Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Both of the.
Speaker 3: Most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only Sorts.
Speaker 2: For new It's the Daily Trump with your host Jordan Plopper.
Speaker 4: Gordoper.
Speaker 1: We got so much to talk about tonight, Cutter is
Speaker 1: bribing the friendly skies. Hassan Piker suggests that Democrats try
Speaker 1: to win and President Trump is out of the country,
Speaker 1: so someone locked the fuck doors. Let's get into all
Speaker 1: of it with.
Speaker 4: Our new segment.
Speaker 1: Trump meets worlds.
Speaker 5: International humiliation one after another.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been in a American president is hard.
Speaker 1: People criticize your policies, They nitpick your moral deficiencies. Every
Speaker 1: time you even suggest removing habeas corpus, people start whining, no,
Speaker 1: we need that boo. You know, sometimes you just want
Speaker 1: to go somewhere where people don't pick apart your flaws
Speaker 1: and they treat you like a king.
Speaker 6: Overnight, President Trump touching down in Saudi Arabia, escorted by
Speaker 6: military jets a lavish welcome for his first visit to
Speaker 6: the Middle East since his re election.
Speaker 7: The Saudi Prince greeted him at the airport and he
Speaker 7: got a horse escort into the Saudi palace.
Speaker 1: A horse escorts. I gotta say when you hear that
Speaker 1: Trump got a horse escorts, this is the best version
Speaker 1: of that story. But but Saudi Arabia, oh man, they
Speaker 1: were all out. It wasn't just the horse escorts. They
Speaker 1: greeted Trump with a full breast band that was really
Speaker 1: trying their.
Speaker 4: Mass, you know. And then then.
Speaker 1: It was time for Trump to walk down the famous
Speaker 1: purple carpet, and so he walked and he walked, kept walking.
Speaker 1: You know, it feels like you're could have stayed in
Speaker 1: the car for something. Oh now we're taking an escalator. Great,
Speaker 1: we're done, but no, we're still walking. Yep, that's fine.
Speaker 1: It's a cool one hundred and eight degrees. This guy
Speaker 1: can handle it, you know, you know, you know, Trump's
Speaker 1: looking at the carpet, going, you know, these things fly here, right,
Speaker 1: don't they show me a whole new world or some
Speaker 1: shit like that. Look, a horse guard and purple carpets.
Speaker 1: That might impress the average world leader, but Donald Trum
Speaker 1: is no average world leader, and Saudi Arabia knows how
Speaker 1: to cater to a man with such refined tastes.
Speaker 8: Saudi Arabia had a McDonald's mobile truck come on site
Speaker 8: so that President Trump could have his favorite McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Perfect perfect. Oh, I gotta it is nice to see
Speaker 1: they got another use out of the horses once they
Speaker 1: were done without al Scrob's good to know.
Speaker 4: It's good.
Speaker 1: It's good, it's good. You gotta hand it to the
Speaker 1: Saudis now they know the fastest way to Trump's heart
Speaker 1: is through his stomach, out the colon, with a little
Speaker 1: bit staying behind in his arteries.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: But not everything in the Royal Kingdom was to Trump's liking. Now,
Speaker 1: after they arrived, the Saudi served some coffee. But while
Speaker 1: everyone else drank, there's Donald Trump just held his in
Speaker 1: his hand the whole time. Look at that. Look at
Speaker 1: that right, It looks like he was waiting to give
Speaker 1: a urine sample to the nurse. Yeah, I gotta tell
Speaker 1: I get this, honestly, I get it. Unfamiliar coffee on
Speaker 1: a trip is risky. One sip is all it takes
Speaker 1: to go from travelers constipation to travelers. You guys go
Speaker 1: without me. I'm gonna hang out in the room for
Speaker 1: a while. Smart movement. It's a smart move mister president.
Speaker 1: You don't want to throw a wrench into that perfect
Speaker 1: gut biome you've created. Now that means said, that means said,
Speaker 1: Trump may be regretted not taking that caffeine shot. A
Speaker 1: few minutes later.
Speaker 9: Mohammad Bn Salmon is saying, we need a resolution on
Speaker 9: a Palestinian state. And I don't necessarily recall several years ago,
Speaker 9: pre October seventh, as that being a demand that he
Speaker 9: had necessarily stated publicly. Do you think his position has
Speaker 9: changed or do you think the way he has expressed
Speaker 9: himself has that changed?
Speaker 1: Mister president? Come on, you can't fall asleep there. This
Speaker 1: isn't an intelligence briefing. Come on, man, Look look it's
Speaker 1: not actually a big deal for the president to have
Speaker 1: jet lag. I'm not so much of an asshole that
Speaker 1: I make fun of someone for nodding off a bit
Speaker 1: on a trip. But you know who is that much
Speaker 1: of an asshole?
Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
Speaker 10: The guy can fall asleep instantly with the press watcher.
Speaker 1: Who the hell wants to sleep with these paper watcher.
Speaker 4: And he's out cold.
Speaker 1: You see the dribble coming down the side.
Speaker 4: Of the seat.
Speaker 1: Well, well, well look who's sleeping now?
Speaker 4: Well, well I tell you what. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden you must be loving. Oh and he's passed out.
Speaker 1: Never mind, never mind. Of course, it's in the Saudi's
Speaker 1: interests to give Trump the royal treatment. But I'm I'm
Speaker 1: sure the President of the United States understands that the
Speaker 1: Saudi Crown Prince is not without baggage just a few
Speaker 1: years ago that he murdered an American journalist. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure the President will keep a healthy distance from the
Speaker 1: crown Prince.
Speaker 2: I like him a lot.
Speaker 4: I like them too much.
Speaker 1: That's why we give so much.
Speaker 4: You know, too much.
Speaker 1: I like you too much. I agree you might like
Speaker 1: him too much. Regardless, you know what it was. It
Speaker 1: was a very nice start to this trip abroad where
Speaker 1: he'll visit not just Saudi Arabia, but then Cutter and
Speaker 1: then the UAE. But you might be wondering why did
Speaker 1: Trump pick these countries for his first foreign trip. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a strong geopolitical balance with you corruption.
Speaker 6: His sons, who now run the Trump Organization, have lucrative
Speaker 6: real estate deals in the works in all three countries
Speaker 6: the resident is visiting.
Speaker 1: Ye, the Trump boys have projects in all three countries.
Speaker 1: I never thought I'd say this, But but can't these
Speaker 1: countries go back to doing something more constructive, like funding terrorism.
Speaker 1: But Donald Trump doesn't see any of these business conflicts
Speaker 1: as a problem. In fact, if anything, he's taking conflicts
Speaker 1: to a to a new height, as in heights like
Speaker 1: like like the sky.
Speaker 8: We turned to the uproar over the four hundred million
Speaker 8: dollar gift from the government of cutter tonight a luxury
Speaker 8: seven hundred and forty seven jumble Jet to be used
Speaker 8: as Air Force one until the end of Trump's term,
Speaker 8: when the White House says it would be decommissioned and
Speaker 8: donated to the Trump Library.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think we could stop pretending
Speaker 1: that this airplane is going to be transferred to his
Speaker 1: presidential library. This is like the news reporting your aunt
Speaker 1: is bringing her good friend Linda to Thanksgiving. They're let
Speaker 1: cooter people. That's why what's happening? Okay? Look now, apart
Speaker 1: from being a security concern and a potential bribe, it
Speaker 1: seems clearly unconstitutional to give the presidents a gift like this.
Speaker 1: You know, what, what do I know? Attorney General Pam Bondy,
Speaker 1: What say you?
Speaker 6: Attorney General Pam Bondi, who says the gift is quote
Speaker 6: legally permissible and not a bribe because Trump isn't giving
Speaker 6: Cutter anything in return.
Speaker 1: There you have it, right, MP hasn't given them anything,
Speaker 1: and it's been like thirty six hours. You know, I
Speaker 1: trust her. She's the attorney general. You know, just just
Speaker 1: a quick fact check. What did she do before she
Speaker 1: was the attorney general?
Speaker 3: We should point out that Bondi previously worked as a
Speaker 3: foreign lobbyist for the nation of Cutter, earning about one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifteen thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 1: All right, right, you know it looks bad, but if
Speaker 1: you have to understand that's that's a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and money feels good to have and to spend. So
Speaker 1: now I get it for more than Trump's visit to
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. We go live to our very own Michael Costa. Michael,
Speaker 1: you're embedded with the Trump team.
Speaker 4: How's it going, Jordan?
Speaker 2: It's going great. You know.
Speaker 11: The Saudi's are treating us like Kings, five star hotels,
Speaker 11: fine dining. I just used the bidet and I wish
Speaker 11: it was a a month. I don't know why the
Speaker 11: Saudis get such.
Speaker 4: A bad rap.
Speaker 1: I mean, because they're an oppressive dictatorship that mistreats women,
Speaker 1: and they did that eleven Yeah.
Speaker 11: You know, I was going to ask them some tough
Speaker 11: questions about that, and then then the free massage started
Speaker 11: and Jordan whoa omar used to do interrogations, so he
Speaker 11: knows how to get deep into that tissue.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 11: I usually don't like when men touch my body, but
Speaker 11: I know that he's not gay, since over here that's
Speaker 11: a crime, right, And that also made me feel a
Speaker 11: lot better about that happy ending.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Michael. You know a lot of people
Speaker 1: think that the Gulf States are just bribing Trump to
Speaker 1: get what they want. It kind of seems like these
Speaker 1: bribes might be working.
Speaker 2: Whoa Jordan bribe?
Speaker 11: Easy on the b word, bitch, Okay, these countries are
Speaker 11: just being good friends, and friends sometimes give other friends
Speaker 11: billions of dollars in crypto and airplanes. I mean, I
Speaker 11: got you that breadmaker for your wedding, didn't I No.
Speaker 1: No, you didn't give me anything. You just got shitfaced
Speaker 1: and tackled my grandmother during the electric slide.
Speaker 11: Well, and my defense, I thought her oxygen tank was
Speaker 11: a bomb. But point is, maybe the bribes are a
Speaker 11: good thing. If you want Trump to fix the Middle East,
Speaker 11: he needs some skin in the game. You think he's
Speaker 11: gonna do this pro bono. He doesn't give up what
Speaker 11: the guys from you two things.
Speaker 1: Okay, Michael, No, this is the pathway to eruption. If
Speaker 1: Trump takes bribes, he's gonna favor that country and decisions
Speaker 1: regarding American policy.
Speaker 11: Trump's gonna take bribes no matter what. The smart thing
Speaker 11: to do is make sure he takes bribes from every country.
Speaker 11: Then whole work for every country and we'll all live
Speaker 11: in harmony. That's why I say, if you want world peace,
Speaker 11: you gotta give Trump a peace. You see what I
Speaker 11: did there, I spelled it differently. It's clever.
Speaker 1: It's a place I say it.
Speaker 4: I say it.
Speaker 1: I say it like. Look, okay, I gotta tell you, Michael,
Speaker 1: very clever. But this whole thing just it just doesn't
Speaker 1: feel good.
Speaker 11: Well, then you need to talk to Omar because he
Speaker 11: can make you feel real good. Now, if you excuse me,
Speaker 11: I'm gonna use the bidet again. This thing's like a
Speaker 11: fire hose. I'm practically cleaning my teeth with it.
Speaker 4: Oh, Mar, grab me some talent.
Speaker 1: But that's okay, that's going Michael Costa.
Speaker 4: Everyone I talk about the file Piper Oko, Well, well
Speaker 4: maut models though.
Speaker 1: You know, it's common knowledge that the podcast world is
Speaker 1: full of maga right wingers, But the left has some
Speaker 1: big players too. I spoke to one of their biggest.
Speaker 1: After ten years of covering the Trump campaign, I thought
Speaker 1: nothing could shock me anymore. But somehow, in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: young voters, and most especially young men, went hard for
Speaker 1: a seventy eight year old who uses pancake makeup.
Speaker 6: The bro vote, especially on college campuses, broke heavily for Trump.
Speaker 1: Yes, Trump reached voters by engaging with right wing influencers
Speaker 1: in what's called the manosphere. It's the collection of online
Speaker 1: content and social media promoting bro culture, and it's a
Speaker 1: space that the left seems to ignore. But someone saw this.
Speaker 1: It's a mistake. Were you surprised that so many young
Speaker 1: people showed up and voted for Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: No, no, not even a little bit.
Speaker 1: This is a sign piker. He's a progressive who has
Speaker 1: intellectual sit downs with Bernie and AOC and still manages
Speaker 1: to post thirst trap workout videos to his two point
Speaker 1: eight million followers on the platform Twitch. This combo has
Speaker 1: liberal media asking if he is the magical connection to
Speaker 1: young male voters. This is where you twitch from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is a twitch?
Speaker 7: It's basically like YouTube, but you're live streaming.
Speaker 1: It's a podcast for people who are like I wish
Speaker 1: this podcast were longer.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yet, his lefty bona fides might have made him a
Speaker 1: target for Donald Trump's Homeland Security, which recently detained Piker
Speaker 1: at the airport. How do you see the left communicating
Speaker 1: with young men in this time of the manosphere?
Speaker 7: The left could, I don't know, talk to dudes that
Speaker 7: woul villifying them. There's a lot of anger, resentment, not
Speaker 7: having any hope for a future, never being able to retire,
Speaker 7: never being able to own a home. All of those
Speaker 7: things are are very much of the core identity for
Speaker 7: the next generation.
Speaker 1: But is there a room for the Democrats to create
Speaker 1: a left wing manosphere to talk about the social safety
Speaker 1: net and protein powder?
Speaker 7: Absolutely, I think that there is a space for it,
Speaker 7: But I don't think the Left fills that void at
Speaker 7: all at this moment. I try to do so, but
Speaker 7: even I sometimes get hit with it.
Speaker 2: This is body fascism.
Speaker 1: Now I have to worry about a new fascism. I'm
Speaker 1: getting used to the old fascism And what is even
Speaker 1: the term body fascism mean.
Speaker 7: I don't fully understand it. I think it's like a
Speaker 7: lot of leftists hate other leftists. Any sort of consideration
Speaker 7: about the esthetics of how you look is actually another
Speaker 7: way to I guess, reinforce an unjustifiable hierarchy.
Speaker 1: To be fair, that's why I don't work out. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I have antibody fascism. So people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: are you lazy. I'm like, no, I'm a socialist with
Speaker 1: my body.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No respect. Yeah. And it's not young men just being
Speaker 1: drawn to the right. Some technology is giving them a push.
Speaker 1: A recent study created generic TikTok account for imaginary sixteen
Speaker 1: to eighteen year old boys to see how the algorithm acted,
Speaker 1: and within twenty three minutes, they were fed masculine, anti feminist,
Speaker 1: extremist content by for a man is harder than my
Speaker 1: for a woman.
Speaker 11: The hotter a woman is, the more insecure she is
Speaker 11: about her looks.
Speaker 1: Your body, my choice. So I was excited to dip
Speaker 1: my toe into this cesspool. So I set up this
Speaker 1: account as a sixteen year old, pretending.
Speaker 7: That's what the pedophile hunters do as well.
Speaker 1: I'm not in that world, So walk me through some
Speaker 1: of the stuff we see here. So this is this
Speaker 1: is what my algorithm is essentially feeling. Is first up,
Speaker 1: some content from Charlie Kirk. Kirk is a right wing
Speaker 1: influencer known for trolling liberals on college campuses. You said
Speaker 1: male buristas aren't masculine.
Speaker 7: Think you and I can both agree that male buristas
Speaker 7: are not exactually high, usually high on the testosterone.
Speaker 2: They are just a pause ver a second.
Speaker 1: He's a podcaster. He's a podcaster.
Speaker 7: We are doing something very very not like alpha dog.
Speaker 7: They mistake being confident for what it means to be masculine. Okay,
Speaker 7: moving Ononta Davis, He's six.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm seeing your algorithm.
Speaker 7: May I gently bury my face in those milkers?
Speaker 1: This dog? See, there's just so much going on here?
Speaker 1: Is this dog want to fuck a woman? Is that
Speaker 1: what's happening here?
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on?
Speaker 1: I don't know who are this is? TikTok makes me
Speaker 1: very existential. I'm gonna like it. I'm gonna flash that hard.
Speaker 1: What are these trucks?
Speaker 2: What is going on?
Speaker 1: I like this one though. This is interesting me cheap.
Speaker 1: The only thing I do behind your back is look
Speaker 1: at your ass. See This is actually kind of sweet,
Speaker 1: but it's like, why is it always trucks you get?
Speaker 1: You get dogs that objectify women and also trucks that
Speaker 1: objectify women. Yeah, are you a sea lion? Because I
Speaker 1: would like to see you lying in my bed sweety these.
Speaker 2: No, no, this is I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: This is for how old are you? I'm forty six.
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is literally the TikTok algorithm. I think at
Speaker 7: some point identified you as a forty six year old man.
Speaker 1: But you can tell that because it's a dog that wants.
Speaker 7: To This is one hunt like even the first dog one.
Speaker 1: It knows why it found me that.
Speaker 7: Now you understand how people find themselves captivated by right
Speaker 7: wing politics.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was like, Oh, a lot of people are
Speaker 7: like emotionally and mentally stunted adults, yes, running around and
Speaker 7: that's why they think Andrew Tain's awesome. I think we
Speaker 7: were arriving at how that happened.
Speaker 1: In the end, young people just want influencers who connect
Speaker 1: with them, politicians who address their concerns, and social media
Speaker 1: that doesn't break their brains. Oh, keep scrolling through to
Speaker 1: see if there's any more dogs. I want to Yeah,
Speaker 1: pet dogs. They want to pet Yeah, thank you, John Piker.
Speaker 4: And for more about the rise of young trunk.
Speaker 1: Bands, take up a new special Bog and the Next Generation.
Speaker 1: Every next Monday, May nineteenth, right after the Daily Show,
Speaker 1: right here on Comedy Central, when we come back, Matt
Speaker 1: woolf Well joining me on the show. Don't go away, Welcome.
Speaker 4: Back to the Daily Show.
Speaker 1: My guest tonight is an award winning filmmaker whose new
Speaker 1: HBO documentary is called Pee Wee as himself. Please welcome
Speaker 1: Matt Wolf. I saw this, I saw the doc. Two
Speaker 1: part doc. People are clamoring for it. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of love for Pee Wee Herman and Paul Rubens, and
Speaker 1: I think what we just saw in that clip, I
Speaker 1: want to I want to go right at that. It
Speaker 1: tells the story of Paul Rubens and Pee Wee Herman
Speaker 1: and who is Paul Rubens within the story of Pee
Speaker 1: Wee Herman and outside of it as well. But what
Speaker 1: you lead in you're a part of this, you're off camera,
Speaker 1: and in that moment right there, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: tension between you and Paul. Walk me through is what
Speaker 1: is happening right there? What was the inherent tension that
Speaker 1: we're seeing there. And the tension you had in making
Speaker 1: this documentary.
Speaker 5: Well, from the moment I met Paul Rubens, he said
Speaker 5: to me, I want to direct my own documentary, but
Speaker 5: everybody's telling me I shouldn't do it, and I don't
Speaker 5: understand why. And I said, well, I'm here to meet
Speaker 5: with you about me directing the documentary. That dynamic didn't
Speaker 5: go away. Yeah, we were a little competitive in the
Speaker 5: process because Paul was somebody who totally separated himself from
Speaker 5: his alter ego Peewee Herman, and I was sort of
Speaker 5: asking him to bring those two things together.
Speaker 2: So he was a little rebellious in the interview.
Speaker 1: Well you're coming into something like that, What is the
Speaker 1: story you wanted to tell? He says, you have an
Speaker 1: agenda in that clip.
Speaker 2: What's interesting?
Speaker 1: What's your agenda?
Speaker 2: My whole pitch to him is I want to make
Speaker 2: a portrait of an artist.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 5: He wanted to really set the record straight and overcome
Speaker 5: some of the controversies from his rest and I said, well,
Speaker 5: you know, that's the easy part. The harder part is
Speaker 5: to really look inward. Who are you really as a
Speaker 5: person who the world doesn't know even though your character
Speaker 5: is so iconic.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's interesting because it feels like the
Speaker 1: documentary looks at the arrests and sort of what happened
Speaker 1: post pee Wee or the initial run of Pee Wee.
Speaker 1: But he's reticent in telling that story, even to the
Speaker 1: point where he avoided you at the end of filming. Right,
Speaker 1: do you feel like you were able like what did
Speaker 1: he want to wanted to say and what was he
Speaker 1: able to actually reveal?
Speaker 5: You know, I think Paul felt comfortable talking about his
Speaker 5: artistry and less comfortable talking about the controversies that surrounded it.
Speaker 5: But he was determined to overcome those controversies. So I
Speaker 5: was there to help him do it. But he really
Speaker 5: wanted creative control. Yeah, it was a little like you know,
Speaker 5: his Achilles heel, and so we were at odds and
Speaker 5: some time went by where we weren't working together. And
Speaker 5: it was only at the end before Paul died that
Speaker 5: I was able to talk to him and he wanted
Speaker 5: to move forward.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going on behind it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what's crazy. You didn't you make it very
Speaker 1: clear to the fact, but you didn't know he was dying.
Speaker 1: Paul Rubins was battling cancer at the end for years,
Speaker 1: but you were unaware of this while you were working
Speaker 1: with him, no idea at all. Yeah, but he can't
Speaker 1: and then he basically blocks you off for a little while.
Speaker 5: There was a time where we weren't working together. We
Speaker 5: were trying to find a path forward and we couldn't.
Speaker 5: But fortunately I was able to talk to him towards
Speaker 5: the end and could tell something was up, but I
Speaker 5: had no idea of the gravity of it. I was
Speaker 5: supposed to do a final interview with him the week.
Speaker 2: After he died.
Speaker 1: Really, Oh, I mean, it's heartbreak, and it's you talk
Speaker 1: about his stubbornness and his creative control. You also show
Speaker 1: a big part of this is celebrating pee Wee Herman
Speaker 1: and the character he created, which that creative control allowed
Speaker 1: him to to create something that really is unlike what
Speaker 1: people see today. It's I'm a father to a four
Speaker 1: and a half year old, so I watch a lot
Speaker 1: of kids entertainment. It's sort of an added to watching
Speaker 1: CNN all the time. Is like you throw out a
Speaker 1: blue and life is good, and it's Curious Blue with outstanding.
Speaker 1: That's a wonderful show for most part. For most part,
Speaker 1: they sand off certain edges to it, and you revisit
Speaker 1: what Paul Rubins was doing with Peewe's Playhouse, and it
Speaker 1: really it pushes boundaries. It's empathetic, It speaks to kids
Speaker 1: and adults at the same time, it's a show about
Speaker 1: inclusivity without making that direct focus like it still feels
Speaker 1: cutting edge revisiting in your documentary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it changed who I am as a kid.
Speaker 1: You were a fan growing up.
Speaker 5: I grew up on Pee Wee's Playhouse. I wouldn't have
Speaker 5: been able to put words to it, but I think
Speaker 5: it's message of radical acceptance and creativity.
Speaker 2: It changed who I am. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it was thrilling to be able to work
Speaker 5: with Paul and to kind of be in his mind.
Speaker 1: What's happening off camera as you have some of those
Speaker 1: tense moments. You said forty hours of interviews with Paul
Speaker 1: Rubins three hours. There's moments, there's moments that you show
Speaker 1: where I see him pushing back on you and what
Speaker 1: I'm watching with him. From a performers perspective, I'm curious
Speaker 1: as to whether he's being he's frustrated with you the director,
Speaker 1: or I'm curious if he's playing a character who finds
Speaker 1: humor in being the foil to the overbearing director. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like you were talking to a character Paul
Speaker 1: Rubins playing a comedic persona even in his conversations with.
Speaker 5: You Somewhere in between? I think there was a barbed
Speaker 5: element to our conversations, but it was also fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it wasn't really about me.
Speaker 5: I mean, Paul was wrestling with himself to tell his
Speaker 5: authentic story, and I was just there bearing witness to
Speaker 5: the whole thing, and we had an incredible time. It
Speaker 5: was really fun doing forty hours of interview. But it
Speaker 5: could be tense, it could be competitive, and he could
Speaker 5: be slippery and rebellious, but when he snapped into storytelling mode,
Speaker 5: he was one of the most rivetting people I've ever
Speaker 5: spoken to.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he passes, and you're already having this dynamic
Speaker 1: where there's a battle for control over who gets to
Speaker 1: tell that story. He passes, you have a new responsibility.
Speaker 1: How does that change how you're putting together documentary?
Speaker 5: I mean it was the largest responsibility I've ever been
Speaker 5: given him.
Speaker 1: Did you creatively change the what you were imagining?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, you owe his creative vision more after that, Like,
Speaker 1: did you feel more constrained by that responsibility?
Speaker 5: No, But I knew that what happened between us and
Speaker 5: the circumstances in which the film was being finished was
Speaker 5: part of the story, so I had to pivot in
Speaker 5: that regard, and also to recognize there were things going
Speaker 5: on that I didn't know about while we were making
Speaker 5: the film. But at the end of the day, I
Speaker 5: wanted to make a portrait of this singular artist and
Speaker 5: that didn't change.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What would he have cut from this film?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I can't speculate what Paul would have done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think you would do? You think you
Speaker 1: would have enjoyed seeing it and seen the response he gets.
Speaker 5: He can't speak for himself, so I think he would
Speaker 5: be happy that people are excited to learn his story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what what was what? What did you
Speaker 1: learn spending all this time with him that that was
Speaker 1: outside of what you expected coming into it?
Speaker 5: You know, I learned what it's like to be the
Speaker 5: subject of a documentary and how scary we are when
Speaker 5: we come and film you. Yeah, you know, I got
Speaker 5: some new perspective about how it feels to be on
Speaker 5: the other side of the camera. Because Paul was so
Speaker 5: forthcoming about it, and I had a lot of empathy
Speaker 5: for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean somebody who is also so much
Speaker 1: of the trauma in his life, and what you discuss
Speaker 1: is a media looking at his life trying to put
Speaker 1: a story to his life. Do you feel do you
Speaker 1: feel that was embedded in the armor that you had
Speaker 1: to sort of get through.
Speaker 5: I mean, Paul had issues of control because he was
Speaker 5: a brilliant artist, and all artists are controlling, but he
Speaker 5: lost control of his narrative in the media. Of course,
Speaker 5: he was going to be skeptical or cautious around a
Speaker 5: younger filmmaker like myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well it's a remarkable film or multiple
Speaker 1: piece documentary. Thank you for putting it on. The two
Speaker 1: part documentary Pee Wee as Himself premiers May twenty third
Speaker 1: on HBO and Max Matt Wolk. We're gonna take.
Speaker 4: Quick, right, that's all over? The night got here.
Speaker 1: Then I said hi to the President.
Speaker 10: President introduced me to the Crown Prince and the President
Speaker 10: and a lot of good humors, said Crown print.
Speaker 4: Now he doesn't quite make.
Speaker 10: The money that you do, but and he went on
Speaker 10: to tell a funny story and you know, in very
Speaker 10: trumpy and fashion, and it was pretty pretty special and
Speaker 10: pretty funny.
Speaker 3: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 3: searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
Speaker 3: The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on
Speaker 3: Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount plus
Speaker 1: Paramount Podcasts