Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Center.
Speaker 1: It's America's only sorts for news.
Speaker 3: This is the Daily Joke with your host show Stuard.
Speaker 1: Welcome in a Daly shot light of the down start.
Speaker 3: We got a great joke for tonight. We gotta show it.
Speaker 3: You're you're gonna be very excited that you tuned in
Speaker 3: for the scene. I've been talking to the great Salmon Rutshty.
Speaker 3: We'll be joining us later about his new book Tonight fabulous,
Speaker 3: but in many other surprises. But before that, it's a
Speaker 3: big day for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Huge.
Speaker 3: His campaign for president was interrupted today by the trial
Speaker 3: about the other time that he had tried to run
Speaker 3: for president. Let's just check in in another installment of
Speaker 3: America's Most tremendously Wanted, the whole thing is a scam.
Speaker 1: After a week of jury.
Speaker 3: Selection, today it was finally time for opening statements, and
Speaker 3: it turns out the prosecution and the defense do not
Speaker 3: see eye to eye. The prosecution arguing that Trump's alleged
Speaker 3: scheme to keep an adult film actress quiet his election
Speaker 3: interferes pure and simple. In those words, Trump defense lawyer
Speaker 3: Todd Blanche told the jury that the former president, though
Speaker 3: did not violate the law.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: This is a classic case of the State of New
Speaker 3: York versus Oh oh no. I think it's pretty clear
Speaker 3: you did it anyway. This trial will obviously be a
Speaker 3: test of the fairness of the American legal system, but
Speaker 3: it's also a test to the media's ability to cover
Speaker 3: Donald Trump in a responsible way, a task they have
Speaker 3: acknowledged they've performed poorly in the past. I think to
Speaker 3: the degree that the media had lessons during sixteen, they
Speaker 3: seem to have been learned.
Speaker 2: It is irresponsible for cable news networks to give Donald
Speaker 2: Trump hours and hours of free airtime.
Speaker 6: Way too much speculation and liberal wishful thinking and attempts
Speaker 6: to connect dots that did not connect.
Speaker 4: It gets the media's responsibility to not get distracted.
Speaker 5: I think we were much too busy chasing after shiny objects.
Speaker 7: All of us have learned some very valuable lessons from
Speaker 7: the last couple of years in delineating what's significant, what's important.
Speaker 3: So brave, well done, and I think for this trial
Speaker 3: we will see the seeds of that introspection bear fruit,
Speaker 3: or we will learn that learning curves are for pussies.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 1: It's on.
Speaker 8: It's happening.
Speaker 1: History will be made.
Speaker 8: Shaping up to be the trial of the century.
Speaker 3: Maybe the trial of the century, the trial of the century.
Speaker 3: It just might be the trial of the century.
Speaker 9: The taxman is here, Donald Trump, you will finally be
Speaker 9: forced to face the music.
Speaker 3: The legal walls closing in around Donald Trump. The legal
Speaker 3: walls are starting to close in on Donald Trump. Yes,
Speaker 3: this time, mister Bond, it truly is you're doing. Now,
Speaker 3: if you'll excuse.
Speaker 1: Me, I'm going to leave this room.
Speaker 3: Obviously, when I leave, I'm not going to press this
Speaker 3: button right here that opens all the doors and dismantles
Speaker 3: the killing machine I've established. Don't follow me, mister Bond.
Speaker 3: Perhaps if we limit the coverage to the issues at
Speaker 3: hand and try not to create an all encompassing spectacle
Speaker 3: of the most banal of details, perhaps that would help.
Speaker 9: You're looking at live pictures in New York City of
Speaker 9: Donald Trump's motorcate.
Speaker 3: It's about a twenty minute drive between Trump Tower and
Speaker 3: the Court building.
Speaker 8: Trump leaving Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 1: We're now making their way Acrosstown along fifty seventh Street.
Speaker 1: They just cross Park Avenue, making their way up towards
Speaker 1: Lexison Avenue.
Speaker 7: He's heading down the FDR to the Manhattan Courthouse on
Speaker 7: Chamber Street, arriving at this intersection of American history with defiance.
Speaker 3: Arriving at the intersection of American history with defiance. The
Speaker 3: brilliant juxtaposing of the gravitas of the moment with simple
Speaker 3: traffic terms. Was he arrived at the intersection of American
Speaker 3: history where you put a quarter in the parking meter
Speaker 3: of Deathcinea, leaving the look you to avoid stepping in
Speaker 3: the urine puddle of jurisprudence. Seriously, are we gonna follow
Speaker 3: this guy to court every in day? Are you trying
Speaker 3: to make this oj It's not a chase, he's commuting.
Speaker 3: So the media's first attempt, the very first attempt on
Speaker 3: the first day it self control failed and I'm sorry
Speaker 3: to say that. I'm sorry. Hold on, we're getting breaking news.
Speaker 1: You know, he wanted to get a jury seated, so
Speaker 1: we had a lady Bill.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry to interrupt, just for one second. I apologize.
Speaker 9: We're just showing the first image of Donald Trump from
Speaker 9: inside the courtroom. It's a still photograph that we're showing
Speaker 9: there just don't want to make sure our viewers know
Speaker 9: what they're looking at.
Speaker 3: Yes, for our viewers who are just waking up from
Speaker 3: a thirty year coma, this is what Donald Trump has
Speaker 3: looked like every day for the past thirty years, same outfit.
Speaker 3: So we have a photograph of Donald Trump in the courtroom,
Speaker 3: but do we really know what he looks like? The
Speaker 3: man is a mystery, a yetti if you will, Anything
Speaker 3: could be a deep fake. Do we have an eyewitness account,
Speaker 3: perhaps from a dismissed juror would.
Speaker 9: You describe to me what you saw with Donald Trump
Speaker 9: while you were sitting inside of that courtroom?
Speaker 3: Very much?
Speaker 1: He was a bit ahead of me and off to
Speaker 1: the left.
Speaker 8: I didn't have a complete view of him today.
Speaker 1: Dude, wait, did I have jury duty this week?
Speaker 3: What the.
Speaker 1: Brother dresses like me too? This is.
Speaker 3: Anyway, coming up more of our three part interview with
Speaker 3: a guy who nearly saw Donald Trump at the chorra.
Speaker 3: So we have a photograph. That's freaking me out. That picture.
Speaker 3: We have a photograph, and we have eyewitness accounts, but
Speaker 3: do we have anything in a pastel.
Speaker 9: A courtroom sketch that we're getting in right now? I'm
Speaker 9: looking at the courtroom sketch, and mister Trump looks like
Speaker 9: he is glowering. I'm not sure if that's supposed to
Speaker 9: be a glower or just a glance. And I don't
Speaker 9: know how it's art it's not necessarily it's artistic journalism,
Speaker 9: but it's not a photographer.
Speaker 3: Why are you showing it to us? It's a sketch.
Speaker 3: Why would anyone analyze a sketch like it was? It'd
Speaker 3: be like looking at the Last Supper and going, why
Speaker 3: do you think Jesus looks so sad here?
Speaker 1: What do you think is?
Speaker 3: What do you think it's because of Judas? What if
Speaker 3: we interview one of the waiters at one of the
Speaker 3: tables from like a different section of the restaurant, who
Speaker 3: maybe didn't actually see him, But what you know, we
Speaker 3: got time to kill Well, I guess we'll never know
Speaker 3: unless we could talk to the person who drew the sketch.
Speaker 3: But do we have the time?
Speaker 9: Nothing but Christine Cornelis, who was in the courtroom today,
Speaker 9: the official sketch artist.
Speaker 3: I want to show one of your sketches.
Speaker 8: Stay, we're going through some of them, but this.
Speaker 7: One appears in this one that his eyes are closed.
Speaker 8: What was happening here.
Speaker 3: My apologies, ma'am.
Speaker 8: I was sitting fifty feet away.
Speaker 2: I was having such a struggle to try and get
Speaker 2: those eyeballs in.
Speaker 3: Damn it, woman, Donald Trump, have eyeballs on.
Speaker 1: No, man, dun'ty oh, no, you.
Speaker 3: Are in the room.
Speaker 1: Tell me.
Speaker 3: Or I will not come to your trinket shop in Newpaulse.
Speaker 1: Tell me, woman, Look.
Speaker 3: Mean, what the heck are we doing?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: I noticed here his head is perfectly round. What is that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: I like drawing circles at this point, you're brisying yourself.
Speaker 3: How many television hours have they devoted to? What?
Speaker 1: Donald Trump?
Speaker 3: A man who has not been off any of our
Speaker 3: screens for more than thirty seconds in the last eight years.
Speaker 3: Looks like the answer is not nearly as many hours.
Speaker 3: As describing his every movement, Trump craned his neck to
Speaker 3: eye prospective jurors and flashed a tight lips smile.
Speaker 7: Leaning to the left a little bit quiet, his arms
Speaker 7: crossed as.
Speaker 8: Well, hunched over with his elbows on the desk.
Speaker 9: Looked through papers it periodically, whispered to his attorneys, fidgeted.
Speaker 5: And leaned back, the scowl fixed to his face while
Speaker 5: he sat squinting.
Speaker 3: He was actually biting his lip during today's proceedings.
Speaker 1: His lips pursed in that characteristic Trump way.
Speaker 3: His eyeballs gone. The hulking farmer President stood up slowly.
Speaker 3: He walked towards me with a mixture of desire, scorn,
Speaker 3: and let's call it age related confusion. It was then
Speaker 3: that I realized that this former president of the United
Speaker 3: States has a front butt. Look, at some point in
Speaker 3: this trial, something important and revelatory is going to happen,
Speaker 3: but none of us are going to notice because the
Speaker 3: hour spent on his speculative facial tics. If the media
Speaker 3: tries to make us feel like the most mundane bullshit
Speaker 3: is earth shattering, we won't believe you when it's really interesting.
Speaker 3: It's your classic boy who cried Wolf Blitzer.
Speaker 1: Look, it's a trial. It's boring.
Speaker 3: Mostly I've been on jury duty and I can do.
Speaker 1: That's not me. That's a different guy.
Speaker 3: Why it's not me?
Speaker 1: It may be me.
Speaker 3: Look, trials are a lot of procedural shit and side
Speaker 3: conferences and sidebars.
Speaker 1: And what's exhibit thirty seven to two A. And you're not
Speaker 1: out of order.
Speaker 3: This whole card is out of a Look, the one
Speaker 3: person who's had the most normal reaction to the trial
Speaker 3: so far is Donald Trump.
Speaker 7: Donald Trump fell asleep on multiple days during his criminal trial,
Speaker 7: as he should.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been up since two am, range tweeting
Speaker 3: he needs his anger sleep. Look, we got a long
Speaker 3: ways to go here. It's the first day of the
Speaker 3: first of his four hundred and thirty eight trials. To
Speaker 3: come pace yourselves, and if you're bored, you can always
Speaker 3: start planning how you're going to up covering his next
Speaker 3: trial and the sober mia coppa you'll deliver during his
Speaker 3: next term as president, because the kinds of things that
Speaker 3: you are talking about now are okay?
Speaker 5: I know that.
Speaker 1: Boys.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. Jessica Williams, Jessica,
Speaker 3: how are you by? Are you down at the CoreOS?
Speaker 3: Are you there to give us a report?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I am, And here's my report. John Stewart hates fun.
Speaker 7: This trial rocks. Why you gotta be all get off
Speaker 7: my lawn about it.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily sound like that, but as I was explaining, though,
Speaker 3: the media has systematically failed to context.
Speaker 7: Jean, please, you're killing me, My poor sweet naive older
Speaker 7: than I remember, John.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 7: We need this messy bullshit spectacle.
Speaker 8: Every other news story is a massive bummer.
Speaker 7: This Trump trial is like an open window and a
Speaker 7: greyhound bus full of farts.
Speaker 8: Why are you trying to close the window?
Speaker 1: John?
Speaker 8: Why are you trying to make a smell farts?
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to make a spell, Jo, You're not
Speaker 1: trying to make.
Speaker 8: This trial is a gift.
Speaker 7: An extremely gross old man slash former president might go
Speaker 7: to prison for banging a porn star and trying to
Speaker 7: pay off, and you don't want us to cover that
Speaker 7: shit all day long.
Speaker 3: John.
Speaker 8: The first witness is named David Pecker.
Speaker 3: I know that.
Speaker 8: I mean it's David Pecker. You know, pecker is slang
Speaker 8: for wiener.
Speaker 7: John, It's a peepee, a peeper, you know what a
Speaker 7: dingle love dumble love.
Speaker 3: Lit it when you say pepe But then the peeper, Yeah,
Speaker 3: wouldn't that be the owner.
Speaker 7: Of the pep different contact, okay, or the other the peeper.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be a glammar police.
Speaker 7: I'm just saying, Look, I don't want to get in
Speaker 7: the weeds about it, Okay.
Speaker 8: I just want to make sure that I'm clear.
Speaker 7: That I'm talking about the name David Pecker and that it.
Speaker 8: Has a double meeting, and the meaning is for wiener s.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm Sakai.
Speaker 3: I've missed you. I missed you terribly.
Speaker 7: Shit, And then here you come with your old timey
Speaker 7: pie falutin media critique, ruining our good time, just like
Speaker 7: you ruin the twenty twelve Daily Show Christmas Party.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't ruin that. What's not fun about mocktails?
Speaker 1: And Tofurky? I didn't ruin it. Look, Jess, I hear what.
Speaker 3: You're saying, but I thought my commentary on the sketch
Speaker 3: artist was quite trenchers.
Speaker 8: Oh you want to talk about court room sketches?
Speaker 3: Look at this?
Speaker 1: When when when I miss Walter Cronkai.
Speaker 7: I have a pen and I scribbled nonsense on my
Speaker 7: script before the show starts.
Speaker 8: Oh no, the Mets lost again?
Speaker 1: Where did you?
Speaker 3: My god, Jeff, did you actually draw out of me?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Dude, because it's fun to do and people like fun.
Speaker 8: John Damn.
Speaker 7: Anyway, I should get going. I think I see Pecker
Speaker 7: across the.
Speaker 3: Street, David Pecker.
Speaker 8: I'm not sure who's penis it is? Actually Jessic Go
Speaker 8: where's everybody?
Speaker 1: When we come back, Selma Rusty will be joining us.
Speaker 3: Don't go away.
Speaker 1: We're back to the Dallas Show.
Speaker 3: My guest Tonight a world renowned and bestselling author. His
Speaker 3: new book is called Knife Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Please,
Speaker 3: welcome to the program, Salomon Rushdie, So.
Speaker 1: Nice to see you.
Speaker 5: Nice to see you.
Speaker 3: First question, obviously, how are you? This was obviously a
Speaker 3: traumatic experience. How are you feeling?
Speaker 5: I'm okay, you know, I mean, surprisingly yes, But sometimes
Speaker 5: there are good surprises.
Speaker 3: This was one.
Speaker 5: I'm pretty much recovered, I have to.
Speaker 3: Say, and I know this, it's it sounds peculiar to
Speaker 3: say this because of the traumatic experience that you endured.
Speaker 3: I love this book. It's a beautiful work of introspection.
Speaker 3: I feel like I know now how your mind works.
Speaker 3: You know, I've read other of your books, but you
Speaker 3: really do a wonderful job of taking us through how
Speaker 3: you think.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's weird how I think. I mean, I have
Speaker 5: this kind of free associating mind which goes from the
Speaker 5: moon to a movie, to a book, to a piece
Speaker 5: of mythology to a joke.
Speaker 3: I had to read this book with another book next
Speaker 3: to me to get just some of the references. It's
Speaker 3: but it's it allows you. You know, sometimes you'll read
Speaker 3: an author's memoir and there's a certain self consciousness to it.
Speaker 3: But maybe because this is about a traumatic incident, I
Speaker 3: feel like your defenses were down and it was very revelatory.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's there's a subject, right, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's what I felt is that it's starts. There's a
Speaker 5: love story which turns into a murder story, which turns
Speaker 5: back into a love story.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: The love story, by the way, is with his wonderful wife, Eliza,
Speaker 3: who is really the hero maybe of the book.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I mean she she did a huge amount
Speaker 5: and I wouldn't be here in good shape without her.
Speaker 5: And plus she's an amazing writer. Right, there's that too,
Speaker 5: I say, with certain amount of gritted teeth.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Is there a competition in writerly families?
Speaker 4: Not really.
Speaker 5: Actually, one of the nice things about this is there
Speaker 5: isn't rely enormously supportive of each other's work.
Speaker 3: I thought a really interesting part of the book is
Speaker 3: spoiler alert at the end when you go back to Chautauqua.
Speaker 3: Chautaqua is the famed community in upstate New York where
Speaker 3: they bring in speakers and where this unfortunate event happened. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you go back to revisit the scene of it,
Speaker 3: but also the jail where they are holding this person
Speaker 3: that attacked you. Yeah.
Speaker 5: It was a last minute decision. We were actually on
Speaker 5: the plane flying up to because I had this desire
Speaker 5: to go and revisit the scene of the crime and
Speaker 5: show myself that I was standing up where I fell
Speaker 5: down right, sort of important for me. But then in
Speaker 5: the flight up there, I thought to talk was a
Speaker 5: really small town, and if he's in the county jail,
Speaker 5: how far is that from the institution, And to tell
Speaker 5: that it was like drive. So I thought, well, let's
Speaker 5: go to the jail.
Speaker 3: I just it blows my But you didn't have a
Speaker 3: desire necessarily to see this.
Speaker 5: And I just want to see the jail. But I
Speaker 5: don't you get that it's a it's a really boring jail.
Speaker 5: It's a little cell block at a wall with sudden
Speaker 5: barbed wire. But I thought, you know, he's in there.
Speaker 5: I vouch here it feels good Win And what happened
Speaker 5: is a weird thing happened. My feet started Dad sing.
Speaker 1: You were dancing.
Speaker 5: No, my feet were Dodds.
Speaker 3: But what does that look like? It's just just shitting
Speaker 3: but the body stayed Well, wife said, stop doing that.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine this gentleman just glancing out the window
Speaker 3: for no apparent reason.
Speaker 5: Going is that the guy like, yeah, he's dad sing
Speaker 5: at the cop park.
Speaker 3: You you know, you talk a lot about your thoughts
Speaker 3: about this gentleman and whether you want to confront of him.
Speaker 3: There's actually a really wonderful section of it, almost like
Speaker 3: a Socratic litigation that you do in four parts. I
Speaker 3: make him up, You make him up, but you don't
Speaker 3: make him defenseless. No, the litigation that you and the
Speaker 3: dialogue that you have with him is challenging.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I thought you you know, you've got to
Speaker 5: give the enemy an even break. If you're going to
Speaker 5: have a serious conversation, then it's can't just be me
Speaker 5: yelling get him, telling him what a bad person he is,
Speaker 5: which I think.
Speaker 3: Yes, but he wasn't. It makes you wonder about you know,
Speaker 3: you spent since nineteen eighty nine, this this fatois is
Speaker 3: put upon you, and it's these fundamentalists, and these are
Speaker 3: religious extremists who have decided they're going to punish you
Speaker 3: for whatever their reasoning was. You right, though, that this
Speaker 3: gentleman is sort.
Speaker 4: Of a copy of a copy of a copy of
Speaker 4: a copy of that twenty four He wasn't even born
Speaker 4: right when this thing happened, and he, by his own account,
Speaker 4: had read nothing I'd written, and yet he was willing
Speaker 4: to commit murder.
Speaker 5: I mean that's stupid, yes, but it's.
Speaker 3: I wonder if you think of it, does it strike
Speaker 3: you as a change in fundamentalism? You know, you say
Speaker 3: he was radicalized by iman YouTube, that he watched YouTube videos.
Speaker 3: And do you think this attack had more to do
Speaker 3: with like John Lennon's attack or with a religious attack.
Speaker 5: Well, I think I think in some ways it's a
Speaker 5: very American attack. Right, he spent four years in a
Speaker 5: basement playing video games and watching videos and it kind
Speaker 5: of messed with his head. And also, you know, I
Speaker 5: mean he's born in Brendon, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Slow down, I think I know where this is going. Well,
Speaker 1: then you know you're ahead of me.
Speaker 6: But you know, we live it in America where people
Speaker 6: kill each other every five minutes, right, you know, And
Speaker 6: I think maybe in his New Jersey brain, yes, that is.
Speaker 3: How we describe it as well. By the way, it's
Speaker 3: got that New Jersey brain exactly. Do you think that
Speaker 3: there is a shift. You know, we think of fundamentalism
Speaker 3: as primarily a religious artifact. Have the algorithms made fundamentalism
Speaker 3: something different from that?
Speaker 5: I think maybe they have. I mean, i'm too I'm
Speaker 5: too old to know really, because I don't. Algorithms don't
Speaker 5: know what to.
Speaker 3: Do with me, right, give them a chance.
Speaker 5: No, I do, but they don't know what to do.
Speaker 5: So I'm not algorithmically influenced, right, But people are. People
Speaker 5: are all the time. And yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 5: he was. Something happened in him which made it possible
Speaker 5: for him to decide to murder a total stranger, right,
Speaker 5: And that has to be brainwashing of some kind, right,
Speaker 5: whatever you want to call it, but I call it brainwashing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. As I read the story, I started thinking, you know,
Speaker 3: we're so used to this idea, that of violence with
Speaker 3: a cause, this idea that these you know, there is
Speaker 3: something deep inside them that can almost be noble or understandable.
Speaker 3: This is not that it struck me more as more
Speaker 3: in common with the school shootings we see or the
Speaker 3: other things that you were. Just this thing he saw.
Speaker 5: And you know what's so strange about it is, first
Speaker 5: of all, he must have known that he was messing
Speaker 5: up his own.
Speaker 3: Life as well, right, you know, not just mine at
Speaker 3: twenty four.
Speaker 5: At twenty four, and you know, the last thing he
Speaker 5: did before he got on the bus from Fairview, New
Speaker 5: Jersey to Chautauqua. Last thing he did he canceled his
Speaker 5: gym membership.
Speaker 3: Because he knew that he had weights.
Speaker 5: He wasn't he wasn't coming back, and why should he
Speaker 5: keep his starting new order?
Speaker 3: Going wow, So he's he's going through it and going like,
Speaker 3: I don't need serious radio anymore. I don't. So this
Speaker 3: was he suicidal or was he?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I mean, maybe we'll find out if whenever,
Speaker 5: if this trial happens, we might find out more about him.
Speaker 3: But do you dread something like that? Is that something
Speaker 3: that still visits you?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 5: I mean I think you know, if I they if
Speaker 5: they need me to testify, I'll go testify and I'll
Speaker 5: be in the coult room with him. But my view
Speaker 5: is he should be scared about being in the coult
Speaker 5: room with me.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely. Do you wonder sometimes you know, and this
Speaker 3: is not not not to get but you and I
Speaker 3: are both getting older, and you write a lot in
Speaker 3: the book about saddle down. I was just on jury duty.
Speaker 3: Either way, I don't have you picture of my dappelganger,
Speaker 3: but there is there's mortality. You write about Martin Amos
Speaker 3: and Paul Ausler and people that you've lost, even during
Speaker 3: the writing of this book, lost to esophageal cancer. You
Speaker 3: had a cancer scare in the middle of rehabilitation, in.
Speaker 5: The middle of all this repair work, suddenly apparently I
Speaker 5: might have prostate cancer. I thought, that's not fair.
Speaker 3: No, well, you write, he writes, he goes to the doctor,
Speaker 3: or you can tell me.
Speaker 5: I mean I went to the doctor, and the examining
Speaker 5: your prostate is not fun.
Speaker 3: Again, speak for yourself. It's it depends on if you
Speaker 3: have a Jersey brain.
Speaker 5: Anyway, the first examination, they thought they found a bump
Speaker 5: on the prostates, and then I had to have MRI scan,
Speaker 5: and MRI scan you know, it grades from one to five,
Speaker 5: and five is really bad, and I came out at four.
Speaker 5: It said cancer probable. And then it turned out that
Speaker 5: it was not probable that it was had this bump
Speaker 5: and that had been caused by some other.
Speaker 3: Infection and a medicine that they had actually given you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. And then a second doctor the first doctor's
Speaker 5: boss also examined by prostate more thoroughly.
Speaker 1: They lined up down the hallway.
Speaker 3: What are we doing here?
Speaker 5: No, this was very thorough. And also he was an
Speaker 5: Indian doctor and he was a fan of mynes.
Speaker 1: Nothing more uncomfortable than that extra thorough Yes.
Speaker 5: And he said, no, I think this might be caused
Speaker 5: by this other infection. And so so that to go
Speaker 5: back and have another MRI scan and it said one
Speaker 5: to five, it's one no cancer. So I had cancer
Speaker 5: for two months and then I didn't.
Speaker 3: It's so incredible because you face this, as you write
Speaker 3: in the book this twenty seven seconds. It was just
Speaker 3: twenty seven seconds. And yet can't do you think about
Speaker 3: and pardon the question, but do you think does it
Speaker 3: matter how you die? As you watched your friends and
Speaker 3: you thought about your fate and your brush with mortality,
Speaker 3: and then to have this cancer scared, did it make
Speaker 3: you think it mattered how you die?
Speaker 5: Why do you prefer not to.
Speaker 1: I've got some bad news come over all, the bad
Speaker 1: news for all of us.
Speaker 5: Yes, but I mean I don't know. My wife Eliza
Speaker 5: and I have decided to be planning our hundredth birthday.
Speaker 5: Pozzy one hundredth months, and I think it has to
Speaker 5: be a dance Pozzy.
Speaker 1: Yes, tried just your feet, though not the whole body.
Speaker 5: So we tried to decide who should dj and I'll
Speaker 5: pick somebody.
Speaker 3: But it strikes me because you, whether you've wanted this
Speaker 3: mantle or not, and I'm assuming you don't, you represent something.
Speaker 3: You represent a courage and a freedom of artistic expression,
Speaker 3: of the importance of artistic expression, and of the danger
Speaker 3: that artistic expression often visits upon the people who do it.
Speaker 3: It's a noble shield to carry, but not an easy one.
Speaker 3: I don't I'm not an easy one.
Speaker 5: And in a way, there's bits of me that would
Speaker 5: prefer to be well known for being, you know, good writer.
Speaker 3: Well, I have to tell you, I'm pretty sure that's
Speaker 3: in there too.
Speaker 7: Is that in that.
Speaker 5: I see? But you know, it used to be when
Speaker 5: I started out as a rise, when people would write
Speaker 5: about my books, they would mention that they were funny.
Speaker 5: And then after the attack on the Satanic bliss Is,
Speaker 5: everybody stopped saying I was funny.
Speaker 3: Really, And because that book is it's it's it's.
Speaker 1: People who read it.
Speaker 3: I get.
Speaker 5: I get two reactions we read it now, One is
Speaker 5: where's the dirty bit because we.
Speaker 1: Can't find it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And the second is who knew it was funny? And
Speaker 5: I say, people who read it?
Speaker 3: But it's you know, with that on you do you
Speaker 3: feel there's an idea that you have to wear that heroism.
Speaker 5: I don't know the heroism, but I think I have
Speaker 5: to be part of the fight, right, I mean, I
Speaker 5: mean there is a fight about free expression in America
Speaker 5: too at the moment, and I'm I'm I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm in that fight. I have a dog in that fight.
Speaker 3: What what do you think that how that the nature
Speaker 3: of fundamentalism has changed, and how that affects artistic expression,
Speaker 3: Like even now when we see all the protests, you
Speaker 3: know up at Columbia University, some students protests as others
Speaker 3: think that's going too far and they're threatening peace and
Speaker 3: we're crossing all those difficult lines. You spoke at the
Speaker 3: Penn Banquet, yes, yeah, last year, last year, which is
Speaker 3: a consortium of writers and poets and a lot of
Speaker 3: people truly defenders of free speech. I just got a
Speaker 3: text today.
Speaker 5: They've canceled, they've counseled the prize giving because they're people
Speaker 5: attacking them for not being sufficiently anti ISRAELI will pro
Speaker 5: Palestinian or something. I mean, everybody's so angry right now
Speaker 5: right that nobody can listen or talk to anybody else,
Speaker 5: So people have shout at each other.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 3: There was a critic, and this is going to sound
Speaker 3: like a joke, a critic of Taylor Swift's new music album,
Speaker 3: The Torture Post Society. They had to remove the critic's
Speaker 3: name from the critique because of.
Speaker 5: Death threats because he didn't like the record.
Speaker 3: I didn't read it because I love the record. Of course,
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear any negativity.
Speaker 1: No, but so do I jump.
Speaker 3: But it speaks to in nineteen eighty nine, there was
Speaker 3: an Ayatola and a Fatua and a group of religious
Speaker 3: muckety MUCKs who delivered the law from high above. And
Speaker 3: now we're all fundamentalist.
Speaker 5: Everybody's an expert, everybody's got an opinion and a hostility
Speaker 5: and hostility the level of anger is crazy right now?
Speaker 3: Do you think of you know, you have a dog
Speaker 3: in the fight in that creative How do we and
Speaker 3: I think about this a lot, how do we manage that?
Speaker 3: And is that just a function of the algorithm?
Speaker 5: I might I think to an extent it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Frankly, I'm glad you asked me, because I'm the answer,
Speaker 5: have the answer to the world's problems.
Speaker 3: It's actually on page if I were exiting.
Speaker 1: But you are thoughtful enough.
Speaker 3: And you've been through it enough that I know you
Speaker 3: have an opinion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I just think people have to jewel
Speaker 5: stop having such thin skins. You know, at the moment,
Speaker 5: we're all very easily offended. And what's more is we
Speaker 5: also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for
Speaker 5: attacking something, right, But actually everything offends somebody always always,
Speaker 5: I mean occasionally.
Speaker 1: You what, how dare you, sir? I am offended? You see?
Speaker 5: Then if you go down that road, then we can't
Speaker 5: talk to each other anymore, right.
Speaker 3: You know. But having groups always had a way of
Speaker 3: policing language or behavior. I think I'm trying to think,
Speaker 3: has my perspective changed on it, or has the dynamic Changely.
Speaker 5: What's happened is the temperature has got arisen, right, I
Speaker 5: mean yes, of course, people have always disagreed, and people
Speaker 5: have always said you can't say that, you've got to
Speaker 5: say this, that that's not new what's new is the
Speaker 5: volume and the heat, and so what do we do
Speaker 5: about taking down the volume, taking down the heat? That's
Speaker 5: the question.
Speaker 3: I mean, And again not to make you the avatar
Speaker 3: of this, but this is coming from a man who,
Speaker 3: because of threats from fundamentalists, had to basically alter your
Speaker 3: entire life.
Speaker 5: Well, it did certainly have an impact. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean what it's sad is that I've actually got my
Speaker 5: life back.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 5: I mean, I've been living in New York City for
Speaker 5: getting on for twenty five years.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, you had made a decision I'm going to
Speaker 3: come out of this and make myself.
Speaker 5: And for twenty three years it was fine, right, you know,
Speaker 5: I mean, I you know, I mean I was doing
Speaker 5: everything that writers do, book tours, readings, lectures, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know, I'm a writer. Don't stop. I've been
Speaker 1: there with the coffee clotches. Yeah and Oprah.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, well I haven't been with Oprah, none of
Speaker 5: us have. But anyway, so it was a shock when
Speaker 5: this thing out of a quarter of a century ago,
Speaker 5: more than that, thirty years ago, sort of came out
Speaker 5: of a crowd at me. You know, it was I
Speaker 5: really was very surprised.
Speaker 3: Do you find yourself now freedom that fear or is
Speaker 3: there still that PTSD? Like, what where's your What does
Speaker 3: that do to you? Well, I mean it does you know,
Speaker 3: nothing good. But it's now been what twenty months or something.
Speaker 3: I think I'm pretty much back to myself at this point.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you're in that writing rhythm again?
Speaker 3: Has your mind started to dream again?
Speaker 5: Finish this?
Speaker 3: And by the way, let me tell you something. And
Speaker 3: we don't have people on where I don't either you know,
Speaker 3: read it or takeul It's such a beautiful and incredibly
Speaker 3: interesting and revelatory book. I really thank you for writing
Speaker 3: it because you had to endure something awful, but your
Speaker 3: insight into that experience is really a remarkable gift to
Speaker 3: give to other people. And I really do It's got
Speaker 3: funny bits, A couple of funny bits for a writer
Speaker 3: for a writer, uh, but it really is a fantastic
Speaker 3: piece of work, and I and I thank you for
Speaker 3: doing it. The book is called Knife. It is available
Speaker 3: as we speak. Someone rushed you. We're going to take
Speaker 3: a quick break and we'll be right.
Speaker 5: Back after this to.
Speaker 1: Hell that's on chocolate tonight.
Speaker 3: Before we go, we're gonna check in with your host
Speaker 3: for the rest of the week, Ronnie Changing, Jordan Clopper.
Speaker 1: Come on, I'll let me see you. What do you got?
Speaker 3: What do you got for the people this week?
Speaker 1: Well, look, that's a law news to cover, and personally,
Speaker 1: I'll be looking at it through the lens of my
Speaker 1: white yes.
Speaker 3: And I'll be letting my insight on what matters the
Speaker 3: most to the Asian community.
Speaker 1: I'll be very left as an anti Trump while I'll
Speaker 1: be offering it angry. Everyone is stupid.
Speaker 3: Counterpoint. I don't want to say anybody, I think you're
Speaker 3: reading each other's lines.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, shoot, well it's too glad we got come
Speaker 1: into it now. Look at me, I'm Joman Clipper.
Speaker 3: I'm making Trump supporters so dumb.
Speaker 1: I'm so small and tall. Agan.
Speaker 3: So it feels something like the legal walls are starting
Speaker 3: to close in on Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: The walls once again begin to close in on Donald Trump.
Speaker 8: The walls are closing in on Trump.
Speaker 1: More walls are closing around him than ever before.
Speaker 7: We've been saying the walls are closing in for two years,
Speaker 7: but it feels like they're actually closing right now.
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