Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: From the most trusted journalists at.
Speaker 3: Comedy Central's America's only source for news.
Speaker 4: This it's The Daily Show with your host.
Speaker 3: Show starts Uncle Copy.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Daily Show.
Speaker 1: My name is John.
Speaker 5: Sewart, and man, we worked almost all day on tonight's show.
Speaker 5: We've got a great record to David Remnick will be
Speaker 5: joining me later. He is the editor of the New
Speaker 5: Yorker magazine. They're celebrating.
Speaker 1: What in an area dyte crowd.
Speaker 5: Celebrating their one hundred year of the New Yorker, and
Speaker 5: he and I will be just testing the difference between
Speaker 5: umlauts and diarysius emphasis on the I'll just go now,
Speaker 5: let's just but first. The Super Bowl was last night,
Speaker 5: and man, it was on television. It began with the
Speaker 5: teams being introduced from Heaven.
Speaker 4: And it's just weird. And it ended with the Kansas
Speaker 4: City changed. And how so, congratulations to the people of
Speaker 4: Philadelphia who immediately.
Speaker 5: Who immediately I disagree by the way, who immediately celebrated
Speaker 5: their victory by attacking the road, said I kill their
Speaker 5: own city, Die Philadelphia. They were smashing their own city,
Speaker 5: doing tens of dollars worth of demon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, I'm implying it's a shit hole.
Speaker 4: Give sat Quad back.
Speaker 5: But of course my favorite moment was the inexplicable post
Speaker 5: victory horse race for the winner stands triumphant atop the
Speaker 5: steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. That's that's not that's
Speaker 5: a photoshop. That's the horse ran up the steps of
Speaker 5: the Philadelphia Art Museum, reared up on its hind legs
Speaker 5: and went its weird.
Speaker 1: But here's here's and I'm going to drop some knowledge.
Speaker 5: And no one really cared about the game because of
Speaker 5: the earth shattering announcement that had been made moments prior.
Speaker 6: You know, we're flying over right now, we're flying over
Speaker 6: a thing called the Gulf of America, and I'm signing
Speaker 6: a proclamation. And perhaps you could define that.
Speaker 5: First of all, why do you fly around in a
Speaker 5: Hyatt Hotel room? Second of all, define proclamation? You don't
Speaker 5: know what a proclaim?
Speaker 1: Or do you just want her to say what the
Speaker 1: actual propett I'm sorry, I interrupted. Go ahead.
Speaker 7: This is a.
Speaker 8: Proclamation declaring today, February ninth, twenty twenty five is the
Speaker 8: first ever Bolf of America Day.
Speaker 6: And we're flying right over it right now, so we
Speaker 6: thought this would be appropriate, even bigger than the super Bowl.
Speaker 4: It's true, bigger than the super Bowl.
Speaker 5: In fact, my favorite thing about Gulf of America Day
Speaker 5: are the commercials.
Speaker 4: It's very historic.
Speaker 5: I'm sure we'll look back on this day fondly when
Speaker 5: America is swallowed up by the rising waters of the
Speaker 5: Gulf of America.
Speaker 4: You know, it turns out it's kind of a weird thing.
Speaker 5: Airplanes might not be the best place to make bigger
Speaker 5: than the super Bowl announcements.
Speaker 6: Even bigger than the Super Bowl. This is a big thing,
Speaker 6: and almost everybody now has assented to that.
Speaker 9: On board, Ladies and gentleman, if you can please direct
Speaker 9: your tention out the wayside of the aircraft. Air Force
Speaker 9: one is currently in international waters the first time in history,
Speaker 9: flying over the recently renamed of America.
Speaker 4: First of all, oh my god, it shut him up.
Speaker 4: Even for Justice Acond, I think airplane pilots must be
Speaker 4: the most powerful force in the universe.
Speaker 5: I feel like the Democrats have to get themselves an
Speaker 5: airplane pilot. Sorry for the interruption, but you can't do that.
Speaker 5: Maybe they'll let's Shumer. Schumer will be the pilot. Uh,
Speaker 5: but forgive me, I see been forgotten. What does calling
Speaker 5: a Gulf of America do?
Speaker 10: Do?
Speaker 1: We get all its fish?
Speaker 11: Now make America great again?
Speaker 6: Right, that's what we care about.
Speaker 4: Making America great again.
Speaker 5: Everything Trump does all part of making America great again.
Speaker 5: Order one, roll back everything from the previous not great administration,
Speaker 5: regulations on the environment, regulations on the Second Amendment, the
Speaker 5: Title nine guidance, and not just the big shit. You
Speaker 5: want to make America great again, you can't skimp on
Speaker 5: the details.
Speaker 7: President Trump says he's going to reverse Joe Biden's mandate
Speaker 7: to phase out plastic straw saying, enjoy your next drink
Speaker 7: without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth.
Speaker 1: You okay, He's right on this one.
Speaker 4: He is right on this one.
Speaker 1: Those straws are fing terrible.
Speaker 5: Objectively, I'm supposed to have some weird tissue paper dissolve
Speaker 5: in my mouth just because turtles can't figure out straws
Speaker 5: aren't food.
Speaker 4: Now donate to tubes, stupid turtles.
Speaker 5: So Trump is making America great again by taking us
Speaker 5: back to twenty sixteen. But obviously, if we're gonna make
Speaker 5: America great again, we can't stop in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: We gotta keep pushing to that place when America was
Speaker 1: truly great. How much further back do we need to go? See,
Speaker 1: so it looks like it's the seventies. Oh, like you
Speaker 1: don't know who Burt Reynolds is.
Speaker 5: If you're gonna make us great, you're gonna have to
Speaker 5: roll further back than the seventies.
Speaker 1: What do you got.
Speaker 4: We're going to stop the destructive and devisive diversity, equity
Speaker 4: and inclusion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the seventies won't fly. Seventies was all about women's
Speaker 5: lib and stone Wall. Now, my friends, we got to
Speaker 5: go back further to make America great. And ladies, when
Speaker 5: we do go back, don't worry. It's all gonna work
Speaker 5: out for you.
Speaker 4: You will no longer be thinking about abortion.
Speaker 6: Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free like everything else.
Speaker 4: That's a little bit different.
Speaker 6: Today, you're not allowed to say that, because if you
Speaker 6: call a woman or a girl beautiful, that's the end
Speaker 6: of your career.
Speaker 12: No, you can't even say, hey, sugar tits. The ladies
Speaker 12: and gentlemen, we're gonna go.
Speaker 5: Back to the old days with regular tits, not the
Speaker 5: ones that disgustingly dissolve in your mouth.
Speaker 4: Also, Jesus.
Speaker 5: But let's not stop in the seventies, their folks, not
Speaker 5: even in the fact, Let's keep going, because that sounds
Speaker 5: like the fifties, and the fifties are still too inclusive.
Speaker 1: I mean, by then Italians and Irish were considered white. No,
Speaker 1: that's too far.
Speaker 4: Keep going back.
Speaker 1: America's greatness, awaits. We were the richest country in the world.
Speaker 13: We were at our riches from eighteen seventy to nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: That's when we had we were a tariff country eighteen seventies.
Speaker 4: Okay, there we go, eighteen seventies.
Speaker 1: Doo.
Speaker 5: And of course, well America presently is still pretty freaking rich.
Speaker 1: Apologies Luxembourg. Point taken.
Speaker 5: Who wouldn't trade our current environment for America's eighteen seventies
Speaker 5: tariff driven but candled tuberculosis laden pre industrial.
Speaker 13: We were so wealthy we had commissions set up what
Speaker 13: to do with all the money that we would taking.
Speaker 4: In quick point of order.
Speaker 5: Though to the extent that we were at our richest
Speaker 5: from eighteen seventy to nineteen thirteen, it wasn't so much.
Speaker 5: We as like four guys, and we called them robber
Speaker 5: barons as a sign of affection. Meanwhile, the rest of America,
Speaker 5: the leading cause of death was falling into a vat
Speaker 5: at work. And it got to the point where even
Speaker 5: the robber barons realized that the only way this glorious
Speaker 5: era in American history was going to end was.
Speaker 4: Either full scale in revolution.
Speaker 5: Or reasonable compromise, which is how we ended up with
Speaker 5: stuff like income tax and labor laws and workplace safety guarantees.
Speaker 5: So let's really tread carefully in the greatness way back machine.
Speaker 14: Arizona House Republican Andy Biggs introduced a bill this week
Speaker 14: would abolish OSHA, a Department of Labor agency tasked with
Speaker 14: overseen workplace safety to the.
Speaker 4: Vats and fill mine with boiling tallow. Boy, what what?
Speaker 1: Why not just bring back child labor while you're at it.
Speaker 10: When you talk about school lunches, Hey, I work my
Speaker 10: way through high school. I know about you, but I
Speaker 10: worked since I was before I was even thirteen years old,
Speaker 10: I was picking berries in the field before a child
Speaker 10: labor laws that precluded that.
Speaker 5: You were picking berries in a field before you bummits fun.
Speaker 5: I mean, by the way, how old are you if
Speaker 5: you were picking berries before there were child labor laws?
Speaker 1: Because you look great.
Speaker 5: Is the key to good skin, working the fields as
Speaker 5: a child. Now, I hate to bring this up, but
Speaker 5: if we are going back to the eighteen seventies and before,
Speaker 5: does that include every diversity initiative.
Speaker 13: Breathright citizenship was if you look back when this was
Speaker 13: passed and made, that was meant for the children of slaves.
Speaker 1: This was not meant for the whole world to come in.
Speaker 13: Everybody coming in and totally unqualified people with perhaps unqualified children,
Speaker 13: don't bring us.
Speaker 4: You're tired and poor, huddled masses.
Speaker 5: Do you have any mathletes, any doogies, houser, We will
Speaker 5: take all of your sheldons, young and old. For those
Speaker 5: of you at home who might fear that the president's
Speaker 5: desire to take us back to our nation's historic greatness
Speaker 5: may tread into unconstitutional action, fear not, because of the
Speaker 5: brilliant design of our nation allows for the co equal
Speaker 5: branch of the judiciary to stand as a bulwark against tyranny,
Speaker 5: as judged in the landmark decision of eighteen oh three
Speaker 5: Marbury versus Madison, which, as you know, is when James
Speaker 5: Madison lost the historic Supreme Court case to Stefan Marbury.
Speaker 5: Marbury ran him out of the building and established our
Speaker 5: foundational separation of powers.
Speaker 4: Vice President J. D.
Speaker 8: Vans he had some interesting words about the separation of
Speaker 8: power and government.
Speaker 1: He's four it.
Speaker 8: If a judge tried to tell a general how to
Speaker 8: conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
Speaker 4: If a judge tried.
Speaker 8: To command the attorney general on how to use her
Speaker 8: discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed
Speaker 8: to control the executive's legitimate power.
Speaker 5: Of course, they're allowed to kate the boundaries of that power.
Speaker 5: That's the whole point of the judiciary to interpret whether
Speaker 5: those powers are legitimate.
Speaker 4: You would the lads over the the alternative.
Speaker 1: Acting.
Speaker 5: The only alternative is that the executive determines for himself
Speaker 5: what is constitutional, at which point there would be no
Speaker 5: guardrails against.
Speaker 1: Hate.
Speaker 5: Congress, hey, buddy, you got a little separation of powers problem.
Speaker 5: I was wondering any chance he might be reasserting your
Speaker 5: authority opposition pardon Democrats? Are you ready to do some oppositioning?
Speaker 15: There are some things we can do, but the Republicans
Speaker 15: are in the majority in the Senate and the House.
Speaker 15: We're gonna need some Republicans, frankly, who are willing to lose.
Speaker 15: Who are willing to be a Liz Cheney and say
Speaker 15: I will lose my seat to do the right thing
Speaker 15: by this country, not the right thing by Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1: Let's hope.
Speaker 8: Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman.
Speaker 1: Of New York that's the sales pitch.
Speaker 5: We just need someone on their side willing to lose
Speaker 5: everything to progress, like a Russian dog being shot into space.
Speaker 5: You can see the Democrats backbone on our new show
Speaker 5: American Backslides, starring Dan.
Speaker 1: Goldman as hope poll loser.
Speaker 5: But fine, we have to rely on Republicans in Congress
Speaker 5: to be a check on Trump.
Speaker 1: How's that going.
Speaker 8: Republican Senator Tom Tillis says that while he believes Trump's
Speaker 8: actions run a foul of the Constitution in the strictest sense,
Speaker 8: he believes nobody should belly ache about that.
Speaker 14: You're comfortable if he shuts those down without getting congressions.
Speaker 16: Congress will be involved at some point.
Speaker 4: But I'm I think the country is comfortable.
Speaker 5: They're using that authority right now in a way it
Speaker 5: hasn't been used in a long time.
Speaker 4: So it looks radical, it's not.
Speaker 14: Well technically, yeah, I'm not losing a whole lot of sleep.
Speaker 4: Well, it's been a good run, America.
Speaker 5: It's looked like we're becoming less like the constitutional republican's
Speaker 5: been for two hundred and fifty years and more like
Speaker 5: the monarchy that we all thought to escape from.
Speaker 1: But I think the important thing, all right, I whoa here?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Fun?
Speaker 4: John VI?
Speaker 2: The uh the tragical sun appears to have returned?
Speaker 9: Is that?
Speaker 4: Wait?
Speaker 1: Is that? Hold on?
Speaker 4: Do my eyes deceive me? Is that is that? Young
Speaker 4: John Oliver? You here to offer America your wisdom and council?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, no, John, I'm here to gloat.
Speaker 17: Macca had its little fun, didn't you, experimenting with democracy?
Speaker 17: You thought so hard to get away from us, acting.
Speaker 2: Up, throwing all that tea into the harbor. You still
Speaker 2: owe us.
Speaker 1: For that, by the way, I mean how much it
Speaker 1: was just tea? John?
Speaker 2: It was, it was just tea.
Speaker 4: You take that back, You take that back.
Speaker 15: I know.
Speaker 4: The point it's a sensitive beverage.
Speaker 17: The point is you told everybody that you were going
Speaker 17: to be different, you were going to turn out like
Speaker 17: you mean, old Dad, who was so horrible to you
Speaker 17: when you were growing up. So we sat back, We
Speaker 17: let you spend your wild teen years experimenting with your
Speaker 17: ridiculous ideas of checks and balances, because deep down we
Speaker 17: knew that once you got that nonsense out of your system,
Speaker 17: you'd be backed. In fact, if I may sing from Hamilton.
Speaker 5: I'd really I'd appreciate.
Speaker 2: Now that's fair. What I'm saying is, let me be
Speaker 2: the first to welcome America to its monarchy era.
Speaker 17: Congratulations everyone, you can now take your place in the
Speaker 17: pantheon of great empires, alongside the British, the Roman, the
Speaker 17: Klingon Wakanga whatever one Babar the Elephants was the ruler
Speaker 17: of If against.
Speaker 5: Hold on a second, mister Oliver, Yes, if I may,
Speaker 5: Ambassador Oliver, go ahead for a moment, please America. Yes,
Speaker 5: we are having a bit of trouble with democratic governess,
Speaker 5: but I don't think we want to abandon our republic
Speaker 5: and go full empire.
Speaker 1: But why not?
Speaker 17: You really prefer the system that you have right now?
Speaker 17: Only fifty one votes for a bill to pass? Is
Speaker 17: the vice president in town to break a tie?
Speaker 3: Or wait?
Speaker 17: Is this one of the bills that needs sixty votes
Speaker 17: for no clear reason? Well, I'm sorry, little to me,
Speaker 17: No health care for you.
Speaker 1: All right, it does not sound great when you put
Speaker 1: it like that.
Speaker 17: Oh you mean when I put it entirely accurately, John,
Speaker 17: didn't sound great. What I'm saying is, don't fight being
Speaker 17: a monarchy, John, embrace it. Kings get shit done now,
Speaker 17: is it stuff that you once done? Not necessarily, but
Speaker 17: they do move quick. They taste coom in at lunch
Speaker 17: and they've taken over an entire continent by dinner time.
Speaker 17: That is how the British rolls, John, everyone else they're.
Speaker 1: Not like us.
Speaker 17: In fact, if I may say, alive from mister Kendrick Lamar.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, no no no, I really
Speaker 1: I really don't think you should do that.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you for stopping me on that one out
Speaker 2: to day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, not to be short sighted, but spoiler alert, John,
Speaker 5: things didn't end up so great for the British Empire.
Speaker 2: First of all, how dare you?
Speaker 17: We are technically between empires at the moment, but we're
Speaker 17: keeping our castles warm and our crowns bedeweled for.
Speaker 2: The day that we get back onto our feet.
Speaker 1: Look, no offense, but.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure the imperial model is for us?
Speaker 17: Oh really, the imperial model isn't for you, John, Have
Speaker 17: you seen anything America's die over the last fifty years,
Speaker 17: Because for a country that doesn't want to be an empire,
Speaker 17: you're doing a pretty fucking good impression of one right now. Invasions,
Speaker 17: economic exploitations are now suggesting turning Gaza into.
Speaker 2: A beachfront casino.
Speaker 17: Even King George would have been like, well, I don't know, guys,
Speaker 17: feels like the situation is a bit more complicated than that.
Speaker 17: And I'm literally dying of medieval brain disease.
Speaker 4: He was, he was doing that, he was, he was dying.
Speaker 2: He's dying of brain disease. It drove me crazy, but
Speaker 2: he could see that it was an unreasonable request.
Speaker 4: We really, we really have become our father.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and you know what, don't be sad about it.
Speaker 2: We couldn't be more proud.
Speaker 17: This shouldn't be a sad time. The arc of history
Speaker 17: is so long it eventually becomes a circle and you
Speaker 17: end up right where you started. You might even call
Speaker 17: it the circle of life. In fact, if one may scene,
Speaker 17: he greats Imperial subject, Sir Elton Jones opening Zulu chunks
Speaker 17: from the Life King. Please stop me, Joe, Please please
Speaker 17: stop me.
Speaker 4: To do that.
Speaker 2: I don't want to do you. Please tell me, Please
Speaker 2: tell me.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go out, stell me.
Speaker 4: Jones, John Oliver, everybody.
Speaker 3: Do you know what?
Speaker 2: Come there?
Speaker 4: Fay Hbo. When we come back, David Remnick.
Speaker 17: Will be joining.
Speaker 3: I don't know what what?
Speaker 4: Oh about my guest.
Speaker 5: Tonight, A tout surprize winning journalist, author, and longtime editor
Speaker 5: of The New Yorker, which is celebrating one hundred years
Speaker 5: with a special anniversary issue out today.
Speaker 1: Please welcome David Remnick, Sarah, thank you.
Speaker 4: The being here.
Speaker 1: Very exciting. One hundred years of the New Yorker. And
Speaker 1: there's a special treat ladies and gentlemen. I don't you
Speaker 1: can see this. It is their swimsuit edition.
Speaker 15: It is.
Speaker 1: This is this the original cover from.
Speaker 11: From nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: Five, and this is the first cover that was on
Speaker 1: the New Yorker.
Speaker 11: That's right. Ray Irvin was the artist and they put
Speaker 11: it out and it went on the newsstands. Harold Ross
Speaker 11: was the editor. Raoul Fleischman, a yeast fortune behind the
Speaker 11: magazine and it sold nothing.
Speaker 4: It sold nothing. Didn't do with all that yeast money
Speaker 4: behind it, didn't your eyes. So you should enter that
Speaker 4: as a caption contest.
Speaker 1: John Oliver warmed it up. Yeah, we warmed it up
Speaker 1: pretty get out there.
Speaker 11: And this is they almost seized the whole thing down
Speaker 11: after three months. They almost gave up on the whole thing.
Speaker 1: What was it that turned it? Why in three months
Speaker 1: did something happen? This meant to be just a.
Speaker 11: Purely comic jazz age nineteen twenties, pre depression thing, and
Speaker 11: they were going to close it down after three months,
Speaker 11: And then they had a good piece about the Scopes
Speaker 11: monkey trial.
Speaker 5: Sure did what I watched it on Court TV. It's fantastic, Paltrow.
Speaker 11: And then I swear to god, what took off on
Speaker 11: the newsstand was a piece you're not going to believe
Speaker 11: this about cabarets and nightclubs and things like this, and
Speaker 11: people were fascinated and it flew off the news stand
Speaker 11: a nice thing.
Speaker 5: You know, we were a big success freely at that time.
Speaker 5: Were the illustrations the majority of it? Or were the
Speaker 5: articles of the majority of Oh it was.
Speaker 11: It was purely little bits and pieces. And the first
Speaker 11: profile that ever ran, and we're famous for longer pieces,
Speaker 11: you know, the first piece that ever ran as a
Speaker 11: profile was a one page profile the head of the Metropolitan.
Speaker 5: Opera one page, and you know, the writer is like
Speaker 5: five hundred words, I'll never make it.
Speaker 4: And it was awful.
Speaker 1: It was dreadful, really.
Speaker 5: And now one hundred years later, then, when you're carrying
Speaker 5: the mantle of something that has been here for so long, though,
Speaker 5: it does present an extra burden and challenge.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be the guide.
Speaker 4: You don't want to be the last guy out out
Speaker 4: the building.
Speaker 5: And it's changeable. So in this more challenging challenge media
Speaker 5: environment to do long form this. You buy this and
Speaker 5: you I don't remember what that's called, but you look
Speaker 5: at it and.
Speaker 1: Read and read more.
Speaker 11: What Yeah, there aren't little dots and one sentence summaries
Speaker 11: of world events is son of a bitch. No, it's
Speaker 11: it is in defiance of every trend that we think
Speaker 11: is happening. But I look, I think that people actually
Speaker 11: want to know. They want to know what's going on
Speaker 11: in the world. They want to know what's going on
Speaker 11: in Washington. They want to know what's going on with
Speaker 11: other people's lives and have some empathy for it. They
Speaker 11: want to laugh. And that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 11: It's a pretty inclusive formula, I will say for me,
Speaker 11: because the circadian rhythm of the news has become the
Speaker 11: circadian rhythm of Twitter.
Speaker 5: I almost think it's leading that sort of incentivized outrage
Speaker 5: and hate and things that I find great solace in
Speaker 5: long form journalism.
Speaker 1: It really is a comfort food.
Speaker 5: But also there's not a lot of people out there
Speaker 5: who are taking the time to contextualize things.
Speaker 11: Well, I think there are more people than you think.
Speaker 11: I mean a million, two million, three people subscribe to
Speaker 11: the magazine. I hope it'll be more, especially after this night.
Speaker 1: I think a.
Speaker 4: Pandering.
Speaker 1: They're mostly sports fans.
Speaker 4: They're not interested.
Speaker 11: My first job sports writer for the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, I didn't even know they had athletic teams.
Speaker 11: They had that what's now called the Commodorees.
Speaker 4: Oh very nice.
Speaker 11: I was the singing group.
Speaker 1: It's exciting.
Speaker 11: I think people want to find out more than just
Speaker 11: ridiculous tweets, and they want to know what's going on,
Speaker 11: and they want fairness and fact checking and a sense
Speaker 11: of decency. And they also want some media outlets that
Speaker 11: aren't knuckling under.
Speaker 1: Not intimidated by the moments. And then and.
Speaker 11: That's our promise to you, and you know, I think
Speaker 11: that we're looking for another hundred years, but I'd like
Speaker 11: to get past the next four.
Speaker 1: Frankly, is this have you You've been in this a
Speaker 1: long time? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Is this a media moment that is reminiscent to you
Speaker 4: of any other analogous.
Speaker 11: It's not even reminiscent of the first Trump.
Speaker 1: Term, right, totally.
Speaker 11: In a weird way, more competent. I know that sounds
Speaker 11: very strange, but they seem to have come to the
Speaker 11: game very determined to do a ton of things fast
Speaker 11: and overwhelm you and overwhelm me and everybody here.
Speaker 1: And they have a project. I don't know what year
Speaker 1: it was named for, damn.
Speaker 11: It, but there's a shrewdness to it. And part of
Speaker 11: the shrewdness is contingent on the weakness of the Democrats
Speaker 11: and the confusion of the Democrats at the moment, and
Speaker 11: the sport of the election. Quite frankly, there are a
Speaker 11: lot of people behind them, and our job is to
Speaker 11: get it right and to get it fair, and to
Speaker 11: get it factual, and to not just be yelling and
Speaker 11: screaming and wagging our fingers with polemics, but to really
Speaker 11: disc these things with some sense of seriousness, and I
Speaker 11: think people want that.
Speaker 5: Is there a break glass moment for you in this
Speaker 5: You know, we talked about it earlier with the audience
Speaker 5: about not overreacting to each individual outrage and moment. And
Speaker 5: is that frustrating? Do we keep ourselves on defcon? And
Speaker 5: I don't know which one is the worst?
Speaker 11: Nine in ten?
Speaker 15: Yeah?
Speaker 11: I notice sometimes when I go out to dinner with
Speaker 11: this person and that person, who meet friends whatever. There's
Speaker 11: every once in a while, in fact quite a lot,
Speaker 11: somebody will say to me, you know what, I've signed off.
Speaker 1: On the news.
Speaker 11: I'm not watching it. I can take it. I have to,
Speaker 11: you know, protect myself too much.
Speaker 1: I understand that instinct.
Speaker 11: I understand it. But while you're doing that, Trump keeps going,
Speaker 11: politics keeps going, the world keeps happening, and you may
Speaker 11: choose to protect yourself, but then you're part of the problem.
Speaker 11: I'm afraid.
Speaker 1: No, we were talking again.
Speaker 5: Too much action is the antidote for that anxiety. The
Speaker 5: question is what have you learned from deterring this kind
Speaker 5: of executive action, Because the real moment to me will
Speaker 5: be that sort of Marbury versus happening Madison moment. Where
Speaker 5: you know they'll say, well, well enforce it. Well who
Speaker 5: enforces it? I guess the US marshals. And if the
Speaker 5: US Marshals work for the DJ and the DJ is
Speaker 5: run by somebody who tells them, no, don't enforce it.
Speaker 11: Right now, Right now, the president is overstepping executive power,
Speaker 11: not once, not twice, but in multiple ways. And courts
Speaker 11: are going to have to stand up to do what
Speaker 11: courts need to do. The press needs to describe it
Speaker 11: and in all its fullness and accuracy. Citizens need to
Speaker 11: do what citizens are capable of doing, and it requires
Speaker 11: everybody and the Democratic Party and that Congressman Goldman did
Speaker 11: not exactly present the face of a warrior.
Speaker 1: My favorite moment that I've seen where we go like,
Speaker 1: what are the Democrats going to do? And he's like,
Speaker 1: I I hope.
Speaker 4: Hopefully one of the Republicans will be like, this is crazy.
Speaker 4: We shouldn't I want to lose.
Speaker 11: Chapter twelve in Profiles and Currents.
Speaker 5: Right, do you as you and you've you've spent time
Speaker 5: talking to people that are obviously very informed within Democratic Party?
Speaker 1: It's their beat.
Speaker 5: Do they sense there is anything I look at this
Speaker 5: as this is a fifty year project that the Republicans
Speaker 5: have run to reset the country to. It's not just
Speaker 5: pre great society, not just pre a new deal. But
Speaker 5: as even Trump is saying, like Robert Baron Ethos.
Speaker 11: But that's a political battle. Some of that is a
Speaker 11: political battle that's natural, over executive over federal spending, for example,
Speaker 11: over culture wars. It's not a mystery that we have such.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's not constitutional.
Speaker 11: No, this is about breaking the norms of the constitution
Speaker 11: and the law. And what do you go to do
Speaker 11: about it? That's different.
Speaker 5: So what are if you were going to say, you know,
Speaker 5: the people, There's going to be protests, There's going to
Speaker 5: be those things. But at this moment it is broadly popular.
Speaker 5: The agenda that has been enacted is if we had
Speaker 5: a revote today, he would probably do better than how he.
Speaker 11: Did all I think CBS said fifty two fifty.
Speaker 5: Three percent, which for him is a lands for me
Speaker 5: that for any president really in this day and age,
Speaker 5: to have that kind of popularity is really unusual.
Speaker 11: So I think we're headed toward a big crisis. I
Speaker 11: really do, and I think we're in the midst of it.
Speaker 1: I really do.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, thanks for being here.
Speaker 5: It's incredible to me how there really is a rudderlessness
Speaker 5: amongst the opposition party.
Speaker 11: Well, the opposition party is the Democratic Party that's licking
Speaker 11: its wounds. It's beating itself up for what happened, and
Speaker 11: rightly so. In terms of the Biden decision to run
Speaker 11: a second time, or the decision to kind of have
Speaker 11: a willing suspension of disbelief on where Biden was in
Speaker 11: terms of popularity or his age, well there is there's
Speaker 11: a kind of a sense of injury, embarrassment and withdrawal.
Speaker 11: But enough, already, enough, already, sack up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you hear that. I'm gonna say this right now.
Speaker 5: The editor of one of the most esteemed magazines in
Speaker 5: American history just told the Democrats sack up.
Speaker 4: Shocking. You heard it from an else, shocking.
Speaker 11: Look, but you did what you described, which is that
Speaker 11: you have a historical trend and then there's a reaction
Speaker 11: to it. And this has happened in any number of times.
Speaker 11: I fully expect and hope that that will happen again
Speaker 11: in some form or another. Again, it is not the
Speaker 11: job the press. And this may disappoint some of you
Speaker 11: to be at the head of the barricades shaking the
Speaker 11: fists and leading the charge. It is to describe so
Speaker 11: that you're you're fully in possession of the facts and
Speaker 11: points of viewer expressed, and you know, then you do
Speaker 11: with it what you will. In a democracy, that is
Speaker 11: a really important function.
Speaker 5: Do you really think the Democrats problem is a messaging problem.
Speaker 5: I think it's I don't know what they stand for.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Was this three weeks old? What is
Speaker 1: it three four week's old? This is not people did
Speaker 1: not believe.
Speaker 11: I think people did not fully take on board that
Speaker 11: what Donald Trump was saying that he was going to
Speaker 11: do in all those speeches that we either laughed about
Speaker 11: or disbelieved or you know, kind of let fly by,
Speaker 11: or or foolish enough to believe that he would lose.
Speaker 11: They did not quite take on board the full reality,
Speaker 11: the fullness of what he was going to do, how
Speaker 11: fast it was going to come, and with what sense
Speaker 11: of a diabolical organization, Because you have to say this,
Speaker 11: it is just coming so fast at people in terms
Speaker 11: of the press, in terms of public opinion, in terms
Speaker 11: of Democratic party, that people on there are on their.
Speaker 1: Heels, right, And I.
Speaker 11: Hope that doesn't last for because there's no time. If
Speaker 11: you keep seating that to Trump, a lot of damage
Speaker 11: is going to be done very very quickly.
Speaker 1: I almost wonder you almost want to say to them,
Speaker 1: you have to exist outside of him.
Speaker 5: It's as though they define themselves almost entirely by reactions
Speaker 5: to his movements, you know.
Speaker 11: But the problem is is that he's president, and he's
Speaker 11: maximizing executive powers quickly and as fully as he possibly can.
Speaker 11: And unless you have a coherent reaction to that, whether
Speaker 11: it's in Congress with a press or the greater world
Speaker 11: or on the street, you're going to lose a lot. Ultimately,
Speaker 11: he might get pushed back. Ultimately in two years, there
Speaker 11: might be a midterm election that weakens him. Ultimately, he
Speaker 11: may overplay his hand in this court case or that
Speaker 11: court case and he loses. But a lot of damage
Speaker 11: is going to be done to a lot of human beings.
Speaker 11: And also, the one thing that we have mentioned is
Speaker 11: the quality of cruelty to all this, not just illegallous
Speaker 11: like that's the point of it, yeah, I mean just
Speaker 11: just the cruelty about the description of trans people and
Speaker 11: our fellow brothers and sisters who are immigrants or have
Speaker 11: birthright citizenship.
Speaker 1: There is a.
Speaker 11: Tone of insult and the desire to damage.
Speaker 5: If you were to come to me and say, I
Speaker 5: want to make government more efficient, I want to make
Speaker 5: it more effective. There's a lot of things here in
Speaker 5: the way that we do it and it doesn't work.
Speaker 5: I'd be highly on board with that. It's something that
Speaker 5: I can.
Speaker 11: Fully believe it and any government age and see, whether
Speaker 11: it's USAID or whatever it might be. Yes, But the
Speaker 11: notion of putting somebody in charge of the health, the
Speaker 11: public health of this country who's a conspiracy theorist and
Speaker 11: a liar.
Speaker 1: But see, they're strange.
Speaker 5: They don't view it in that way though, So I
Speaker 5: think that's part of the disconnect is they're not viewing
Speaker 5: it through that lens. What they're viewing it as a
Speaker 5: fighter who's done their own research and awoken to the
Speaker 5: corruption of the government. And my point is if the
Speaker 5: government is the only power strong enough to stand up
Speaker 5: to international corporatist interest, there is no other anything that
Speaker 5: And if you think rapacious greed is going to make
Speaker 5: your health care better, and if you think rapacious greed
Speaker 5: is going to make pharmaceutical companies come to heal or
Speaker 5: oil companies come to heal.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're looking at.
Speaker 5: Without government effectively managing those instincts, what are we handing
Speaker 5: this all over to?
Speaker 11: This is what's new between the first Trump term and
Speaker 11: the second term. I lived for four years in the
Speaker 11: Soviet Union and the last years of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 11: and then kept coming back. Now I can't go anymore
Speaker 11: for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: But what if what did you do in the Soviet Union?
Speaker 1: So it's running a little. I can't reas did you
Speaker 1: kill a dude?
Speaker 4: Just a few But you don't need to.
Speaker 2: Know about that.
Speaker 4: What I was a reporter. Oh, you were reported to
Speaker 4: live over four years. I was a reporter for a.
Speaker 11: While on a bus and you you know this was
Speaker 11: I was coming to a place that, for seventy odd
Speaker 11: years had lived lives not only of censorship, but of
Speaker 11: self censorship and a kind of relationship to the government
Speaker 11: where you were not a citizen, you were a subject.
Speaker 11: And I had the thrilling experience, and says a witness,
Speaker 11: to see this seemingly come to an end, to liberalize,
Speaker 11: to have the promise of democracy, to see miraculously Michel
Speaker 11: Gorbachev had come along and open the door. History can
Speaker 11: move in that direction, and it will inc.
Speaker 1: Heard that.
Speaker 11: It's a long but aggravating Yes. Yeah, but now it's
Speaker 11: you know, when in the other direction, and the oligarchs
Speaker 11: took over this country in concert with with Vladimir Putin
Speaker 11: and before him Yelson. And to see at an inauguration
Speaker 11: a few weeks ago of the tech titans of this
Speaker 11: world sitting in the best seats in the house, right
Speaker 11: behind the President of the United States, was the most
Speaker 11: ominous thing. It was even more honest than the speech itself,
Speaker 11: because those guys are seemingly willing to say and do
Speaker 11: anything to protect their gigantic business. And that is a
Speaker 11: further recipe for disaster. We've seen it before in this country,
Speaker 11: but we've never seen it energized by and supercharged by
Speaker 11: social media and and the tools that they have at hand.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm bumming you out.
Speaker 5: No, I remain optimistic because the history of this country
Speaker 5: is such resilience through peaks and valleys that we were.
Speaker 1: Sure were fatal blows.
Speaker 5: It's different than these other you know, we are for
Speaker 5: the adolescence of America, being two hundred and fifty years old,
Speaker 5: we are a more mature democracy than I think a
Speaker 5: lot of those countries. We have a history and a
Speaker 5: pattern of civic engagement at local and state levels that
Speaker 5: I think will prove even if the body politic at
Speaker 5: that level begins to erode.
Speaker 11: But people have top we have our job.
Speaker 1: We don't have our job.
Speaker 11: I think everybody here can't sit back either.
Speaker 5: I think we need a game plan. Honestly, I don't
Speaker 5: think it's that people aren't awake. I think they feel
Speaker 5: rudderless and thirsty for inspiring leadership that feels principled and
Speaker 5: has a plan.
Speaker 4: Of action that can turn this into something.
Speaker 5: I don't think the American people want this corrosive day
Speaker 5: to day. I truly don't believe that. That doesn't mean
Speaker 5: they don't want a secure border. It doesn't mean they
Speaker 5: don't want law and order in their cities. It doesn't
Speaker 5: mean that they don't want some other common sense things
Speaker 5: that have been done. They don't want the other part.
Speaker 11: I agree with you, and I for once.
Speaker 1: So by agreeing with me, I have now officially been
Speaker 1: published in the New Yorker.
Speaker 11: You got it, by the way, not for the first time.
Speaker 11: You've been published in the New York and we're still
Speaker 11: waiting for pieces for you. What do you got a job?
Speaker 4: I was in The New Yorker.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you row pieces for shouts and murmurs?
Speaker 15: Did I really?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I can't imagine how happy my mother was, as always,
Speaker 5: a bliged to The New Yorker under an of our
Speaker 5: three shows out, we're breaking me right by.
Speaker 3: Not chalking a night.
Speaker 5: Everybody, Before we go, We're gonna check in with your
Speaker 5: host for the rest of the week, mister Jordan Clapper.
Speaker 4: Jordan, what's up?
Speaker 1: What's up?
Speaker 4: Well, John?
Speaker 16: We'll continue our coverage of America's descent into fascism, report
Speaker 16: on the president's onslaught on the Constitution, and give ten
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Speaker 1: But zinga, what?
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Speaker 1: Well?
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Speaker 1: It's right off a sinka here.
Speaker 15: It is.
Speaker 5: Your moment is that sky highs signing and President Trump
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Speaker 1: Try that on.
Speaker 2: Golf of Mexico. Golf of America.
Speaker 7: Everyone listen to this Golf of America Day.
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Speaker 4: as a.
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