Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Center is America's
Speaker 2: only sorts for news.
Speaker 1: This is the Daily Show with your host show Store.
Speaker 3: On that show right at the top.
Speaker 4: Store.
Speaker 5: We gotta party the show for it tonight. First of all,
Speaker 5: let's go Mets. Second of all, Tana Hosey Kilts is
Speaker 5: gonna be joining us later to talk. But New York
Speaker 5: finally getting back to normal traffic wise, the UN General
Speaker 5: Assembly is over. And by the way, what a successful
Speaker 5: General Assembly it was. The world just exploding with peace
Speaker 5: right now, just great session, guys. Now that the Assembly's gone,
Speaker 5: New York is getting ready for its next big event,
Speaker 5: the vice presidential debate tomorrow night. Honestly, I'm not even
Speaker 5: gonna watch it, and I'm gonna tell you why. I
Speaker 5: already know who I'm voting for vice president wise, but
Speaker 5: I'm gonna be honest. President still undecided. So here's the thing.
Speaker 5: As an undecided it's basically me and six people who
Speaker 5: are kicked in the head by very powerful horses. I've
Speaker 5: been leaning towards Kamala Harris because of her impress resume
Speaker 5: and her ability to switch from Indian to Black, and
Speaker 5: if we were doing this show fifteen years ago, I
Speaker 5: would probably be doing the voices a long time ago.
Speaker 5: But on the other hand, about Kamala Harris, I've been
Speaker 5: hearing some very concerning things about her.
Speaker 6: She's come under some criticism for being relatively vague in
Speaker 6: her policy proposals.
Speaker 5: They don't have enough specifics on the solutions. When she
Speaker 5: tried to explain what she would do, it made no sense.
Speaker 5: This jebbish. The public demands a detailed plan of action,
Speaker 5: and they're not getting it from her.
Speaker 4: We demand that.
Speaker 5: If there is one thing that the American public demands,
Speaker 5: it is a detailed plan of Ooh, the Golden Bachelorette.
Speaker 5: I hope they selected candidates who lived nearby her, because
Speaker 5: old people are not known to want to change their lives. Anyway,
Speaker 5: back to the point. The point is Harris speaks gibberish
Speaker 5: because she's part Indian, part Black, and part gibber If
Speaker 5: Kamala Harris dissolves into gibberish every time she's asked for
Speaker 5: specific policies, then I dare say she will not earn
Speaker 5: my completely irrelevant New Jersey vote.
Speaker 7: I will get rid of unnecessary decree requirements for federal jobs,
Speaker 7: low and low interest loans to small businesses. Expand the
Speaker 7: tax deduction for startups to fifty thousand dollars. Six thousand
Speaker 7: dollars in tax relief of families during the first year
Speaker 7: of a child's life, capital gains will be twenty eight percent.
Speaker 5: Excuse me, but as Americans, we demanded a detailed plan
Speaker 5: of action, not random numbers. You have left the door
Speaker 5: wide open, lady, because clearly Donald aloisious Trump would not
Speaker 5: he would not trifle with America in that manner. What
Speaker 5: are the specific mechanics of how prices come down? You
Speaker 5: know the steps that would be taken in a second
Speaker 5: term for you. Good question, mister Trump. What is your
Speaker 5: detailed plan of action for bringing down prices? And I
Speaker 5: believe I'll mark your responses on this handy dandy child.
Speaker 5: I already have my I'll have my pen ready all
Speaker 5: the way up here at the top of specificity and
Speaker 5: make sensitude begin.
Speaker 8: First of all, she can't do an interview. She could
Speaker 8: never do this interview because you ask questions like give
Speaker 8: me a specific answer. She talks about her lawn when
Speaker 8: she was growing up. This woman is not equipped to
Speaker 8: be president.
Speaker 5: I guess they had the wrong chart. The question, sir,
Speaker 5: was specific to how are you going to bring down inflation?
Speaker 5: Your answer so far has been but perhaps I cut
Speaker 5: you off unfairly.
Speaker 8: She's not equipped to deal with president She who was
Speaker 8: very I took in hundreds of billions of dollars with
Speaker 8: him and Putin. We had no war with Putin. Remember,
Speaker 8: and I'm just going to go off just for this.
Speaker 8: With Bush, they took a lot. Russia. With Biden, they're
Speaker 8: trying to take everything.
Speaker 9: With Obama, they took a lot.
Speaker 8: With Trump, Russia took nothing.
Speaker 5: Just remember that. You know what, maybe he didn't really
Speaker 5: want to talk about his inflation policy since economists say
Speaker 5: it would make inflation worse, which you know is the
Speaker 5: wrong direction. Let's give Trump a second chance.
Speaker 4: If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing
Speaker 4: legislation to make childcare affordable? And if so, what specific
Speaker 4: piece of legislation will you advance.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's a fabulous question. That's a fabulous question. Children
Speaker 5: need childcare, whether it's a nanny or duct tape to
Speaker 5: a chair with an iPad. But it costs money, obviously,
Speaker 5: duct tape and iPads and in app purchases.
Speaker 10: Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down, you know,
Speaker 10: I was somebody we had said at a Marco Rubio
Speaker 10: and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue.
Speaker 9: It's a very important issue.
Speaker 10: But I think when you talk about the kind of
Speaker 10: numbers that I'm talking about that because look, childcare is childcare.
Speaker 4: Us.
Speaker 5: Now, we could let the tip continue where he says
Speaker 5: we will pay for childcare with the trillions we're going
Speaker 5: to receive by levying tariffs on foreign nations, which apparently
Speaker 5: isn't how that works. But get one more.
Speaker 6: Political opponents are saying that you want to ban IVF.
Speaker 6: Those who are watching here tonight who may be going
Speaker 6: through this same struggle and are concerned about being able
Speaker 6: to have this option, and I'd love for you to
Speaker 6: talk to them about how they should feel.
Speaker 5: Life is pretty tough.
Speaker 9: It can be beautiful, but it can be difficult.
Speaker 10: We are doing something with IBF because if as you
Speaker 10: know from friends and people, you know, it's really worked
Speaker 10: out very well for a lot of people.
Speaker 5: It gave them a child when they would not have
Speaker 5: had a child. And I told my people I wanted
Speaker 5: to look at this.
Speaker 10: A couple of weeks ago, and as you know, we
Speaker 10: have no taxes one of the things called tips.
Speaker 9: You know that, what the actual are you talking about?
Speaker 5: How do you want people to feel about IVF? Well,
Speaker 5: I have no taxes on a thing called tips. You
Speaker 5: know what I do? Actually see the uh I get
Speaker 5: it now? So you see IVF fertilizes an egg with
Speaker 5: a sperm, and sperm comes from a penis, and a
Speaker 5: penis has a tip. So I can only assume Donald
Speaker 5: Trump is talking about circumcision, which Jews call a tax
Speaker 5: on tips. All right, let's move on. So clearly what
Speaker 5: people like about Donald Trump is not his clear specific policies,
Speaker 5: as they demand from Kamala Harris. But I'm still open.
Speaker 5: I'm an undecided voter, you know, because of the horse
Speaker 5: kicked him ahead. Let's hear some of Trump's passionate supporters
Speaker 5: explain what they see as his strands.
Speaker 8: He has really become the candidate of the working man,
Speaker 8: of the everyman.
Speaker 11: President Trump cares deeply about rig workers, truck drivers, roughnecks.
Speaker 12: He worked with plumbers and electricians, He worked with painters
Speaker 12: and brick layers. President Trump is the best friend American
Speaker 12: workers have ever had in the White house.
Speaker 9: He's our best friend. Donald Trump is the champion of hard.
Speaker 5: Working men and women. He's behind every kind of worker,
Speaker 5: from auto to sex. The kind of people.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is.
Speaker 5: Behind the kind of people who have to work over
Speaker 5: time to pay the bill.
Speaker 13: I know a lot about overtime. I'd hated they give overtime.
Speaker 1: I hated it.
Speaker 13: I'd get other people.
Speaker 10: I shouldn't say this, but I'd get other people and
Speaker 10: I wouldn't say I hated.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right, you shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't
Speaker 5: have said it at all, because you're a knitting to
Speaker 5: freaking people over who work for you. I mean, it's funny,
Speaker 5: but it undercuts the working man's friend thing. Well, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's fine you don't want to get them overtime, but
Speaker 5: it's not like you think it's funny to fire them
Speaker 5: when they complain about something like not getting overtime.
Speaker 14: Well, you you're the greatest cutter.
Speaker 13: I mean, I look at what you do.
Speaker 5: You walk in and you just say you want to
Speaker 5: do it. They go on strike.
Speaker 8: I won't mention the name of.
Speaker 13: The company, but they go on strike, and you say,
Speaker 13: that's okay.
Speaker 5: You're all gone. You're all gone.
Speaker 13: So every one of you is gone.
Speaker 12: Ha ha.
Speaker 5: I gotta say, every time Trump talks about workers, it's
Speaker 5: like watching a Christmas Carol in reverse. I just fired
Speaker 5: these three ghosts who are trying to get over time.
Speaker 5: So the supporting the working man thing is nonsense. What
Speaker 5: other things do his supporters like about him?
Speaker 10: I think in sixty five days of American people are
Speaker 10: going to vote for President Trump because they know he's
Speaker 10: the guy who will defend their right to speak.
Speaker 8: You're aligned with each other on other key issues like
Speaker 8: detecting freedom of speech.
Speaker 5: Okay, I get it now. So it's not really a
Speaker 5: policy case for Trump. It's a principal case for Trump
Speaker 5: the man. No matter what is said about him, he
Speaker 5: believes in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the government
Speaker 5: should never punish speech, even if you don't like the speech.
Speaker 15: Mister Trump saying publicly the FCC should revoke ABC's license
Speaker 15: over unfounded claims about ABC News allegedly rigging the presidential debate.
Speaker 2: For President, Trump says that he will deport students who
Speaker 2: participate in pro policy and process.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump said that anyone who criticizes the Supreme Court
Speaker 5: justices should be.
Speaker 2: Arrested in jails Donald Trump earlier today said you burned
Speaker 2: the American flag, you should get.
Speaker 5: A year behind Mars.
Speaker 1: During the twenty twenty four campaign, Trump has been quote
Speaker 1: venting about the need to punish late night comedians for
Speaker 1: their anti Trump material.
Speaker 5: Isn't being on Basic cable at eleven pm punishment enough? God,
Speaker 5: So we know the policy thing about free speech and
Speaker 5: the hero of the working class thing are all bullshit.
Speaker 5: But I'm still underside. I'm still open. Give me something
Speaker 5: I could work with. He's an anti war guy. He
Speaker 5: is going to get us out of these endless wars.
Speaker 3: President Trump believes that the next four years we need
Speaker 3: no new wars.
Speaker 5: First of all, I didn't know Max Headroom still had
Speaker 5: a shot. But phil anti war. I'm anti war. I'm
Speaker 5: absolutely behind that sentiment.
Speaker 12: But if I were the president, I would inform the
Speaker 12: threatening country in this case Iran, that if you do
Speaker 12: anything to harm to this person, we are going to
Speaker 12: blow your largest cities and the country itself to smitherines.
Speaker 5: We're gonna blow it to smitherings. You can't do that.
Speaker 5: He just war with I run. I mean, at least
Speaker 5: doesn't count. We've been bombing them for forty years. They
Speaker 5: love it okay, forget about ideals, forget about policies. What
Speaker 5: are the personal qualities you're voting for? People?
Speaker 11: Just like that?
Speaker 5: That honesty of Donald Trump, he tells it like it
Speaker 5: is a man of his word. He's a truth teller.
Speaker 5: Are you stetting me right now?
Speaker 16: Are you?
Speaker 15: Are you?
Speaker 5: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 9: He is a truth hell.
Speaker 5: They're eating the dogs.
Speaker 14: Oh and by the way, they're eating the cats, anything else,
Speaker 14: they're eating the pets of the people that live there.
Speaker 5: Now, mew yamy, Now now I'm yell of the people
Speaker 5: that live by the only monster on TikTok no nobody else.
Speaker 5: My wife sent me dout like ten times. And so
Speaker 5: we find ourselves not in a dilemma, but in a
Speaker 5: bit of a conundrum. The qualities and policies that people
Speaker 5: profess to be what they admire and love about former
Speaker 5: President Trump don't seem to be an accurate reflection of
Speaker 5: said former president. It's as though they've created a fictional character,
Speaker 5: a bizarro Trump, whose accomplishments and character bear little resemblance
Speaker 5: to the self aggrandizing, perpetual victim guy. He continues to
Speaker 5: tell you explicitly that he is. It makes you wonder
Speaker 5: what country does Donald Trump think he's running to lead.
Speaker 11: Our cities have already become hell halls, a crime ridden,
Speaker 11: gang infested, terror filled dumping ground, bloodshed, chaos and violent crime,
Speaker 11: a deluge of illegals pouring in by the Midians and Midians.
Speaker 12: Drug dealers, human.
Speaker 11: Traffickers, bloodthirsty terrorsts, savage gang members, while stone cold killers.
Speaker 10: You can't walk across the street to get a loaf
Speaker 10: of bread, You get shot, teenagers cut to shreds. They'll
Speaker 10: walk into your kitchen, they'll cut your throat.
Speaker 5: Oh wait, I see this fictional Trump, who is portrayed
Speaker 5: as much better than he actually is, is running to
Speaker 5: be president of a country he paints as much worse
Speaker 5: than it actually is. But I got to tell you,
Speaker 5: whatever country that is where families are routinely murdered several
Speaker 5: times while making breakfast, could really use actual Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: The rest of us not so much. When we come back,
Speaker 5: Sanahase Coats will be here. Don't go away.
Speaker 1: All about with.
Speaker 5: A mail coat. My death tonight it critically acclaimed bestselling author.
Speaker 5: Because your book is called a message, Please welcome back
Speaker 5: to the program, Tanah Houston Coats. Hello, Hello, my friend,
Speaker 5: you are grappling. This is a book of grappling. It's reparations,
Speaker 5: the purpose of art, the purpose of writing, your role,
Speaker 5: your response ability the Israel, Palestine. I can see you
Speaker 5: want to go back to just writing comic books again.
Speaker 5: This is what was in you that you thought I
Speaker 5: need to take on these big questions, including what is
Speaker 5: this for? What is what is writing for?
Speaker 16: I have for a long time had in the back
Speaker 16: of my head that we do not have a complete
Speaker 16: understanding of politics. That is to say, we think of
Speaker 16: politics as what happens inside of a voting booth.
Speaker 1: You go in and you choose, you know, pull a
Speaker 1: lever for whatever right.
Speaker 16: But there's a whole, entire architecture that happens outside of
Speaker 16: that voting booth that defines what goes on inside of it,
Speaker 16: what issues are appropriate.
Speaker 1: Frankly, who is human and who is not?
Speaker 16: And that is the work of stories, movies, television shows,
Speaker 16: writing all of that and being a writer, and this
Speaker 16: coming out of you know, me talking to my students
Speaker 16: at Howard University at the time, I really really wanted
Speaker 16: to address that.
Speaker 1: You know, so often I get the question why should
Speaker 1: I write.
Speaker 12: Now?
Speaker 1: In general? But by the time they get to me.
Speaker 16: They usually my students are like there, but a lot
Speaker 16: of you know, other times when I'm you know, out
Speaker 16: in the world, what is writing gonna do?
Speaker 12: Like?
Speaker 1: What is it actually gonna change?
Speaker 16: And what I wanted people to understand is writing actually
Speaker 16: shapes the world around you entirely.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 5: See I would have said basic cable, but okay, right.
Speaker 16: For somebody has to write the scripts, right, somebody, that's
Speaker 16: exactly rightactly exactly is that?
Speaker 5: Do you grapple with that as a burden or a
Speaker 5: call to arms? What is for you? How do you
Speaker 5: wear it? Oh?
Speaker 1: It's exciting.
Speaker 5: It's exciting.
Speaker 16: It gets me up in the morning, right, It like
Speaker 16: pumps my blood like I can't wait, you know what
Speaker 16: I mean?
Speaker 1: Like there are people who.
Speaker 16: I got a friend who's in the yard doc right,
Speaker 16: and I was texting this morning about, you know, everything
Speaker 16: that was going on, and he disappeared for it.
Speaker 1: He said, sorry this the guy just got shot. I'm sorry.
Speaker 16: And I said to him, how beautiful is it to
Speaker 16: have work that actually matters? Are you out there saving
Speaker 16: people's lives? And I'm not an ear doctor, but it
Speaker 16: is a blessing to feel like what I write actually
Speaker 16: matters in the world, right, I mean, it gives me
Speaker 16: meaning and purpose, And I kind of wanted to convey that,
Speaker 16: you know, to all the young writers you know, who
Speaker 16: hopefully as inspiration.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, your friend was at work when the guy
Speaker 5: got shot. He was because first second I was like, wait,
Speaker 5: he was at work, work, you were talking to me.
Speaker 1: He was at work?
Speaker 5: All right, that's that's that's very good. Do you get frustrated?
Speaker 5: And this is something that that I think about sometimes
Speaker 5: that the world that you would prefer to see that
Speaker 5: the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, and
Speaker 5: the work of writing is trying to help facilitate that.
Speaker 5: That it is that that that arc of moral justice
Speaker 5: is so resilient against bending that it's so hard to
Speaker 5: matter in that form.
Speaker 16: I get sad, right, And there a lot of moments
Speaker 16: in here where I was really sad, right, you know,
Speaker 16: But at the same time, like I said, it fills
Speaker 16: me with purpose. I don't know if I would add
Speaker 16: a purpose I talked about just a few minutes ago,
Speaker 16: you know, without that great difficulty. Honestly, it feels great
Speaker 16: to know that if I actually try really really hard
Speaker 16: at the thing, if I actually worked really, really hard
Speaker 16: to write the best book I possibly can.
Speaker 1: You know that I could be here talking to you
Speaker 1: that it.
Speaker 5: Actually you could have written and been on here.
Speaker 9: Listen.
Speaker 5: If that's the case, I can tell you that that
Speaker 5: you didn't have to work nearly this hard.
Speaker 15: But it is.
Speaker 5: It's a beautifully felt book. I want to ask you,
Speaker 5: there's a certain aspect of your career that has really
Speaker 5: tried to reconcile, not with things in the present, but
Speaker 5: they're vestiges the structures racial politics, slavery, economic injustices where
Speaker 5: it might not be the active virus, but it's the
Speaker 5: vestiges of it that still, you know, leach into the
Speaker 5: groundwater and make it toxic and polluted. This book felt
Speaker 5: a little different in that you were also going into
Speaker 5: the present and bringing those lessons with you, and I thought,
Speaker 5: I thought that was a really moving part of the book.
Speaker 16: Yeah, that that's true, And I guess I'm gonna be
Speaker 16: the one that broached this. But it was obviously most
Speaker 16: active when I was in Jerusalem, when I was in Haipho,
Speaker 16: when I was.
Speaker 1: On the West Bad. I mean, it was it was
Speaker 1: the history, but the history was active, and that was
Speaker 1: that was tough.
Speaker 16: That was something I'm used to, you know, going to
Speaker 16: some you know, slave plantation and saying, well, yeah, this
Speaker 16: did happen one hundred fifty years ago, but here's how
Speaker 16: you know, you can still feel the impact and you
Speaker 16: got no, no, it's right now, right, it's right now,
Speaker 16: and it comes on the hills.
Speaker 5: So in the book, you're also you take a trip
Speaker 5: to Senegal.
Speaker 1: I do, yes.
Speaker 5: Is that in relation to your trip to Israel and
Speaker 5: the West Bank in that same time frame or is
Speaker 5: that was that split out?
Speaker 16: It was about it was so I think I went
Speaker 16: in this would have been like September of twenty twenty
Speaker 16: two to Senegal and in May of twenty three to
Speaker 16: the West Bank and to Israel, and weirdly enough, they
Speaker 16: are in conversation with each other. I can't say I
Speaker 16: intended that, right.
Speaker 5: Well, that's that's why I was curious, because there is
Speaker 5: a music there between the two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, that there is.
Speaker 16: I mean, Senegal is very much about me, frankly, investigating
Speaker 16: the very stories that gave me my name, you know,
Speaker 16: and gave me my identity, and trying to work through
Speaker 16: that and frankly not completely working through it by the
Speaker 16: time I got over there and then you know, I
Speaker 16: take this trip, you know, with this wonderful organization of
Speaker 16: Palestinian Palestine Festival of Literature, and I get over there,
Speaker 16: you know, for five days, and I spent another five
Speaker 16: days with these x IDF guys, you know what I mean,
Speaker 16: who had had their own political evolution. And this is
Speaker 16: very weird to say, but it's much sympathy as I
Speaker 16: had for the Palestinians watching Zionism.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 16: Even feeling like this is wrong, what I'm saying is wrong.
Speaker 1: I was like, my god, I know how you get here.
Speaker 1: I know how you get I know how it happens.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean like I approve of it, but
Speaker 1: I mean like, I see, I see how it happens.
Speaker 1: I totally see how it happens.
Speaker 5: Is how you see how it happens, because you talk
Speaker 5: about Yad Vashem and going there and being moved is
Speaker 5: the idea. Because you have a line in the book
Speaker 5: that I think is one of the most powerful, which
Speaker 5: is and I want to make sure that I get
Speaker 5: it right, which is your oppression will not save you,
Speaker 5: which is, and you write about that in relation to
Speaker 5: the black experience in America, but also about the Jewish
Speaker 5: experience in the Holocaust as well as in Israel. And
Speaker 5: what did you mean by that?
Speaker 16: I think we would like to think that you go through,
Speaker 16: you know, a horrific experience, be it the Middle Passes
Speaker 16: Jim Crow here, be at the Holocaust, or the centuries
Speaker 16: before that of programs, oppression, et cetera, and somehow you
Speaker 16: will be more really improved by coming out of that.
Speaker 16: You might be, You might be, but it's just as
Speaker 16: likely that you will conclude than in fact. The world
Speaker 16: is a cold, hard place and it's a zero sum game,
Speaker 16: you know what I mean, And what matters is who
Speaker 16: has the guns and who doesn't. You know, I stand
Speaker 16: opposed to that, just on principal period, you know what
Speaker 16: I mean. But I get how people take that lesson,
Speaker 16: you know what I mean, And I think it's disconvining
Speaker 16: for us to feel because we feel sympathy for people, you.
Speaker 5: Know what I mean.
Speaker 16: When I'm walking through Yad Vashim and I'm feeling it
Speaker 16: on a very very deep level, only to come back
Speaker 16: here and realize I was, you know, about a mile
Speaker 16: away from a massacre of a Palestinian village, that's hard
Speaker 16: to take.
Speaker 5: It. You know what I mean since I was I'm
Speaker 5: raised in obviously cultural Jewish tradition, and I imagine, you know,
Speaker 5: if you were to feel like people in the name
Speaker 5: of your people did some things that you found objectionable,
Speaker 5: it hits you different.
Speaker 16: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, it does, it does, it does,
Speaker 16: and it's not a complete parallel. But that's why in
Speaker 16: that chapter I wanted to talk a little bit about
Speaker 16: Liberia for instance, you know what I mean, and just
Speaker 16: the idea, I get it, the appeal of hey, we're
Speaker 16: going to have a state of our own. We're gonna
Speaker 16: get away from these people that did you know, X, Y,
Speaker 16: and Z for us, we will have safety there.
Speaker 1: And yet then you.
Speaker 16: Find yourself enacting, you know, systems that, if not are
Speaker 16: the same or similar, at least you know, morally deeply problematic, and.
Speaker 5: Having to justify them through either threat or the situation
Speaker 5: or you don't understand. And what I'm what I'm wondering
Speaker 5: is is that the story, in a condensed form of
Speaker 5: all of us is does for society to progress, does
Speaker 5: their also have to be exploitation? Do you grapple with
Speaker 5: this idea that when we think about anything, whether it's
Speaker 5: the American story or the Israeli story or any of those.
Speaker 5: It's stories of empire, whether it's the Ottoman Empire or
Speaker 5: the Caliphate. It's groups of people living under the grace
Speaker 5: of a leader who controls their lives. And can we
Speaker 5: progress outside of that?
Speaker 12: Is there?
Speaker 5: Do you think about is there another way to do this?
Speaker 5: Has there been another way to do this? If we
Speaker 5: shine that light on any country that grew through, won't
Speaker 5: there be a story of exploitation and mistreatment that we find,
Speaker 5: maybe not as horrific, but we find it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 16: I think though, we have to guard against the temptation
Speaker 16: to accept that history is necessary the limits of who
Speaker 16: we are rightman beings, just because I mean, you know
Speaker 16: that's been you know that it's been that way, that
Speaker 16: it necessarily has to be that way. I will, for instance,
Speaker 16: highlight you know, the underlying role of nationalism and the
Speaker 16: belief that a nation state is the way to secure
Speaker 16: and safeguard a minority. That is a very recent development
Speaker 16: as a belief system. Actually, you know that is not eternal.
Speaker 5: That's prior to that. Wouldn't it have been tribalism or
Speaker 5: wouldn't it would have been something?
Speaker 16: Would it would have been a pope it would have
Speaker 16: been you know my allegiances, you know X, Y and Z.
Speaker 16: But what I'm saying is it is not innate in
Speaker 16: us to say I am of this ethnicity. We should
Speaker 16: all have a state together, and perhaps so importantly, we
Speaker 16: should deny rights to people who are not of that ethnicity.
Speaker 1: We don't have to be that way. We don't have
Speaker 1: to be that way a man from from your looks
Speaker 1: to God's ears.
Speaker 5: I always learned, you know, there was that I can't
Speaker 5: remember the experiment, but it was they assigned class where
Speaker 5: people with brown hair got privileges, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: the people with blond hair were like and they got that,
Speaker 5: and then the people with brown hair started to kind
Speaker 5: of abuse the people with here. And there's a part
Speaker 5: of me that thinks, boy, we could solve religious differences,
Speaker 5: and somehow we would go back to killing each other
Speaker 5: over something else equally is arbitrary. And that I'm wondering
Speaker 5: how you get that that zero sum game element that
Speaker 5: you witnessed up front out of it, because I'd like
Speaker 5: to believe it's not malevolence but ignorance and fear.
Speaker 16: I think there's a lot of fear. Frankly, I think
Speaker 16: is a lot of anger, right, I think, and obviously
Speaker 16: for obvious reasons, you would notice a better than me.
Speaker 16: But I sense that alive. It is the humiliation of
Speaker 16: the Holocaust. I think that is, you know, very very
Speaker 16: much president, and not feeling like I will never be
Speaker 16: in that position again.
Speaker 5: Sure you know, well never, I mean never again. I
Speaker 5: think the thing that so many Jewish people and not everybody, look,
Speaker 5: it's not a monolith either Jewish religious Jewish culture is
Speaker 5: certainly not a monolith. And there's many different opinions. I
Speaker 5: think if we start from a baseline of I would
Speaker 5: like a safe and secure Israel and a safe and
Speaker 5: secure palacy, and that's my starting point to any argument,
Speaker 5: and then we're just talking strategy. But I think the
Speaker 5: idea of never again, you don't you try to internalize it,
Speaker 5: not just as a self defense kind of dictum. You
Speaker 5: hope to think of that as never again for anyone.
Speaker 5: And that's the part that feels the worst when you
Speaker 5: look at it in that way. And I'm curious how
Speaker 5: you feel, you know, so in Africa, you know, I'm
Speaker 5: curious about what you think about this idea of diaspora
Speaker 5: when people are in diasporas, and it carries this weight
Speaker 5: of you are lost, you are not in a place
Speaker 5: where you can you know. I don't think Italian people
Speaker 5: who live in America think of themselves as I'm in
Speaker 5: a diaspora. They think of themselves as like I'll take
Speaker 5: a tour. But Jewish people, black people, there's this feeling
Speaker 5: of somehow we're not safe, and I feel like that's
Speaker 5: a dangerous that's a dangerous thing.
Speaker 16: Does it Does it not come from being degraded and
Speaker 16: being made to feel like you are outside of the
Speaker 16: place that maybe you would like to call home.
Speaker 5: This is great, that's interesting book, the pity of it all.
Speaker 1: And it's about Jews in Germany.
Speaker 5: Are you going to make me read something?
Speaker 12: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, it's gonna be quick.
Speaker 1: I probably to be quick about that.
Speaker 5: Still just getting through breaking bad. I can't even.
Speaker 16: But it's all of these you know, Jews who in
Speaker 16: all these German Jews who want to be German right,
Speaker 16: like they really really want to believe in Germany, and
Speaker 16: they get the Holocaust right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 16: Like that has to ASSULTI a sense of, you know,
Speaker 16: the idea that you can somehow be safe out.
Speaker 5: And then how much then does humiliation play a part
Speaker 5: in all of it, including kind of what has been
Speaker 5: But we would consider the modern age version of exploitation
Speaker 5: and colonialism, like I mean, even when we think about
Speaker 5: the regions that you were, that you went into, we're
Speaker 5: kind of a post World War One mandate that was drawn,
Speaker 5: you know, Lebanese Syrian Palestine mandate. The French are gonna
Speaker 5: take this, the English are gonna take that. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's it's you know, pawns on a board that people
Speaker 5: are moving around. And does that humiliate a region to
Speaker 5: the point where if we don't address that, we can't
Speaker 5: get through it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so, I think so.
Speaker 16: I mean I will say that one of the hard
Speaker 16: things about that, and getting a little too psychological about
Speaker 16: this is I spent.
Speaker 1: Ten days there, so you know it all exactly. Its
Speaker 1: things was.
Speaker 16: I have to tell you that the perspective of Palestinians
Speaker 16: and the extent to which their perspective has been pushed
Speaker 16: so far out of the frame was incredible.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was seeing a new world, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 16: And that's it's like shameful for me to admit I'm
Speaker 16: not bragging about that you know, it's not because that
Speaker 16: world wasn't there.
Speaker 1: That world doesn't you know, hasn't been trying to present itself.
Speaker 16: But I mean, I just wonder how many of these
Speaker 16: conversations would be improved if our media organizations made a
Speaker 16: concerted effort whenever they talk about this topic to ask,
Speaker 16: do we have anybody Palestinian that we've invited to be.
Speaker 5: Allowed on those democratic prevention or yeah, I.
Speaker 9: Mean I stuck.
Speaker 5: I think I think access to different stories has always
Speaker 5: been a difficulty for America in general because of that
Speaker 5: sort of salveacistic world. You know, we we tend to
Speaker 5: be slightly narcissistic when it comes to the vision of it,
Speaker 5: and it's such a nessy everything. I wonder if it
Speaker 5: really improves it. I mean, here's something that I grapple with.
Speaker 5: I've known about it forever. I have friends who have
Speaker 5: Palestating families who've suffered through it. I have friends in
Speaker 5: Israel who suffered through it. And it sometimes feels as
Speaker 5: though the only people that benefit are the powers that be,
Speaker 5: and all these good people are so left behind by
Speaker 5: this weird power structure that we left in place there.
Speaker 5: And I don't but you bring up an interesting point,
Speaker 5: which is a path forward of reconciling humiliation, And I
Speaker 5: don't know what is the mechanism of that? Is there one?
Speaker 5: And is it that sort of you know, you think
Speaker 5: about South Africa and truth and reconciliation, but is there
Speaker 5: a mechanism to heal that for people or is it
Speaker 5: purely self determination?
Speaker 1: And that's I don't know.
Speaker 5: Well, that's all the time we have. I don't know,
Speaker 5: but it is I wonder because you bring up such
Speaker 5: an interesting it is such a powerful river of emotion
Speaker 5: and when you say, I can almost not cry talking
Speaker 5: about because it's it's so deeply gets at the heart
Speaker 5: of our humanity, like people just want to be seen
Speaker 5: and just want to be no.
Speaker 1: And it's probable I could feel it, you know, I could.
Speaker 1: I could really feel.
Speaker 16: One thing I would suggest is and we have actually
Speaker 16: had this struggle with this as African Americans. And I'll
Speaker 16: tell you this from the black respective, there is great,
Speaker 16: not always spoken shame in the black community over the
Speaker 16: kind of physical traumas we've endured. You have to understand, man,
Speaker 16: every single one of us, every single African American, is
Speaker 16: a child of sexual violence.
Speaker 1: All of us, all of US.
Speaker 16: There is not a single pure African African American who
Speaker 16: came through us sleep. There is an amount of humiliation
Speaker 16: in that. There is an amount of humiliation in watching
Speaker 16: and I've written about this, you know, films from the
Speaker 16: sixties and watching these kids and these children, you know,
Speaker 16: get beaten.
Speaker 1: By the cops. There is humiliation.
Speaker 16: And you know, watching today, you know what I mean,
Speaker 16: George Floyd, you know, a knee on his neck. And
Speaker 16: I do think you know, a significant part of it
Speaker 16: is understanding, particularly with the past. These people didn't want
Speaker 16: to be enolaved, you know what I mean. People didn't
Speaker 16: want to get beat And it's not true that these
Speaker 16: people did nothing. It's not true that these people just willingly,
Speaker 16: you know, you know, went to it. There was a
Speaker 16: slogan out for a while. A lot of us shouted down,
Speaker 16: we are not our ancestors, as if they say, we
Speaker 16: somehow are more you know, resilient and resistant, you know
Speaker 16: what I mean, We're not gonna be punked and trumped. Yes,
Speaker 16: what if we had been then were the same thing
Speaker 16: would have happened.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: There's such an analog with that with the Jewish community,
Speaker 5: and there is you know, and you hear it a
Speaker 5: lot about you know, the first thing Hitler did is
Speaker 5: he disarmed the Jews, And you're like, the Jews were
Speaker 5: not like gun tote and mother, like you know if
Speaker 5: you had taking our violins, maybe like, oh, they disarmed
Speaker 5: the Jews and that's how Hitler was able to get
Speaker 5: the Jews to do that. And you're like, oh, you
Speaker 5: know who had guns and didn't do too well with Hitler? France, right, right, right,
Speaker 5: But you're right. There's that sense of like, how could
Speaker 5: you let your people? How could you allow that to happen?
Speaker 5: And it does skew their perspectives And I can already
Speaker 5: see your next book where you fix it all. It's
Speaker 5: really it's an amazing case that the main thing is.
Speaker 5: And listen, man, like, let's not kid ourselves. Once you
Speaker 5: delve into Israel past, you're going to take a ton
Speaker 5: of shit. I don't know where it's it'll come from everywhere,
Speaker 5: and I hope you don't wear it personally. But you've
Speaker 5: done the most important thing.
Speaker 16: Yes, please, It will not measure up to the brands
Speaker 16: of what I saw Palestinians on the West Bank.
Speaker 1: Bear it's.
Speaker 5: That's an excellent portant. The only point I was going
Speaker 5: to make is through your discomfort, albeit not the same discomfort,
Speaker 5: You've done the most important thing, which is try to
Speaker 5: advance and delve into an understanding of a complexity that
Speaker 5: we haven't figured out in ten thousand years. And so
Speaker 5: I applaud that. And your writing, as always is so
Speaker 5: beautiful and moving. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 5: The message to you to tell you so break I
Speaker 5: really want.
Speaker 12: I'm not gonna help for.
Speaker 5: Tonight, but before we go, we're gonna take in with
Speaker 5: your host for the rest of the week, Michael cos
Speaker 5: and Michael Coss. What do we got going with? Good?
Speaker 9: Where do we What have we got?
Speaker 5: Michael?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 3: You know we got a big day tomorrow, John.
Speaker 2: The vice presidential debate is tomorrow night, and the Daily
Speaker 2: Show will be airing live right.
Speaker 3: After it balls. Butthole Dick's titties, I'm.
Speaker 2: What well, So I don't want to let a curse
Speaker 2: word slip out on live TV. So I'm getting all
Speaker 2: my bad words out now, skulk, nutsack, jizz. You see, John,
Speaker 2: I want tomorrow night to be classy ass nipple.
Speaker 15: But I mean.
Speaker 5: Just not a like strategic basis, isn't We're not going
Speaker 5: to make you more comfortable swearing on TV. Well, I
Speaker 5: think it'll be okay.
Speaker 3: Face Michael God, everybody.
Speaker 13: Migrants that came in illegally. That was so vicious like
Speaker 13: you've never seen before. If you wanted to do a movie,
Speaker 13: there's no actor in Hollywood that could play the role.
Speaker 13: There's nobody that could do. These actors, you know, they're
Speaker 13: a little bit shaky. They can't play the role. They'll
Speaker 13: bring in a big actor and you look, you say, oh,
Speaker 13: he's got no muscle.
Speaker 9: Content got no muscle. We need a little muscle.
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