 1: This amazing thing.
Speaker 5: She's a scientist, Yeah, she's a scientist. She's in the
Speaker 5: environmental lab. That's her job, right, And in fact, what
Speaker 5: they ended up doing was questioning her and saying, this
Speaker 5: can't be right, and your equipment is probably messed up,
Speaker 5: and why don't you repeat the experiment? And eventually what
Speaker 5: she finds is that there is another chemist at the
Speaker 5: company who had discovered the same thing in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 5: so decades earlier.
Speaker 4: And I what you you talked about in the article.
Speaker 4: But part of what solidified her belief in her research
Speaker 4: was she actually tested old bloody wasn't what was that?
Speaker 5: So she's been she's testing all these samples from around
Speaker 5: the country and they all contained pfos, And her bosses
Speaker 5: start saying, oh, you think.
Speaker 1: You get pfas, you get PFOA, you get it. It's
Speaker 1: like we all got it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And they start saying, are you sure, because maybe
Speaker 5: you just think it's everywhere right, you just are delusional basically,
Speaker 5: And then she ends up testing a sample from rural
Speaker 5: China and an old sample, right, and it was the
Speaker 5: first one she tested that didn't have any of the
Speaker 5: chemical in it.
Speaker 1: Wow, and she realized here.
Speaker 4: It is, Yeah, someone in ruled China who's probably dead
Speaker 4: at this point, doesn't have forever chemicals in their blood.
Speaker 5: And then she ended up testing someone a war veteran
Speaker 5: who the blood sample was from nineteen fifty seven before
Speaker 5: at Scotch Guard enter the market.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that.
Speaker 4: What what are forever chemicals in You mentioned Scotch Guard, right.
Speaker 5: So initially they were in Scotch Guard, which is this
Speaker 5: coating for fabrics.
Speaker 1: And carpets, yeah, and carpet couches.
Speaker 5: And then they had also a product that was for
Speaker 5: food packaging and it was also in firefighting foam, and
Speaker 5: that was the beginning. Now I cannot name all the
Speaker 5: products that it's in thousands, really, and you know the
Speaker 5: companies say they're in every car and cell phone, they're
Speaker 5: in makeup, they're in everything. And you know three M
Speaker 5: put out a little spreadsheet in twenty twenty two of
Speaker 5: just their products that contain pfas and it had more
Speaker 5: than sixteen thousand.
Speaker 4: I love that they put out a spreadsheet in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two. And they've known about this since nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 4: So fifty years later, super helpful. Do you when you
Speaker 4: start digging into this, When you start digging into this,
Speaker 4: do you ever just want to go.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear about that.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, when I dig into this, what I
Speaker 5: want to do is tell people. And that's why I'm here,
Speaker 5: you know, right, Yeah, I mean it is utterly depressing,
Speaker 5: but I think it would be slightly more depressing not
Speaker 5: to report on it.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean your article triggered my awareness and
Speaker 4: then I remember the Mark Ruffalo movie Darkwater, and then
Speaker 4: I remembered I looked you up and you had written
Speaker 4: about this even before that, and it's like, holy shit,
Speaker 4: we got to pay.
Speaker 1: Attention to this stuff.
Speaker 4: You know, I have a four year old daughter, and
Speaker 4: I often am trying to tell her to stop being
Speaker 4: so pushy. Right, hey, chill, you can't keep pushing back,
Speaker 4: pushing back. But then I meet you and I read this,
Speaker 4: and I heard you say that you've got to be
Speaker 4: pushy to dig in and fight against three M that
Speaker 4: made fourteen billion dollars last year.
Speaker 1: Am I a shitty parent?
Speaker 5: Well, to be an investigative journalist, you do have to
Speaker 5: be kind of pushy. So it depends on whether you're
Speaker 5: wants to be an investigative journalist or not.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're you're we're going not just putting your
Speaker 4: pants out at this point.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I mean you have to find out things
Speaker 5: that people don't want you to know. And so you know,
Speaker 5: so with this story, you know the response I got
Speaker 5: from three AM when I was writing about this in
Speaker 5: twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, you know, it's this is
Speaker 5: you know, yeah, you know it's totally different from the
Speaker 5: story I got from someone who is on the inside.
Speaker 5: And it only took me nine years, right, right?
Speaker 1: Is there.
Speaker 4: Something that you do now differently in your life? A
Speaker 4: habit knowing what you know? Are you not drinking water
Speaker 4: out of the hose like we did in Michigan growing?
Speaker 4: I mean, is there just something beid because look, a
Speaker 4: single American citizen taking on three M or DuPont.
Speaker 1: Because three AM is not the only company with these grips.
Speaker 4: You know what, what can what can you tell me
Speaker 4: that that that I can do or you can do
Speaker 4: besides being aware, which is a positive step, it is yeah.
Speaker 5: And you know it is so widespread now, as you said,
Speaker 5: it's some tons of products and some water all over
Speaker 5: the place, so I don't actually, I mean I don't
Speaker 5: use nonstick pants and that kind of thing that's easy,
Speaker 5: or microwave popcorn that's easy.
Speaker 1: Don't use microwave popcorn.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 5: And I have to say, I don't know how it's
Speaker 5: been if it's been reformulated recently, but that was one
Speaker 5: of the original things that it was in.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking by what I said earlier.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, as
Speaker 5: an environmental reporter, a lot of things, you know, horrify me.
Speaker 5: I would say, actually, the my reporting on plastics maybe
Speaker 5: left me with more of a you know, change my habits,
Speaker 5: so like I don't use single use plastic because you cannot.
Speaker 4: And my my question is flawed to you because it
Speaker 4: always find I always finding capitalism the onus goes on us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, like hey Sharon, why are you using that
Speaker 1: plastic bottle?
Speaker 4: And it's like, well, I assume what's on the shelf
Speaker 4: is safe for me, and that's not a safe assumption.
Speaker 4: And does does our government step in on this?
Speaker 1: Where? Where where are they on this? Well?
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are a lot of government failures here in
Speaker 5: this story. One is that when the three m ended
Speaker 5: up giving in studies that they had done in nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy five, nineteen eighty. They finally gave them all to
Speaker 5: the EPA in the late nineties and two thousand, so
Speaker 5: that's you know, two and a half decades after they
Speaker 5: did them. You're supposed to have had this give it in
Speaker 5: immediately if you see that there's evidence of it real harm.
Speaker 5: So they were fined one and a half million dollars
Speaker 5: and what they made on.
Speaker 1: That I met. I make that a week.
Speaker 5: But like the in the year that they faced the
Speaker 5: chemical they made three hundred million dollars was on the market.
Speaker 5: So it makes no sense, so we have to make it. Actually,
Speaker 5: there have to be consequences for companies that do this
Speaker 5: kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Well, you mentioned the e p A and there was
Speaker 4: a you know, there was a new I forget guideline
Speaker 4: that they've set up recently, and this has to do
Speaker 4: with forever chemicals.
Speaker 1: And we're using that.
Speaker 4: You in the in the article use the term p fos, right,
Speaker 4: but that can mean a lot of different.
Speaker 5: Well, p fas is the class of compounds. So and
Speaker 5: the one chemical that Chris who was talking about was
Speaker 5: discovering was PFOS that's one chemical in this class. It's
Speaker 5: called pfs the class there are thousands, right, So pfos
Speaker 5: is not made anymore, but it's still in the drinking water.
Speaker 5: And EPA recently said drinking water limits for pfos and
Speaker 5: pfo A fabulous, great, very great. The only problem is
Speaker 5: one they're no longer made. But there are thousands of
Speaker 5: chemicals in this class and we've only gotten you know,
Speaker 5: a couple so.
Speaker 4: And it's in New York City drinking water. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's in everyone's drinking water, you know. And yeah, and
Speaker 4: now the challenges local cities are going to have to
Speaker 4: find a way to pay for filtering this out right right.
Speaker 5: And there is just a big suit, a big settlement
Speaker 5: with three M where they're going to pay twelve and
Speaker 5: a half billion dollars. And you think, oh, that's a
Speaker 5: lot of money, and it's not when you have to
Speaker 5: actually remove these chemicals from water everywhere.
Speaker 4: Environmental crime. That's a new term that I recently heard.
Speaker 4: And when I read your piece, I said, this is
Speaker 4: environmental crime. Three M has committed assault in US, maybe
Speaker 4: murder depending on the classification.
Speaker 1: Has anyone at three M And are there anybody in trouble.
Speaker 5: No, No, not in a criminal way. Love this story,
Speaker 5: you know, it's just yeah, yeah, not in a criminal way.
Speaker 1: But I like the way you put that.
Speaker 5: It is it is a crime, right, I mean part
Speaker 5: of the reason I think it's a crime is because
Speaker 5: we weren't given any choice in the matter. Right, So
Speaker 5: nobody said, in exchange for this beautiful, stained free couch,
Speaker 5: We're going to put a toxic chemical in your body
Speaker 5: and leave it there forever.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like that.
Speaker 5: It was here's this product, and we know this thing
Speaker 5: we're not telling you. So it's like bodily trespass really
Speaker 5: like there. I mean, these chemicals are in infants when
Speaker 5: they're born, before they're born.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 4: One of the saddest and scariest parts was when in
Speaker 4: the article you talk about and this is going to
Speaker 4: be really sad, but how women actually finally showed that
Speaker 4: they had less forever chemicals in their body. But that
Speaker 4: was after they gave birth, because they passed it on
Speaker 4: to their child. Yeah, right, So this is this is
Speaker 4: a problem.
Speaker 1: What can you leave us with? Everybody here is now
Speaker 1: newly aware.
Speaker 4: Should we call all our congress people, Should we stop plastic?
Speaker 1: Should we well I.
Speaker 5: Mean, here's something, here's something really focused I could do
Speaker 5: like fokus the entire audience. I mean, so one of
Speaker 5: the crazy things is that pfas are still being new
Speaker 5: ones are still being introduced, So we still have dozens
Speaker 5: that are being used, but they're still introducing new ones.
Speaker 5: That is like that seems bananas to me, and that
Speaker 5: seems like a very focused point that we could you
Speaker 5: do something that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you very much for writing this article, thank
Speaker 4: you for coming on the Daily Show and talking with us.
Speaker 1: You make me sick.
Speaker 4: Is available online at The New Yorker and Pro Publica
Speaker 4: Sharon Lerner.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: after this. That's our show for tonight.
Speaker 4: Don't forget to do it tomorrow night at eleven, when
Speaker 4: John Stewart's back at the desk to cover the President's
Speaker 4: debate live now here.
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