Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to the Daily Show Ears edition. This
Speaker 3: is Kat Radley. I am a writer for the Daily Show,
Speaker 3: and we are back with the amazing John Leguizamo.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Kat, Thank you for having me. I loved
Speaker 4: being here last time. It's been a while, missed you.
Speaker 3: I know. I was like, Oh, John's back, Sure, I'll
Speaker 3: do the podcast again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, lucky me.
Speaker 3: You're about to do your piece for the show. In
Speaker 3: my opinion, so we're going to talk quickly about the
Speaker 3: process behind that.
Speaker 4: Is that what they're calling now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in my opinion, And what was.
Speaker 1: It called before segment?
Speaker 3: Really? Yeah, it was just like a random segment. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but now you're back, and surprise, surprise, Trump's up to
Speaker 3: some great fear mongering again. So this piece we wanted
Speaker 3: to focus on the SAVE Act and all that Trump
Speaker 3: and the republic plans are doing in fear mongering around
Speaker 3: immigration and illegal voting that isn't actually happening.
Speaker 2: The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or SAVE Act, would require
Speaker 2: registered voters to provide proof of citizenship and force states
Speaker 2: to remove non citizens from their lists of eligible voters.
Speaker 3: We want US citizens to vote, but we don't want
Speaker 3: illegal votes.
Speaker 5: Block illegal aliens from voting and our elections.
Speaker 1: Just so everyone's up to speed.
Speaker 4: What this bill does is require everyone to register with
Speaker 4: a documentation proving citizenship, like a passport or a birth certificate.
Speaker 4: And maybe you're thinking, well, you know, if there's a
Speaker 4: big problem of non citizens voting illegally, why not try
Speaker 4: to stop it? Well, because there isn't a big problem.
Speaker 4: There isn't even a small problem. There isn't a problem
Speaker 4: at all. Do you need to hear it in Spanish?
Speaker 4: Nor i problem? Mote data shows that non citizen immigrants
Speaker 4: almost never vote, and why would they? Who would risk
Speaker 4: going to prison or getting deported just for an eye
Speaker 4: voted sticker?
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk a little bit just about
Speaker 3: the peace and you know what means you want to
Speaker 3: talk about this time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's crazy. It's like, why can't they
Speaker 4: Republicans try to win, like just fairly. Why can't you
Speaker 4: just try to win? Why do you have to like
Speaker 4: rig the game and then talk about rigging the game
Speaker 4: when you're the one rigging the game, but you're just projecting. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's so crazy. I mean this new act, which is
Speaker 4: trying to make sure that naturalized citizens, young people and
Speaker 4: people of color just feel more afraid to go because
Speaker 4: who has their birth certificate? Who even has a Social
Speaker 4: Security Card?
Speaker 1: I mean who?
Speaker 4: I mean passports? I mean these things are so crazy
Speaker 4: because it's gonna fuck up Republicans voting too, because I
Speaker 4: bet you more Tinos have their passports the old white Republicans.
Speaker 3: That is something we talked about, like the fact that
Speaker 3: this act would require people to provide documentation to show citizenship,
Speaker 3: and yes, that does disproportionately hurt, you know, people of
Speaker 3: color and young people. But that's like where a lot
Speaker 3: of the jokes came from, is who the fuck knows
Speaker 3: where these documents are?
Speaker 4: Certificate that's given to you at your birth, to your
Speaker 4: mom and dad, and then who passes it on.
Speaker 3: You have to know where it is forever.
Speaker 4: Like fifty years after the fact, yea, and who has
Speaker 4: any of that documentation?
Speaker 3: I just had my first I had twins last year and.
Speaker 4: Oh Congrash, thank you, thank you, and Bishop forms always
Speaker 4: you know me.
Speaker 3: But that was one thing they give you, like the
Speaker 3: Social Security card certificate, and I remember thinking, like I
Speaker 3: need to know where these are forever. The rest of
Speaker 3: their lives. That's so much pressure. And yeah, it would,
Speaker 3: it would hinder a lot of people from voting.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's what it's meant to do that, but it's
Speaker 4: going to disproportionately hit people of color. But it will
Speaker 4: also hurt Republicans, which I'm glad because every time they
Speaker 4: try to scare us about mailing ballads and stuff, and
Speaker 4: then they hurt themselves in Florida because most older people
Speaker 4: in Florida mail their ballots.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that.
Speaker 4: Like they're telling you don't don't vote because it's not worthwhile,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden they're making themselves not vote.
Speaker 3: But it just sounds like you were saying that they
Speaker 3: would rather put all this effort into suppressing vote rather
Speaker 3: than just earning the votes.
Speaker 4: Right of it convinces that we should vote for you,
Speaker 4: give us reasons to vote for you instead of fear mongering,
Speaker 4: hate mongering, being divisive, you know, name calling. It endangering
Speaker 4: people because when they start saying that immigrants, which they
Speaker 4: mean Latinos, let's call it what it is. It's not
Speaker 4: even an euphemism because is supposed to make things sound great.
Speaker 4: But we're talking about Latinos, who are you know, supposedly
Speaker 4: flooding through the southern border, uh and committing crimes which
Speaker 4: are not I mean, they've proven that non citizens commit
Speaker 4: way less crimes, so that's a bogus Yeah.
Speaker 3: And to bring up that point, like last time you
Speaker 3: were here, we were talking about how Trump and Biden
Speaker 3: were appealing or trying to appeal to Latino voters. And
Speaker 3: now who would have thought the next time you came
Speaker 3: there'd be a whole new Democratic candidate. And so I'm
Speaker 3: curious as to what your thoughts on art for Kamala
Speaker 3: being the new Democratic candidate in terms of her appeal
Speaker 3: to the Latino voters. Do you notice on the ground
Speaker 3: or like anecdotally the Latino community seems to be more
Speaker 3: behind her versus Biden, because it looks like polls are
Speaker 3: showing that there has been a bit of a bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think so. But you know, it's interesting
Speaker 4: because we talked about this last time also about how
Speaker 4: Biden would have to be might have to be tough
Speaker 4: on the border just to get the vote, just to
Speaker 4: because it's they made it such a huge issue that
Speaker 4: it has become an issue when it really should be
Speaker 4: a non issue, but so that Biden and so Kamala
Speaker 4: is coming in tough with immigration as well, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: so she's coming in for immigrants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think she killed it in the debate
Speaker 4: and she got the Latinos. I think she's talking to
Speaker 4: Latino consultants, which she should do in Latino experts, because
Speaker 4: she said the things that we care about, and that's
Speaker 4: jobs and homes and housing. So for her to say that,
Speaker 4: you know, she's going to help first startup businesses, I
Speaker 4: mean that's huge for us. Latinos are all about startup businesses.
Speaker 4: So that's incredible because she knew she was targeting that's.
Speaker 1: All we really care about.
Speaker 4: You know, we were not monolithic, and you know we are.
Speaker 4: Some of us are incredibly religious, so you're not going
Speaker 4: to get them because abortion and LGTBQ plus is not
Speaker 4: for them, you know, so forget.
Speaker 3: Those the economy.
Speaker 1: So the economy gets most of us the appeals.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. The peels She was making two voters, all
Speaker 3: voters about the middle class, the working class, how she's
Speaker 3: going to help them. That is really what you think
Speaker 3: is like the Latinos responding.
Speaker 4: To Yeah, I mean That's that's all we care about.
Speaker 4: I mean, when I talk to everybody, that's what they
Speaker 4: care about the most is jobs, uh, job security, uh,
Speaker 4: start of businesses, small businesses, and housing.
Speaker 3: So you think Kamala did great in the debate. Now Trump,
Speaker 3: we know that he was really harping on immigration. Yeah.
Speaker 3: One thing we say in the piece is how he
Speaker 3: was talking about immigration even when he wasn't being asked
Speaker 3: about immigration. Why do you think he was. I mean
Speaker 3: that it came out his obsession with immigration, that it
Speaker 3: was kind of something he came back to over and
Speaker 3: over again.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, let's let's let's track it back.
Speaker 4: One of Trump's biggest peeves is he hates Puerto Ricans
Speaker 4: because you know, he had that low income housing uh
Speaker 4: so uh, you know he he hates like Latinos, So
Speaker 4: that's one of his problems.
Speaker 3: And and secondly because he thinks racism, Yeah, but.
Speaker 4: No specific he's got he's gotta he's got a fetish.
Speaker 4: And then and then secondly because he's made it an
Speaker 4: issue and he thinks it's his driving issue, and it's
Speaker 4: you know, the maga hate others and feel like others
Speaker 4: are coming to take their jobs and they're not. I mean,
Speaker 4: no immigrant is coming to take anybody's job that they have.
Speaker 4: You know, the only people who are worried about immigrants
Speaker 4: taking the job or are the immigrants, because nobody wants
Speaker 4: to do Nobody wants to pick grapes, pick strawberries.
Speaker 3: That's the wildest thing. Even the whole crazy story about
Speaker 3: immigrants eating cats and dogs in Ohio. The immigrants community
Speaker 3: they're talking about even they were like specifically recruited to
Speaker 3: be there to do the jobs that were vacant.
Speaker 1: Right right, So it's like, but they do that. They
Speaker 1: do that all the time.
Speaker 4: They sucker us to come to North Carolina, South Carolina, Raleigh,
Speaker 4: and then they once we do the job, they kick
Speaker 4: us out. Katrina, we were Latino, especially hont Durans, came
Speaker 4: in droves to rebuild Katrina in Louisiana, New Orleans, to
Speaker 4: rebuild it. They came here by the droves. Then after
Speaker 4: they did all the work, they wouldn't pay them. They
Speaker 4: called ice on them and that was the thanks they
Speaker 4: got for it. And they you know, it's just a
Speaker 4: it's a playbook that's been used on us forever. I
Speaker 4: mean during the Brasero program in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 4: You know, the same thing. They came up with the
Speaker 4: Repatriation Act and you know, deported tons of people after
Speaker 4: they came here to work on the lands, clean homes service,
Speaker 4: all the horrible service stuff all over the Southwest.
Speaker 3: That's something we talked about when we were writing the piece,
Speaker 3: this voter suppression going on. We were saying how it
Speaker 3: was reministion of like targeting back to the Jim Crow era,
Speaker 3: and you said, it's not really interesting about how that
Speaker 3: among the Latino community. You guys referred to it as Wan.
Speaker 4: It was called Juan Crow. In the South and the
Speaker 4: Southwest and the West, we were you know, we were segregated.
Speaker 4: The first case against segregation was US in fourteen in Colorado,
Speaker 4: and then the second most important one was Sylvia Menez
Speaker 4: that paved the way for Brown versus Bard to bed,
Speaker 4: you know, with one Crow laws.
Speaker 1: You know, Black people were.
Speaker 4: Worse treated than us, but we're the second worst treated
Speaker 4: people after I guess Indigenous people were fun competition, who
Speaker 4: is has the most horrible life? Oh yeah, I mean, okay,
Speaker 4: we're second to third, because I guess Indigenous had the worst,
Speaker 4: and then black.
Speaker 3: People in US, but like eighth or ninth.
Speaker 1: Well, you're in all.
Speaker 4: Those groups, so it's yeah, you can't help but be
Speaker 4: a big number there. But you know, six thousand of
Speaker 4: us were lynched, burned, alive, and shot in America from
Speaker 4: eighteen thirty to nineteen thirty. Black people of course much worse.
Speaker 1: So it was all that we were all over that place,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And Yeah, I love talking to you because you are
Speaker 3: just this like walking history book that most Americans are
Speaker 3: never taught or even exposed to. And I'd love to
Speaker 3: talk about the PBS series coming up.
Speaker 1: What a great segue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you want to talk about the PBS series
Speaker 3: coming up?
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm so excited by this. This is my passion project.
Speaker 4: I think is the most important thing I've done in
Speaker 4: my life. I think it's a cultural corrective for US
Speaker 4: Latinos in America because John Hopkins University did a study
Speaker 4: and found that eighty seven percent of our Latino contributions
Speaker 4: to the making of the US are not in history textbooks.
Speaker 4: So I'm putting those eighty seven percent in my show
Speaker 4: starting September twenty seventh on PBS. It's a three part series.
Speaker 4: First episode is Our Empires, because we were here before
Speaker 4: the conquest and some of the biggest empires in the world,
Speaker 4: and then from the second episodes from the Conquest fourteen
Speaker 4: ninety two to the nineteen hundreds, and the last episode
Speaker 4: is nineteen hundreds to sixties and civil rights.
Speaker 3: I would I think I told you this briefly last year.
Speaker 3: I used to be a high school teacher before I
Speaker 3: was the writer of The Daily Show, and it was amazing,
Speaker 3: like everything was like whitewashed, like our history and our literature,
Speaker 3: like there would be like two Latino authors that we
Speaker 3: would like have to choose from in the textbook, and
Speaker 3: I would have loved to have access to something like
Speaker 3: this to I mean, teachers should be showing this in
Speaker 3: the classroom.
Speaker 4: Because it's American history. You know, Latino history is American history.
Speaker 4: Black history is American history. It's important to know. We
Speaker 4: want to know about what everybody contributed to. It doesn't
Speaker 4: change your DNA, it doesn't it doesn't make you other.
Speaker 4: It helps you understand how this country was built, how
Speaker 4: it was made. Because if you don't have the real
Speaker 4: facts and you're reading a fiction, you're reading a fairy
Speaker 4: tale that that's not truth, and then you're not you're
Speaker 4: not going to be better for it if you don't
Speaker 4: know the truth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just I mean the amount of just basic empathy.
Speaker 3: I think it would give everybody absol respect.
Speaker 4: I mean the thing that I want more than empathy's respect.
Speaker 3: Yea.
Speaker 4: And I think it would give Latinos the respect that
Speaker 4: we do because we helped build this country alongside white
Speaker 4: people and black people. You know, after our Asian brothers
Speaker 4: and sisters were kicked out in the eighteen hundreds, we
Speaker 4: finished all the railroads all the way to the west,
Speaker 4: and we did all the infrastructure in the West and Southwest.
Speaker 4: You know, cowboy culture, that's ours. We invented that. All
Speaker 4: the language and words are Spanish words ranch from Rancho corral, bronco, chaps, lasso,
Speaker 4: bucru comes from an English bastardization of baketo, which means cowboy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So it's like, you know, we just when you get
Speaker 4: colonized and conquested, you don't get credit.
Speaker 1: You don't get credit for nothing.
Speaker 3: John Wayne gets the credit.
Speaker 1: John Wayne, he's not.
Speaker 4: They're going to take away some of his credit now
Speaker 4: he's either he might take away his name off the
Speaker 4: airport in California.
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad because it was a mad race.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and he's the ones that's like propped up
Speaker 3: in like the cowboy culture is like, oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 4: It took our culture. Like okay, book or root. I'm
Speaker 4: going to tell you that I hate old people and
Speaker 4: they should you know, only you know, he.
Speaker 1: Was really terrible.
Speaker 3: I realize how terrible he was most like old white
Speaker 3: men from history. You realize later. Oh no, they were terrible,
Speaker 3: terrible people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you try to give them some slack and go,
Speaker 4: oh they didn't know better, but they knew better.
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't blame anybody today. I mean I don't have
Speaker 4: a whole grudges to nobody today. It's just back then
Speaker 4: I hold grudges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, today you should be you have access to the information.
Speaker 3: You should be like educating yourself to.
Speaker 4: You meet somebody. I meet so many allies, white, Black, Asian,
Speaker 4: l g TBq plus that it and it warms my heart.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: It makes you feel so great that you feel you
Speaker 4: feel like you said, empathy, you feel seen, you feel respected,
Speaker 4: and and and and we understand that we're all in
Speaker 4: this together, like Kamalas said, we're better together. And it's
Speaker 4: we just a more beautiful country, a more prosperous country,
Speaker 4: because you know, I mean countries that block their immigration fail.
Speaker 4: Japan like this immigration for thirty years, They've had a
Speaker 4: stagnant economy and now they realize it. Now they're welcoming.
Speaker 4: Come all you immigrants come there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a long plane ride.
Speaker 1: It is. But I'll go, you know, go anywhere anywhere
Speaker 1: people want me.
Speaker 3: I want to do one quick fun thing.
Speaker 1: Sure, this wasn't fun, you know, that's well.
Speaker 3: Something that's you know, not going to be totally depressing,
Speaker 3: but hopefully I like depressing shit. I really loved.
Speaker 4: Nothing makes me have more fun than depressing shit.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: One fun thing about our writing process, so we, you know,
Speaker 3: write this piece together, Yes, we do. One thing that
Speaker 3: I love about this job being a comedian is the
Speaker 3: really serious conversations you have about like wording and what
Speaker 3: works for jokes. And today one of the big things
Speaker 3: we had to discuss was using dick versus penis versus
Speaker 3: cock for a joke. And I think we ended up
Speaker 3: going with dick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because we were going to be censored, right cock, well,
Speaker 4: because we were using the Spanish version, and uh so
Speaker 4: we we we outed ourselves and so they spotted it,
Speaker 4: so we had to changed the dick and then we
Speaker 4: got past them. No, there is something funny about these
Speaker 4: Republican Cavarona is trying to write anti voting signs in Spanish,
Speaker 4: because I doubt they have any.
Speaker 1: Spanish speaking friends.
Speaker 4: They're just going to that clean ladies like, hey, Consuello,
Speaker 4: como s a d sai you cannot vote, and you
Speaker 4: know Gonzello will come.
Speaker 1: Back like, uh oh, I got you, Poppy. It's thing
Speaker 1: better better gotta.
Speaker 4: We liked better because it was funnier than Penny Penny's penis.
Speaker 4: Sometimes penis is just not funny.
Speaker 3: John, It's always a pleasure to have you here. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much for taking some time to talk with us.
Speaker 3: American Historia, The Untold History of Latino's premieres on PBS
Speaker 3: on September twenty seventh. Thanks for listening. We'll see you
Speaker 3: next time.
Speaker 4: Much love.
Speaker 5: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 5: searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
Speaker 5: The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central,
Speaker 5: and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount plus
Speaker 3: Paramount Podcasts