Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: From the most trusted journalists.
Speaker 3: At Comedy Central, It's America's only source for news.
Speaker 1: It's The Daily Show with your home.
Speaker 2: Jordan Clep, Welcome to The Daily Show.
Speaker 4: I'm Jordan Clipper. We got a great show for you tonight.
Speaker 5: We're gonna dig into some of the big stories of
Speaker 5: the day. Oscar nominated filmmaker Cord Jefferson is here, but Furst, yes, yes, First,
Speaker 5: let's get in the headlines. Now, as we all know,
Speaker 5: the Super Bowl was on Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs
Speaker 5: one Taylor. There are three Kansas City Chiefs fans here.
Speaker 5: Taylor Swift somehow got box seats ushers. Abs were on
Speaker 5: the outside of his shirt for some reason.
Speaker 4: It was great.
Speaker 5: And yesterday they had a celebratory parade in Kansas City
Speaker 5: that tragically ended in gunfire. Now there's still a lot
Speaker 5: we don't know about the situation. The good news is
Speaker 5: we do know one of the heroes that helped stop
Speaker 5: the shooting. It wasn't Missouri's lacks gun laws. It wasn't
Speaker 5: a good guy with a gun, wasn't anybody bearing arms.
Speaker 4: It was just a guy with arms. Take a look
Speaker 4: at this video.
Speaker 3: It shows the moment that one of them was tackled
Speaker 3: by a couple of fans who were in the right
Speaker 3: place at the right time.
Speaker 6: One guy was hothering, saying, you know, stop him or
Speaker 6: catch him, and as I'm tackling him, I see his weapon.
Speaker 4: Bravo to this guy, Bravo.
Speaker 1: Bravo.
Speaker 5: Yes, frankly, not not just for stopping the shooter, but
Speaker 5: for executing a flawless tackle in front of the Super
Speaker 5: Bowl champions. Travis Kelcey is right there and you're like,
Speaker 5: watch this form. Look, maybe you think we don't need
Speaker 5: gun control, but don't pretend there's any level of security
Speaker 5: that would prevent something like this from happening. There were
Speaker 5: more than eight hundred police officers there and all they
Speaker 5: could do was react after it happened. Let me put
Speaker 5: this in football terms. America needs a defensive strategy that
Speaker 5: will stop a guy from getting the ball in the
Speaker 5: first place, not just hope someone tackles him before he
Speaker 5: gets to the end zone. That's not a winning strategy
Speaker 5: unless you're playing the Jets. Also, we need to limit
Speaker 5: the size of the ball.
Speaker 4: That ball is a weapon of war.
Speaker 5: The founders didn't anticipate the ball would be this big.
Speaker 4: I'm into deep with this metaphor, I hear it. Now
Speaker 4: you get the idea. I'll tell you.
Speaker 5: What's infuriating, though, is that we're not gonna get to
Speaker 5: have an honest conversation about America's gun problem. Instead, we'll
Speaker 5: be having a conversation about America's parade problem. Should they
Speaker 5: have more security, should they be smaller? Should they replace
Speaker 5: the confetti with kevlar? Should the parade just be an email?
Speaker 5: It's not fun, but those are all the ideas we're
Speaker 5: allowed to have. Also, one thing I noticed about the
Speaker 5: media coverage around this is everyone saying today was supposed
Speaker 5: to be a celebration or the day started out filled
Speaker 5: with joy. Shouldn't every day be able to end without
Speaker 5: a mass shooting?
Speaker 4: Is our bar really that low?
Speaker 5: Like even my shittiest day, my wife leaves me, the
Speaker 5: irs audits me, I go to see Madam Webb, I mean.
Speaker 4: A shitty, shitty.
Speaker 5: Day, even that day deserves to end without a shooting.
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe I'm.
Speaker 5: Just a selfish, selfish optimist. You know what, Like the
Speaker 5: rest of the country, let's quickly move on from gun
Speaker 5: violence and talk about something else. As you know, Donald
Speaker 5: Trump is on trial in every jurisdiction in America. One
Speaker 5: of the most important trials is down in Georgia, where
Speaker 5: he's accused of trying to overturn the election. And because
Speaker 5: this case is so important, it's crucial that the prosecution
Speaker 5: does everything above board and buy the books aka not this.
Speaker 7: After weeks of mounting questions, Fulton County District Attorney Fanie
Speaker 7: Willis acknowledging a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor she
Speaker 7: hired to lead her case against Donald Trump. Trump and
Speaker 7: his two co defendants claim Willis benefited from the money
Speaker 7: her office paid weight, saying he had taken her on
Speaker 7: lavish vacations.
Speaker 4: Da Willis could.
Speaker 8: Be disqualified from the case, so could her whole office.
Speaker 3: Potentially, this could really bring the investigation back to square one?
Speaker 4: Are you getting seriously?
Speaker 5: Trump might get off because these two were getting off.
Speaker 5: The case might be derailed because these two were getting railed?
Speaker 4: Are we because they've I can't believe a legal team.
Speaker 5: Sexual appetite might destroy this case. Now I finally understand
Speaker 5: why Trump hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer. No one's
Speaker 5: risking their case to see what he's packing. But maybe
Speaker 5: maybe we should give Fawnie Willis the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 5: Maybe maybe she didn't know it was a conflict of
Speaker 5: interest to have sex with an employee.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty, Fawnie Willis was asked why Fulton County
Speaker 4: voters should elect her as DA instead of her opponent.
Speaker 3: They deserve a DA that won't have sex with his
Speaker 3: employees because they deserve a DA that won't put money
Speaker 3: in their own pocket.
Speaker 5: Ooh, okay, that's tough. Okay, But to be fair, she
Speaker 5: kept her promise. She did not have sex with his employees,
Speaker 5: just hers. I guess we call that progress now. One
Speaker 5: of the accusations against Fannie Willis is that after she
Speaker 5: hired her boyfriend, he kicked back money to her by
Speaker 5: taking her on lavish vacations. And today they questioned Nathan
Speaker 5: Wade about those vacations, and the answers didn't exactly roll
Speaker 5: off his tongue.
Speaker 3: I'm asking if you remember paying for a cabin.
Speaker 1: Six months ago in Tennessee.
Speaker 4: No, you remember booking a cabin.
Speaker 1: I booked lots of cabins.
Speaker 3: Did you go to a cabin with miss Willis?
Speaker 4: Ever? Ever?
Speaker 5: No, I don't care what you're answering. Anytime you pause
Speaker 5: that long, it's suspicious. Also, who booked so many cabins
Speaker 5: they can't keep track of them. You're either Davy Crockett
Speaker 5: or a serial killer. So after today, hey, things are
Speaker 5: not looking good for Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade. But he
Speaker 5: does have an option here. He sexed his way into
Speaker 5: this mess. He just might have to sex his way out.
Speaker 5: If his loving is so good that a prosecutor is
Speaker 5: willing to break the rules for it, then he's got
Speaker 5: to sex everybody into breaking the rules for him. Sex
Speaker 5: the judge, sex the jury, sex the bailiff. If the
Speaker 5: clerk wants some sex, sex the clerk. If Manu Raju
Speaker 5: is outside the courtroom, sex the Raju. And if it
Speaker 5: comes down to it, he's gonna have to sex Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: If he's that good, it ought to do the trick.
Speaker 5: Trump will walk out of that courtroom leg the case
Speaker 5: is rigged, But the d is fire.
Speaker 4: That's for Fannie Willis.
Speaker 5: When she took the stand today, she denied any wrongdoing
Speaker 5: and also tried to bring some perspective to the day.
Speaker 3: You're confused. You think I'm on trial. These people are
Speaker 3: on trial for trying to steal an election in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: I'm not on trial, no matter how hard you try
Speaker 3: to put me on trial.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump is the one on trial, which is why
Speaker 5: you should have been more careful. This is possibly the
Speaker 5: most important trial in the country right now, and it
Speaker 5: can be completely derailed not because of the evidence with
Speaker 5: the facts, but because two people got horny. So maybe
Speaker 5: the first thing we need is some new HR training.
Speaker 9: Hello, if you're watching this video, you're one of the
Speaker 9: two hundred thousand prosecutors currently working on a Donald Trump case.
Speaker 9: There's been some confusion lately over whether you should hire
Speaker 9: a person you're finking to prosecute the most important case
Speaker 9: in the nation. So we wanted to just take a
Speaker 9: moment to clarify, don't don't do that. Remember there are
Speaker 9: over three hundred and thirty million other Americans. You can
Speaker 9: have sex with any of that or hire them as
Speaker 9: a prosecutor, but not both.
Speaker 4: It should be pretty obvious. Well we're at it.
Speaker 9: Here's some other super obvious things to avoid that I
Speaker 9: can't believe I have to say out loud. Don't bribe
Speaker 9: the judge, don't bribe the defendant.
Speaker 4: Don't burn down the courtroom.
Speaker 9: Don't join ISIS, don't hire ISIS. Don't try to sell
Speaker 9: the judge drugs. Don't hire a.
Speaker 4: Stripper cop to be the bailiff.
Speaker 9: No, under any circumstances toilet cams. Don't slurp up the
Speaker 9: defendant's bathwater. Don't recruit the jury into a multi level
Speaker 9: marketing scheme. Don't sell tickets to the trial on stub hub.
Speaker 9: And finally, don't steal the judge's organs and sell them
Speaker 9: on the black market. By following these simple rules, you
Speaker 9: can maintain your integrity and not legally speaking. Put this up,
Speaker 9: you idiot, Thank you, and good luck in court.
Speaker 10: To go back more romance, don't go Welcome back to
Speaker 10: the Daily Show. Romance isn't there?
Speaker 5: And this week to celebrate that, our grace coolid Schmid
Speaker 5: takes us through the most romantic people she knows.
Speaker 3: When you think of the most romantic men ever, who
Speaker 3: do you think of? Jack Dawson, Noah Calhoun, no dumb dumb?
Speaker 3: Those are made up characters played by actors who have
Speaker 3: her string orders against me. For me, the most romantic
Speaker 3: men on the planet are the men who have served
Speaker 3: as President of the United States of America, and there
Speaker 3: are so many to choose from. Romantics like black and
Speaker 3: White President Woodrow Wilson when he met his special lady
Speaker 3: Mary Hulbert Peck in beautiful Bermuda while his wife stayed
Speaker 3: home with their sick daughter. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1: That's like straight out of a.
Speaker 3: In fact, Wilson was so smitten with Mary he even
Speaker 3: wrote her love letters quote, you really must come down
Speaker 3: to relieve me.
Speaker 4: That is so romantic.
Speaker 3: He truly wanted to bust in that chick.
Speaker 4: Fellas take notes. Another president of passion.
Speaker 1: Was Warren G.
Speaker 3: Harding, and the G must stand for gentlemen, because even
Speaker 3: though his wife was chronically ill, he still found time
Speaker 3: to sleep with other women. Our lovable Warren was such
Speaker 3: a Romeo that during his campaign he paid not one,
Speaker 3: but two women to keep their affairs secret.
Speaker 4: Stick me in the freezer because my heart is melting.
Speaker 3: One of these beloved blackmailers was Carrie Phillips. It's a
Speaker 3: possible German spy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Harding was willing to risk divulging state secrets and in
Speaker 3: danger national security all for love. I promised I wouldn't cry.
Speaker 3: Of course, when it comes to romantics it's hard to
Speaker 3: top Franklin Dr. There was no one more in love
Speaker 3: or more faithful to his wife Secretary. FDR kept seeing
Speaker 3: her for decades, even though his cousin wife Eleanor was
Speaker 3: not a fan.
Speaker 4: Love conquers all bitch.
Speaker 3: In fact, FDR was so committed to his one true
Speaker 3: mistress he even gave up walking so he could save
Speaker 3: all his energy for boning her.
Speaker 2: Ladies.
Speaker 8: If your man can.
Speaker 4: Walk, that's a red flag.
Speaker 3: But perhaps America's most romantic president was none other than
Speaker 3: John F. Kennedy, Airport Junior.
Speaker 4: President.
Speaker 3: Airport Junior had so much love to give couldn't be
Speaker 3: contained in one woman, or two women, or three or
Speaker 3: four or seventeen women. Actually, two of these lucky lovers
Speaker 3: were White House interns that Kennedy referred to as get this,
Speaker 3: this is so cute, fiddle and faddle.
Speaker 1: Ah. No one's ever called me faddle. They just take
Speaker 1: the time to learn my real name.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: And while historians debate whether Marylyn was really one of
Speaker 3: JFK's lovers, this footage of her singing Happy Birthday to
Speaker 3: him is one of the most genuine, surest displays of
Speaker 3: affection ever captured on film.
Speaker 7: At one twenty five, the motor Kaide moves into the downtown.
Speaker 3: That is not the right Jfkvidyo stop. And last, but
Speaker 3: certainly least, President Lyndon B. Johnson, even when he was
Speaker 3: busy with President's stuff, LBJ always put his lover first.
Speaker 3: He even had a bell installed in the Oval office
Speaker 3: so the Secret Service could warn him when his wife
Speaker 3: was coming. Are those wedding thoughs I hear Nope? Is
Speaker 3: to get off my dick and hide in the filing cabinet?
Speaker 2: Fell so sweet.
Speaker 3: Linden's relationship with his devoted side piece spanned decades of
Speaker 3: his marriage until sadly, she broke up with him over
Speaker 3: his involvement in the Vietnam War. That's right, the Vietnam
Speaker 3: War also had a dark side.
Speaker 1: Who knew?
Speaker 8: So next Valentine's Day, if you're trying to inject a
Speaker 8: little romance into your life, you don't need to go
Speaker 8: to a fancy restaurant or an expensive jewelry store. Just
Speaker 8: book a ticket to Washington, DC and apply for a
Speaker 8: job as an intern.
Speaker 3: At the White House.
Speaker 4: So you wanted to see me, yes, thank you, thank
Speaker 4: you Grace.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was.
Speaker 5: Very sweet, But I don't know how romantic that actually
Speaker 5: was you realize those were all extra marital affairs.
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that's so much honor.
Speaker 5: I guess it was great schooling shmid Everyone, we come back.
Speaker 5: Oscar nominated filmmaker por Jefferson will be joining me on
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 4: We'll go well, we'll guess we'll go about Welcome out
Speaker 4: to the Day show. My guest today is.
Speaker 5: A director an Emmy winning writer whose film American Fiction
Speaker 5: is currently nominated for five Academy Awards.
Speaker 4: Please welcome for Jefferson.
Speaker 1: Lord, thank you.
Speaker 5: Wow, feature film debut and you get five Academy Award.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm curious how you're feeling about it and how
Speaker 5: you're You're wielding that strength now.
Speaker 11: I'm not wielding it too much. Unfortunately, I probably should
Speaker 11: be more demanding. Yeah, but I'm not. I'm uh, I
Speaker 11: feel a little overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: You know. It is.
Speaker 11: We made this movie with very little money and very
Speaker 11: little time. We didn't make under these great auspices, and
Speaker 11: so to be here right now, sitting with you is
Speaker 11: beyond my wild distress.
Speaker 4: This must be your highlight.
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, this is crazy, you know, truly, I I uh,
Speaker 6: I don't really get nervous in interviews anymore.
Speaker 1: But I'm pretty nervous here right now.
Speaker 4: The daily Yeah manyah shows a big deal.
Speaker 5: Nothing to be nervous about it, all right, So I
Speaker 5: want to talk Palestine.
Speaker 11: Okay, that's great, everybody, everybody get out your phones.
Speaker 4: There you go, start putting.
Speaker 1: This on the internet. I'm happy to like my public
Speaker 1: is gonna love it.
Speaker 4: Like, let's get into this.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean this, this movie, it causes a ton
Speaker 5: of conversations. It's it's it feels very than now. And
Speaker 5: when I watched this, I think what. I was surprised
Speaker 5: to find out that it's based on a book from
Speaker 5: twenty years ago. Yeah, right, but it's still so relevant today.
Speaker 5: What did you see in that story that made you
Speaker 5: want to tell this story now?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: My god? Man.
Speaker 11: So three months before I found this novel e Rasure
Speaker 11: by Percival Everett that I adapted. I sent in a
Speaker 11: script to some executives and they sent me back a
Speaker 11: note that a character, and it a black character, needed
Speaker 11: to be blacker.
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 11: Said, I will indulge this note if whoever gave it
Speaker 11: is willing to sit down with me and tell me
Speaker 11: what it means to be blacker, tell me how to
Speaker 11: make somebody blacker. And of course that no went away
Speaker 11: because they probably knew they were setting themselves up for
Speaker 11: like a huge civil.
Speaker 1: Rights lawsuit, and so they dropped it.
Speaker 11: And you know, but that was just one of the
Speaker 11: many instances in my TV and film writing career where
Speaker 11: it's like people just have this very limited perspective of
Speaker 11: what it means to be a black, what it means
Speaker 11: to be a black writer. They have a very limited
Speaker 11: perspective of what black stories look like, with what black
Speaker 11: life looks like.
Speaker 1: And so when I read this book was.
Speaker 11: Published in two thousand and one, but it felt like
Speaker 11: it was written yesterday. Yeah, I just I was so
Speaker 11: overcome with sort of this idea that it felt like
Speaker 11: it was written specifically for me.
Speaker 1: I just understood the characters so well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think one of the targets of this film
Speaker 5: is white liberal audiences.
Speaker 4: And first off, how dare.
Speaker 5: You do you get exhausted talking to white liberals about
Speaker 5: this movie and having to explain race to them over
Speaker 5: and over again, to be like, what is the deal
Speaker 5: with race in America?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: Actually, I mean, I mean, I mean, maybe a little bit, but.
Speaker 1: I've set myself up for this.
Speaker 11: This is like, this is what I this is the
Speaker 11: work that I put into the world, so I'm happy
Speaker 11: to chat about it.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think what's interesting about this movie too,
Speaker 5: is that it's not only it's a satire, it's a
Speaker 5: political satire, but it's also really heartfelt. I was surprised
Speaker 5: by that it really follows a family. Yeah, it follows
Speaker 5: the struggles that they have. Why was that important for
Speaker 5: you to tell and to marry with it? It seems
Speaker 5: like that's those don't always go together when you see
Speaker 5: satirical films.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and that's you know, I wanted the movie to
Speaker 11: be satirical, but never farcical, and so sort of the
Speaker 11: clip that you played right there, I think is.
Speaker 1: More is one of the grounding moments of the film.
Speaker 11: I didn't want it to feel like it was so
Speaker 11: funny or got so silly that it became slapsticky. I
Speaker 11: always wanted it to feel because I feel like when
Speaker 11: when satire gets kind of slapsticky, it sort of it
Speaker 11: lets people off the hook. It sort of like says
Speaker 11: like this entire thing is a joke that you can
Speaker 11: laugh at. You don't need to take it seriously and
Speaker 11: I think that this movie sort of makes some people
Speaker 11: uncomfortable sometimes, and I'm okay with that. I think that
Speaker 11: I think that every time I'm experiencing a piece of
Speaker 11: art and it makes me uncomfortable, I kind of lean
Speaker 11: in because I think that sort of wisdom is on
Speaker 11: the other side of that discomfort.
Speaker 5: Well, I want to talk a little bit about the ending.
Speaker 5: I don't want to give it away, but this movie
Speaker 5: ends and you sort of there's a meta ending, and
Speaker 5: I wonder if that comes out of network notes wanting
Speaker 5: you to end this movie for a certain audience, if
Speaker 5: that comes out with you either not knowing how you
Speaker 5: wanted to end it or wanting to end it in
Speaker 5: a way that leaves people with their own ways in
Speaker 5: which they can end the story, Like how did you
Speaker 5: approach wrapping this thing up?
Speaker 11: Yeah, So the novel that I adapted is very mettextual.
Speaker 11: It's sort of and and and the epilogue of the
Speaker 11: novel is this Latin phrase that translates to I offer
Speaker 11: no hypothesis and so.
Speaker 1: To me, that that meant that.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 1: Latin phrase used with mathematics. People love that I and
Speaker 1: so and so. I didn't want the ending to be didactic.
Speaker 1: I wanted.
Speaker 11: I wanted the ending to feel audacious, and so I
Speaker 11: I wanted. I was trying to figure out what the
Speaker 11: ending was going to be, and one of the producers
Speaker 11: called me and said, the movie is a big swing.
Speaker 11: Try to write an ending that feels like a big
Speaker 11: swing too, because I was kind of stuck as to
Speaker 11: what the ending would be. And so I wrote an
Speaker 11: ending that feels as audacious as the rest of the movie.
Speaker 11: And yeah, I think that I didn't want to spoon
Speaker 11: feed people lessons like it said, I offer no hypothesis.
Speaker 11: I'm giving you some scenarios and some some characters. It
Speaker 11: sort of offers you an opportunity to think for yourself
Speaker 11: and decide how you want to think about things.
Speaker 5: I mean, I do think this movie also asked a
Speaker 5: lot of questions about about what Hollywood wants in movies
Speaker 5: from black filmmakers yea, and what a white audience will
Speaker 5: respond to and you make this film, yeah, and then
Speaker 5: primarily white Oscar public is like, we love this, and
Speaker 5: I wonder how you that is that a sweet revenge?
Speaker 5: Is that an extension of the meta story that you're telling,
Speaker 5: And it feels like there's a conversation about people enjoying
Speaker 5: your film that's already happening within your film.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 11: So I mean, look it is use I'm basically slowly
Speaker 11: cosplaying as Jeffrey Wright. I'm looking at myself right now
Speaker 11: and I'm becoming Jeffrey Wright normally. Wait, these glasses are
Speaker 11: Jeffrey Wright. Jeff this is a Jeffrey Wright suit. I'm
Speaker 11: going great like Jeffrey Wright. So it's getting more and
Speaker 11: more minute. I'll tell you how mendte it's gotten. The
Speaker 11: other day, Percival Everett, the author of the novel Erasure,
Speaker 11: was stopped in a coffee shop in La This is
Speaker 11: a true story and as somebody asked him if he
Speaker 11: was Jeffrey Wright, and he said, no, I'm not Jeffrey Wright,
Speaker 11: but I wrote the book that Jeffrey Right is now
Speaker 11: in the movie based on.
Speaker 1: So it is all. It is all, Uh, you know.
Speaker 11: I I like to maybe think that maybe this will
Speaker 11: all be maybe after the Oscars all reveal that I'm
Speaker 11: a white.
Speaker 1: Guy, I never will know. You guys don't know I've
Speaker 1: been here.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'll tell you what.
Speaker 11: Maybe I've been in blackface this whole time, and it's
Speaker 11: just a big trip.
Speaker 5: That would supersed the ending of seven four me. So
Speaker 5: I would appreciate if you did that.
Speaker 1: I'm just Toby maguire. I'm Toby McGuire.
Speaker 4: You were telling me McGuire this all the time.
Speaker 1: Court Jefferson is not real.
Speaker 5: American fiction is now playing in theaters everywhere.
Speaker 4: Corn Jefferson. We'll thank Quick Grank. We'll be right back
Speaker 4: after this. That's our show for tonight.
Speaker 5: But before you go, please consider donating to every Town
Speaker 5: for Gun Safety. They work with local, federal, and state
Speaker 5: governments to end gun violence and build safer communities. If
Speaker 5: you want to support them in this work, please donate
Speaker 5: at the link below.
Speaker 2: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 2: searching The Daily Show wherever you.
Speaker 4: Get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven tenh Central on
Speaker 2: Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 6: This has been a Comedy Central podcastow