Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Hello, it does all right? Are you having flashbacks?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Man, we were, we were.
Speaker 1: We looked nice.
Speaker 2: You did look nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're taking this very seriously.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So we got to start with John and the decision
Speaker 3: to come back, because I know I was shocked when
Speaker 3: I heard the news.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people were shocked.
Speaker 3: So take us through your decision process and why now?
Speaker 2: Why come back?
Speaker 4: I was arrested for thirty two phones, thirty four phoners
Speaker 4: thirty four as part.
Speaker 1: Of the community service to avoid jail time.
Speaker 4: So I had been doing another program on a more
Speaker 4: boutique museum service is called Apple TV Plus and I
Speaker 4: have it, and I'm sure someone else does, but there weren't,
Speaker 4: and they felt that it would be better if I
Speaker 4: didn't say the things that I enjoy saying for them.
Speaker 1: So I was, yes, there was.
Speaker 4: It actually turned out to be a blurb, I believe
Speaker 4: in the post, and so.
Speaker 1: I was out of a job.
Speaker 4: And it turned out Comedy Central was in the midst
Speaker 4: of what appeared to be something going on with their
Speaker 4: choice for a new host.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you.
Speaker 4: You read about that as well, And so they called
Speaker 4: and said would you come back and host the show?
Speaker 4: And I said no, And then they said, well would.
Speaker 1: You do it every Monday? And I was like really
Speaker 1: one day a week? And they're like yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like, had Mattow started doing that? Like was
Speaker 3: there a model or did you? Was it like four?
Speaker 3: And like, whoa, this is something I didn't consider it.
Speaker 1: Well, we had been I don't know if you we
Speaker 1: were at the Liberal Brunch where we go over a
Speaker 1: lot of the day.
Speaker 4: I have her on speed dial and uh and Kornaki
Speaker 4: he gives us the data on how many days a
Speaker 4: week has I believe he calls it efficacy. Uh so yeah,
Speaker 4: so uh it came together. I was very nervous come back,
Speaker 4: not because these guys aren't phenomenal and I know so
Speaker 4: many of the people that run the show and they
Speaker 4: were still there from when I was there, and they're
Speaker 4: incredibly talented, but I was tired for working for corporate
Speaker 4: overlords that were fearful of of the You know, the
Speaker 4: nice part about Comedy Central in the old days was
Speaker 4: the kind of provoca stuff that we would maybe do
Speaker 4: they seem to think help them build their brand. Things
Speaker 4: have changed somewhat, uh, and so I had to be
Speaker 4: you know, speak with the Chris McCarthy who runs it
Speaker 4: and to get the sense that this guy would be
Speaker 4: okay with that, and it turned out he was.
Speaker 3: And that's been true your experience throughout working there now.
Speaker 1: No, once I signed.
Speaker 4: Please go on, it was a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: at and T is all the biggest sponsor.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's been. It's been phenomenal.
Speaker 4: And the nice part is like, these guys are all,
Speaker 4: you know, such pros and I've been doing it now
Speaker 4: for so long and transitioning themselves into the host chair
Speaker 4: that you know, that's a really fun part of the
Speaker 4: dynamic as well for us. So it's been phenomenal and
Speaker 4: the support there. Look, I've worked there and you guys
Speaker 4: are in the industry.
Speaker 1: I've worked through a lot of the c changes in
Speaker 1: the industry.
Speaker 4: I was we had talked about this a little bit,
Speaker 4: but with Viacom in the old days of MTV with
Speaker 4: Tom Freston and Judy McGrath and Doug Herzog and people
Speaker 4: that believe that the creators meant something.
Speaker 1: And then I also worked through other regimes.
Speaker 4: Where they felt the star was real estate and they
Speaker 4: really didn't give a shit, you.
Speaker 1: Know what was built there, that was to them, that's
Speaker 1: the star.
Speaker 4: And so it's really lovely to come back to a
Speaker 4: place that you feel like values, ideas and thoughts and
Speaker 4: those types of things.
Speaker 5: So that's the same love John that you come back
Speaker 5: one day a week and appreciate it so much.
Speaker 1: So thanks budd, having every every Monday nice and the
Speaker 1: worst because we work real hard all day and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, bye, guys, have a great weekend, fun tomorrow.
Speaker 3: But what did what did you guys think when you
Speaker 3: first heard the news?
Speaker 6: I like, he's still alive. Relief, relief, you know, barely.
Speaker 7: My first thought was the guy from half base.
Speaker 5: Really okay, But you must have been exciting, very very exciting.
Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, it was a big reveal surprise to
Speaker 5: us and it was truly exciting.
Speaker 8: It was wonderful. And then to work alongside him is great.
Speaker 5: And then to kiss his ass publicly on the Paramount
Speaker 5: lot that's like my dream come true.
Speaker 2: Nothing's better nothing than that.
Speaker 7: They say never meet your heroes. I say, meet your
Speaker 7: hero and immediately get on his payroll.
Speaker 2: Wow, you paid them off very well, so you come back.
Speaker 8: Ronnie didn't answer that, just did everybody else answer?
Speaker 9: I thought it was a step down, but no, yeah,
Speaker 9: we all who passed?
Speaker 3: All right, So you come back and you've talked a
Speaker 3: lot about was the same? What was different in coming
Speaker 3: back to this job.
Speaker 1: Nine years later? My bone density?
Speaker 3: It's a very different environment, very different media environment, very
Speaker 3: different comedy environment.
Speaker 2: I was it different?
Speaker 9: Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think.
Speaker 4: I don't think it is particularly different. I think you know, look,
Speaker 4: when I was there, you faced corporate pressure or do
Speaker 4: you mean in terms of what you.
Speaker 3: Can say different? What's funny is different. We've now gone through,
Speaker 3: you know, eight years of Trump and then what Biden
Speaker 3: and now we're back to the Trump and Biden show,
Speaker 3: Like these are things that did not know this when
Speaker 3: you were there last time.
Speaker 1: No, But back when I.
Speaker 4: Was there, it was you know, eight years of Bush
Speaker 4: and the Iraq War in Afghanistan. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: we always like to imagine that the time we're in
Speaker 4: now is just unprecedented. And the only thing I would
Speaker 4: say is the weight of the Internet and social media
Speaker 4: equity of it.
Speaker 1: You know, we are all in that movie what's the movie? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: Gibson knows what everybody's saying about what women.
Speaker 4: We're in that time now of everybody comments on every
Speaker 4: you know, what everybody is thinking at all times. When
Speaker 4: you used to do stand up, you know, you'd do
Speaker 4: a show and there'd be a couple of tables no
Speaker 4: matter what show you did that wouldn't dig it, and
Speaker 4: that'd be fine, like you'd register it, but then you'd
Speaker 4: go home. In the current social media environment, it's like
Speaker 4: you ride home in the cab with them and like
Speaker 4: and you just have to sit there the whole time,
Speaker 4: and like that guy sucks. Did you know he changed
Speaker 4: his last name from something very Jewish?
Speaker 1: You know, like.
Speaker 4: And you're you know it's all but but I you know,
Speaker 4: I think there's there's a whole thing out there of
Speaker 4: you can't say anything anymore, and I feel like we
Speaker 4: say everything. I mean, I came up in a time
Speaker 4: where like standards and practices would call us and say
Speaker 4: you can say dildo three times, but that but now
Speaker 4: unlimited bilbil.
Speaker 1: Like I just I think I think the whole narrative
Speaker 1: of like we all have to.
Speaker 4: Be so careful is insane. I think there's and there's
Speaker 4: industries that pop up of people that aren't careful and
Speaker 4: that's their brand. Everybody has their place, but we're more
Speaker 4: inundated with more speech and more variety of speech than
Speaker 4: ever in the history of speech.
Speaker 3: The audiences have fragmented though in the last nine years,
Speaker 3: and social media is one reason. But back when you
Speaker 3: were hosting before, there was a sense, and I haven't
Speaker 3: looked at the demos, there was a sense that you
Speaker 3: were speaking to a bipartisan audience, that you were sort
Speaker 3: of the king of the liberals, but you would also
Speaker 3: bring in you would also bring in a conservative audience
Speaker 3: as well. And I'm not sure that is necessarily the
Speaker 3: case in television and media in general these days.
Speaker 1: That could be because no, I just I just don't know.
Speaker 1: And I think you know.
Speaker 4: The one thing that we never talk about, and you
Speaker 4: guys can can jump in here is the audience. I
Speaker 4: think the minute you the whole point of collaboration and
Speaker 4: being a team and creative endeavors is to calibrate your sensibilities,
Speaker 4: so you have an internal barometer of what's good content.
Speaker 4: The audience not to offend, like doesn't enter into the equation,
Speaker 4: and if they do, I think you're doing something wrong.
Speaker 4: This is about honing your ability. They'll tell you if
Speaker 4: they think it's funny or not. But just because they
Speaker 4: say that doesn't mean you even necessarily have to believe that.
Speaker 4: We don't design the show to think like, you know,
Speaker 4: we want to make sure that we hit the young demo.
Speaker 1: Like I remember CNN used to do that for like
Speaker 1: presidential debates.
Speaker 4: They would do debates and then like CNN would do
Speaker 4: a debate, and then MTV would co sponsor a debate,
Speaker 4: and all the presidential candidates would wear turtlenecks boxes of briefs, right,
Speaker 4: but the turtleneck because the kids would be like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: I don't hear anybody whose neck I can see like
Speaker 4: it's you know, I think we spend way too much
Speaker 4: time worrying about that shit and not enough time worrying
Speaker 4: about the quality. All you can control is the execution
Speaker 4: of your intention and your content. Everything else is out
Speaker 4: of your hands, So why spend any time on it?
Speaker 3: So what makes a joke or a bit or a
Speaker 3: segment a daily show joke or a bit or a segment.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, to start the day, you look at
Speaker 5: all the clips and headlines of the news from that's
Speaker 5: happened from the day before. So I would say in
Speaker 5: a really non sexy answer, but it's the news that
Speaker 5: happened from the time the last show edited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but everybody's looking at that.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much, Michael Costile.
Speaker 6: That's the political analysis we need.
Speaker 4: By the way, still sexy, don't in any way, Well
Speaker 4: nothing you can't do.
Speaker 8: It's to say, yeah, we don't think about the audience.
Speaker 5: I don't know about you, but when I host, I
Speaker 5: don't have to think about the audience. You're trying to
Speaker 5: write the show, rehearse, find the clips, so the audience
Speaker 5: does not come in mind. Now, sometimes we'll have a
Speaker 5: great show and then I'm stupid enough to say, in
Speaker 5: between acts three and four, hey, let's take a question
Speaker 5: from the audience. And then someone says, who go to pizza?
Speaker 5: Should we get here? And I go, holy shit, I
Speaker 5: wish I'd never talked to the audience.
Speaker 2: Not this area.
Speaker 6: We're all wonderful.
Speaker 1: By the way, what kind of pizza should we get?
Speaker 7: We want to know?
Speaker 1: Can I tell you?
Speaker 4: My favorite part of that though, is they'll always say, like,
Speaker 4: what kind of pizza should we get here? Which is
Speaker 4: the most common question We ever get there, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: where are you coming in from? And They're like Ohio,
Speaker 4: and I'm like fucking anything. Anything you get, like go
Speaker 4: to La Familia and it will blow your mind, like
Speaker 4: you're you live next to Skyline Chili whatever pizza.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 5: Also, you waited in line for six hours to talk
Speaker 5: to John Stewart. You have one question, and that's the one.
Speaker 5: That's the question, all.
Speaker 3: Right for everyone else? What has been the biggest surprise
Speaker 3: about working with John?
Speaker 2: You're not allowed to answer.
Speaker 1: This appears very eulogy like.
Speaker 4: You.
Speaker 6: I will say this. I got to work with John
Speaker 6: four hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Yes, John hired me. Yes, I was a fan of
Speaker 6: The Daily Show. I got brought in.
Speaker 10: John hired me on and it was I mean, it
Speaker 10: was my favorite show and to be birth into working
Speaker 10: on that was a career highlights, so much so that
Speaker 10: I will never leave working on that show because fear
Speaker 10: of losing health insurance.
Speaker 6: So thank you. But I will say, on a nerdy level,
Speaker 6: what has been really cool about this new era that
Speaker 6: we are in?
Speaker 10: Like we talked about this, We had a not to
Speaker 10: spill industry secrets. We had like a zoom call with
Speaker 10: all of us after the first couple of weeks where
Speaker 10: we all got to talk about the difficulties of hosting
Speaker 10: the Daily Show, and I will say hosting a late
Speaker 10: night show is a weird, lonely, strange job. I got
Speaker 10: to do it for a little while and I loved
Speaker 10: it. It was the best fucking job. But it was a lonely, scary,
Speaker 10: weird job that you had questions that nobody could freaking answer.
Speaker 10: And that like first week when we got to get
Speaker 10: on that zoom call and talk about mechanics, and it's
Speaker 10: not all high falutin conversations. It's like mechanics of telling
Speaker 10: a story, the ways in which to filter the news,
Speaker 10: the ways in which to react to clips that play
Speaker 10: on the air, Like there's an art to it. And
Speaker 10: so it's been really fun to watch John again now
Speaker 10: in his ninetieth decade of doing this show.
Speaker 6: But to watch it from a perspective we get to
Speaker 6: host this.
Speaker 10: Thing and it's an amazing vehicle to be behind, but
Speaker 10: to watch like the ways in which you can get
Speaker 10: better at it and the ways you can filter through
Speaker 10: it like that has been kind of a remarkable It's
Speaker 10: like the world's best master class.
Speaker 1: To be a part of.
Speaker 4: And there being a correspondent is one of the most
Speaker 4: difficult jobs you can do because you have to be
Speaker 4: versed in so many different things. These guys all come
Speaker 4: from improv and stand up, but you do so many things,
Speaker 4: some of it mechanical. In the field, you take on
Speaker 4: these certain characters that you play, usually you know, the
Speaker 4: high status idiot or one of those types of things.
Speaker 4: Or you go out in the field and you do
Speaker 4: improv scenes with people that don't realize they're in an
Speaker 4: improv scene.
Speaker 1: Like, it's a really.
Speaker 6: Difficult armed people who don't realize armed people.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ask about that actually, because I'm very curious,
Speaker 3: how have you not gotten your ass kicked?
Speaker 2: Way more than.
Speaker 1: You have kids? But one's that.
Speaker 2: It's a somewhat serious question.
Speaker 6: There, How have I not gotten my ass kicked? Well?
Speaker 10: I have a couple things. One, I'm a white guy
Speaker 10: at a Trump rally. It helps I'm a tall white guy.
Speaker 10: And also for security guards, okay, which is wild. I
Speaker 10: will say when we started doing this, going out to
Speaker 10: the field, you didn't need a security guard because you
Speaker 10: were an improv teacher a.
Speaker 6: Week and a half ago.
Speaker 10: So the idea that somebody wanted to kill you or
Speaker 10: murder you seemed asinine. Yeah, and yet here we are
Speaker 10: walking into spaces to talk about politics with four armed guards.
Speaker 6: But that's what comedy wants in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 7: Yeah, to be honest, we do kick his ass inside.
Speaker 6: It is very true. It is quite quite violent inside.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you'll be You'll be stupid enough to read the
Speaker 5: YouTube comments of your piece and it'll be like, what
Speaker 5: a stupid question? Why does Costa look like he's sweating
Speaker 5: and indoors? And I'm like, because the guy was armed
Speaker 5: and he just told me he hated all my questions.
Speaker 8: That's why I was sweating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it is scary. It is scary, and we
Speaker 1: deserve all the credit we got.
Speaker 5: But to Jordan's point about the Zoom meeting, I remember
Speaker 5: that with John this was super helpful and you said,
Speaker 5: how's it going hosting to all of us? And I said,
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm wearing my grandfather's suit and my
Speaker 5: dad's suit at the same time. And you said, if
Speaker 5: you want to see uncomfortable hosting, watch my first two
Speaker 5: years hosting The Daily Show. And I'm sure you were
Speaker 5: saying that to me nice, but that was tremendously helpful
Speaker 5: because it's very lonely hosting.
Speaker 2: You don't have anyone.
Speaker 5: There's no hosting red phone to call and say, please
Speaker 5: help me with this, so it's tremendously helpful to have that.
Speaker 4: I also had to remind that, like, you know, on
Speaker 4: that call, we were just talking about like hosting the
Speaker 4: show as a very different now it's about channeling how.
Speaker 1: You feel viscerally. You're no longer playing the role of
Speaker 1: what the bit may require of you. You're actually trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, channel things through your own point of view
Speaker 1: and bring.
Speaker 4: Them out in a much more like humanistic way. And
Speaker 4: they would say that, well, you know, it seems to
Speaker 4: come more naturally to you, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, I've only done two.
Speaker 1: Thousand of these and this is your third.
Speaker 4: So I'm blown away actually by a how incredibly a
Speaker 4: depth they were at it from jump and then be
Speaker 4: how far they've even developed just in that short amount
Speaker 4: of time since then.
Speaker 1: It's somewhat disconcerting.
Speaker 3: One of the things that struck me in one of
Speaker 3: the things I wondered about when you agreed to come
Speaker 3: back was whether we would get Daily Show John Stewart
Speaker 3: or Apple Show John Stewart because your persona changed. It
Speaker 3: was a different version of you, and you seem to
Speaker 3: have pretty seamlessly slipped back into Daily Show John Stewart.
Speaker 4: So Apple still owns that John Stewart.
Speaker 2: And my phone just buzzed.
Speaker 4: I don't know why if I am to use that
Speaker 4: John Stewart, I apparently I will be taken away.
Speaker 2: Okay, but that's a conscious decision.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's funny that you said, because it
Speaker 4: feels to me like as me me, so I would
Speaker 4: think it's in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, that's wrong,
Speaker 4: I should have Yeah, but it feels the same to me.
Speaker 3: But but maybe, but you're for instance, your interview with
Speaker 3: Ken Buck the other night, which was fantastic, you got
Speaker 3: away with a lot of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 3: An amazing episode, But you got away with a lot
Speaker 3: of things in that interview because of the self deprecation
Speaker 3: and sort of laughing about certain things, and you were
Speaker 3: you approached that interview in a way that maybe you
Speaker 3: wouldn't have before at the Apple Show.
Speaker 1: So the difference is honestly audience.
Speaker 4: So when you have an audience in an interview like
Speaker 4: this one, you're constantly aware of that they're another character
Speaker 4: in the play. And so the Apple Show is waiting
Speaker 4: for GOODO. This is, you know, something that's a little
Speaker 4: bit more less existential. But like when you're sitting in
Speaker 4: a room with an Oklahoma State senator and there's no
Speaker 4: audience and he's saying to you, no more guns makes
Speaker 4: us safer, and you're like, when when does that happen?
Speaker 4: It's a different dynamic than when you have an audience,
Speaker 4: And you're also keenly aware of their patients for the
Speaker 4: different line of questioning where they might think they want
Speaker 4: a break. You know, I think it's got more to
Speaker 4: do with the environment in some respects makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ronnie, I want to bring you in a little
Speaker 3: bit more here.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Ronnie, No, sorry, I'm just I'm interested in these
Speaker 9: answers as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What what what.
Speaker 3: Have you learned just working around John so much the
Speaker 3: last few months?
Speaker 9: Uh, you're asking what's surprising about working with John? Because
Speaker 9: when I joined the show, I took research very seriously.
Speaker 9: So I watch old episodes, You hear stories about John,
Speaker 9: you read the book The Daily Show, oral History, you guess,
Speaker 9: you know, and so you get a sense of the
Speaker 9: working habits of people. But when he when he came back,
Speaker 9: what was surprised? Despite knowing academically his strengths cleared your
Speaker 9: thought control of the medium.
Speaker 6: But when you see.
Speaker 9: That first episode, it's it's like watching of. It's like
Speaker 9: watching Jordan in ninety six direct the offense again.
Speaker 6: Wait, is that the Wizards or that's before the Wizo.
Speaker 9: I'm trying not to do a Wizards thing, but it's
Speaker 9: but actually, if you look at the Michael Jordan and
Speaker 9: the Wizards, this individual performance and actually granted team the team, yeah,
Speaker 9: you have one leg Jordan was actually individual status was amazing.
Speaker 6: But and Jordan did retire, came back and he won
Speaker 6: two more Emmys, have it right?
Speaker 4: They but interviewing Buck, Wait if I is the Apple
Speaker 4: Show when I was with the White Sox, is that
Speaker 4: when I went to.
Speaker 9: So just just watching the control of because it's so
Speaker 9: weird to he's sitting right there and you're working with him,
Speaker 9: and you don't want to be too kind of like
Speaker 9: in AWE because you have a job to do. But
Speaker 9: you're watching someone who invented modern American satire.
Speaker 6: He invented that format.
Speaker 9: All right, now you know you know all these people
Speaker 9: doing the video screen above the shoulder, Yeah, he invented that.
Speaker 9: So he's the guy who and so he knows exactly
Speaker 9: how to calibrate every pile of the show to what
Speaker 9: he wants to say, you know. And so that's a
Speaker 9: level of control of hosting a daily show that I
Speaker 9: can only aspire to in my dreams, to be able
Speaker 9: to see all the angles that cleared the executed.
Speaker 4: Ronnie Chang is so nice And this is the whole
Speaker 4: time that you know him that you're never sure when
Speaker 4: he's fucking with it like that sound nice?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: How many times have we been talking to Ronnie and
Speaker 4: then I'll walk away like is he fucking?
Speaker 3: He's so nice? He's right about one thing. You You
Speaker 3: were among the first, well I think he was right
Speaker 3: about more than your Your version of the Daily Show
Speaker 3: was the among the first to include the media itself
Speaker 3: in the in the in the joke, in the criticism,
Speaker 3: and you were great at it. And I'm curious how
Speaker 3: the media ecosystem has changed since you've been act to
Speaker 3: like it used to be. Tucker Carlson was your adversary.
Speaker 3: Now there's one hundred Tucker Carlson's. There's also still Tucker,
Speaker 3: but there's one hundred of them, and the entire ecosystem
Speaker 3: has changed.
Speaker 2: How do you approach that.
Speaker 1: I think they really took the note.
Speaker 3: Because you you know, when I first became aware of you,
Speaker 3: I think was those Fox News segments that you used
Speaker 3: to do, and they were just eviscerating.
Speaker 1: But it's almost really changed the landscape. It did.
Speaker 2: Actually, I would argue that that they did.
Speaker 4: The thing is even if it doesn't change the landscape,
Speaker 4: even if the efficacy you cannot relent. The difficulty we
Speaker 4: have with weaponized media is it is weaponized, it's tenacious,
Speaker 4: and it's purposeful. There media has been weaponized for a reason.
Speaker 4: That's not just something that's a phenomenon of now. That's
Speaker 4: you know, Randolph Hurst and Yell journalism, and you know
Speaker 4: that's been with us forever. What is generally not as
Speaker 4: tenacious is the hopefully the corrective course or the you know,
Speaker 4: coming back the other way, and you can't ever give
Speaker 4: up the post. There always has to be something as
Speaker 4: unrelenting and as tenacious, like all of this happens in
Speaker 4: a room.
Speaker 1: None of this is by accident.
Speaker 4: Fox News exists because Roger Ales in nineteen seventy three
Speaker 4: or four said we will never let something like this
Speaker 4: happen to a Republican politician again about Nixon, meaning, we
Speaker 4: will never allow the truth to sail.
Speaker 1: By unopposed, and we will.
Speaker 4: You know, this has been the purpose of that experiment
Speaker 4: over fifty or sixty years, has been the institutions that
Speaker 4: support the general foundation of American life and freedom and
Speaker 4: progress don't suit our agenda.
Speaker 1: So we will build a.
Speaker 4: Parallel universe of think tanks and universities and institutions and media,
Speaker 4: and we will shift when time is ready, we will
Speaker 4: throw the switch and shift society onto that onto that field.
Speaker 4: And you can only you can only take away its
Speaker 4: power by demystifying it's like and I don't mean this
Speaker 4: as a direct one to one. In the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 4: Kuklos Klan was ascended, and they were a powerful force
Speaker 4: in segregation and violence and intimidation and all those different things.
Speaker 4: And they ended not because people learned that racism was
Speaker 4: bad or that their views should change. Their ridiculousness was exposed,
Speaker 4: their traditions and their se sacred handshakes and their stupid symbols,
Speaker 4: and they ended up looking like buffoons. And it took
Speaker 4: the steam out of that movement. And that has to
Speaker 4: be done, even if it doesn't feel like it's working.
Speaker 4: You cannot stop.
Speaker 1: Even if that you cannot good night.
Speaker 6: To the ramparts.
Speaker 3: That yeah, even if that ridiculousness has melded with the
Speaker 3: actual pillars of government to where they're calling each other
Speaker 3: back and forth saying.
Speaker 2: What should we do? You should do this? During the
Speaker 2: Trump years, Wait, say that again, I'm saying that.
Speaker 3: When you were hosting the Daily Show before, there was
Speaker 3: a clear dichotomy between the government and the media, and
Speaker 3: what we saw in the Trump years was the melding
Speaker 3: of those two where the media was essentially the audience
Speaker 3: was essentially.
Speaker 1: But that was.
Speaker 4: Happening his cue from the media, but that was happening
Speaker 4: in the bushes as well. The right has always been
Speaker 4: much more organized in terms of the media being a
Speaker 4: political arm of a movement. The left is is too
Speaker 4: organ disorganized. Now there is some influx of political players
Speaker 4: within that, but I can tell you the level of
Speaker 4: collusion between media and politics on the right is far
Speaker 4: more advanced and far more specific than you would ever see.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately on the left. Some of that having to do
Speaker 4: with generally the left being a more you know, fractionalized environment.
Speaker 4: You know, it's generally the left is just coalitions held
Speaker 4: together by some idea of you know, being nicer.
Speaker 2: Uh separate topic.
Speaker 3: You guys are going on the road for the conventions.
Speaker 5: What you guys and I learned you guys never done
Speaker 5: the convention what so I will going to leave the
Speaker 5: stage for this part of the question.
Speaker 6: No, DEAs you and I we will in.
Speaker 7: The three of us were there twenty sixteen. It's going
Speaker 7: to be wild. It's going to be incredibly wild. Trump
Speaker 7: will be sentenced four days before the RNC Is that right?
Speaker 3: Four or five days?
Speaker 7: So that could change things. And according to my clue,
Speaker 7: there will be a delay. According to my clue, app
Speaker 7: I will also be on my period that week. So
Speaker 7: it's going to be really and I feel okay sharing
Speaker 7: that with all of you because I'm pretty sure the
Speaker 7: Republicans are already tracking. So we're in for it.
Speaker 4: Did you guys get Were you on the convention floor
Speaker 4: when you guys went in twenty sixteen?
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, I remember. I mean the conventions.
Speaker 10: For all the rot that exists in the political process,
Speaker 10: there's still something so beautiful about an arena of people
Speaker 10: celebrating the potential future. So there is there's a part
Speaker 10: of me I grew up a presidential nerd as a kid,
Speaker 10: and so like to be there and watch this pageantry.
Speaker 10: There's still part of me that has stars in my eyes.
Speaker 10: Although I do remember liked I mean, but I remember
Speaker 10: being on the floor for the Trump one as well,
Speaker 10: and the image that I have. I mean, you know,
Speaker 10: say a lot of things about Donald Trump, but sometimes
Speaker 10: they're so right on the nose you gotta give them credit,
Speaker 10: like the big brother image of Donald Trump's zoomed in
Speaker 10: head behind him as he was like, I alone can
Speaker 10: fix this.
Speaker 6: We shall go forth. I remember watching it be like, oh, well,
Speaker 6: this can't possibly.
Speaker 10: Win, but how funny to be here. So I'm excited
Speaker 10: to see the final chapter.
Speaker 6: Be on the road is always fun. There's always like
Speaker 6: a fun energy.
Speaker 9: I think with the Daily Show makes it a little different,
Speaker 9: gets everyone out of their comfort zone a bit.
Speaker 6: The I do.
Speaker 9: I maybe I'm wrong, but I always when I'm at
Speaker 9: these conventions are highly political rally events, I'm always like,
Speaker 9: these aren't normal Americans. These are the political Americans. Like
Speaker 9: they almost go to this like sports, you know what
Speaker 9: I mean. I don't even know if they care about
Speaker 9: the country as much as they care about the It's almost.
Speaker 6: Like an event for them. It's like a sporting event
Speaker 6: for them.
Speaker 9: So that so when I'm there, that's how I feel like.
Speaker 9: I feel like I'm in a sports event almost, you know,
Speaker 9: it's not even about the future or.
Speaker 6: Issues or ideals.
Speaker 9: It's like people who are there to witness, you know,
Speaker 9: their team versus some other team or you know.
Speaker 4: I think the Democrats were really smart in a time
Speaker 4: of violence and upheaval to do theirs in Chicago.
Speaker 3: Just really you really there is a potential that you know,
Speaker 3: protests and other things.
Speaker 4: No, listen, man, it's you could how do you pick
Speaker 4: the city that in nineteen sixty eight exploded in protests
Speaker 4: in a time of anti work protest and like, you know,
Speaker 4: the left is really angry about this Israel Palestine thing.
Speaker 1: You know, it would be funny.
Speaker 4: I remember at the republic we did the Republican I
Speaker 4: can't remember it was the convention or the midterms?
Speaker 1: And when did they do it in Saint Paul?
Speaker 4: Was that.
Speaker 1: McCain's year. I think that was the year that McCain did.
Speaker 4: And this was when Antifa was not quite a branded
Speaker 4: organization yet. It was still just a bunch of kids
Speaker 4: in like black bandanas, pre pandemic, so nobody had to
Speaker 4: yell at.
Speaker 1: Them about doesn't do anything. And they had on the
Speaker 1: bandanas and they had their lawyers' names. But it was
Speaker 1: a quaint time.
Speaker 4: We were We were taping right in the street, and
Speaker 4: these just phelanx is of young activists, and you know,
Speaker 4: every few hours they would take out their anger on
Speaker 4: a Starbucks, like you know, they'd break a Starbucks window
Speaker 4: and all the sirens would blair. And I remember I
Speaker 4: was walking to the studio and I'm walking. I'm in
Speaker 4: the middle of this giant fucking protest of bodies and
Speaker 4: it's moving and the guy next to me turn and
Speaker 4: lowers his ban Daddy, and he goes, oh, Jon Stewart,
Speaker 4: I can't believe you're here in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: This is so fun. And I was like, you're you're
Speaker 1: an anarchist and he's like, oh yeah.
Speaker 4: But you know, if you guys want, you know, we're
Speaker 4: going up to the lake later and if you want
Speaker 4: to come up, and it's just like, I don't know
Speaker 4: what we're doing.
Speaker 3: Guests on the show, you have had not the typical
Speaker 3: late night talk show guests on Monday nights, did you.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry, my publicists going to say, no other late
Speaker 9: night talk show goes out on the road either, what
Speaker 9: are ones who want to well, sorry.
Speaker 2: Well, you guys are the only ones going to the RNC, right, yes.
Speaker 5: And also what people don't realize, and I haven't even
Speaker 5: done a convention, but I've done plenty of field pieces,
Speaker 5: is you know, we have a whole department that is
Speaker 5: out there in the morning shooting, editing, cutting, airing five
Speaker 5: hours later. And that is unbelievably difficult. You have to
Speaker 5: do comedy quickly, intelligently.
Speaker 8: We get it right.
Speaker 5: A lot of the times you don't always get it right.
Speaker 5: But that is what is so appealing to me about
Speaker 5: the Daily Show. It's like, go go now and make
Speaker 5: it happen, and it's going to air tonight. And what
Speaker 5: an opportunity for comedians to work on a show like that.
Speaker 8: That's pretty sweet.
Speaker 4: I will say this. You asked what has changed a
Speaker 4: little bit since I went? The level of expertise that
Speaker 4: these guys and the technical staff and the editors and
Speaker 4: the producers and the researchers and the writers display on
Speaker 4: a daily basis an hourly basis blows me away, like
Speaker 4: it's I have been there from the primitive evolution of
Speaker 4: when we used to still edit in the online room,
Speaker 4: or like you could do four roles and if you
Speaker 4: screwed up a role, you had to go back and
Speaker 4: start again. Pre Avid only had the AP news feed,
Speaker 4: so you weren't able to dictate what material you did.
Speaker 1: You were just what was on the AP news feed. Oh,
Speaker 1: there's a story on healthcare and the celebration of the
Speaker 1: Black Nazarene in the Philippines. That's today's show.
Speaker 4: Like technology changed the way we were able to do it,
Speaker 4: but it was still technology at that point. Now it's
Speaker 4: native and how they're able to synthesize because this isn't
Speaker 4: reporting the news, They're synthesizing a point of view, right,
Speaker 4: They're creating an essayistic form multimedia in that same timeframe,
Speaker 4: and they're doing it with such.
Speaker 1: Alacrity and like precision.
Speaker 4: That was the thing when I went back in I
Speaker 4: was just like it reminds me of I played soccer
Speaker 4: in college in like nineteen eighty two, and now I
Speaker 4: watch Americans play it now and I'm like, oh, like
Speaker 4: back when I was doing it, we were still using
Speaker 4: our hands like anyways, like it's it. My mind is
Speaker 4: blown on a daily basis. And Jen Flans, who is
Speaker 4: our executive producer and has been with the show. So
Speaker 4: Jen Flans, for those who don't know, predated me. When
Speaker 4: I walked in the door, she was already there. She
Speaker 4: was I think a pa at that point. She's now
Speaker 4: the executive producer. She is you know, she's mister crab,
Speaker 4: like she's the keeper of the recipe of the What
Speaker 4: are these references?
Speaker 6: These are older, mister crab? What are we doing?
Speaker 2: I'm what is the day? What is the day at
Speaker 2: the Daily show?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Like, give us give us your.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think it's only a day. I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't.
Speaker 2: Want to know every detail, but give us the sort
Speaker 2: of cadence.
Speaker 5: I'm going to tell you my yesterday. I wasn't even
Speaker 5: at the show yesterday. Ronnie was hosting the show yesterday. Yesterday,
Speaker 5: I was sitting down with the man in his home
Speaker 5: who successfully banned nine hundred books in Clay County, Florida
Speaker 5: in the.
Speaker 8: Last two years.
Speaker 3: No, you're not supposed to cloup, she said, successful, I thought.
Speaker 5: I spent three and a half hours at his house,
Speaker 5: met his wife, pet his dogs, and spoke to him.
Speaker 6: That was my day yesterday.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good, right, But when you're when you're in
Speaker 3: the studio, when you're in the offices, what is the
Speaker 3: day like putting together that night show?
Speaker 8: So my day yesterday? And Ronnie you hosted yesterday.
Speaker 7: Walk us through you're hosting day.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah.
Speaker 9: You wake up in a panic that you're hosting. Your
Speaker 9: teeth hurt because you've been grinding your teeth all night
Speaker 9: because you couldn't sleep thinking about having to make TV.
Speaker 6: And then you run to the office.
Speaker 9: It's hot in New York now, so you're already sweating
Speaker 9: by time you get there. You someone hands you espresso,
Speaker 9: you're down it, and then the clocks are in nine
Speaker 9: fifteen and you're already late, and then you have to wait.
Speaker 1: Someone hands you an expression.
Speaker 9: Yeah, oh I'm sorry. Yeah, that's They told me I
Speaker 9: could do that because I was. They were like, you're
Speaker 9: the host now, you can't have whatever you want?
Speaker 2: What do you want? I want to go home and
Speaker 2: light down in a ball.
Speaker 6: You wait nine fifteen.
Speaker 9: We have to preliminary scan the stories of the day.
Speaker 9: You pick some and then we view it in the
Speaker 9: big team writing room. All the writers make jokes about
Speaker 9: horrible things in the writing room, most of which we'll.
Speaker 6: Never see a loud day.
Speaker 9: Then we pick from there, we pick what we think
Speaker 9: the show is going to be, and then honestly, it's
Speaker 9: a blur.
Speaker 2: It's a blur.
Speaker 6: And then I wake up and then I'm home and
Speaker 6: the day was over.
Speaker 7: Before that first meeting of the day, there's an entire
Speaker 7: department that spends the night before and early that morning
Speaker 7: collecting all of the latest news footage that they think
Speaker 7: could potentially work on the show.
Speaker 6: I always what I what I love about it.
Speaker 10: I come from the improv world, and like there's a
Speaker 10: lot of different mindsets people who come from more straight news,
Speaker 10: who work in some research elements. You have a lot
Speaker 10: of comedians, some stand ups, some improv. What I've always
Speaker 10: felt like mentally, the first half of a daily show
Speaker 10: day is an improviser's brain. In the second half is
Speaker 10: a stand ups brain, which is so fun in that,
Speaker 10: like you get there and you have to be open.
Speaker 10: You are building stuff, You're throwing ideas out there, you're
Speaker 10: saying yes to everybody. Like it's a very open creative
Speaker 10: space because you have a lot to do that day.
Speaker 10: And then the day kind of switches and it's like
Speaker 10: make this good now, And it's really fun to see
Speaker 10: people put on those different hats.
Speaker 6: Like it goes from yes and to no, shut it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 10: The morning is lovely and nice and by the end
Speaker 10: everybody is selfishly talking behind everybody else's back about how
Speaker 10: much better they are.
Speaker 6: Doesn't doesn't want cut it fine.
Speaker 5: That morning meeting, that's at like nine with the writers,
Speaker 5: the big the big meeting that to me is one
Speaker 5: of the most pleasurable places to be ever in comedy
Speaker 5: because you have the clock is started on the day,
Speaker 5: you have your clips picked, you have a bunch of
Speaker 5: award winning writers and producers all in this room yelling
Speaker 5: stuff out. And if you can get that group of
Speaker 5: people to laugh, that that's immediately in the rehearsal script
Speaker 5: for sure. Now I do a great job of yelling
Speaker 5: out stuff in the room is just silent, and that
Speaker 5: is true panic at its worst, you know. But that
Speaker 5: morning meeting is really fun, and it's when the snowball
Speaker 5: starts for the whole day.
Speaker 7: It's like sitting in a room with thirty five of
Speaker 7: your funniest friends. It is truly the best.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's what you what you think about when you
Speaker 9: think about working in comedy in America. It's that it's
Speaker 9: that room and everyone's so good at their job, and
Speaker 9: you're scared to say stuff that is you.
Speaker 6: Know, might not be funny.
Speaker 9: And then you you u we so everyone's like writing
Speaker 9: furiously and then we rehearse at around three pm or two, four,
Speaker 9: five pm, depending on you know, the day, we run
Speaker 9: it through, and you we do it.
Speaker 1: Seems like a prisoner. You're and then I got shanked.
Speaker 1: I was shanked.
Speaker 6: Take a ship in the middle of the room. No,
Speaker 6: it's different. It's different when you there.
Speaker 9: You you know, you don't have the clout of John
Speaker 9: Stewart in the building. You're just you're just Ronnie changing
Speaker 9: to death and you're trying to You're trying to put
Speaker 9: on this jacket that doesn't fit.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 10: It did so good, you did so good, so good.
Speaker 4: I think the thing that that people don't realize sometimes
Speaker 4: is they think, like, oh, you guys do a late
Speaker 4: night comedy show, must be so fun. Like the biggest
Speaker 4: thing that is implemented at the show is infrastructure. It's
Speaker 4: it's the creative tent posts that you need to have
Speaker 4: in place, because this show happens every day and it's
Speaker 4: synthesizing a tremendous amount of material from all different portions
Speaker 4: of this organism, and if you don't have your shit together,
Speaker 4: it spins out of control really quickly. And it's not
Speaker 4: enough to make a good show. You have to make
Speaker 4: that process repeatable. And it sounds counterintuitive, but the creative
Speaker 4: process relies on repetition, hopefully not in a soul crushing way,
Speaker 4: so that there's enough oxyg within that process to still
Speaker 4: bring in inspiration. But it's the little changes that you
Speaker 4: make in a production schedule that allow this show.
Speaker 1: To do all those various things.
Speaker 4: Like so, when I first got there, the way that
Speaker 4: we did the show was every writer was probably ten
Speaker 4: or eleven writers, and they would just write. We'd give
Speaker 4: them some topics and they would write ten pages of jokes,
Speaker 4: and then when they were done writing it, this is
Speaker 4: around eleven or twelve, we'd sit in a room and
Speaker 4: each writer would read those ten pages and it would
Speaker 4: take an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: And I was there for six weeks.
Speaker 4: And then I finally went in one day and went,
Speaker 4: you know, I can read. And if we did it
Speaker 4: that way, we'd be done with this by eleven thirty.
Speaker 4: And then it's about making an iterative process. It's interesting
Speaker 4: how they talk about, you know, its stand up and
Speaker 4: its improv I always look at it as a refinery,
Speaker 4: which is a really sort of strange industrial way of
Speaker 4: looking at making comedy.
Speaker 1: But the idea is you take your raw.
Speaker 4: Materials in the morning and you come in and you
Speaker 4: dump them all down, and the rest of the day
Speaker 4: is about refining that product into something sophisticated enough that
Speaker 4: it's worth the audience's time. What you want to make
Speaker 4: is something you want. The thing about television, as you know,
Speaker 4: there's that great episode of Seinfeld where they say why
Speaker 4: am I watching this? And George says, because it's on television,
Speaker 4: and the Warren Littlefield character.
Speaker 1: Goes not yet.
Speaker 4: And that's really the point, Like, we're given this ridiculous gift.
Speaker 4: We're going to allow you to say whatever the fuck
Speaker 4: you want to America for twenty two minutes or twenty
Speaker 4: four minutes or thirty six minutes in a night. And
Speaker 4: that process is to create those thoughts that are the
Speaker 4: raw materials and winnow them down to something that when
Speaker 4: you present it to people, it looks like something effortless
Speaker 4: but isn't.
Speaker 1: Is sophisticated.
Speaker 4: It has you know, uh, it has, it's been worked.
Speaker 4: It's it's the craft has been applied to it to
Speaker 4: make it something worth your I was going to say
Speaker 4: television time, but obviously that's not how people worth you
Speaker 4: picking up your phone and looking at it, or however
Speaker 4: it is people watching.
Speaker 3: Them do it takes come easy to you, Like, let's
Speaker 3: look at the Trump conviction happened on a Thursday. Yes,
Speaker 3: take us through the process that led to your Monday night.
Speaker 3: So that wasn't just about Trump. It ended up being
Speaker 3: broader about the media and everything.
Speaker 1: Else because that was a function of insomnia.
Speaker 4: So the what had been bothering me there was something
Speaker 4: The thing about stand up, good stand up, or good comedy,
Speaker 4: or good art or good anything, is that you can
Speaker 4: articulate something for an audience that.
Speaker 1: Is feeling it in the ether but has not had.
Speaker 4: Either the time or the desire to crystallize it into
Speaker 4: that resin that useful, articulated resident where you go like fuck,
Speaker 4: that's what I meant. And so it had been really
Speaker 4: eating at me this idea that everything that was occurring
Speaker 4: in the courts was a repudiation of our entire lived
Speaker 4: existence in the media over these last eight years, and
Speaker 4: I just couldn't get my head around what it was.
Speaker 4: And I was thinking about, oh, the court system has
Speaker 4: procedures in place, it has standards of evidentiary presentation that
Speaker 4: you must meet, and then it is and those things
Speaker 4: are standardized. And I realized what bothered me about the
Speaker 4: media is they had an opportunity to apply the same
Speaker 4: methodology because it's not an expertise that.
Speaker 1: The courts are applying. It's a simple methodology of defining reality.
Speaker 4: It's all they do. All they do is they bring
Speaker 4: you in and go what happened? And then someone starts
Speaker 4: to say what happens and someone will jump up and go,
Speaker 4: I object, and then you have to present like the
Speaker 4: thing that blows my mind. I don't remember when Gwyneth
Speaker 4: Paltrow got plowed into by a s's care It.
Speaker 2: Was a while ago, but the trial I think was
Speaker 2: last summer.
Speaker 1: I was delighted to watch.
Speaker 4: But when I did, it struck me that being a
Speaker 4: lawyer blows. It's just you and four other lawyers sitting
Speaker 4: at a desk going.
Speaker 1: Do you have page thirty eight? AC? Going did you get?
Speaker 1: And it's all just but that meticulous.
Speaker 4: Dissection and determination of reality is what's missing in our
Speaker 4: media environment, and it can be done. I don't understand,
Speaker 4: and why you don't it is. It's not a method
Speaker 4: that's beyond you. It's not because it's happening too quickly.
Speaker 4: I don't know why it isn't done. I know that
Speaker 4: television has to be producible, and that when you're making
Speaker 4: it every day, seven days a week, twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing that I.
Speaker 3: Didn't you answer your own question where you said that
Speaker 3: being a lawyer is boring.
Speaker 4: Being a lawyer is boring, But presenting your closing argument
Speaker 4: is what drama and movies is about. So yes, the
Speaker 4: meticulous defining of it is what we do during the day.
Speaker 1: It's the refinery. It's taking all those.
Speaker 4: Raw materials and testing them and measuring them against reality.
Speaker 4: And then once you have what you think is a
Speaker 4: refined product, that is the reality that you've helped define
Speaker 4: right through those procedures, then you present it to people
Speaker 4: in a way that's compelling because now you're presenting to
Speaker 4: them a condensed version.
Speaker 1: Now you're a storyteller. Now it's now.
Speaker 4: Now it's something that you can sink your teeth into
Speaker 4: and it's been tested so that it has context and fairness,
Speaker 4: and it's difficult then to overturn and submarine on appeal
Speaker 4: because you put in the fucking work.
Speaker 1: And if we can do it and we're idiots, It
Speaker 1: honestly blows my mind. If I see one more newsperson
Speaker 1: on a meet the press or a CBS in the morning, go,
Speaker 1: will you say that you will certify the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four election no matter what? And you're like, what if
Speaker 1: they're hit by a laser?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like, what are you supposed to do with that?
Speaker 4: Any question, every almost every question on a political panel
Speaker 4: should just be met with I don't know, no one knows.
Speaker 4: It's the future, but I can help you define the
Speaker 4: parameters at the present and of the past.
Speaker 2: So you have that eureka you have.
Speaker 1: This is why I can't sleep.
Speaker 3: You come up with that take. Do you run into
Speaker 3: the meeting Monday morning and say I have a take?
Speaker 3: Let's do this? Or is it workshop?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: How do you?
Speaker 2: What's the process?
Speaker 1: Like it's the sunshine boys?
Speaker 8: Yes there John? You came in Monday pretty fired up?
Speaker 6: You did?
Speaker 1: You did? There? We go?
Speaker 5: You John stood up the morning meeting, meaning you stood
Speaker 5: out of your chair.
Speaker 8: That doesn't always happen.
Speaker 7: I was a few minutes late, and I have never
Speaker 7: been late to a John meeting. I had a childcare
Speaker 7: issue and I come in late and I think, oh,
Speaker 7: I'll just slip in the back door. John was standing.
Speaker 6: Right in front of it, and he was on it
Speaker 6: like he was gooding.
Speaker 7: So I hid in my office, listened and took notes
Speaker 7: for about twenty twenty two minutes, waited for my opportunity
Speaker 7: to slip in there.
Speaker 5: One time I stood up in the morning meeting and
Speaker 5: they said, sit the fuck down. Whom we John gets
Speaker 5: the stand up.
Speaker 4: No, But to be fair, there are meetings where I
Speaker 4: do that and then research will come in like three
Speaker 4: hours later and go, yeah, we looked into that.
Speaker 2: Not true.
Speaker 1: So I do do that too. But when I get
Speaker 1: ahead of theme, it's hard.
Speaker 4: But what I usually will send out, I mean I
Speaker 4: literally will bother them on the weekend and I'll just
Speaker 4: say like, can you guys, because what will happen is
Speaker 4: this guy Max, who's in charge of and Max and Justin,
Speaker 4: who are in charge of sort of the video catalogs,
Speaker 4: will look to see if sometimes a hunch is wrong,
Speaker 4: and that's what I meant by we put it through
Speaker 4: a process like that's the thing at the show, like
Speaker 4: the thing that people don't realize, and it's always an
Speaker 4: easy thing to go. You take things out of context too. No,
Speaker 4: actually we don't. We work really hard not to. That's
Speaker 4: not to say we don't miss but there is an
Speaker 4: appeals process in place at our show that could be
Speaker 4: put in place in any news organization. And we don't
Speaker 4: look at the minute two minutes to see what rates
Speaker 4: and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: We just put our heads down into our work. And
Speaker 1: that can't be that.
Speaker 4: A comedy show has that as its goal, and a
Speaker 4: news show has its minute to minutes to look at
Speaker 4: like that's just an upside down world.
Speaker 3: I started ask before and just to finish the thought
Speaker 3: about guests, how do you think about guests on the show?
Speaker 2: How do you all think about it? But particularly I
Speaker 2: go by race only Asian guests only Asian guests for me?
Speaker 6: Can I can I tell we co host it? This
Speaker 6: is a John is spot on.
Speaker 10: Ronnie is like the nicest guy, but you never know
Speaker 10: if he's joking, And nobody we co hosted.
Speaker 6: He's modly nice.
Speaker 10: We co host and we were on like a Slack
Speaker 10: Channel about who guests were, and Ronnie said, like, I
Speaker 10: only want because it's Jordan and Ronnie hosted, and they
Speaker 10: want half Asian, holl white guys. And that's what we got.
Speaker 10: Because nobody challenged that as a joke that it literally
Speaker 10: I was like, I don't know he said it that
Speaker 10: he seemed.
Speaker 2: Really out of it.
Speaker 6: I was like, I think that was a bit he
Speaker 6: was doing it.
Speaker 10: It's like, anyway, welcome representative Andy Kim.
Speaker 9: There's games and games you played to keep ourselves interested,
Speaker 9: all right, out of it is sometimes I don't know,
Speaker 9: We'll see whoever interesting guests.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh.
Speaker 9: I do kind of take upon myself sometimes to be like,
Speaker 9: we've never had two Asian guys on TV before. Let's
Speaker 9: try and make that happen. But uh so that is
Speaker 9: a factor. But obviously, like I I tried to get
Speaker 9: I was, I've been trying to get conservative people as guests.
Speaker 9: I managed to get one yesterday, George con Way, although
Speaker 9: you know how conservative he considers himself to being now
Speaker 9: but was anti Trump conservative just to get some you
Speaker 9: know a little bit of a less of an echo chamber,
Speaker 9: less of a preaching to a choir. Let's hear some
Speaker 9: you know, outside of let's see hear what they have
Speaker 9: to say. So I'm always trying for that, but it's
Speaker 9: easier said and done. Sometimes they think we're trying to
Speaker 9: trick them on the show, but.
Speaker 4: We are generally trying to trick them.
Speaker 2: John.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Lena Kahan seems to have been a choice guest
Speaker 3: for you, given that that was some an idea you
Speaker 3: had at Apple and it was a great interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's I thought she was fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's the anti trust enforcer.
Speaker 1: Yeah FTCM.
Speaker 2: So do you think are you thinking that way?
Speaker 3: Like, Okay, who's gonna who's gonna make headlines? Who's going
Speaker 3: to you know, give it back to me? What is
Speaker 3: what's your thought process there?
Speaker 4: I think the thought process for guests is generally also
Speaker 4: in the same way of trying to I think the
Speaker 4: show works best when it has sort of a clarity
Speaker 4: vision and then a very much of flexibility of process
Speaker 4: and how.
Speaker 1: We get there.
Speaker 4: But there are broader themes that I think make the
Speaker 4: show feel more cohesive, and in this moment, I think
Speaker 4: it's we talk about Trump as the threat to democracy,
Speaker 4: or that the threats to democracy are autocracy they're external
Speaker 4: and they are you know, in opposition to a democratic system.
Speaker 4: But I think it may be more interesting to internalize
Speaker 4: why democracy is vulnerable to that, And so the FTC
Speaker 4: chairman or ken Buck or it's about looking at why
Speaker 4: is it that there is a feeling in America that
Speaker 4: the government is separate from the realities of the consent
Speaker 4: of the government. You know, what is it that where's
Speaker 4: that disconnect come from? And then you can explore it
Speaker 4: in whatever you know. You can apply that thought to pharma,
Speaker 4: you can apply it to you know, what happened in
Speaker 4: the pandemic. Well, you know there's the conspiracy theories, but
Speaker 4: there's also the reality that maybe they didn't. They weren't
Speaker 4: as transparent as they could have been, and that caused
Speaker 4: a lack of trust and an ability to exploit some
Speaker 4: of those those gaps. So what if we applied our
Speaker 4: process to where those gaps are. What if you look
Speaker 4: at Trump as a black hat hacker exposing where are
Speaker 4: the vulnerabilities on this map, and if he exposes them
Speaker 4: and we and we go in and we view those
Speaker 4: vulnerabilities and we can map them and see where you
Speaker 4: can strengthen them, well, then we can protect ourselves in
Speaker 4: a way from the ease in which demagogues can take
Speaker 4: control of the discourse. And so that's I mean, that's obviously. Look,
Speaker 4: that's the you know, the broadhead. And then our job
Speaker 4: is it's always the broad perspective. And then how do
Speaker 4: you deconstruct that into something usable for production? How do
Speaker 4: you go in and start to use that? And and
Speaker 4: so that's what we apply to all the different kinds
Speaker 4: of stories and things that you know that we look at.
Speaker 3: That's a loftier goal for guests than guy with a movie.
Speaker 1: They won't come on.
Speaker 4: No, because that's you know, that's what everybody. Why are
Speaker 4: people watching this? And that's what you want to earn
Speaker 4: every day. It's like in stand up or in improv.
Speaker 4: Like the whole point is we've decided to pick a
Speaker 4: chair that's facing the audience. And if you're not going
Speaker 4: to take the time or effort to earn that chair
Speaker 4: every time you sit in it, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Perfect segue to my last question, You are committed through November?
Speaker 3: Any thoughts about possibly staying? I mean it's clearly working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, John, wait, will you.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, listen, man, this is ball and it's and
Speaker 4: it's been, you know, fantastic. And the one thing I
Speaker 4: will say is I walked away nine years ago because
Speaker 4: I was burnt and and I'm I don't feel that
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 1: I feel reinvigorated.
Speaker 4: I'm with people that are unbelievably talented, unbelievably uh dedicated,
Speaker 4: unbelievably mostly And and what they talked about that that
Speaker 4: meeting in the morning. You know when people say like, oh,
Speaker 4: did you miss did you miss having a platform? Did
Speaker 4: you miss the thing? I didn't miss any of that,
Speaker 4: but I did miss that. I missed that when you
Speaker 4: walk into a room with just smart, funny people and
Speaker 4: just and go at that creative process like there's nothing
Speaker 4: like it.
Speaker 1: Nothing.
Speaker 3: All right, Thank you very much to The Daily Show.
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