Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central coming to you from New
Speaker 1: York City to only city in America. It's the Daily Shoe.
Speaker 1: Tonight TV is too dark, sports are going so and
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman this it's the Daily Show with driver Noel
Speaker 1: about everybody. Welcome to the play show. I'm coming off
Speaker 1: the SMU car tuning in. Thank you for coming out
Speaker 1: on counting to see you, good to see You're good
Speaker 1: to see you. Thank you so much. Everybody, take a seat.
Speaker 1: Let's get into this. We have got such a fun
Speaker 1: show for you tonight. How some dragon is turning to
Speaker 1: the dock side Ronnie Chat We'll get into a major
Speaker 1: pillow fights, and Aaron Judge just made a guy from
Speaker 1: the sixties his bitch. Plus New York Times reporter Maggie
Speaker 1: have Uman is here to tell us what Donald Trump
Speaker 1: told her to her face. So let's do this people.
Speaker 1: Let's jump straight into today's headlines. All right. Before we
Speaker 1: get into the big stories, let's catch up on a
Speaker 1: few other things going on in the world. Starting off
Speaker 1: with big news out of the retail industry, Goodwill, the
Speaker 1: famous donation store, has launched its own e commerce site
Speaker 1: where you can buy secondhand items online. Yeah, so if
Speaker 1: you're looking to buy a shirt for forty cents but
Speaker 1: then pay twenty dollars in shipping, you're in luck. This
Speaker 1: is great, This is great. You know, it's good to
Speaker 1: see them expanding. They do really good work. But you
Speaker 1: have to admit thrift shopping online isn't just the same
Speaker 1: as doing it in person. You know, you gotta gotta
Speaker 1: be there to see the patterns, you feel the fabric,
Speaker 1: you smell that secondhand sweats, just like boon someone's grandpa.
Speaker 1: And international news, an irishman just became the first person
Speaker 1: ever to row a boat from New York City to Ireland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it took him four months, but he said it was
Speaker 1: still better than flying out of LaGuardia, Like the atlantech
Speaker 1: might be dangerous, but its styles still better than terminal tree.
Speaker 1: I oh. In economic news, the Treasury Department has announced
Speaker 1: that America's national debt has hit thirty one trillion dollars, which, damn,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of debts your life. The only solution
Speaker 1: now is for America to marry another country that has
Speaker 1: good finances. Right, Yeah, Joe Biden needs to go out
Speaker 1: and give a press conference like hey, hey, Japan. You up.
Speaker 1: But let's move on to some of the bigger stories
Speaker 1: of the day, starting with a major milestone in the
Speaker 1: world of baseball. The only sports that's somehow better on
Speaker 1: radio based is a game that treats us records with reverence.
Speaker 1: You know all of them, from Cal Ripkin Juniors more
Speaker 1: than consecutive games played, to Joe DiMaggio's fifty six game
Speaker 1: hitting streak, to Derek Jeta's record of being the only
Speaker 1: successful guy ever to be named Derek. But no step
Speaker 1: is more of it than the home run. And last night,
Speaker 1: Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge smashed his name into the record
Speaker 1: books with the swing of his mighty bat. Yankee superstar
Speaker 1: Aaron Judge loved his way into history sixty. It took
Speaker 1: until the one hundred sixty first game of the season,
Speaker 1: but number nine has finally matched his name in the
Speaker 1: record books. Aaron Judge passes the great Roger Maris to
Speaker 1: break the record for most home runs in a single
Speaker 1: season by an American League player. Ball was caught by
Speaker 1: Corey Humans of Dallas, a vice president at Fisher in Investments.
Speaker 1: He said he hasn't decided what he's gonna do with
Speaker 1: the souvenir, which could be worth a couple of million dollars.
Speaker 1: There's a feel good story for you. I'm glad things
Speaker 1: are finally working out for that executive at investment firm.
Speaker 1: That's what the game is all about. Up for you, buddy,
Speaker 1: for you. But yeah, huge congratulations to Aaron Judge. Right,
Speaker 1: with just one game left to go in the season,
Speaker 1: he broke the American League home run record set by
Speaker 1: Roger Marris all the way back in think about in
Speaker 1: sixty one. That is a long ass time for a
Speaker 1: record to stand. I mean back in you understand how
Speaker 1: long ago that was. America didn't have a Voting Rights
Speaker 1: Act and abortion was illegal, very different times now. To
Speaker 1: be clear, this is just the American League home run record, right,
Speaker 1: not the old time record, but some people think it
Speaker 1: should be because everyone who's above Eron Judge on the
Speaker 1: list was busted for taking performance enhancing drugs. And whether
Speaker 1: you like it or not, this is a complicated issue
Speaker 1: because every player, well they took steroids or not, has
Speaker 1: some advantage over players from other errors. You know, like
Speaker 1: Babe Ruth. He didn't have access to modern medicine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if he pulled a muscle the team doctor would be
Speaker 1: like hair smoke doesn't pack up cigarettes. If that doesn't work,
Speaker 1: I'll prescribe you so much. Bestars go on out there, buddy.
Speaker 1: You know if if I'm being honest, though, I don't
Speaker 1: know why we celebrate home runs in the first place,
Speaker 1: because to me, all that happened is that you just
Speaker 1: lost the ball. Yeah, and now we've gotta get a
Speaker 1: new ball. That's like what ten dollars with sixty two homers?
Speaker 1: That ship adds up, Aaron, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: you heard about America's thirty one training in debt. We
Speaker 1: should we shouldn't be handling this ship and kind of
Speaker 1: afford it. He's getting the boards out there. Do you
Speaker 1: know who we should be celebrating. We should be celebrating
Speaker 1: the batters who missed the ball completely so we can
Speaker 1: keep using it. Those people are the real heroes. I'm
Speaker 1: really fun at parties. All right, let's move on. It's
Speaker 1: a partner, Calton used. You know how the food you
Speaker 1: buy has an expiration dates on it. Yes, and if
Speaker 1: the food is past that date, then you throw it
Speaker 1: out unless you're a single guy, and then just eat
Speaker 1: it anyway. Soon there might not even be a date
Speaker 1: at all new this morning concerns about global food waste
Speaker 1: or leading countries to rethink best before labels on food.
Speaker 1: Major UK grocery chains have already removed best before labels,
Speaker 1: and the European Union is expected to revamp its labeling
Speaker 1: laws by the end of the year. Best before labels
Speaker 1: are different than used by and have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with safety. Critics say they could cause people to throw
Speaker 1: away perfectly good food. Thank you, it's a great idea.
Speaker 1: No no, I'm I'm saying that people throw out perfectly
Speaker 1: good food all the time because they think that best
Speaker 1: buy means goes bad off when it doesn't all right,
Speaker 1: And that's not just bad for the planet, it's an
Speaker 1: insult to the plants and the animals. You get the
Speaker 1: foods wrong, You're gonna toss away some perfectly fine cheese
Speaker 1: after a cow has worked so hard to pee it
Speaker 1: out of its four penises. Huh, educate yourselves, and look,
Speaker 1: I do get that best before and used by all confusing.
Speaker 1: I do get that, but it's not that hard to understand.
Speaker 1: It's um it's sort of like like guawk. Yeah, think
Speaker 1: of it this way. It's best before you run out
Speaker 1: of chips, but you can still use it by dipping
Speaker 1: your finger in it when no one's looking. Did I
Speaker 1: clear that up? Yeah? First, anyway, I'm glad. I'm glad
Speaker 1: they're getting rid of the best by dates, because if
Speaker 1: you ask me, all they need is a worst by date.
Speaker 1: That's all you need. Yeah, that's that's all I want
Speaker 1: to know. When is the date that this food is
Speaker 1: going to turn my butt into a super soca? Anything
Speaker 1: before that is fine, I don't care. Fine. Finally, let's
Speaker 1: move on to some entertainment news. One of the biggest
Speaker 1: shows right now is HBO's House of the Dragon. Everybody's
Speaker 1: loving it. And now, obviously this is a prequel to
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, which itself was a prequel to Friends.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into the timeline. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get into the timeline. But Russ and Rachel are siblings.
Speaker 1: It's a whole thing. Anyway. A lot of people were
Speaker 1: so disappointed in the Game of Thrones finale that they
Speaker 1: said they weren't ever going to watch the House of
Speaker 1: the Dragon. But now even the people watching House of
Speaker 1: the Dragon are complaining that they can't watch House of
Speaker 1: the Dragon. HBO's House of Dragon is a very dark
Speaker 1: show thematically, right, but how dark does it have to
Speaker 1: be visually? Fans of the show show they're dismaying it
Speaker 1: was actually too dark to even see what was going
Speaker 1: on in the scene during the show, blaming the lighting budget. Now,
Speaker 1: the HBO Max Twitter helpline was flooded with tweets from
Speaker 1: irritated fans, and the network kind of brushed off the criticism.
Speaker 1: They offered a boilerplate response on Twitter that read the
Speaker 1: quote dimmed lighting of the scene was an intentional creative decision.
Speaker 1: What this was an intentional creative Look. Look, I'm not
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg or Barry Jenkins, alright, I haven't directed anything.
Speaker 1: But in my opinion, if your intentional creative decision is
Speaker 1: that people can't see the TV show that you're making,
Speaker 1: then you're making a podcast. All right, that's what you've made.
Speaker 1: That's not TV. I can't see it. That's not TV.
Speaker 1: That's a podcast. House Up Dragon brought to you by
Speaker 1: Casper Mattress. But for real, have you guys noticed how
Speaker 1: this is happening on every single show these days? Everything
Speaker 1: on TV is so dark you can't see anything. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. Oh they're trying to make it gritiel.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make it like feel like a movie
Speaker 1: or you know, or maybe maybe they didn thingure. If
Speaker 1: they make it dark enough, then we can't complain about
Speaker 1: the cost not being diverse. Like I think that's another
Speaker 1: white person. I guess someone let it slide. M hmm.
Speaker 1: And right now, right now, HBO is facing a lot
Speaker 1: of backlash. But I think if they're smart about this,
Speaker 1: this could be a good business opportunity for them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they should just add a higher priced here. Yeah, think
Speaker 1: about it. They should say HBO max or four month.
Speaker 1: If you want to be able to see what has happening,
Speaker 1: which one you looked at for huh huh. And by
Speaker 1: the way, if you think it's bad watching a scene
Speaker 1: that dark, put yourself aside for a moment and just
Speaker 1: imagine how tough it must be for the characters who
Speaker 1: are in those scenes. The time has come, Lord Valerian,
Speaker 1: for us to unify the houses. And to you, Sir Christen,
Speaker 1: I beg of the Sir Christen that wait, is that
Speaker 1: so Christian? Is that so Christian? Who is that? Jeff?
Speaker 1: Is that you does? Does someone have a torch or
Speaker 1: an iPhone light they can shine. No, no, well, okay,
Speaker 1: just at least tell me is this a fighting scene
Speaker 1: or a sex scene? I don't know. I don't know if. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stumble around with my sort out at
Speaker 1: my penis outside. We'll see what happens. Okay, let's let's
Speaker 1: try this, everybody. Let's try this. Here we go, here
Speaker 1: we go. All right, that's it for today's headlines. But
Speaker 1: before we go to a break, let's move on to
Speaker 1: something that everybody loves. It's time to check out today's
Speaker 1: lotto numbers without very own toolsday slowing everybody else? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Bull say, I'm doing it? I look
Speaker 1: like I ran a juke joint. What's happening with today's
Speaker 1: lotto numbers? So listen, I heard that America is thirty
Speaker 1: one trillion dollars in death. America owes the world do
Speaker 1: say doing? We got all the guns, we got all
Speaker 1: the guns, Come get it, come in it. We got
Speaker 1: all the guns, we got all the gun I'll get
Speaker 1: your money. This is what America joke. I'll get your money.
Speaker 1: Does it sounds like a very professional country? Listen, Red,
Speaker 1: white and Blue baby, what you're trying to do and
Speaker 1: the rockets red glare, we will blow up your entire country.
Speaker 1: But like I wish we could treat people like these
Speaker 1: countries that we're never gonna pay because like whole like
Speaker 1: other countries also have massive amounts to debt, and no
Speaker 1: one talks about it. No one's blowing up America's phone
Speaker 1: every day like y'all, where's my money? That's not what
Speaker 1: you do, like I said, because we got all the guns.
Speaker 1: But listen, like saying, you might only be one thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars in debt, and now your cousin Joe
Speaker 1: Joe keep blowing up your cell phone, like, bro, this
Speaker 1: is nowhere near what America it was, Like, stop it, sir,
Speaker 1: I'm at the enemy's leave me alone. Like, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? I told you it's gonna pay you.
Speaker 1: This is a personal story. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: It sounds like you owed someone named cousin Joejoe or something. People. Sorry, okay,
Speaker 1: my bad, my best is human hair. What are you
Speaker 1: talking about? And this jewelry is real? Belout yourself. What's
Speaker 1: happening with the numbers? So listen. Also, good Will, I
Speaker 1: heard good Will is doing an online store. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get to the numbers. I'm trying to talk to you. Listen,
Speaker 1: I heard you something a good Will was doing online story.
Speaker 1: They're gonna sell the stuff online. They're gonna make an
Speaker 1: e commerce and everything. You know, But like why, like
Speaker 1: you're supposed to go inside and earn them itchy clothes?
Speaker 1: What's this? Is just cresch list without the creeps and
Speaker 1: the creeps with my favorite part. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what that means. Oh so you never sent somebody a
Speaker 1: picture for your eating exchange for an end table? Travel?
Speaker 1: Little classic? Did you say, send someone a picture of
Speaker 1: your feet in exchange for an end table? Listen, you
Speaker 1: gotta give a little classic side boob for Ottoman spots,
Speaker 1: you know, a little shot at Georgia Peach. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: gotta furnish your first apartment anywhere you can travel. That
Speaker 1: was a real thing. Listen, get out of my business.
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is Craigslist was basically only fans, but
Speaker 1: for furniture. I've never heard of this. I've not listen.
Speaker 1: I've never planned to live this way again because I'm
Speaker 1: trying to marry well, and I heard you were talking
Speaker 1: about an athlete, Aaron Judge. Yeah, um, he plays for
Speaker 1: the Yankees and they play baseball. He hit the home runs. Okay, baseball, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can say athlete. So he hit the home run?
Speaker 1: Yeah okay. So is he married or does he have
Speaker 1: a girlfriend or does he know? Does he like black girls?
Speaker 1: I mean either way, he's taken, like girlfriend, the wife
Speaker 1: he takes. Why does it? Why would it matter? Oh?
Speaker 1: It matters. Truff a wife, it's sacred. But a girlfriend,
Speaker 1: a girlfriend. Listen, you didn't stand before God and promise
Speaker 1: anything for no girlfriend. There's no paperwork with no girlfriend.
Speaker 1: With the wife, the government is involved. Okay, that's the law.
Speaker 1: But with the girlfriend, she didn't. You put that bitch
Speaker 1: in the uber. It's over. It's a known fact. You don't.
Speaker 1: You don't owe that girl anything. Okay, Now listen, Aaron Judge,
Speaker 1: if you acting right, stick with me, baby, I get
Speaker 1: your seventy five for a season. Come on, no, nor more,
Speaker 1: don't sit normal encourage less. He's taken. Do so let's
Speaker 1: get to the lots or numbers. Please, all right, just
Speaker 1: give us the numbers. Let's hey, fine, let's do that.
Speaker 1: Uh and the winner is Jojo. You've won one thousand,
Speaker 1: three d five dollars in sixty six because Jojo, I
Speaker 1: feel like that's an oddly specific number. Is that Is
Speaker 1: that the money that you owe your cousin, Jojo? Like
Speaker 1: I told you, Trevor, I don't owe people anything. No,
Speaker 1: this is your lottery. So you owe my cousin Joe. Joe,
Speaker 1: get everybody slow and everybody all right. When we come
Speaker 1: back running, Chang is gonna get in the ring with
Speaker 1: an actual m M A fighter, So don't go away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the Data Show. You know, sports are
Speaker 1: of vital parts of human existence because without them, how
Speaker 1: else would men find an excuse to cry? Well, here
Speaker 1: at the Daily Show, we're always looking for the latest
Speaker 1: trends in the sports world, and it turns out Ronnie
Speaker 1: Chang might have found one. Boxing go puns itself in
Speaker 1: the face and then on to cauliflower. You on here
Speaker 1: because right now there's a rural new conduct sports taking over,
Speaker 1: and it's called ultimate pillow fights ow some ice. When
Speaker 1: you think of pillows, you may think of those party
Speaker 1: scenes in movies, which I've totally invited the tons of
Speaker 1: these types of parties, or maybe you think of this guy, well,
Speaker 1: Goblin Dell because as a new pillow guy in town
Speaker 1: and he's turning it lead though. I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: be here with the creator of the pillow Fighting Championship.
Speaker 1: Can you please tell me what makes this pillow fighting
Speaker 1: so exciting? Do you smell the people when they're down
Speaker 1: and that breaks in the pillows? Do you put razors
Speaker 1: in it? Just a pillow? So it's literally just fighting
Speaker 1: with a pillow, fluffy pillow with our special pillows. Are
Speaker 1: you lying in bed one night on your pillow and
Speaker 1: thinking you know what I could take? Someone's asked of
Speaker 1: this um sex with my brother's idea we were going
Speaker 1: to start an m M a club and he said,
Speaker 1: I think m m as uh saturated. Um. He said,
Speaker 1: monmould do a pillow fighting. He was right. So why
Speaker 1: would this be appealing to anybody? Some people don't like violence.
Speaker 1: They don't want to see all the blood, but they
Speaker 1: still want to see a good competition. The human damage
Speaker 1: is part of sports. There's no violence and damage around
Speaker 1: this little damage. I'm gonna get a pillow fights. I
Speaker 1: used to practice making out of pillows as a kid. It.
Speaker 1: I hope Steve has a backup plan because I can't
Speaker 1: imagine any athletes lining up to play a sport that
Speaker 1: is a sport. Who's your current pillow fighting champion, Urie Villefort?
Speaker 1: You I will beat the ship out of your champion.
Speaker 1: I will prove to you that this isn't a sport done.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even need to take steroids for this. I
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to meet the preview best, an intell loser
Speaker 1: dominating and pillows. Whoa, whoa, Sorry this was the pillow champ?
Speaker 1: Did you fail that the other mush arts? Is that
Speaker 1: why you're pillow fighting? No, I'm a middleweight champion in
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu. Turns out, Urie Villeford is a pro m
Speaker 1: m A fighter and a second degree black belt in
Speaker 1: Brazili jiu jitsu who has won multiple tournaments. So if
Speaker 1: that's the question, why are you doing this? I think
Speaker 1: pillow fight is going to be bigger than any martial arts.
Speaker 1: Anybody can win, so it's easy. It's not easy. I'm
Speaker 1: saying anyone can win, So it does not mean it's easy,
Speaker 1: but it's not easy. You're gonna get tight and you
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta work to win, all right, Fine, so
Speaker 1: how do you even win in pillow fighting. So it's
Speaker 1: all about the head shots, right. So if I throw
Speaker 1: the pillow like this, it's one point. If I hit
Speaker 1: it like this, it's two points. But now if I
Speaker 1: hit it and you lose your balance putting your hand
Speaker 1: and putting your knee on the floor, that's three points.
Speaker 1: And you get minus ten points for even pillow fighting
Speaker 1: because it's stupid. It's easy to make fun of pillow fighting,
Speaker 1: but you actually need a lot of skew training for work.
Speaker 1: Because you're gonna fight. You don't need training to do this.
Speaker 1: There's no training in this. It's pillow fighting. What's this weapon?
Speaker 1: What's this deadly weapon that you're using your pillows? Pick?
Speaker 1: It's a pick? Oh? What the out? Now you read?
Speaker 1: So if you still think this is done, how about
Speaker 1: set up a fight tonight? Fine? Fine, fine, already said
Speaker 1: he killed me in the ring, so he was gonna
Speaker 1: get me the fight with of his students instead. Maybe
Speaker 1: I do need some training. Luckily I know someone who's
Speaker 1: a pillow expert. Come on my Groundma petal better than
Speaker 1: this and she died in Are you ready? No, it's
Speaker 1: raining outside while training the rain, so people know you're serious.
Speaker 1: Fish without ducking ball. How why are you throwing all
Speaker 1: the ship at me? I'm clearing up my garage. Two birds,
Speaker 1: it's the moment. I don't know about this one. I'm
Speaker 1: on man, right up inside that room. That's some of
Speaker 1: the most o g pillow fighters in the game. You
Speaker 1: beat them, you'll be ready for the championship. Tonight made
Speaker 1: me proud because we would feel like a ship. He
Speaker 1: give the hold, get the store again. Ll like a
Speaker 1: shady end, handy end, black, a campy end. And that's
Speaker 1: my little pillow fighter ready to take on it. Oh
Speaker 1: ho dog. It was the longest montage of my life,
Speaker 1: but I was ready to get in the ring and
Speaker 1: fluff him up. What the hell is this? Par cool
Speaker 1: pillow fight? Scoring this one point glean shot to the head,
Speaker 1: two points for a three sixty, with a clean shot
Speaker 1: to the head, three points for a knock down. You
Speaker 1: can only strike with the pillow, and there's no blocking
Speaker 1: above the head, well, you know, blocking about the head.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is he's aiming from my head. I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to do. Move, I go back to your corner
Speaker 1: and fight. I didn't know I was fighting the Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee of KFC oh is that legal one two three four.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I was getting my ass kicked, my
Speaker 1: package feathers. I'm gonna have PDSD every time I go
Speaker 1: to bed. But then I remembered something Roy said, pay
Speaker 1: pay m h M and the winner by knockout Leo Carpato.
Speaker 1: Maybe I was wrong about pillow fighting. My broken body
Speaker 1: is saying this is very much a sport. But as
Speaker 1: Rocky Barboa said, if I can change, and you can
Speaker 1: change everybody, thank you so much for I want to
Speaker 1: change right. Thank you, Because when we come back, we'll
Speaker 1: be talking to the New York Times reporter who's broken
Speaker 1: all your favorite stories on Donald Trump, Maggie Hayman, and
Speaker 1: we'll be journeing me on the show. Everyone, so don't
Speaker 1: go away. Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest
Speaker 1: tonight is a cunic surprise winning New York Times unless
Speaker 1: she's here to talk about her explosive book that is
Speaker 1: out this week called Confidence Man, The Making of Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and the Breaking of America. Please welcome Maggie Haberman.
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman, welcome to the Danish Show. Thanks for having me. Um.
Speaker 1: You have written a book that many have called the
Speaker 1: ultimate guide to Donald J. Trump, because it feels like
Speaker 1: you have an understanding of him that few, never mind journalists,
Speaker 1: few human beings do. And and what's interesting is every
Speaker 1: time I've seen your reporting on him, every every time
Speaker 1: I've seen him comment on you, and the conversations you
Speaker 1: have with each other, and the interviews that he grants you,
Speaker 1: even though he seems to hate you, but then he
Speaker 1: likes you. It seems a little bit like the like,
Speaker 1: like the relationship Hannibal Head with Clarice, Like I can't
Speaker 1: tell if you if you have a mutual admiration for
Speaker 1: each other, fascination as a journals, explain to me why
Speaker 1: he keeps speaking to you and then off to it
Speaker 1: says to you, why would you write the things that
Speaker 1: he said to you? First of all, thank you and
Speaker 1: thank you for having me a couple of things. Look,
Speaker 1: he's a subject who I cover, and I have covered
Speaker 1: a number of politicians over the last twenty six years.
Speaker 1: I covered Hillary Clinton, I covered Mike Bloomberg, I covered
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani, who in many ways was a proto Trump,
Speaker 1: at least in certain aspects of his behavior. Uh. And
Speaker 1: now it's very much like Trump and and has become
Speaker 1: it's more similar to him. Over time. Trump needs the
Speaker 1: media in a way that's unlike any other politician I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. He craves attention, and I explore this in
Speaker 1: the book. He just constantly wants to hold the media's gaze,
Speaker 1: and he wants to see if he can sell you
Speaker 1: on a version of himself, and he wants to get
Speaker 1: what he would call a good story. Literally, those would
Speaker 1: be the words, a good story. And then you write
Speaker 1: about him accurately and he says that it's unfair, you know.
Speaker 1: So there's that's that's the dynamic you're talking about. But
Speaker 1: he basically, you know, he's obsessed with the New York Times.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of what this is about. You know.
Speaker 1: He is uniquely focused on the paper. And I'm just
Speaker 1: the person who has covered him more often than not.
Speaker 1: It really feels like he is somebody who is frozen
Speaker 1: in time because everything he's obsessed with seems to be
Speaker 1: something that was popular when he reached some sort of
Speaker 1: zeitgeists himself, you know. So it will be the New
Speaker 1: York Times, and then he'll complain about certain magazines but
Speaker 1: not others, and then SNL he'll have a he has
Speaker 1: a certain pension for but then not other shows. It's
Speaker 1: like it's an interesting world that he exists in that
Speaker 1: isn't current, but but seems current to him. And in
Speaker 1: the in the book, you talk about how he lives
Speaker 1: minutes to minute when the rest of us move almost
Speaker 1: from twenty four hours to twenty four hours. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like he's plagued as much by the things
Speaker 1: we think he is as as he actually is. Like
Speaker 1: do we what do we misunderstand about Trump? I actually
Speaker 1: think you understand really well based on everything you just said.
Speaker 1: I think there is a uh, there is a preserved
Speaker 1: and amber quality to him. You just describe that about
Speaker 1: how all of his cultural touchstones are in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: which is when he was reaching his height. He loves
Speaker 1: to talk about how many times he's on the cover
Speaker 1: of Time magazine. Um, you know, national news magazines, weeklies
Speaker 1: are are not in their heyday right now, and yet
Speaker 1: he talks about it all the time. The celebrities he
Speaker 1: talks about are from the nineteen eighties. The sports figures
Speaker 1: generally are from the nineteen eighties. It's when he was
Speaker 1: rising to prominence. And I agree with you that I
Speaker 1: think there is a degree which he has just stuck there,
Speaker 1: and he's also stuck there culturally. He's stuck there in
Speaker 1: terms of racial politics. He has stuck there in terms
Speaker 1: of New York City's machine boss politics from that era,
Speaker 1: and he exported so much of that onto Washington and
Speaker 1: onto the Republican Party. The other thing that I think
Speaker 1: that people don't understand, and I try to show this
Speaker 1: and explore this, is his fascination with violence and how
Speaker 1: much violence informs what he thinks of strength, and then
Speaker 1: strength in terms informs what he thinks is a strong
Speaker 1: boss or a strong leader. So you will hear him
Speaker 1: praise you know, a local machine party boss, like a
Speaker 1: former Brooklyn Democratic Party head as ruling with an iron fist.
Speaker 1: He'll he use the same words about shij and Ping,
Speaker 1: the president of China, who's an authoritarian. Um, it's all
Speaker 1: contextless and kind of flat and the same, and I
Speaker 1: think people miss that. Yes, he's playing to crowds. Yes
Speaker 1: he will say whatever he has to say to survive
Speaker 1: small increments of time. But ultimately the scenarios that exist
Speaker 1: for him kind of stay the same. But what makes
Speaker 1: him scarier In my reading of this book is. People
Speaker 1: often see Donald Trump as somebody who is setting the trends,
Speaker 1: But as as you read through this book and as
Speaker 1: you understand the man, you come to realize that he
Speaker 1: is oftentimes victim of the trends, and then he plays
Speaker 1: to them. So he'll say something to his crowd that
Speaker 1: he believes the crowd won't vibe with it, and so
Speaker 1: then he'll change what he believes in to keep going
Speaker 1: with the crowd, which makes him even scary because if
Speaker 1: you think about authoritarian leaders or any others out there
Speaker 1: who go I rule with an iron fist, their fist
Speaker 1: is their fist. But Donald Trump says, how would you
Speaker 1: like my fist to be? And then he keeps it
Speaker 1: in that direction. Like so, when when you look at them,
Speaker 1: when you see that man, isn't that a scarier place
Speaker 1: to be? And the people around him do they do
Speaker 1: they notice that? Or do they think that he's controlling
Speaker 1: his own narratives? It depends on how close they get
Speaker 1: to him, and it depends, frankly, on how willing they
Speaker 1: are to parrot the perverted, preferred version of himself that
Speaker 1: he presents. So there's two versions of himself that he
Speaker 1: can tolerate one that he really wants, which is adulation
Speaker 1: and hero worship when he gets that in certain quarters
Speaker 1: of the conservative media and from some of his aids.
Speaker 1: And then there's you know, the portrait of him as competent,
Speaker 1: strong man. Um This book is neither one of those.
Speaker 1: And and and I think explains exactly who he is.
Speaker 1: There are people around him who recognize that he is
Speaker 1: often playing to the room, the crowd. He is taking
Speaker 1: his cues from Fox News, and then it became this
Speaker 1: kind of circular feeding cycle with Fox News where they
Speaker 1: would say something and he would pick it up and
Speaker 1: amplify it, and then they would cover it more. And
Speaker 1: that is often how he makes decisions. And I explore
Speaker 1: how whether that was about not wanting a mask mandate
Speaker 1: during COVID, or whether he was attacking football players who
Speaker 1: were taking a knee in protested police brutality, or when
Speaker 1: he was at Sea Pack in two thousand eleven and
Speaker 1: he saw that attacking Ron Paul was playing well to
Speaker 1: the crowd. It's always in response to how's it playing.
Speaker 1: He exists in interesting space in the world because you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the man. But then you talked about
Speaker 1: in the book there's also Donald Trump the idea, and
Speaker 1: you give us truly one of the most comprehensive insights
Speaker 1: into how the man was forged. Many people around the
Speaker 1: world don't know that he was considered a joke in
Speaker 1: many New York circles in business and entertainments, whatever field
Speaker 1: it was. Many people don't realize. And you talk about
Speaker 1: this in the book How the Apprentice was in some
Speaker 1: ways a sort of joke idea of like, oh, this
Speaker 1: guy will tell you how to run your business because
Speaker 1: he was so terrible, but he was so captivating on screen,
Speaker 1: he was so magnetic. He knew how to create entertainment.
Speaker 1: And then it became the tail wagging the dog. People
Speaker 1: saw the show, they went, he must be successful. And
Speaker 1: then because of that, his success started rising and he
Speaker 1: went from the doldrums of nothingness back to being a
Speaker 1: semi successful person. So then I wonder when you when
Speaker 1: you look at Donald Trump and you think of him
Speaker 1: through the lens of entertainment and politics, do you think
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has broken America? Because you say that the
Speaker 1: making of Donald Trump in the Breaking of America. Do
Speaker 1: you think he's broken America? Or do you think he's exposed?
Speaker 1: How America is broken. I think he has exposed aspects
Speaker 1: of how America has broken and fueled and exploited that
Speaker 1: for his own gain. I think that the partisan divide
Speaker 1: that exists in this country started in the nineteen nine
Speaker 1: I started before that, but it really really accelerated in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, and then there were a series of
Speaker 1: national traumas that voters reacted to. There was an impeachment
Speaker 1: of Bill Clinton, there was a terrorist attacks in the US,
Speaker 1: there were wars that followed, there was an election in
Speaker 1: two thousands settled by the Supreme Court. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: there was the fiscal crisis where most people who were
Speaker 1: seeing responsible were not punished. All of that left an
Speaker 1: impact on voters looking for something that they thought they
Speaker 1: were finding in him. But his ethos that he came
Speaker 1: to define in New York in that period you're talking
Speaker 1: about in the nineties really was hate as a civic good.
Speaker 1: Hate should be a civic good. He would talk about that.
Speaker 1: He would talk about in the context of racial violence
Speaker 1: in New York, that he would want to hate people,
Speaker 1: and that is what he exported. So he didn't create it,
Speaker 1: but he fueled it, and he has benefited from it.
Speaker 1: And there is a tremendous trickle trickle down effect. He
Speaker 1: has an interesting, you know, paradoxical vibe to him at
Speaker 1: times because on the one hand, and maybe this place
Speaker 1: to what you're saying, or it's an example of it,
Speaker 1: he plays to the room. You know, I've interviewed Republicans
Speaker 1: who at the very beginning and say like, no, I've
Speaker 1: spoken to him. He's fine. He just says that's to
Speaker 1: the crowd, and then they themselves months later and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm shocked. I didn't think he would do this. I
Speaker 1: didn't think he would go this way. You have said
Speaker 1: in the book, and you say from the beginning, this
Speaker 1: man is the most consistent person. Ironically, he is going
Speaker 1: to be who he is and he always has been
Speaker 1: in many ways. And you even break down his techniques
Speaker 1: in the interview or when he's dealing with with press,
Speaker 1: you know, you you almost break them down like like
Speaker 1: video game character moves, where you go, he's going to defend,
Speaker 1: he's going to deny, he's gonna he's gonna shift the blame.
Speaker 1: He's gonna get angry, he'll perform the anger. You talk
Speaker 1: about all these things. Why do journalists now not understand this.
Speaker 1: Why did journalists still get tricked or trapped into a
Speaker 1: place where they go Trump, what is this? And then
Speaker 1: he spins them and then they're like, oh, you did
Speaker 1: it again to me? Why does that still happen? I think,
Speaker 1: in fairness to my colleagues, I think for the most part,
Speaker 1: people realize who Donald Trump is at this point. I
Speaker 1: think that when he became president, people particularly in the
Speaker 1: Washington press corps, many of whom did not follow the
Speaker 1: campaign in did not know who he was the person
Speaker 1: that they were dealing with. How effective he is at
Speaker 1: getting media around his finger to do what he wanted.
Speaker 1: I think people generally do understand that now. I think
Speaker 1: you have seen far fewer interviews from Mara a Lago
Speaker 1: over the course of the last eighteen months, despite his
Speaker 1: desire to hold the media's gaze. Now, whether that changes
Speaker 1: when he's a nominee potentially or a candidate almost certainly,
Speaker 1: I think that an open question, and we're going to
Speaker 1: see how that goes. One of the more fascinating parts
Speaker 1: of the book that I truly enjoyed a somebody who's
Speaker 1: been immersed in this world for a long time is
Speaker 1: the brewing clash between Donald Trump and Rhonda Sanctus. Rhonda
Speaker 1: Sanctus is somebody who, in my opinion, has slowly started
Speaker 1: adopting elements of Trump in order to win over Trumpers,
Speaker 1: but then doesn't transform himself into Trump so that he
Speaker 1: seems like a reasonable choice. I mean, like I watch
Speaker 1: him even talking in like a briefing, and he started
Speaker 1: using hands like Trump. He starts doing little moves like Trump.
Speaker 1: He starts speaking in Kurt's sentences like Trump, very good,
Speaker 1: very good. Doesn't change his voice, but he dresses in
Speaker 1: the front piece suits like Trump. He has like not
Speaker 1: really I think I think he's emulated enough of Trump
Speaker 1: to to to take Trump's people, but they're not so
Speaker 1: much of Trump to to, you know, dissuade the middle
Speaker 1: voters who wants somebody who's reasonable. And it seems like
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is starting to realize that Rhonda Sanctus is
Speaker 1: stealing his vibe and he doesn't like it. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not happy about it. And he thinks that he
Speaker 1: made into Santis. And he talked about this with me
Speaker 1: in interviews last year. Then you know he was responsible
Speaker 1: for to Santis. You know, I said, Ron, you're at
Speaker 1: three percent, and so you know, when Ron asked for
Speaker 1: my endorsement, he told me that he, you know, he
Speaker 1: thought he would beat anybody very easily. I asked if
Speaker 1: he had talked to De Santis about running against him
Speaker 1: or de Santis running against him. He said that hadn't
Speaker 1: come up, but it's clearly on his mind. And he's
Speaker 1: been privately trashing him to any number of people, which
Speaker 1: is often what he does when he's he trashes him
Speaker 1: about his his weight. Well, he's been pract he's been
Speaker 1: trashing him privately to people fat phony, whiny. So Trump
Speaker 1: has been saying that run to Sanctis is fat, right, Okay, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's It's interesting because you also talked about in
Speaker 1: the book why you think and how you think Trump
Speaker 1: sees the presidency and what it brings him. He's in
Speaker 1: a different position to what he was in before. Before
Speaker 1: it seemed like it was, you know, a joy ride.
Speaker 1: It seemed like another push for publicity, maybe to get
Speaker 1: more money for the Apprentice or whatever. But now it
Speaker 1: seems like there are more stakes. You know, he may
Speaker 1: want the politics, but he's also worried about the investigation,
Speaker 1: and he's also worried. Do you then think, knowing him
Speaker 1: the way you do, and having the interviews that you've
Speaker 1: had with him and the people around him, do you
Speaker 1: think that then, in a weird way, Runda Sanctists is
Speaker 1: now the biggest threat to Trump because if Runda Sanctists
Speaker 1: manages to take the Republican Party away from Trump, Trump
Speaker 1: loses his best opportunity to escape all of the cases
Speaker 1: that are coming and all the people that are coming
Speaker 1: for him. Whether it's ROUNDA Santis or someone else, the
Speaker 1: biggest threat to Donald Trump is that someone will stop
Speaker 1: him in the Republican Party. Now, a number of donors
Speaker 1: and a number of conservatives are hopeful to Santis. Is it.
Speaker 1: We are just seeing de Santis on a national stage
Speaker 1: in a way we haven't before with with the hurricane response,
Speaker 1: and so we'll see how that goes. He has at
Speaker 1: a couple of off moments, not not in the last day,
Speaker 1: but he has had a couple of off moments and
Speaker 1: handling it. Everyone looks very good until they're on the
Speaker 1: bigger stage. And that is one thing Trump is aware
Speaker 1: of is that the difference that he brought to running
Speaker 1: for president over other candidates was he had been in
Speaker 1: the media spotlight for decades and it is just something
Speaker 1: that is completely different now. The party is different in
Speaker 1: overall how deals with the national media. Republicans are very
Speaker 1: aggressive against national reporters at this point. To Santas has
Speaker 1: obviously co opted that from Trump to to Santas does
Speaker 1: not need or crave national attention in the media the
Speaker 1: way Trump does. Trump is definitely aware to Santis is
Speaker 1: a threat. I think it is too soon to say
Speaker 1: what that looks like before I let you go, because
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an amazing book. We could talk for
Speaker 1: hours about It's Trump is a force unlike any other
Speaker 1: in American and maybe even world politics. He's inspired so
Speaker 1: many other countries when I when I travel, people will
Speaker 1: have these strange opinions about him. I've never seen anything
Speaker 1: like it where other countries have opinions about Trump as
Speaker 1: if they vote for him as well. People on the ground, genuinely,
Speaker 1: you don't really see that. And it feels like he
Speaker 1: has turned American politics forever. When you speak to him,
Speaker 1: does he have an acknowledgement of the volatility that he's
Speaker 1: dealing with or does he only think of it through
Speaker 1: the lens of Trump and entertainment and getting to the
Speaker 1: end goal? Or is there even a part of him
Speaker 1: that goes, if I if do this incorrectly, I could
Speaker 1: I could blow up the country as a whole. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a ton of the introspection that you
Speaker 1: just described. I think that's I think. I think in general,
Speaker 1: he looks at everything in terms of how it impacts him.
Speaker 1: And even when he has told that something is going bad,
Speaker 1: even if he's conscious of it, he will be aware
Speaker 1: that something is problematic for others. But for whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: three D chess in his head, and it isn't literally
Speaker 1: three D ches, but how he's how he's gaming this out.
Speaker 1: He won't allow himself to acknowledge that because that would
Speaker 1: be a sign of weakness, or that would be giving
Speaker 1: somebody else a chit. And so even if that's a consideration,
Speaker 1: you're never going to hear him say that. You will
Speaker 1: hear him say you know, he threw himself the other day.
Speaker 1: I'll just give you an example. He volunteered himself to
Speaker 1: try to solve the war between Russia and Ukraine, to
Speaker 1: be a peacemaker. This is a this is a classic
Speaker 1: Donald Trump move, which is I'm going to throw myself
Speaker 1: into this national situation that doesn't involve me at all.
Speaker 1: You know, he did. He was offering himself up as
Speaker 1: Reagan's arms negotiator with the Soviet Union in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. He actually did that. He literally was offering
Speaker 1: himself up this way and so now obviously he was
Speaker 1: not taken up on it. But um, it's a little
Speaker 1: different when it's a former president doing this and it's
Speaker 1: just in his head. The context just doesn't change. The
Speaker 1: moves are all the same. Every part of the book
Speaker 1: is interesting. You have notes from Donald Trump, whinstance because
Speaker 1: you obviously send them to him, you know, say, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm writing. Do you have any comment or anything.
Speaker 1: Some of them are like him just going like fake news.
Speaker 1: He scribbled and he sent you the sever fake news.
Speaker 1: Some of my favorites were the ones where he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is great. I never thought of it like this.
Speaker 1: It's like, there's like weird, there's weird interesting parts in
Speaker 1: how he sees you and what you're doing. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a fascinating story about Rudy Giuliani taking the biggest
Speaker 1: dump in a private plane I've ever heard from Trump.
Speaker 1: It's a book that covers everything, and honestly, I hope
Speaker 1: a lot of people read it before the next election comes,
Speaker 1: because I think it gives a lot of much needed insight. Maggie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining on the show. Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Confidence is that now wherever you get your books people
Speaker 1: now you hating them. We're gonna take a pick breaks
Speaker 1: right back, We're gonna start shows. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: to shooting in but before we go, Before we go,
Speaker 1: please consider supporting the Alejandra Foundation. They're an organization that
Speaker 1: helps the Latin community access mental health therapy services. So
Speaker 1: if you want to support them in this important work,
Speaker 1: then please donates at the link below. Until next time,
Speaker 1: stay safe out there, and remember, if you can't see
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