Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, New Jersey in the build.
Speaker 1: Who I think you look so good behind that desk? Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, brother, I have fro shake here. Let me
Speaker 1: say not in New Jersey, But can I just say
Speaker 1: the end of the Daily Show speed dating. Let's just
Speaker 1: settle and and go permanent right now? You hang on? Now,
Speaker 1: we got to see what else the Daily Show bring
Speaker 1: to the table in the relationship. But you just can't
Speaker 1: commit right away. Let's talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: elephant in the room that just landed in New York City.
Speaker 1: Now in Washington, what is your feeling right now with
Speaker 1: everything with the Trump in Diamond? How much do you
Speaker 1: think this indictment is going to paralyze bipartisanship on actually
Speaker 1: getting laws pass in the next year because he Trump
Speaker 1: has a way of sucking the wind out of conversations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and look in the Senate, I don't think it's going
Speaker 1: to have much effect at all. You've heard miss McConnell's
Speaker 1: stay eerily silent. But I think this is a moment
Speaker 1: in American history that is pretty significant. Look, I believe
Speaker 1: deeply in democratic principles. I believe in the idea of
Speaker 1: the rule of the law, but we've had a nation
Speaker 1: that hasn't lived up to those principles all the time.
Speaker 1: As Brian Stevenson says, who's this def penalty defender? He says,
Speaker 1: we have a criminal justice system that treats you better
Speaker 1: if you're rich and guilty then if you're poor and innocent.
Speaker 1: And so for me, this is one of those tough moments.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has flaunted the rule of law for a
Speaker 1: significant amount of his career and did it in a
Speaker 1: bullying way, whether it was Lock her Up or even
Speaker 1: the exonerated five, the Central Park five, even after they
Speaker 1: were exerated, failing to acknowledge that it was a travesty
Speaker 1: of justice. So I think that the Senate is going
Speaker 1: to be fine. They're going to be people trying to
Speaker 1: find compromise get things done. But I do think this
Speaker 1: is one of those moments where there's a thirty four
Speaker 1: count indictment that we have to wait and see what's
Speaker 1: in it. I think that there's a lot of rushing,
Speaker 1: uh to assume partisan positions in this. As a guy
Speaker 1: who believes in democracy, believes in the rule of law,
Speaker 1: believes to due process. Let's let's see what happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then to that point of everybody rushing to choose aside,
Speaker 1: if that's what Republicans are saying publicly, they've even seen
Speaker 1: the thirty four countdar, what are they saying behind closed doors?
Speaker 1: You'll be is is there a cafeteria? What are they
Speaker 1: saying in the cafeteria? Like, man, you see that bullshit? Um, look,
Speaker 1: you forget this. But Trump has been on trial twice
Speaker 1: in the Senate, and he has had Republicans and Democrats
Speaker 1: both parties. People were both parties voted to convict him.
Speaker 1: We didn't have enough to meet the threshold for conviction.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of folks on both sides
Speaker 1: of the aisle that think that this is a guy
Speaker 1: who has caused so much damage to our political system.
Speaker 1: He's really shaking the foundations of our democracy. Ideas about
Speaker 1: our democracy we've we've taken for granted over the years.
Speaker 1: He has really threatened. Who would have thought that you'd
Speaker 1: be sitting there at your workplace and you'd be overrun
Speaker 1: by people storming the Capitol, uh, raiving the Confederate flag,
Speaker 1: having T shirts, Uh, celebrating the Holocaust. Yeah. Not to
Speaker 1: mention Viking Hadson more so, this is this is this
Speaker 1: is a guy who has truly strained the very democracy
Speaker 1: of our of our nation, and we hope to hold
Speaker 1: him accountable for that. Um, he's under investigation in multiple jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: This is a long thing to play out. I'm just
Speaker 1: one of these folks that came to Washington, UH to
Speaker 1: uh focus on criminal justice reform because we have this
Speaker 1: nation where we still have people. You know, look, one
Speaker 1: out of every three incarcerated women on the planet earth
Speaker 1: about are in the United States of America. We incarceerate
Speaker 1: people at levels here that are outragers. So he, to me,
Speaker 1: is not my central focus. Are not going to let
Speaker 1: him tear me away from the important work we need
Speaker 1: to do in Washington right now? Okay, love that, so
Speaker 1: but some of that important word. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about police reform. Now, your friend, our friend, Senator
Speaker 1: Tim Scott. You know, all black people know each other.
Speaker 1: I know him, I don't know him, but they don't
Speaker 1: know what I don't know. He had a police reform
Speaker 1: bill that he was trying to get past, and it
Speaker 1: had a lot of the right things in it about
Speaker 1: more body cameras, less chokeholes, more regulations. The Democrats filibusted
Speaker 1: the bill in a time where you need some level
Speaker 1: of meeting in the middle, and it feels like that
Speaker 1: police reform bill that Tim Scott was trying to put
Speaker 1: together was an attempt at meeting in the middle. Can
Speaker 1: we really show the American people in this election cycle
Speaker 1: that nothing is better than something? Yeah. So, look, my
Speaker 1: experience in Washington has been getting big bills done, some
Speaker 1: of them with Tim Scott, whether it's criminal justice reform.
Speaker 1: We passed the first step back under Trump. We did
Speaker 1: another bill that has created billions of dollars of investment
Speaker 1: in low income areas. Tim and I wrote it together,
Speaker 1: called Opportunity zones. Heck, even things that people don't think about,
Speaker 1: like why is sickle cell anemia a disease that disproportionately
Speaker 1: affects African Americans underfunded relative to other disorder? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: other disorders that affect less people. So Tim and I
Speaker 1: have a good track record, we have not found the
Speaker 1: common ground necessary to get a bill introduced. We're still
Speaker 1: working on it. We still are having dialogue literally as
Speaker 1: soon as most recent as last week, to try to
Speaker 1: find a way because we both agree and Tim has
Speaker 1: told compelling stories on the Senate floor about what it's
Speaker 1: like growing up as a black man in America and
Speaker 1: having that disproportionate treatment. There's some foundation to work together.
Speaker 1: He and I. We're on different sides of the aisle,
Speaker 1: but we have a friendship and I'm hoping we can
Speaker 1: get something done. Last thing, you're a big advocate about nutrition, health,
Speaker 1: and you'd be eaten right say they said you was
Speaker 1: in Hohle Foods. She was in a produce department for
Speaker 1: forty minutes. I don't know how much detail you're looking
Speaker 1: at each orange before you put it in the cart.
Speaker 1: But when we talk about food and health and the
Speaker 1: way that we have food deserts in minority communities, talk
Speaker 1: to me a little bit about the farm bill, and
Speaker 1: also why the McDonald shaped machine is always broken, whichever
Speaker 1: one you have time for us. One of the biggest
Speaker 1: crisis we don't talk about is why is there such
Speaker 1: a demand for healthcare in this country. We have a
Speaker 1: nation that one out of every three government dollars about
Speaker 1: is being spent on healthcare, and the majority of that
Speaker 1: seventy eighty percent is for preventable diseases. The majority that
Speaker 1: is diet related diseases, and in our farm bill, which
Speaker 1: should have some relation to what we should be eating,
Speaker 1: only about seven to ten percent of our subsidies go
Speaker 1: to the things that nutritionist tell us eat the most of.
Speaker 1: So kids can walk up into a bodega or to
Speaker 1: a corner grocery store and find a twinkie product cheaper
Speaker 1: than an apple, not because it's the true cost, but
Speaker 1: because we subsidize everything in the twinkie or the happy
Speaker 1: meal and not enough stuff fruits and vegetables. So you
Speaker 1: walk to another store, you find a bucket of salad
Speaker 1: cost fifteen bucks, but you can go down the street
Speaker 1: and get a dollar meal. So we've got to stop
Speaker 1: subsidizing so much of the empty nutrition, hyper processed, sugar
Speaker 1: filled food to get so much of our subsidies, and
Speaker 1: not enough of this farm bill to reflect what Americans
Speaker 1: should be eating by expanding access to fresh, healthy foods
Speaker 1: that families want. Well, Senator, I wish you luck and
Speaker 1: trying to get a bill pass this year while that
Speaker 1: asshole takes up all the media cycle. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the show. I'm grateful for you
Speaker 1: more than you know. It's as good to see you.
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