Speaker 1: I'm Manny, I'm Noah, this is Devin and this is
Speaker 1: no such thing. The show where we settle our drum
Speaker 1: arguments and yours by actually doing the research. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: should Politicians be Funny? And his humor kind of a
Speaker 1: cheat code to getting elected? As always, we'll talk to
Speaker 1: an expert, but then stick around for my conversation with
Speaker 1: comedian Mike Verbiglia.
Speaker 2: What a deeply unfunny person. He doesn't have it.
Speaker 3: No, there's no no such thing, no touch thing, touch, thank.
Speaker 4: Touch, thank.
Speaker 5: Touch thank.
Speaker 1: All right, boys, I was influenced to do this episode
Speaker 1: based on some recent activity by one Gavin Newsom. In case, yeah,
Speaker 1: in case you're someone in the audience who literally does
Speaker 1: not consume one ounce of politics.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 7: While a lot of our audience is international, many assume
Speaker 7: they know American politics.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for for huge in Australia. Yeah, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for doing international erasure. But Gavin Newsom is a Democrat.
Speaker 1: He's the former mayor of San Francisco. He's the current
Speaker 1: governor of California. He's kind of like your archetypal politician, right,
Speaker 1: He's like literally got slicked back here. He's always wearing
Speaker 1: a suit, very polished, he's got the veneers good talk,
Speaker 1: or if he doesn't have veneers, don't sue me. He's
Speaker 1: got really great teeth. Yeah, it would be amazy if
Speaker 1: if he doesn't have a credit veneers congratulations, and he's
Speaker 1: probably going to be running for president. Is we've come
Speaker 1: to terms with that by now, Perhaps because of this
Speaker 1: impending presidential run, Gavin Newsom and his team have turned
Speaker 1: up the aggression, let's say, towards Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And we need to stand up to this authoritary. We
Speaker 3: need to stand up at this moment, fighting fire with fire.
Speaker 3: I'm going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways Gavin Newsom is doing this
Speaker 1: is by using humor. They are mocking Donald Trump on
Speaker 1: social media.
Speaker 6: So just to look at some of the tweets here,
Speaker 6: all capital letters Trump and.
Speaker 5: Very trump like.
Speaker 8: It's obviously trying to go Trump and get at tension.
Speaker 1: Basically, Donald Trump uses a very specific syntax in his posts.
Speaker 1: He does all caps, sometimes he capitalizes words that don't
Speaker 1: need to be capitalized, he puts quotes aroun words that
Speaker 1: don't need quotes, and the Gavin Teae is writing parody
Speaker 1: versions of those except to push their own agenda.
Speaker 9: In one post, Gavin Newsom calls maga Republicans quote snowflakes
Speaker 9: and all caps, and another he says this quote Donald
Speaker 9: is finished. He is no longer hot. First the hands
Speaker 9: so tiny, and now me, Gavin C. Newsom have taken
Speaker 9: away his step. Many are saying he can't even do
Speaker 9: the big stairs on Air Force one anymore, uses the
Speaker 9: little baby stairs now sad.
Speaker 1: While conservatives argue that this is childish and silly.
Speaker 9: If I run his wife, I would say, you are
Speaker 9: making a fool of yourself.
Speaker 6: Stop it.
Speaker 9: He's got a big job as governor of California, but
Speaker 9: if he wants an even bigger job, he has to
Speaker 9: be a little bit more serious.
Speaker 1: Democrats have been saying, yeah, that's kind of the whole point.
Speaker 10: I freaking love what Governor Newsom is doing because that's
Speaker 10: what offense looks like. And I'm tired of being told,
Speaker 10: you know, when they go low, we go high. I mean,
Speaker 10: the way I see it, when they go low, we
Speaker 10: should bury their ideas below the capitol.
Speaker 1: So this was going on throughout twenty twenty five, but
Speaker 1: as recently as a few days ago on New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: Gavin's press team posted this happy New Year to everyone,
Speaker 1: especially the deeply disturbed losers suffering from extreme Newsome derangement syndrome.
Speaker 1: Speaking of losers, I hope Donald Trump has the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six quote he deserves after unleashing chaos on the
Speaker 1: people of this great country. But I want to play you, guys,
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom on Stephen Colbert's show. He responds to the
Speaker 1: reaction that he's been getting to some of the stuff.
Speaker 10: Two kings.
Speaker 3: Everything we were doing and try to break through wasn't
Speaker 3: working anymore. And so we decided to do something right
Speaker 3: to your point, a novel called Humor. And I gotta say,
Speaker 3: oftentimes Democrats we're little, you know, we just we don't
Speaker 3: We're not as humorous as we should be. Little staff
Speaker 3: could be a little stiff. Yeah, And so we thought
Speaker 3: we'd have some fun with it. But I never imagined
Speaker 3: it would break through like it has and get under
Speaker 3: the skin of the President of the United States and
Speaker 3: some of my friends.
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that this kind of usage,
Speaker 1: deliberate usage of humor in a political strategy.
Speaker 7: Especially as Newsom says, they try other things and they
Speaker 7: didn't break through. Right, So this wasn't the first thing
Speaker 7: on their list, but it's the thing that they think
Speaker 7: has worked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's obviously not the first politician to try
Speaker 1: and inject comedy or humor into his political strategy. You've
Speaker 1: got people like Donald Trump, who sometimes makes you laugh
Speaker 1: by accident, like you're laughing at him, but sometimes it's
Speaker 1: saying stuff that's supposed to make you laugh.
Speaker 11: Is visceral response to attack people on their appearance.
Speaker 4: I never attacked him on his look. And believe me,
Speaker 4: there's plenty of subject matter right there.
Speaker 12: That I can tell.
Speaker 1: You know, We've got characters like Eric Adams, who like
Speaker 1: is saying some absolutely insane.
Speaker 7: Shiit n life may I I got to test the product.
Speaker 1: But he I think he knows that he's hilarious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm curious. Do you guys feel like humor is a
Speaker 1: successful strategy for politicians to appear more relatable? Like, have
Speaker 1: we just been seeing very specific cases? Do we feel
Speaker 1: largely that they should stick to policy?
Speaker 11: Well, it's interesting because the conversation today is so focused
Speaker 11: on like their social media accounts, which it's like, Gavin's
Speaker 11: not in the lab photoshop making this up. You know what?
Speaker 11: I mean, so it's like that that to me adds
Speaker 11: a layer where I'm like, all right, this isn't you.
Speaker 11: This is like a bunch of whatever thirty year olds
Speaker 11: who work for you making that makes it like this
Speaker 11: distance where it's like, well, I don't even think you're funny,
Speaker 11: you know. I think a lot of politicians, you know,
Speaker 11: It's like Obama was funny famously.
Speaker 1: The White House correspondent, like he was very like.
Speaker 11: Good comic timing and like that is relatable, or like,
Speaker 11: you know, Bernie Sanders is funny when he's and like,
Speaker 11: you know, dismissing something or whatever. Like So, I mean,
Speaker 11: I think it's a good and normal human thing to
Speaker 11: use humor. I don't think it should be like the
Speaker 11: bulk of your political strategy. It's like the who would
Speaker 11: you want to get.
Speaker 10: A beer with?
Speaker 11: Thing? Like I remember when our boy George W. Bush
Speaker 11: was elected. That was like the big thing. It's like
Speaker 11: he seems like a chummy guy. Yeah, It's like and
Speaker 11: like that counts for something. It's like, Okay, can this
Speaker 11: be someone I could relate to in a normal human way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think people are over estimating the power of humor
Speaker 7: because I think what people associate humor with is like
Speaker 7: authenticity or like not being guarded or buttoned up. But
Speaker 7: if you're not naturally funny or you're forcing humor, it
Speaker 7: also doesn't work.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 7: We've seen plenty of examples of like really stuffy politicians
Speaker 7: trying to be funny and it's like, yeah, okay, this
Speaker 7: is even worse.
Speaker 1: Jd Vance with the yeah.
Speaker 7: Jd Vance is like someone who famously is not funny,
Speaker 7: right like, and he tries and it doesn't connect.
Speaker 13: Right.
Speaker 7: So, I think like a politician could be not trying
Speaker 7: to be funny, but just a little bit less guarded,
Speaker 7: a little bit more relaxed, a little less worried about
Speaker 7: saying the wrong thing at all times or not saying
Speaker 7: anything at all because you're so afraid of what you like,
Speaker 7: who you may upset. I think that more so is
Speaker 7: more important than like a politician being funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you guys are right about this. Essentially,
Speaker 1: with no was saying about would you get a beer
Speaker 1: with this person, it's like this ability for the politician
Speaker 1: to be able to hang essentially. I've been watching unfortunately
Speaker 1: the Flagrant podcast and you just you see politicians go
Speaker 1: on there and you start to wonder the value of
Speaker 1: like them being in that kind of environment. Obviously, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump went on there last year and they were just
Speaker 1: kind of kissing his ass, so it doesn't count. But
Speaker 1: Pete Boodajudge went on, and I was kind of surprised
Speaker 1: by how easily he kind of melted into that, into
Speaker 1: that environment.
Speaker 11: You can't privatize the public park, right, this is the
Speaker 11: all I do, public goods, why we have governments, why
Speaker 11: we collect taxes.
Speaker 5: Were turning to such libs already.
Speaker 1: Dude, and it literally made me as like a voter
Speaker 1: be like oh interesting, Like I didn't know that he
Speaker 1: had this side to him. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: could never imagine Kamala Harris being on that show, because
Speaker 1: some Democrats are so risk averse, not able to be
Speaker 1: an environment where like the questions weren't approved ahead of
Speaker 1: time and that kind of stuff I think gets to people.
Speaker 7: And it's frustrating with her specifically, because I do think
Speaker 7: she has it in her, like I you know, we've
Speaker 7: obviously seen clips and instances of like like her talking
Speaker 7: about cooking and shit. It's just like you can be normal.
Speaker 11: Yeah, No, she seems a lot more normal if she
Speaker 11: would let herself be that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what's so funny.
Speaker 5: Where was this?
Speaker 11: They're going back and forth about her not being on
Speaker 11: Joe Rogan or whatever, and it's like, I actually think
Speaker 11: if she was able to relax and go on something
Speaker 11: like that, she could be good. Yeah, but like she's
Speaker 11: so trained up that she won't. But yeah, when she
Speaker 11: talked about cooking or whatever, like after a speech or whatever,
Speaker 11: talking to just people.
Speaker 5: I should be calling you, Harris, you should not.
Speaker 14: That's not on my birth certificate.
Speaker 8: Okay, just don't call me, Auntie.
Speaker 12: I won't call you.
Speaker 11: You could see you know one how she got to
Speaker 11: where she is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a moment the Mama Lass stuff where
Speaker 1: it was like, Okay, this does feel kind of relatable.
Speaker 1: But then you hear stories like the Subway Takes Guy,
Speaker 1: where it's this viral show where you go on and
Speaker 1: give a hot take. Apparently Kamala went on during the
Speaker 1: campaign and had a take that was so focused, group tested,
Speaker 1: and awkward that everyone just mutually decided to scrap the episode.
Speaker 5: Her take was that bad. It was really really bad.
Speaker 5: Then it was it was like, didn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: I can tell you this. I was bacon as a spice, you.
Speaker 10: Think that was her opinion.
Speaker 6: You thinks you had like a research group trying to
Speaker 6: figure something.
Speaker 5: That research group. And then I was like, if I
Speaker 5: post this, a lot of people are going to be
Speaker 5: out at me.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 1: Counter example, Zorn Mundani, newly elected mayor of New York City.
Speaker 1: You know, not like the funniest guy ever, but one
Speaker 1: can easily see the effect a politician can have when
Speaker 1: they're able to be themselves, regardless of the situation or environment.
Speaker 1: But speaking of the effect that politicians can have, we're
Speaker 1: going to be hearing from a humor historian who's going
Speaker 1: to walk us through the history of humor in politics,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to hear from actual comedian Mike Birbiglia.
Speaker 1: That's after the break. We're back. I'm Anny, I'm Noah Devin,
Speaker 1: and we're about to hear from doctor Mark Rolf. He
Speaker 1: is an expert in the history of humor in politics.
Speaker 1: He's a professor at the University of New South Wales
Speaker 1: in Sydney. And here I'll just have him introduce himself.
Speaker 12: Well, basically, I've always been interested in politics, humor and
Speaker 12: history since childhood. I've basically built a career out of
Speaker 12: those three things combined. I treat satire as really a
Speaker 12: species of rhetoric, an offshoot of rhetric. So humor and
Speaker 12: satire generally as means of persuasion.
Speaker 1: Okay, So before we get into the weeds, I do
Speaker 1: love to talk about these kind of topics more existentially.
Speaker 1: So I asked him what even is humor? Why do
Speaker 1: we laugh?
Speaker 12: The term humor is an ancient one, but up until
Speaker 12: about three four hundred years ago, it was part of medicine.
Speaker 12: Humor or humors referred to the four liquids of ancient
Speaker 12: and medieval medicine black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood,
Speaker 12: and the balance of these four liquids dictated your temperaments.
Speaker 12: That's why we can still say sometimes, oh, he's in
Speaker 12: a bit of bad humor. Split humor from laughter, they're
Speaker 12: not the same. But the way we've talked about the
Speaker 12: two together during the three hundred years, but particularly the
Speaker 12: last two hundred years, we've said humor and laughter are equivalent.
Speaker 12: If there's laughter, there's been a joke, Okay, But when
Speaker 12: you think about it, there's laughter for a range of
Speaker 12: reasons without jokes. Okay, you tickle a baby, the baby laughs,
Speaker 12: there's no joke. Obviously, there can be release of joy,
Speaker 12: physical effects that are good without any joke. The Vikings
Speaker 12: they laughed with scorn without jokes. They laughed with scorn
Speaker 12: at enemies, and they would laugh at violence. Aristotle the
Speaker 12: philosopher talks about how Greeks would laugh at unkliness. What
Speaker 12: I'm pointing to is a range of different things that
Speaker 12: we laugh at as human and as one philosopher called
Speaker 12: Henry booksOn said, laughter is in need of an echo.
Speaker 12: It's part of our sociality. We can laugh in our
Speaker 12: own but when we laugh with others, we are establishing
Speaker 12: bones with them as well.
Speaker 1: So this segment really made me think about people like
Speaker 1: Eric Adams, Yes, and even Curtis Leewa, who is the
Speaker 1: Republican nominee for mayor of New York City, Like, are
Speaker 1: we laughing with them or at them? If we're gonna
Speaker 1: split humor and laughter a part as concepts.
Speaker 7: Even with President Trump, Yeah, there are times where he
Speaker 7: makes a joke that will make me laugh, and there's
Speaker 7: times where he's not making a joke and I'm cracking out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I was serious. I wondered about kind of
Speaker 1: the ratio with someone like Donald Trump, for example, Like,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna say he's funny, maybe we want to
Speaker 1: quantify what percentage of the things he's saying is supposed
Speaker 1: to make you laugh versus what is just you know,
Speaker 1: we're just like this guy's insane.
Speaker 11: I think more than lots of left leaning people would
Speaker 11: admit he's purposeful. Yeah, Like, I think a lot of
Speaker 11: times he's trying to be funny and often succeeding, and
Speaker 11: people are laughing at him, maybe thinking they're laughing at him,
Speaker 11: but they're laughing with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like not we're not not clocking that he is
Speaker 1: trying to be.
Speaker 11: Fun or like not giving credit where it's due basically
Speaker 11: and more generally thinking about what he just said there
Speaker 11: where it's like, I'm much more likely to laugh out
Speaker 11: loud if I'm in a movie theater or watching something
Speaker 11: with another person than if I'm sitting by myself watching
Speaker 11: a movie, Like it's really hard to get a real
Speaker 11: laugh out of me by myself. And obviously that's not
Speaker 11: like a conscious thing, but it is something like I'm
Speaker 11: signaling that.
Speaker 2: I got the joke, I guess.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's interesting to think about that community aspect of laughter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes me think of like memes, even where
Speaker 1: like the point of it is a kind of a
Speaker 1: communal reaction to the content. So one thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask doctor Rolf to do was give me a
Speaker 1: brief overview of the history of humor in politics, because
Speaker 1: something I learned when I was reading about his work
Speaker 1: is that this is kind of a relatively new concept.
Speaker 12: Much of what we know about humor started around three
Speaker 12: hundred years ago in Britain, and we carry on many
Speaker 12: of the ideas, especially this idea of political satire from
Speaker 12: the British, and that went to colonial America and all
Speaker 12: the British literature of that time. So you've got the
Speaker 12: concept of humor, and then you get later on with
Speaker 12: the British the idea of a national humor, and then
Speaker 12: America imparts its twist on the idea in the eighteen seventies,
Speaker 12: with the set of humor being a good individual thing
Speaker 12: that a person can be admired for having a good
Speaker 12: sense of humor and a little bit suspect for not
Speaker 12: having a good sense of humor. So in that way,
Speaker 12: when you look at the history of a lot of
Speaker 12: our ideas, you find that they're not as universal as
Speaker 12: we might think that they have really short periods in
Speaker 12: the scheme of things. I've looked at how some of
Speaker 12: these things went to America, and how American ideas of humor,
Speaker 12: vaudeville and the invention of the joke that we know
Speaker 12: today was also an invention of America in the eighteen
Speaker 12: seventies and eighties, when you've got a huge creation of
Speaker 12: a mass entertainment circuit going on and the creation of
Speaker 12: joke writers. The anonymous two or three line joke that
Speaker 12: we know today an American invention. Seta gets used these days,
Speaker 12: particularly in America, as a means of political identity. So
Speaker 12: a lot of Americans consume their news in a line
Speaker 12: with their views, and they consume satire or humor in
Speaker 12: line with their views.
Speaker 11: As your slogan says Fox News, we read the chain
Speaker 11: mails your grandma gets in her inbox out loud like
Speaker 11: they were true.
Speaker 12: And obviously it lines up with this issue of polarization
Speaker 12: of America.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was interesting that humor historically is
Speaker 1: something that we use to grade like a human being,
Speaker 1: Like you might think someone is a great person, but
Speaker 1: if they're not funny, it's kind of suspect.
Speaker 7: Well, even if they're not funny, then you have to
Speaker 7: know what is funny, you know, like every dating prompt
Speaker 7: effort is like you must have a good sense of humor,
Speaker 7: or every love island, they're like what your type. It's like,
Speaker 7: you know, really great banter, like great sense of humor.
Speaker 7: So like being it if you're not the one telling jokes,
Speaker 7: being able to laugh at jokes is very important. I
Speaker 7: feel like it's just like a roundabout way of being like,
Speaker 7: not like someone who has like a stick up their ass.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I also thought it was interesting that the kind
Speaker 1: of concept of a joke is pretty new and also American.
Speaker 7: In the seventies, I wasna say, I was going through
Speaker 7: some stuff in my head. It's not gonna say this
Speaker 7: guy's wrong.
Speaker 11: How old is this guy?
Speaker 1: And I do think he means like in a formal
Speaker 1: like he was saying like specific was telling jokes, the
Speaker 1: kind of anonymous as he calls it, an anonymous two
Speaker 1: or three line joke.
Speaker 7: The new version, the modern version of what we consider
Speaker 7: a joke, not like the slapstick stuff of the past.
Speaker 1: Right, So we today have our kind of modern day
Speaker 1: examples of politicians using humor in politics. But I asked
Speaker 1: doctor Rolf if there were any famous examples in the
Speaker 1: past that those of us who are so young might
Speaker 1: not be acquainted with.
Speaker 12: You can go back to John F. Kennedy. Given what
Speaker 12: I've said about the history before, we think more highly
Speaker 12: a person who displays a good sense of humor, and
Speaker 12: that's when we commend them for having wit. So we
Speaker 12: think that they're a bit superior, bit more intellectual, a
Speaker 12: bit more classes. That's how John Kennedy used humor.
Speaker 4: What have you done for the women according to the
Speaker 4: promises of the platform.
Speaker 11: I'm sure we haven't done enough.
Speaker 12: And so people often look back to his press conferences
Speaker 12: in which he's charming the journalists nearby, but also the
Speaker 12: TV viewers with his sense of humor. You've also got
Speaker 12: ron Reagan. He employed a comedic writer called Doug Gamble,
Speaker 12: and there was a famous line in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 12: four election against Walter Mondo, and the issue of Ronald
Speaker 12: Reagan's age come up. You might know the crip.
Speaker 4: You already are the oldest president in history, and some
Speaker 4: of your staff say you are tired after your most
Speaker 4: recent encounter with mister Mondale. Is there any doubt in
Speaker 4: your mind that you would be able to function in
Speaker 4: such circumstances.
Speaker 13: I will not make age an issue of this campaign.
Speaker 13: I am not going to exploit for political purposes my
Speaker 13: opponent's youth and inexperience.
Speaker 12: That cuip was written by Doug Gamble. Doug Gamble has
Speaker 12: also contributed some crips to Donald Trump. Some people didn't
Speaker 12: take it quite as a joke, but he's lined about
Speaker 12: oh jijimping being president for life is now.
Speaker 5: They wanted to give that a shout some day.
Speaker 12: Okay, that came from Doug Gamble. Those are some of
Speaker 12: the ways in which politicians can use HUMA, as well
Speaker 12: as using CUMA as an attack dog against opponents.
Speaker 1: So I knew politicians could be funny naturally, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know that they were like actually hiring comedians, not
Speaker 1: really to make their speeches funny, but to just have
Speaker 1: little bits here and there.
Speaker 5: Yeah I need to do that.
Speaker 11: Yeah, my guy over here, this.
Speaker 1: Guy Doug Gamble, who wrote that famous line for Reagan,
Speaker 1: who's also seems to be still around writing stuff for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So sometimes, you know, we hear some silly
Speaker 1: thing from a politician and we think, wow, this guy's
Speaker 1: on one, but it actually could be written from some comedian.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're written Pomo should have used Doug in his
Speaker 7: last debate against Zorn because he did not have some
Speaker 7: some good coming.
Speaker 11: Biden should have hired that guy before. I didn't realize
Speaker 11: Trump had used him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like talking about old Yeah, all right, So
Speaker 1: we learned a lot about kind of the history of
Speaker 1: the utilization of comedy in politics. Is that a word utilization,
Speaker 1: about use? The use over complicating it. We learned a
Speaker 1: lot about the use of comedy in politics in history.
Speaker 1: But now I think it'd be a good idea to
Speaker 1: talk to an actual comedian, you know, get their thoughts
Speaker 1: about why some of this stuff lands, why some of
Speaker 1: it doesn't. And famously, there's a popular podcast that does
Speaker 1: just that where they work on jokes in real time.
Speaker 1: It's called Mike Brobiglia's working it out. So after the break,
Speaker 1: I'm going to head over to the studio where he
Speaker 1: records that podcast and talk to Mike. All right, we
Speaker 1: are back. This is Manny and this is my conversation
Speaker 1: with comedian Mike or Biglia.
Speaker 5: Thanks for doing this, Mike, Oh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: I've been doing a little bit of studying about the
Speaker 1: usage of humor and comedy in politics for like the
Speaker 1: last one hundred years or so. Wow, And I've been
Speaker 1: surprised to learn that politicians used to quite frequently hire
Speaker 1: comedians to either appear wittier or in some instances like
Speaker 1: specifically write jokes for them. JFK hired a comedian to
Speaker 1: kind of appear smarter on the on the campaign trail,
Speaker 1: and then some politicians like Ron Reagan actually had comedians
Speaker 1: write specific jokes for him. There's a famous instance where
Speaker 1: Walter Mondale kind of cracks at Reagan for being too old,
Speaker 1: and his response is that he's not going to use
Speaker 1: Walter's inexperience against him, and that was actually written by
Speaker 1: a comedian. So I guess my first question is, like,
Speaker 1: have you heard of this happening today? Have you ever
Speaker 1: been asked to kind of punch up a politician's speech.
Speaker 2: I've been asked, I think I have before. I think
Speaker 2: I've maybe submitted jokes maybe during debates or something.
Speaker 1: So this is like debate training almost.
Speaker 2: I don't think any of mine were used. I also
Speaker 2: didn't take it very seriously. Yeah, Like I don't think
Speaker 2: I was very focused on it or and I don't
Speaker 2: think I was in the inner circle of it. I
Speaker 2: find the assignment to be hard. Yeah, political comedy, I
Speaker 2: just find it to be hard.
Speaker 1: What about it is hard? Is harder than, for example,
Speaker 1: being in a room like a stand up comedy show.
Speaker 2: It's funny, like I heard John Stuart describe it recently
Speaker 2: in an interview with The New Yorker where he said,
Speaker 2: you look at Trump and it's like he's not funny,
Speaker 2: but he has a funny cadence. And I think that
Speaker 2: combined the cadence he's like an entertainer's cadence, combined with
Speaker 2: a complete and total willingness to say anything, regardless of
Speaker 2: any meaning whatsoever. Yeah, and I think he's able to
Speaker 2: pull that off, and not many people are because people
Speaker 2: have integrity. There's not that many people with that little integrity,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 5: What I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a unique and some people call shame. No shame, right,
Speaker 2: And it's like interestingly seeing Newsome mimic it on Twitter
Speaker 2: has been fascinating to me because I think it has
Speaker 2: defanged Trump a little bit because it shows the trick
Speaker 2: and the trick is just bombast. The trick is just
Speaker 2: all caps bomb bast pomp, and it's like, Oh, that's
Speaker 2: not hard. That's an intern just wrote like, I don't
Speaker 2: think Avin Newsom's writing these bombastic tweets. Yeah, this wouldn't be.
Speaker 2: My guess.
Speaker 1: A lot of people I know find Trump to be funny.
Speaker 1: I debate my friends whether we're laughing at or with Trump. Sure,
Speaker 1: is there some sense from the public maybe that it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: I wish I could say the things that Trump says,
Speaker 1: or that he's like kind of crossing boundaries that might
Speaker 1: feel freeing to people.
Speaker 2: I've heard different theories on it, and I don't know
Speaker 2: which is true, but I've heard, like one theory is
Speaker 2: that people have, for thirty forty years and maybe longer,
Speaker 2: maybe one hundred years, have felt so lied to by
Speaker 2: politicians that there's something in it where they go, well,
Speaker 2: at least here's all the raw footage of the documentary,
Speaker 2: and then we can cut our own from it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, here's the lies, here's the truths, here's the everything.
Speaker 2: I'm unloading the clip up, you figure it out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it's a little bit in the kind of do
Speaker 2: your own research realm where people are like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: I can make sense of this nonsense, I think. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that's part of the appeal from someone who
Speaker 2: for whom it does not appeal.
Speaker 1: Right, And you touched on this a little bit already,
Speaker 1: But why is the kind of Gavin Newsome strategy? Why
Speaker 1: do you think is resonating with some people?
Speaker 2: I see a lot of I think, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it resonates because it reveals what Trump does as a trick.
Speaker 1: So demystifies. It's like seeing how a magician does, like
Speaker 1: a card trick or something.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Plus he's a governor and so there's like it's high stakes.
Speaker 2: It's higher stakes in if Mike Berbiglia the comedian did
Speaker 2: the bunch of all caps tweets, which I'm sure comedians
Speaker 2: have done, you know, I'm sure that that's out there
Speaker 2: as a trope, but like him doing it from this
Speaker 2: stately position, like does feel consequential?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess from a kind of a zoomed out perspective,
Speaker 1: what do you think it is about? Like someone having
Speaker 1: a good sense of humor that signals a level of authenticity,
Speaker 1: like when some politicians, as we're going to get into
Speaker 1: in a second attempt humor and ya want to fall
Speaker 1: short the public consensus is kind of that they are fake,
Speaker 1: are there manufacturer? Or this is like a focus group tested,
Speaker 1: there's some inauthenticity. So what is it about a good
Speaker 1: sense of humor that makes people feel like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is like a real human being.
Speaker 2: I think that great jokes are based in an observation
Speaker 2: that is either true or feels true. And so when
Speaker 2: a politician is observing something that people have feel like
Speaker 2: they've observed, there's a sense of like, well, we're watching
Speaker 2: the same reality here.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that there is something where there have been
Speaker 2: some politicians without naming names in the last thirty years
Speaker 2: where they were not able to read the room and
Speaker 2: as a result, people really like lost faith in them,
Speaker 2: Like you know, a famous example, actually this does name
Speaker 2: names is the George W. Bush Mission accomplished right where
Speaker 2: it's kind of a tone deaf. Yeah, everyone's just going, what,
Speaker 2: there's all these people dead?
Speaker 5: What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: And I think that that and the opposite of that
Speaker 2: is when someone is funny or nails a truth in
Speaker 2: a moment or what feels like a truth in a moment,
Speaker 2: I you know, I mean even like the speech that
Speaker 2: all these people criticized, which is like Trump's I want
Speaker 2: to say it's a inauguration like seventeen or something. Was
Speaker 2: the carnage speech.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
Speaker 2: A lot of people were like, Oh, it's so dark
Speaker 2: and so this and so that. Well yeah, but also
Speaker 2: like some people's lives are really dark.
Speaker 1: It's like painting a picture to them that felt familiar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I actually think I criticize ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: of what Trump does. That speech. I actually found like, Eh,
Speaker 2: it's not for me, but it's hitting with some people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you understood why it was resonating. So on
Speaker 1: your show, you do a lot of kind of like
Speaker 1: working on all yeah, which is a lot of fun
Speaker 1: to listen to and to better kind of understand the
Speaker 1: dynamic here that that we've been talking about. I love
Speaker 1: to do a quick experiment with you. I've brought a
Speaker 1: couple of jokes from politicians in the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: and I'd love to get your sense of like why
Speaker 1: they didn't work and what you might do to help
Speaker 1: them if you were hired to write them. All Right,
Speaker 1: So the first one is from J. D. E.
Speaker 10: Vance.
Speaker 1: This is when he was on the campaign trail.
Speaker 15: Democrats say that it is racist to believe. Well, they
Speaker 15: say it's racist to do anything. I had a die
Speaker 15: Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're gonna
Speaker 15: call that racist too, But it's good. I love you guys.
Speaker 2: I love you guys. That's a tough one. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean it's it's clearly it's a great example of someone
Speaker 2: who is surrounded by people who agree with him all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: It's like, I actually think that one of the keys
Speaker 2: to being a decent comedian is playing for crowds who
Speaker 2: aren't dying to hear what you say next. Because I
Speaker 2: do a mixture of shows like when I'm on tour,
Speaker 2: it's meaningful for my process. But I know that those
Speaker 2: people have watched my other six specials and they get
Speaker 2: the tone of what I'm doing, and they right, And
Speaker 2: so I like, it's an inside joke. I know that
Speaker 2: they know that I know that I'm joking about this,
Speaker 2: this and this, and that these four things we can
Speaker 2: accept to be true.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then I also played the comedy Celler in New
Speaker 2: York and others like it. Where I'm not on the bill,
Speaker 2: I pop up. I would saying most people don't know
Speaker 2: who I am, or at least half don't know who
Speaker 2: I am, And so you get what I think of
Speaker 2: as like a true bounce like in tennis, true bounce
Speaker 2: of the ball or basketball, like yeah, where you go? Okay,
Speaker 2: kind of an unbiased, blank slate. Yeah, this is Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is how this reads to people. And so that
Speaker 2: the g Van's clip is a great example of like
Speaker 2: it's very telling. Yeah, he's clearly surrounded by people for
Speaker 2: whom they believe everything is construed as racist all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: even a diet mountain dew, which is a really tricky analogy.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what the joke is. Yeah, can
Speaker 2: you explain.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what I was looking. I was seeking
Speaker 1: information on. I think he's clearly, after telling the joke,
Speaker 1: waiting for action. Yeah, the diet mountain de I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm from Ohio as well. I drank mountain dew growing up.
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I didn't see what was going
Speaker 1: on here in the.
Speaker 2: Mag I'm unaware of any racial implications of mountain dew
Speaker 2: nor diet mountain. Yeah, so I would say, like zoom out.
Speaker 2: If he's playing to his bass and he wants to
Speaker 2: make a joke about how everyone calls everything racist all
Speaker 2: the time. I would pick something that has a racial implication. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: choose a product that has a racial implication. People can
Speaker 2: call me racist for blank filling the blank product that whatever.
Speaker 2: So that's for playing for his bass, for playing like wider.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's almost like you'd have to nail
Speaker 2: the perfect thing culturally that people are annoyed at, yeah,
Speaker 2: because they've heard it called racist, and we all know
Speaker 2: that's a bit.
Speaker 1: Much, right. What confused me is that this is an
Speaker 1: audience ostensibly rooting for him, like wanting to be entertained
Speaker 1: by truly bombing. Yeah, to be fair to JdE e Vance,
Speaker 1: which is a sentiment I've never had in my life
Speaker 1: and probably never will again. How much of this could
Speaker 1: be that some jokes fall flat on some cross I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've had experiences before where you've told the same
Speaker 1: joke to two different rooms and gotten two completely different reactions.
Speaker 1: As you're touching on earlier.
Speaker 2: Certainly, but but that joke is just not gonna work.
Speaker 2: I think that, honestly. It's it's that he's surrounded by
Speaker 2: sick offens who are just laughing on every word he's saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: versus listening to the content of what he's saying. What
Speaker 2: a deeply unfunny person too, I mean he is really,
Speaker 2: he doesn't have it.
Speaker 1: I've got one more for you, okay, and this and
Speaker 1: should be fair. You know that was someone on the right.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pick someone on the left.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: We've got a joke here from Amy Klobatar and uh,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a compilation.
Speaker 14: The President actually sent out a tweet he made fun
Speaker 14: of me for talking about climate change in the middle
Speaker 14: of a blizzard, and he called me snow woman. So
Speaker 14: I wrote back, Hey, Donald Trump, the science is on
Speaker 14: my side, and I'd like to see how your hair
Speaker 14: would fair in a blizzard. So I wrote back, Hey,
Speaker 14: Donald Trump, the science is on my side, and I'd
Speaker 14: like to see how your hair would.
Speaker 1: Fair in a blizzard.
Speaker 8: So I wrote back, Donald Trump, the science is on
Speaker 8: my side, and I'd like to see how your hair
Speaker 8: would fair in a blizzard.
Speaker 1: And you get the picture this. She's done this maybe
Speaker 1: one hundred times, the same joke, over and over, and
Speaker 1: just for the listener. During that clip, Mike had his
Speaker 1: head in his.
Speaker 2: I don't even like, get the jokes? Can you explain
Speaker 2: the joke to me?
Speaker 1: He at one point was criticizing the Democrats for like
Speaker 1: drumming up climate change as like a real thing. Of
Speaker 1: course it is. And I guess this is her response,
Speaker 1: if you don't think climate change is real, well, I
Speaker 1: would like to see what your hair would be doing
Speaker 1: in the blizzards that are happening more often. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm very confused as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a tricky one. I like Senator Klobsher a lot,
Speaker 2: but that one is clearly.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is can't come from someone on her team
Speaker 1: or right.
Speaker 2: I performed a couple fundraisers in the last election, and
Speaker 2: I say, people make fun of us in the city.
Speaker 2: They call us coastal elites, just because we live on
Speaker 2: a coast and we're better than other people. And in fairness,
Speaker 2: part of the time we live in Aspen. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I think, with jokes, you you need a target. I
Speaker 2: did a special for Netflix years ago called Thank Cover Jokes,
Speaker 2: and essentially one of the key points in it is
Speaker 2: like all jokes are aimed at someone or something, like
Speaker 2: all all jokes are offensive to some.
Speaker 1: Target, like as a target.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every joke if you think about it, unless it's
Speaker 2: just nonsense, which is its own genre, like unless it's abstract.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting hearing her take aim at Trump in
Speaker 2: that way because it's like it just doesn't land. And
Speaker 2: it doesn't land because so many jokes have been made
Speaker 2: about his hair, about his skin, about his whatever like that.
Speaker 2: You know, orange skins his hairs are two pays.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 1: And to your point, it is kind of unclear initially
Speaker 1: what the target of the joke is. Yes, I guess
Speaker 1: everyone's hair would kind of be going.
Speaker 2: On, right, and it's it's but it's it's a real quandary.
Speaker 2: I would say, four people who are on the other
Speaker 2: side of him to make jokes at his expense, because
Speaker 2: it's like it's all done, it's all been done. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's part of the reason I don't go into political
Speaker 2: comedy realm right now. I did a little bit when
Speaker 2: George W. Bush was president. The only reason I did
Speaker 2: was that someone was opening up for me in Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: and they were doing all this pro George W. Bush
Speaker 2: material interesting And I've never been in the habit of
Speaker 2: censoring anyone. Yeah, so I didn't say, hey, could you
Speaker 2: not do them, so instead, I wrote a joke about
Speaker 2: Georgia B. Bush and that ended up on my album
Speaker 2: To Drink Mike, and the premise is it's like Georgie W.
Speaker 2: Bush is like the guy who shows up at the
Speaker 2: barbecue and starts the whiffle ball game. He's a wiffleball tony.
Speaker 2: He's like, hey, y'all want to play wiffle ball? And
Speaker 2: then they played through the analogy with WMD's and all that,
Speaker 2: and I have not. It was interesting about that joke
Speaker 2: is that played in the South in the middle of
Speaker 2: the country, partly because it was so silly, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's kind of absurd, it's absurd, similar to mulaney horse
Speaker 2: in the hospital bit.
Speaker 6: This guy being the president, it's like there's a horse
Speaker 6: loose in a hospital. It's like, there's a horse loose
Speaker 6: in a hospital. I think eventually everything's gonna be okay,
Speaker 6: but I have no idea what's gonna happen next, and
Speaker 6: neither do any of you, and neither do you parents.
Speaker 6: Because there's a horse loose in the hospital.
Speaker 2: And there is something that he's capturing that even a
Speaker 2: Trump supporter I think would not disagree with, which is
Speaker 2: it's just chaotic. Yeah, and there's a point to it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's fun. You can't dispute. There's chaos with this president.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just did two jokes that you punched up.
Speaker 1: I wondered if you have time to listen to one
Speaker 1: from Trump, I would like to know why it works. Actually,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of people find this clip to be
Speaker 1: really funny, and I do too, if I'm being honest. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: I contain multitudes. So this this joke I see gets
Speaker 1: circulated often on X for example, where people be like, okay,
Speaker 1: you got to hand it to him. In some instances,
Speaker 1: would we be better off?
Speaker 4: As an example, in a wreck, what are we doing?
Speaker 4: It's like I saw somebody I won't even say because
Speaker 4: it's embarrassing. We want it where the women over there
Speaker 4: don't have to wear the you know what? Then I
Speaker 4: saw women interviewed. They said, we want to wear them.
Speaker 4: We've worn them for a thousand years. Why would anybody
Speaker 4: tell us not to?
Speaker 1: They want to?
Speaker 4: What the hell are we getting involved for? In fact,
Speaker 4: it's easier. You don't have to put up makeup. Look
Speaker 4: how beautiful everyone looks. Wouldn't it be easy if wa right?
Speaker 4: I'll tell you if I was a woman, I don't
Speaker 4: want to Wah, I'm ready, darling, let's go true.
Speaker 1: What is it about this one that's like some people
Speaker 1: are like, Okay, I can see the humor in this.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, it appeals to the audience's sense of
Speaker 2: wanting him to be right. So, if I were gonna
Speaker 2: guess as to the people in the audience and the
Speaker 2: people posting it are isolationists, they don't think we should
Speaker 2: be in foreign wars, et cetera. And then here's this
Speaker 2: guy making this kind of outrageous nonsense digression that in
Speaker 2: some way lands it in the sense of everybody wins
Speaker 2: in the joke. Yeah, it's like the isolationists win because
Speaker 2: they're like, we also don't want to be in foreign wars.
Speaker 2: The people in the Middle East win because that's what
Speaker 2: they there, that's what they want. Also they want us
Speaker 2: not to be there, they want etc. And then his
Speaker 2: example is minute and it's specific, and it's surprising. Yeah,
Speaker 2: first of all, you don't think he's gonna talk about
Speaker 2: women's point of view ever, Yeah, I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: someone who doesn't care about women clearly. So then he
Speaker 2: does in a surprise turn and it's confirmation biased on
Speaker 2: what the audience already wanted to hear.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's really insightful. You're saying, essentially, this joke
Speaker 1: confirms the view of the world that I would like
Speaker 1: to see, Like you're like, the.
Speaker 2: People posting that I'm sure are isolation is yeah, and
Speaker 2: the people in the audience are too.
Speaker 1: Really fascinating. Well, thank you so much for doing yeas
Speaker 1: been illuminating.
Speaker 5: Thanks.
Speaker 2: I'm glad it's great talking about it because it's not
Speaker 2: what I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, that was my conversation with Mike. Mister
Speaker 1: Mike Berbiglia. Gotta say, very nice guy. The most interesting
Speaker 1: thing I got from this interview is something that the
Speaker 1: historian told us, which is that a lot of the
Speaker 1: things we find funny are actually just kind of confirming
Speaker 1: what we already believe in politics. Yeah, and so when
Speaker 1: he was saying that a lot of people like that
Speaker 1: Trump joke about the Burkas because we actually don't want
Speaker 1: to be involved in all these wars. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know that really resonated. I didn't realize that was why.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was like, it's kind of right, right where
Speaker 7: it's like lead people alone, let them do their own thing. Right,
Speaker 7: if Trump was saying the opposite of that and that clip,
Speaker 7: we wouldn't find it as funny exactly.
Speaker 1: And like both both at the time MAGA people and
Speaker 1: people on the left were kind of the no more
Speaker 1: foreign Wars stuff. Yes, that hasn't panned out for the
Speaker 1: MAGA people, but still funny to me.
Speaker 7: What's funny to me about that clip, and he mentioned
Speaker 7: it earlier in your interview with him, is like, so
Speaker 7: much of what's funny about Trump is his delivery, and
Speaker 7: that delivery is like very Larry David esque, you know,
Speaker 7: the way he like talked because like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 7: like live alone, like honey, let's go. I was like
Speaker 7: I could see this being like, you know, something similar
Speaker 7: kind of did happen in curb But I was like,
Speaker 7: Larry could do this same bit in Curve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more like than it is like set up punchline, yes,
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, yeah. He has that sort of just sort
Speaker 7: of like stream of consciousness sort of thing. And that
Speaker 7: was when you know, we've reached another level of Trump
Speaker 7: stream of consciousness where it never really comes back to
Speaker 7: the beginning of the weave as But that was when
Speaker 7: you could still kind of follow what was Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: it was start to a.
Speaker 11: Nice level where you know, we still got somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 11: there was a destination exactly.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 11: What's what's notable is that it does sound comfortable and
Speaker 11: like it's actually natural and not yes, versus other ones
Speaker 11: where it feels like a pre written thing and it's
Speaker 11: just like, Okay, now, now's the time when I bring
Speaker 11: out my joke and everyone's gonna love it, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 11: You know, to his credit, that's something Trump's able to
Speaker 11: do is sound like he's just talking yeah, extemporary, it
Speaker 11: feels genuine offense.
Speaker 7: Might still thinking about the Mountain Dude thing, right.
Speaker 1: Polar polar opposite of what we're just talking about now
Speaker 1: is JD vance. He's like trying to force.
Speaker 7: Now, what're spread about it is that like it sounds
Speaker 7: like that's a joke he thought about ahead of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, oh it was totally test like someone
Speaker 1: wrote on his team.
Speaker 7: It wasn't like he was just like you know you
Speaker 7: It's like it's like he felt like that was the
Speaker 7: second or third time he told that.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I said in that in that conversation, you know,
Speaker 1: the most glaring part is that the crowd wants you
Speaker 1: to be successful here. The fact that they didn't have
Speaker 1: any kind of a react.
Speaker 7: Well, you can see everyone started being like wait, yeah, we.
Speaker 1: Had to think. They're like, wait, what does that mountain do?
Speaker 7: They're like saying it in their head, mountain do diet mountain?
Speaker 7: Does it sound like something racist?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Kate Osborne and mangesh Hot Tokador. The
Speaker 1: show was created by Many Fidel, Noah Friedman and Devin Joe.
Speaker 1: The theme and credit song is by me Manny and
Speaker 1: the mixing is done by Steve Bone. Special things to
Speaker 1: our guests doctor Mark Rolf from the University of New
Speaker 1: South Wales and Mike Birbiglia. Definitely check out his show
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Speaker 1: Thing dot Show and leave us five stars if you
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