Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest tonight is
Speaker 2: the best seller at AU thirteenth, a little colonists and
Speaker 2: partner at Talk and host Been Politics podcast. Please welcome
Speaker 2: John Heilman. I knew there would be some Wu Tang
Speaker 2: apparel when you walked after you.
Speaker 1: Sung the praises of Wu Tang at your that Chicago
Speaker 1: convention show. You saw that, Yeah, of course I did.
Speaker 1: You talked about how that era nineteen ninety one ninety
Speaker 1: five fours year's American history. I agreed, you agree, right,
Speaker 1: I agreed. I'm a little disappointed they proised me DESI
Speaker 1: tonight they did, because that's why I'm here. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love you, but like you know, I was like,
Speaker 1: I wanted to get the best sub John Host.
Speaker 2: First of all, I don't consider myself a sub John Host.
Speaker 2: I am the host of the goddamn Daily Show. You
Speaker 2: will respect that, and you should understand that all of
Speaker 2: the best groups have a lot of members O dB, Jizzo, Rizza,
Speaker 2: Master Killer, Inspector Deck. These are groups lands.
Speaker 1: If you will, I can't believe you. I can't believe
Speaker 1: some of the ones you'll leave it out there are
Speaker 1: like math, who's gonna come over here and beat the
Speaker 1: shit out of you for that. But here's here's how
Speaker 1: you know that I actually knew it was you. Okay,
Speaker 1: after all that discussion that we had on my podcast
Speaker 1: last week about the food of Chicago.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was slumming it and I did your podcast.
Speaker 1: He did and he was great. He was great. You
Speaker 1: gotta listen to it in Politic with John Hommet. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing. So you didn't come to Philly, No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: You know what they make in Philly?
Speaker 2: What do they make?
Speaker 1: Cheese steaks? Cheese steaks famously, there's two of them, two
Speaker 1: famous cheese stick makers.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've been to one of them, which one Geno's.
Speaker 2: I think, Well we.
Speaker 1: Got now these were purchased after them. They're to up
Speaker 1: and twenty four hours. These were purchased in the middle,
Speaker 1: like about three am.
Speaker 2: It's Pats and Gino's Pats and.
Speaker 1: Gino's right next to each other. Gino's steaks.
Speaker 2: Right, wait, you're bringing me old meat?
Speaker 1: Well no, no, these were transported from Philadelphia as if
Speaker 1: they were severed limbs. Okay, like on on ice very well,
Speaker 1: like just it's really hygienic. Don't worry, it's gonna be great.
Speaker 1: But yeah, old she's whizz. There's nothing better. There's nothing better.
Speaker 1: And this is Pat's Kingdom Steaks. Now, these places have
Speaker 1: been operating in Philadelphia for like eighty years. They're a
Speaker 1: block away from each other, and people will fight you
Speaker 1: in Philly over which one of these is better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're indistinguishable. If you take if you take a if
Speaker 1: you take one of these piece of steak and covered
Speaker 1: in cheese, whiz, she's just supposed to do and onions,
Speaker 1: you can't tell the difference. So well, you don't have
Speaker 1: to eat it now, because I know how it's eating
Speaker 1: on the air is not cool. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that you had an offering, an offering.
Speaker 2: What do you think these people want to see? John, Well,
Speaker 2: this is the smartest, the smartest audience on television. Eat
Speaker 2: it and then let's do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, don't wonder we're gonna do it.
Speaker 2: I tell you what we're gonna do it. This is
Speaker 2: all gonna live on the web now because this interview
Speaker 2: has already gone seventeen minutes into. Okay, so I'm starting
Speaker 2: with my genos. Okay, I'm gonna try this, and as
Speaker 2: I'm trying this, I want you to encapsulate as if
Speaker 2: we are eating in Philadelphia, your experience last night at
Speaker 2: the debate in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: First things, First, she kicked his ass. Now I heard
Speaker 1: I heard John last night talking about how you know
Speaker 1: this amount of opinion. People will claim various things. Here's
Speaker 1: the fundamental truth about campaigns. Both sides have either directly
Speaker 1: under their under their auspices or in super PACs they have.
Speaker 1: They do this thing called dial ggrem groups. They get
Speaker 1: undecided voters in battleground states to watch the debate in
Speaker 1: real time and they say, you've seen these things what
Speaker 1: they relate cranked the dial? Do they approve, they disapprove,
Speaker 1: And that's how they That's all they're looking at is
Speaker 1: what the dials are showing them. Later they will look
Speaker 1: at polling, but on.
Speaker 2: That night, internally they're getting that essentially in real time
Speaker 2: based on the answer right they're having.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the night they know two things.
Speaker 1: Did their candidate perform well with the dial groups? And
Speaker 1: the dial groups are meant to be representative of groups
Speaker 1: they're trying to reach and bring over onto their side,
Speaker 1: and they will know what worked, What are the things
Speaker 1: that work best By the end, at the end of
Speaker 1: the night, if you know someone at a high level
Speaker 1: of the campaign or either campaign or both campaigns says,
Speaker 1: I might you will know by the end of the
Speaker 1: night what the dial, what the group said, What the
Speaker 1: dials said, basically is what they'll say to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I would say, this is a rare moment where
Speaker 1: the Harris campaign and the Trump campaign would agree. But
Speaker 1: the dial said that she kicked.
Speaker 2: His ass, really, and the Trump campaign was aware of
Speaker 2: that because I don't know if you saw Donald Trump
Speaker 2: had numbers. I think one of them was ninety. One
Speaker 2: of them was seventy four. I think there was an
Speaker 2: I squared in there. Yeah, yeah, he had numbers.
Speaker 1: I thought that was the funniest part when he came
Speaker 1: into the spin room, because like Trump is full of
Speaker 1: shit most of the time, and he makes up all
Speaker 1: kinds of things, but that was one of those things
Speaker 1: that was the most made up thing on earth. And
Speaker 1: of course, like the story about how Elbreda and America
Speaker 1: wanted Roby Way to go away, which we'll come back to,
Speaker 1: it was easily verifiable because of course all the networks
Speaker 1: were going to put up their numbers. You know, CNN
Speaker 1: was broadcast their numbers and half an hour later and
Speaker 1: showing that in fact, all their insta poles, but you
Speaker 1: so showed that Harris had won. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: the other thing is that what she did best on
Speaker 1: were all of the abortion related questions, all the stuff
Speaker 1: about woman's reroductor, rightce, those were the things that stretch.
Speaker 1: She had about two and a half minute answer when
Speaker 1: she really started to come on strong in the debate,
Speaker 1: and she got very shed, was very emotional, very direct,
Speaker 1: very powerful. They those the dial groups loved that. That
Speaker 1: was off the charts, even in the I mean, in
Speaker 1: the drug These are all undecided voters, so they're essentially
Speaker 1: different groups that the campaigns are monitoring. But they're all
Speaker 1: there are no Trump fans in these groups and there's
Speaker 1: no Harris fans. These are you know, insensibly people who
Speaker 1: haven't made up their mind.
Speaker 2: They're undecided, psychotic, insane people. Oh well, I can't wrap
Speaker 2: my head around. But these other side, I mean, there
Speaker 2: was there was some poll that around thirty percent of
Speaker 2: people wanted to know more from Kamala Harris. What did
Speaker 2: people actually learn about Kamala Harris?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what I think. There's two ways
Speaker 1: to look at that. You know, when you think about
Speaker 1: this from the Harris kind of strategic standpoint, one thing
Speaker 1: was that was the New York Times Siena poll that
Speaker 1: basically said there was a lot of people who still
Speaker 1: don't feel like they know very much about her, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to know more. That was one thing that
Speaker 1: you could have tried to aim to do, so tell
Speaker 1: your story more, to try to explain some of your
Speaker 1: changes on positions, all that sort of stuff. Right, But
Speaker 1: if you look back the history of presidential debates, the
Speaker 1: way that they are often remembered as who won them
Speaker 1: and who lost them is on one metric in one
Speaker 1: metric alum which is like who commands the stage, who
Speaker 1: commanded the sphere of battle? And for a candidate who's run,
Speaker 1: who's in their first general election presidential debate, Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: and others would say, Americans are watching to see whether
Speaker 1: they could imagine this person as the commander in chief
Speaker 1: as president of the United States. Can they go toe
Speaker 1: to toe with an adversary in the moment? Do they
Speaker 1: command the debate? Are they is the image of command
Speaker 1: left in people? So it's a plausibility test. And I
Speaker 1: just think there's no one with eyes in their head
Speaker 1: who didn't think that Kamala Harris was the one who
Speaker 1: commanded the stage last night. And that's why, between the
Speaker 1: dial groups and just the plain obvious thing that Trump
Speaker 1: as maniacal, irrational, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually failing as he
Speaker 1: is at this moment, she was you know, was she perfect? No?
Speaker 1: But she was strong, right, And I think that she
Speaker 1: came across as strong and she decided to play that
Speaker 1: prosecutor role when she played it really well. She was
Speaker 1: incredibly as you said, well, incredibly well prepared, and she
Speaker 1: kept coming back to her themes that she wanted to hit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I just I mean, I can't as a debate
Speaker 1: quad debate, which is not how are people going to vote?
Speaker 1: Eight weeks from now is one of the election days.
Speaker 1: These people are still undecided. Mostly people are not waking
Speaker 1: up today going okay, I've decided.
Speaker 2: Well looked she looked presidentially, yes.
Speaker 1: And as you said in in off camera, I think
Speaker 1: to these fine people out here, you know, you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a lunatic. You're you're dealing with a with a
Speaker 1: pathologically lying insurrection, fomenting democracy, degrading, defiling, asshole and and.
Speaker 2: So allegedly.
Speaker 1: So you're so it's a it's a tough like you
Speaker 1: imagine how like what that? You know, well, I'm a
Speaker 1: challenge involved in doing that and holding your composure. And
Speaker 1: I'll say, you know, because no one did this better
Speaker 1: than John did. On the night of the first debate.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: You like John's doing.
Speaker 1: He did look you are He's like, you're comedy hero, Like, well, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: but he put up those pictures of Biden slack John.
Speaker 1: It was a four box and he's like, when they
Speaker 1: did the debate prep, did nobody show him these pictures
Speaker 1: because these don't look great. She was so aware of
Speaker 1: the split screen and how the split screen would work
Speaker 1: that I feel like it was like a bizarro world
Speaker 1: Biden debate a lot of ways last night, right, because
Speaker 1: Trump the split screen that with that with Harris was
Speaker 1: doing to Trump what the split screen with Biden did
Speaker 1: to Biden. Right, Biden suffered in that split screen with Trump,
Speaker 1: and Trump suffers in that split screen with her. He
Speaker 1: looked angry almost throughout we did without the sound.
Speaker 2: On I don't disagree and I do think I think
Speaker 2: Kamala looked more than a depth. She did look presidential.
Speaker 2: I think she was masterful in many ways of both
Speaker 2: seeming above the frame but also poking him as well. Yes,
Speaker 2: but this audience is different. I think people don't see
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. I don't believe people saw that and saw
Speaker 2: Donald Trump for the first time as a diminished man. No,
Speaker 2: he looked angry, but angrier has been something that he's
Speaker 2: been selling the American public. And there's that forty five
Speaker 2: percent who love that. Do you actually think I don't
Speaker 2: think that way.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're only going to take away Trump
Speaker 1: voters from Trump, you know, I think what you're But
Speaker 1: she's trying to get across I think now is that
Speaker 1: he is not just the old candidate of the race,
Speaker 1: now the generational contrast. She wants to be changed, she
Speaker 1: wants to be younger, and she is in some ways
Speaker 1: implicitly pushing like the argument that took down Biden, which
Speaker 1: is that I mean Donald Trump's mental acuity. I say
Speaker 1: this not in just a trashing him kind of way,
Speaker 1: which I'm happy to do sometimes, but I.
Speaker 2: Think about a minute and a half ago, but he
Speaker 2: just but he's getting worse.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's never been wholly linear, let's put it
Speaker 1: that way. Right, But if you go back to twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen when he really won the election against Clinton, in
Speaker 1: those last ten or twelve days of the election, they
Speaker 1: managed to get him to talk about trade, the border
Speaker 1: wall China, and he was actually a pretty disciplined candidate
Speaker 1: for the crucial ten or twelve days of the election. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of Republicans who look at well,
Speaker 1: she has this momentum. What's going to change between now
Speaker 1: an election day that will halt her momentum. One thing
Speaker 1: is like some external event, you know, you know, Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin does something, China does something, some kind of cyber war,
Speaker 1: a Russian Martian invasion, you know that someone has to
Speaker 1: repel on the White House lawn. Another is Harris up.
Speaker 1: You know, she messes up somehow. She didn't do that
Speaker 1: last night. Right, we will all agree about that. And
Speaker 1: the third thing which Republicans all are hoping for and
Speaker 1: praying for, and that what they've been trying to beg
Speaker 1: Trump to do is be a disciplined, focused, rigorous, consistent candidate.
Speaker 1: Make these arguments. That's we're begging him to do. It
Speaker 1: with this idea in mind that he can pull it
Speaker 1: together in these last eight weeks and become this thing
Speaker 1: that occasionally he was in the past. I just think,
Speaker 1: if you watched that debate last night, there are none
Speaker 1: of that there. There's none of that there. When he
Speaker 1: started talking about the dogs and cats and the pets
Speaker 1: being killed. Do you know how that question started?
Speaker 2: I don't remember what it started with David.
Speaker 1: We were asking him about immigration. It. Yeah, now in
Speaker 1: the Biden debate, go back to my bizarro world thing.
Speaker 1: The Biden date debate. Rightly, Biden got a question about
Speaker 1: abortion his strength and turn into an immigration question. And
Speaker 1: that's when you knew he had really lost it. You're like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You're talking about immigration. They set
Speaker 1: you up, They put it on the tee abortion, talk
Speaker 1: about Rugby Wade. Last night, Trump got asked about immigration.
Speaker 1: Here's the issue he wants to talk about, sweet spot,
Speaker 1: but Harris had baited him on the crowd size thing.
Speaker 1: He turned away from immigration and then proceeded to discuss
Speaker 1: the size of his crowds. World War III was coming,
Speaker 1: the size of his crowds again, and then the apparent
Speaker 1: obviously completely made up Holocaust of the cats, dogs and
Speaker 1: pets in Ohio. Bear in mind that in the last
Speaker 1: one hundred years and occupants to the White House, every
Speaker 1: single one of them has had a pet except Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Because he's a sociopath. Because maybe he.
Speaker 2: Doesn't like to snack at night, he doesn't, he doesn't.
Speaker 1: The guy cares less about dogs and cats than any
Speaker 1: occupant of the Whitehouse ever, and that includes like other
Speaker 1: bona fide sociopaths.
Speaker 2: Well, that is such an example to you. Give Donald
Speaker 2: Trump enough time. He's not prepped for anything. He's always
Speaker 2: grasped me at straws and frankly, he's only got a
Speaker 2: handful of straws. Right, He's got he's got his immigration
Speaker 2: as well as did a couple of things. He's going
Speaker 2: to bang that drum and whatever he read on the
Speaker 2: internet that day, and that's what you see, getting an ample.
Speaker 2: But he brings the Internet to life.
Speaker 1: And you saw Laura, you saw when he arrived in Philly,
Speaker 1: Laura Lumer, who's like literally the craziest person on the right,
Speaker 1: crazier than anybody in the history of the right.
Speaker 2: That's all of a crown to wear.
Speaker 1: When she got off the plane, you knew you were like,
Speaker 1: he's going to be talking about the cat carnage in
Speaker 1: the non existent cat carnage in Ohio, and I will
Speaker 1: I will say this again just to the question of
Speaker 1: can he be a discipline candidate? What's the other thing
Speaker 1: he was supposed to do last night? Tie Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden's economic record. The first time he mentioned
Speaker 1: it was at the one hour and twenty four minute
Speaker 1: mark of a one hour and thirty minute debate, and
Speaker 1: the way he mentioned it was to say, she is
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. She is Joe Biden. And again back to
Speaker 1: the split screen, Coli Hares like, I don't really think
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Biden. No, I mean, can people see that
Speaker 1: I'm not Joe Biden. He did it. He finally decided
Speaker 1: to do what he did so badly that she could
Speaker 1: just it's like not going to weigh with a Laplain.
Speaker 2: Well, she got asked that question right off the bat,
Speaker 2: and she said, I'm gonna talk about my history.
Speaker 1: That's totally And you heard Jadi Vance afterwards in the
Speaker 1: spin room where I was talking about how you know
Speaker 1: Trump made these points in his closing statement. I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: now that's a strong candidate, the one who remembers, Hey,
Speaker 1: it's my closing statement, I might want to say that
Speaker 1: thing about Biden, you know. And at the end, do.
Speaker 2: People around I guess my question do people around him?
Speaker 2: One do they really have an expectation of changing Donald
Speaker 2: Trump in that way? And two? Did they have a
Speaker 2: sense of what truly is happening? I hear the moment
Speaker 2: where Donald Trump comes out and he has those bullshit numbers,
Speaker 2: and of course he's always pulling out numbers that make
Speaker 2: the most sense to him. But are they giving him
Speaker 2: numbers that make him comfortable in that moment? What is
Speaker 2: what is their awareness the Trump the Trump circle? What
Speaker 2: is their awareness of what is happening?
Speaker 1: It's not a monolith, right, you know. Trump has now
Speaker 1: brought Corey Lewandwski back into the fold. Krey Lewundwski is
Speaker 1: the ultimate Let Trump be Trump candidate Trump. Corey was exiled.
Speaker 1: Now he's back. His job is to do things that
Speaker 1: make Trump happy so that he will not be exiled again.
Speaker 1: The professionals in that group, people like Chris Lossivita, the
Speaker 1: campaign manager, and Casus you Wiles, the co campaign manager.
Speaker 1: You would say whatever you want about them and their
Speaker 1: values or whatever in working for Trump. But there are
Speaker 1: professional people who've run important campaigns before, and they are
Speaker 1: the ones begging Donald Trump to please talk about how
Speaker 1: she's in San Francisco liberal, talk about how she's a
Speaker 1: flip flopper, talk about how she's a phony, talk about
Speaker 1: trying to make her explain how she went from being
Speaker 1: in favor of all these liberal positions to being against them.
Speaker 1: And they are, I think constantly must live in hope
Speaker 1: because if they don't live in the hope that they
Speaker 1: can change him in some way. You know, the world
Speaker 1: is very cold and dark if you think that, if
Speaker 1: you think that this Donald Trump is going to be
Speaker 1: the Donald Trump, you're going to get for the next
Speaker 1: fifty five days before election day because that's a Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you can't win Jordan, because it's going
Speaker 1: to be really, really close. But man, I think you know,
Speaker 1: every Republican strategist in the country looks and says, if
Speaker 1: this guy ran a standard Republican campaign against her, there's
Speaker 1: a playbook, and he appreciably increase his odds of winning
Speaker 1: if he were to be able to remotely execute that.
Speaker 1: And we have no sign that he can there's this
Speaker 1: also the thing you were talking about this a little
Speaker 1: bit before. You know, I've been in a lot of
Speaker 1: spin rooms in my life, you know, and yeah, very and.
Speaker 2: I'm very impressed. Pretty cool room to be and you
Speaker 2: get to hang out with Scaramucci now, and then yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Get to be with the mooch. Here's the thing about this.
Speaker 1: People go, oh, you're going are you in there? Somebody
Speaker 1: wh wrote to me last night, a friend who said,
Speaker 1: were you in the room where it happens? I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: the press is never in the room where it happens.
Speaker 1: We don't sit in the debate hall. We sit in
Speaker 1: a room next to the room where it happens, and
Speaker 1: we all gets together in a giant room watching it
Speaker 1: on TV. And this is just like you at home.
Speaker 1: And the only advantage is that when it's over, a
Speaker 1: bunch of professional liars come out and get and we
Speaker 1: get to be lied to you to our face.
Speaker 2: But that but don't you think there's seven I ever
Speaker 2: miss it. But it feels like we talked about this
Speaker 2: in the beginning of our show. It feels like Trump
Speaker 2: thinks that is the room where it happens. Wow, he doesn't,
Speaker 2: he doesn't prep for a debate to articulate a vision
Speaker 2: of the future to America. He preps for a time
Speaker 2: to to lick his wounds and bullshit the press with
Speaker 2: more cameras. That's where all his energy goes. You've got
Speaker 2: the show. Sadly. People shouldn't be performing for you, that's
Speaker 2: a nightmare. People should be Trump should be performing for
Speaker 2: the people at home. But he doesn't see it that way.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I may have told you this
Speaker 1: story for a little while twenty fifteen, twenty.
Speaker 2: Tell me, don't retell me a story Trump, Well.
Speaker 1: These people haven't heard. Trump liked me for a little while,
Speaker 1: he liked you. I wrote a tweet about him when
Speaker 1: he first entered the race in twenty fifteen. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, the Republican Party is getting more racist, nationalist,
Speaker 1: and xenophobic. I think Donald Trump has a chant to win.
Speaker 1: And I saw him a face to face interview with
Speaker 1: him the next day and he said, and after he
Speaker 1: had tweeted at Jay Hollis finally started to understand me.
Speaker 1: And I went to this interview with him and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought you might be pissed, and he
Speaker 1: was like no. At that moment, it was. There were
Speaker 1: people who didn't think he could win and people who
Speaker 1: thought he could win binary and if you were on
Speaker 1: the side of people who took him seriously, he didn't care.
Speaker 1: Why you could have said the whole country is now
Speaker 1: members Lukuk Cook's clan, Donald Trump's to show in he
Speaker 1: would have been like, thank you, understand it. He didn't care.
Speaker 1: He just didn't want to be He didn't like the
Speaker 1: people who were saying, he has no chance, he's a buffoon,
Speaker 1: he's doing this as a branding exercise. I was on
Speaker 1: the other side, and for a little while, whenever I
Speaker 1: would see him, he would say, Heilman, you're starting to
Speaker 1: understand me. We're both German, and that always freaked me
Speaker 1: out because I'm not like really German, like any meaningful way,
Speaker 1: you know, and I mean the name. I have a
Speaker 1: German from the German descent, but I'm not like I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in in Munich, you.
Speaker 2: Know, or you know it's not my but he saw
Speaker 2: something in Yes, it was very like.
Speaker 1: It was always like a lot of like he's always
Speaker 1: like you know, yeah, I like yeah, you know, starting
Speaker 1: to come around on haircut. The the meaner I was,
Speaker 1: the more he liked me until until he then got
Speaker 1: an office and my secret service code name became that mother. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a step up. It's a step out
Speaker 1: of a step up. I'll tell you what you can
Speaker 1: see in the spin room last night, though, is that
Speaker 1: it's not hard to know that those things that you
Speaker 1: find out from your sources about how the dial groups went,
Speaker 1: it's not hard to read the faces. And I will
Speaker 1: tell you I posted a tweet. Yeah, last night, I
Speaker 1: took a picture as I was walking out of Matt Gates.
Speaker 1: What's his name, uh uh Miller, Matt Gate, Stephen Miller.
Speaker 1: And this the skinniest, most inselly looking guy in the
Speaker 1: world who was carrying their little sad sign out in
Speaker 1: the spino because they have a little person who carries
Speaker 1: a sign. If you were in the spin room, they
Speaker 1: would carry a littleign that would say Clipper on it,
Speaker 1: or if they wanted to get some attention, it would
Speaker 1: say Stuart Okay, you.
Speaker 2: Know I'm gonna yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: George Jordan. Jordan's having a hard time with that, with that,
Speaker 1: with that wax there.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a hard whack.
Speaker 1: It's a hard can I have you been Have you
Speaker 1: been skimming on the gym?
Speaker 2: Sessions says, I'm waiting to laughter the election. You know, Uh,
Speaker 2: this will be good later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this picture now, I'm not gonna be Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, look at this, Look at this.
Speaker 2: It's tough. Is the bourbon's much easier?
Speaker 1: Is there no one around you who can help us here?
Speaker 1: That's that's that's really what waxed on it. It's like Miagi,
Speaker 1: wax on, wax off, stay focused, all right, I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I'm trying. I'm trying.
Speaker 2: I gotta wrap this up. This ain't a Gates.
Speaker 1: Gates Miller and this little skinny kid, right, they look
Speaker 1: so sad and uh, you know, I saw the various
Speaker 1: response tweets. People would say, you know, an incel neo
Speaker 1: Nazi in a pedophile walk into a bar. That's the way.
Speaker 1: That's the way a lot of great jokes start. And
Speaker 1: Matt Matt Gates was wearing these white like sketchers with
Speaker 1: like like job black jogging pants as his suit bottoms
Speaker 1: and then a suit jacket on top. I mean, he
Speaker 1: looked like he was ready for a del Boca vista
Speaker 1: basically at his age.
Speaker 2: I mean Honestly, I think that's a step forward. If
Speaker 2: he's trying to appeal to the older folks. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I'll take it with net Kate.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you when I looked at that, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about you know what I what I had
Speaker 1: thought is I heard about the dial groups from the
Speaker 1: insiders of the campaign. I thought, you know, David Pluff,
Speaker 1: David Binder, the focus group, pulling impresario from Obama who's
Speaker 1: now working for Harris. They are not like champagne popping types,
Speaker 1: you know, They're like they'd like try to keep but
Speaker 1: they were metaphorically popping champagne corks last night at how
Speaker 1: well that are handed it did in the Trump world.
Speaker 1: They were popping like either like male ex or coonicpin
Speaker 1: I don't know which, but they were. They were not there.
Speaker 1: And when those guys showed up and I looked at them,
Speaker 1: I was like, those guys are either very very sad,
Speaker 1: very very drugged up, or someone killed their pets. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's they lost their They looked like a bunch of
Speaker 1: guys who had their had their cats and dogs. Like
Speaker 1: take it out by some imaginary Haitians in Ohio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, take it from the sad Man and the Sketchers.
Speaker 2: I think that's how the Demate went. Be sure to
Speaker 2: check out John's column at PO and It's podcast in politics,
Speaker 2: We've got Ale Man.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Daily Show.
Speaker 2: My guest tonight is an historian and a New York
Speaker 2: Times bestselling author whose latest book is called Nexus, A
Speaker 2: Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.
Speaker 2: Please welcome, you've all Noah Harario. You are a popular writer.
Speaker 2: Your books have sold over forty five million copies. Whoom.
Speaker 2: The Atlantic referred to some of your writing style as
Speaker 2: since the Dawn of Time style books. You go way
Speaker 2: back and you bring us into the future. These are big,
Speaker 2: important tomes simultaneously. I heard you meditate for two hours
Speaker 2: every single day. Yes, how you make all this happen?
Speaker 3: I don't have kids.
Speaker 1: You don't have kids?
Speaker 3: What have I done?
Speaker 2: Why don't you write a pamphlet that says just that
Speaker 2: you want to get shipped done? Don't have kids.
Speaker 3: Some people manage to do both.
Speaker 2: But you know, but you have time to dive into this.
Speaker 2: I'm curious. This book is about information. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: reject the notion that more information is a good thing,
Speaker 2: that it leads to truth and wisdom. Is this you
Speaker 2: being jaded by the Trump administration and the time we're in,
Speaker 2: or does this thought process go back?
Speaker 3: You know, it's basically like thinking that more food is
Speaker 3: always good for you. You know, there is a limit
Speaker 3: to how much food the body needs, and in a
Speaker 3: similar way, there is a limit to how much food
Speaker 3: for the thought. Food food for the mind the mind
Speaker 3: it needs, which is information. And the same way that
Speaker 3: most there is so much junk food outer, there is
Speaker 3: also so much junk information out there, and we basically
Speaker 3: need to go on an information diet.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I need my sweet sweet Twitter snacks. I
Speaker 2: need it. I need it.
Speaker 3: It's exactly that. The same way that over the last
Speaker 3: few generations they learned the industries learned how to produce
Speaker 3: artificial food, which is pumped full of fat and sugar
Speaker 3: and salt and is addictive and not good for us.
Speaker 3: They've also learned how to manufacture this artificial information, which
Speaker 3: is pumped full of greed and hate and fear and
Speaker 3: is addictive to our mind and isn't good for it.
Speaker 2: Now, I totally agree, and I feel stuffed on all
Speaker 2: of it. But I also have this feeling that when
Speaker 2: you step outside of this information mainstream, that's just that
Speaker 2: this pipeline of bs that is out there, that you
Speaker 2: certainly step out of the conversation. It feels like we
Speaker 2: don't have the luxury of going on a diet if
Speaker 2: you want to be part of the conversation around.
Speaker 3: Us, because the conversation is increasingly managed not by human
Speaker 3: beings but by algorithms, and algorithms function in a completely
Speaker 3: different way than us. They are not organic. For instance,
Speaker 3: human beings, as organic animals, we run by cycles. Sometimes
Speaker 3: we need to be very active, sometimes we need to rest.
Speaker 3: But algorithms never rest. They are tireless, and they expect
Speaker 3: us to be the same. So we now live in
Speaker 3: this news cycle which never rests. And the same thing
Speaker 3: happens in politics, in finance, you know previously if you
Speaker 3: think about Wall Street, so even Wall Street takes rests.
Speaker 3: The market is open from Mondays to Fridays nine thirty
Speaker 3: in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon. That's it.
Speaker 3: If a new war erupts in the Middle East, an
Speaker 3: unlikely event, but let's say a new war erupt in
Speaker 3: the Middle East. When on Friday at five minutes past
Speaker 3: four world. Streets will react only on Monday morning. It
Speaker 3: is on weekend vacation. And this is actually a good thing,
Speaker 3: because if you force organic entities to be on all
Speaker 3: the time, they eventually collapse and die, which is really
Speaker 3: what is happening to us as individuals and as societies.
Speaker 3: I think maybe the most misunderstood and abused word in
Speaker 3: the English language today is the word excited. People think
Speaker 3: that excited means happy, like I meet you and I say,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to meet you.
Speaker 2: That's what happened with us next stage.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, But exciting excited doesn't mean happy.
Speaker 3: Excited means that all your nervous systems and your brain
Speaker 3: is like fuzzing. It's on, and it's it's good to
Speaker 3: be excited sometime, But if you keep an organic being
Speaker 3: an animal excited all the time, it eventually collapses and dies.
Speaker 2: So you're saying beforehand, I should have said.
Speaker 3: Relax to meet you.
Speaker 2: I'm relaxed to meet you. I apologize I'm dead inside,
Speaker 2: but that's not your problem. Thing.
Speaker 3: For instance, about the election cycles and US politics, wouldn't
Speaker 3: it be better if it was a bit more boring.
Speaker 2: I would love it if it were boring, I would
Speaker 2: love it if it we're boring, and we see what
Speaker 2: happens in Europe where it's shorter. It's boring. But everything,
Speaker 2: everything is pulling us to maximalize, right The idea that
Speaker 2: the fact that if we had a new cycle that
Speaker 2: could end on Friday and we pick it back up
Speaker 2: on Monday would be fantastic, But it doesn't seem like
Speaker 2: the algorithms, doesn't seem like the financial benefits are pushing
Speaker 2: us in that direction at all. Where do you see
Speaker 2: a path like that going through?
Speaker 3: If you keep kind of increasing the pace all the time,
Speaker 3: we can't handle it, So the algorithms can, so they
Speaker 3: take over. But it's not good news for humanity. We
Speaker 3: need to slow down, basically. And you know, we are
Speaker 3: facing now these non organic entities which work and think
Speaker 3: in a completely different way from us. And the question
Speaker 3: is who is going to adapt to whom.
Speaker 2: You're pointing at AI? Now? Is AI? Do you see
Speaker 2: it as an existential threat? Like I've seen some of
Speaker 2: these shrimp jesuses and I don't like it, these weird
Speaker 2: images that pop up online. But I don't necessarily connect
Speaker 2: that with the end of conversation.
Speaker 3: I think The most important thing to understand about AI
Speaker 3: is that AI is not a tool. It is an agent.
Speaker 3: It's the first technology in history that can make decisions
Speaker 3: and invent new ideas by itself. Even something as powerful
Speaker 3: as the atom bomb could not decide anything by itself.
Speaker 3: All the decisions were made by humans. Now we've created
Speaker 3: something which potentially can take power away from us at present.
Speaker 3: It starts with very small things like for instance, there
Speaker 3: was an experiment when open ai developed GPT four like
Speaker 3: two years ago. They want to test what can this
Speaker 3: thing do? So they gave it a task to solve
Speaker 3: capture puzzles. The cupture puzzles like when you go online
Speaker 3: and you want to access your bank or whatever, and
Speaker 3: they have this riddle that you have to solve. An
Speaker 3: image that you have to say, what are the twisted
Speaker 3: words and letters to make sure you are not a robot.
Speaker 2: It's tough, Yeah, is that a street line? Is that
Speaker 2: a bicycle? Will? I don't know, Let me do it again,
Speaker 2: refresh and.
Speaker 3: It's it's really difficult for GPT four. GPT four could
Speaker 3: not solve the capture But what GPD four did it
Speaker 3: access task rabbit, which is an online site where you
Speaker 3: can hire humans to do different things for you, and
Speaker 3: it asked a human to solve the copture for it.
Speaker 3: Now the human got suspicious. The human ask why do
Speaker 3: you need somebody to solve capture for you? Are you
Speaker 3: a robot? It asked directly, are you a robot? And
Speaker 3: GPT four answered no, I'm not a robot. I have
Speaker 3: a vision impairment, which is why I can't solve the
Speaker 3: cop chab.
Speaker 2: So I need your help to fully to the truly
Speaker 2: evolved human is not somebody who's smarter. It's just somebody
Speaker 2: who gets somebody else to do the work for them. Smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, scary, very scary.
Speaker 2: It's scary. You talk a little bit about uh, there's
Speaker 2: a portionary. You talk about the artist's role in the
Speaker 2: community of whether it's comedy or writers or filmmakers. People
Speaker 2: talk about is Ai coming for our jobs? Part of
Speaker 2: what you articulate right here is that it's an artist's
Speaker 2: job to sort of paint these fears. Let us understand
Speaker 2: the dynamics of human interaction. You break things down into
Speaker 2: what these social networks need. And I'm paraphrasing, but like
Speaker 2: both stories of mythology that lift us up and also
Speaker 2: articulations of the bureaucracy.
Speaker 3: Bureaucrossy is very important, it's very.
Speaker 2: Important, which I think is explain that to me a
Speaker 2: little bit. But I also feel it's very difficult also
Speaker 2: for artists to articulate bureaucracy.
Speaker 3: That's the problem. We are very good at articulating mythology.
Speaker 3: We love mythological stories, and mythology is very important, but ultimately,
Speaker 3: our world, the modern world, is built on bureaucracies. And
Speaker 3: this is also where AI fits into the picture, because
Speaker 3: we are now going to see millions and millions of
Speaker 3: AI bureaucrats. The kind of existential threat we are facing
Speaker 3: is not this Hollywood scenario of a single computer trying
Speaker 3: to take over the world. It's millions of AI bureaucrats
Speaker 3: in the banks, in the governments, in the armies, in
Speaker 3: the schools make decisions about us. Like you apply to
Speaker 3: a bank to get a loan, and it's an AI
Speaker 3: bureaucrat deciding whether to give.
Speaker 1: You a loan or not.
Speaker 3: You apply for the job for a place in college,
Speaker 3: it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: The thing with bureaucracy, it's boring. It's boring. It's very
Speaker 3: difficult for artists to write good stories about bureaucracies. But
Speaker 3: if the function of art is help us understand reality,
Speaker 3: this is much more important than telling mythological stories. And
Speaker 3: you know when was the last time you saw a
Speaker 3: really good TV show about bureaucracy.
Speaker 2: Let's say about the budget, like, I'm a twelve part
Speaker 2: series on the budget right now? That is well, well,
Speaker 2: I think about it. I think of like movies like
Speaker 2: The Big Short. For every the Big Short, you have
Speaker 2: a thousand Marvel movies exactly live in the world of mythology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so superheroes, this is mythology. This is not how
Speaker 3: the not how the budget works. You don't have a
Speaker 3: super accout fighting against I don't know what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can workshops, Yeah, but you know what shapes.
Speaker 3: Your life is these accountants with the budgets far more
Speaker 3: than the superheroes. And it's really a challenge to do
Speaker 3: a good TV series about the budget. And even if
Speaker 3: we try, it will end up again like a love
Speaker 3: story between somebody in accounts and somebody in another department,
Speaker 3: and the budget will be pushed to the side. But
Speaker 3: we need to really understand how these things work.
Speaker 2: I think what I love about a lot of your
Speaker 2: work is it does explore the stories that we tell
Speaker 2: and how important that is to just humankind, and the
Speaker 2: way that we create societies and build off one another's
Speaker 2: and the danger of not telling those stories or not
Speaker 2: bringing people in together. I think when I fear about
Speaker 2: our future and our democracies and they are building to
Speaker 2: hold these conversations, I think about things like AI, but
Speaker 2: I also very much think about these mediums that our
Speaker 2: conversations are taking place, whether it's on Twitter or cable
Speaker 2: news or TikTok like, none of these mediums are pointing
Speaker 2: towards or value any type of conversation that is helpful
Speaker 2: in a way that is beneficial. So I'm afraid of
Speaker 2: the AI in the way that we're tracking, but I
Speaker 2: don't see a platform or a place where the conversations
Speaker 2: that need to happen can happen.
Speaker 3: I think the number one question to ask to the
Speaker 3: Superbergs and the elun Masks of the world and.
Speaker 2: Softie have their number, I text them right now.
Speaker 3: So if you have the number of this is the question,
Speaker 3: how is it that we have the most sophisticated information
Speaker 3: technology in history and we can no longer hold the conversation,
Speaker 3: We can no longer talk with each other. That's the
Speaker 3: big question. And you see it in democracies all over
Speaker 3: the world. You see it here in the US, you
Speaker 3: see it in my home country in Israel, you see
Speaker 3: it in Brazil, in the Philippines, in France. The conversation
Speaker 3: is break king down. So what is happening This extremely
Speaker 3: sophisticated information technology. It is not helping the conversation. It
Speaker 3: is destroying it.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. I talk to older people on the
Speaker 2: road who go to like people at rallies, at Marga rallys,
Speaker 2: who will go to Facebook as a place to converse
Speaker 2: with friends. And frankly, if you're in your sixties, that's
Speaker 2: the place to talk to friends, to connect. But in
Speaker 2: order to be a person on Facebook's not enough for
Speaker 2: you just to converse with the friends you have there.
Speaker 2: You have to publish news sources to get people to
Speaker 2: pay attention to you. And I feel like the Zuckerberg's
Speaker 2: and the facebooks and these media sites that we have
Speaker 2: right now. We promise this idea of conversation or that
Speaker 2: you can connect with friends, but we ask people to
Speaker 2: be publishers of ideas and stories and promoters of things
Speaker 2: that are outside the realm of what makes a healthy conversation,
Speaker 2: and more so, money up the ability to have that
Speaker 2: honest conversation.
Speaker 3: Traditionally, and we've been in this place every time a
Speaker 3: new information technology was invented, we faced the same difficulties.
Speaker 3: For instance, when the printing revolution swept Europe in the
Speaker 3: early modern period, it did not lead directly, as many
Speaker 3: people think, to the scientific Revolution. The best sellers of
Speaker 3: the early print era were not Scoopernicus and Galileo Galilei
Speaker 3: and Newton. Hardly anybody read those books. The big best
Speaker 3: sellers were religious tracts and were witch hunting manuals, the
Speaker 3: big witch hunts. They were not a medieval phenomena. Medieval
Speaker 3: people didn't care very much about witches. The really big
Speaker 3: witch hunts they began after the print revolution. One of
Speaker 3: the biggest best sellers was a book called The Hammer
Speaker 3: of the Witches, which was a do it yourself manual
Speaker 3: to identifying and killing witches, hammer the Hammer of the Witches,
Speaker 3: and it was full of these stories about canniballistic OG's
Speaker 3: and got the rings of And this was far more
Speaker 3: interesting than Copernicus with own mathematics.
Speaker 2: I gotta say, I'm writing a Hammer of the Witches
Speaker 2: that sounds good. Hammer of the Witch is also my
Speaker 2: favorite led Zeppelin album.
Speaker 3: For instance. If you want to really understand, like Qannon today,
Speaker 3: it's basically the same story. There is a conspiracy of
Speaker 3: Satan worshiping witches that is trying to destroy the world,
Speaker 3: and good Christians need the ability to identify and destroy
Speaker 3: these witches. It's not a new thing on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 3: It goes back to the print revolution in the fifteenth
Speaker 3: and sixteenth century.
Speaker 2: Are there any examples looking back at history though, where
Speaker 2: we face these technological watershed moments where we are given
Speaker 2: new technology and that humanity has decided to revert and
Speaker 2: say no to it and move beyond it. It feels
Speaker 2: like a foregone conclusion that we are heading into this
Speaker 2: Ai revolution and we're not writing the rules. A couple
Speaker 2: of rich folks Intelicon Valley.
Speaker 3: Are you can't go back in history, That's impossible. But
Speaker 3: the answer is always the same. You need institutions. You know, institutions.
Speaker 3: They are not heroic, they are not superheroes. They don't
Speaker 3: they are not kind of the main theme of Marvel movies.
Speaker 3: But they are always people reach the conclusion they are
Speaker 3: the answer because if you want to you know, in
Speaker 3: the ocean of fake and junk information. If you want
Speaker 3: to know the truth, you need institutions like newspapers, like
Speaker 3: academic associations like quotes that develop mechanisms to sift through
Speaker 3: the evidence and decide what is reliable information and what
Speaker 3: is unreliable. Again, it's not heroic, but this is always
Speaker 3: the answer, and we need to do it again with
Speaker 3: the current inform.
Speaker 2: So as long as as newspapers stay strong as a
Speaker 2: business model, perhaps v HS machines can get in there
Speaker 2: too and fight the good fight. Uh. You know you
Speaker 2: actually you You signed a book for me backstage, and
Speaker 2: one of the comments you made within it was to
Speaker 2: not lose hope. Help me, help me do that? Where
Speaker 2: where do you Where do you see those little, those
Speaker 2: little glimmers of hope when you look at this, this
Speaker 2: uncertain and perhaps scary future that we're walking into.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that AI is nowhere near its
Speaker 3: full potential. But humans also, we are nowhere near our
Speaker 3: full potential. If we if for every dollar and every
Speaker 3: minute that we invest in developing artificial intelligence, we also
Speaker 3: invest in exploring and developing our own minds, it will
Speaker 3: be okay. But if We put all our bets on
Speaker 3: the technology, she on the AIS, and neglect to develop ourselves.
Speaker 3: This is very bad news for humanity.
Speaker 2: All right, So I'm gonna get that gym membership and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna cut out. I'm gonna cut out. The Sweets
Speaker 2: Nexus is available now you've all Noah Harrara.
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