Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 2 You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 2 From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is the Daily Journal with your host, John Stewart.

Speaker 2 Nice to see you. Thanks, Azure.

Speaker 2 We got a good one for you tonight.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, I was just, I was just,

Speaker 2 I was just, I was just putting top, chance, up. I got you.

Speaker 2 Can I tell you something?

Speaker 2 And I mean this sincerely, ever since we started spraying the audience with cocaine before the show.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Daily Show. My name is John Stewart.
Great show for you tonight. Ram Emanuel will be joining me later to remind me.

Speaker 2 He'll be out here.

Speaker 2 Reminding me just which one of the three brothers he is again. I don't know.
Is he the one that owns UFC?

Speaker 2 Does it matter matter at this point? But that is later. First, as you know,

Speaker 2 our economy,

Speaker 2 our economy is in the midst of a beautiful metamorphosis,

Speaker 2 turning from a simple caterpillar into a dead caterpillar.

Speaker 2 So let's get into it with another exciting installment of trade wars.

Speaker 2 My favorite word.

Speaker 2 My favorite word. Tara.

Speaker 2 Terrance.

Speaker 2 Now you might remember when Donald Trump was re-elected, Wall Street was thrilled, excited about deregulation, tax cuts, and the fact that you could once again call people sugar tits.

Speaker 1 One top banker told the paper that he feels liberated because now he can use offensive slurs like the R word and the P word without fear of getting canceled at work.

Speaker 2 The R word and the P word?

Speaker 2 Well, I can tell you today that that top banker is definitely using both of those words.

Speaker 2 Perhaps even adding motherfucker

Speaker 2 right now.

Speaker 2 The market meltdown for the third straight day. Global markets are sinking.

Speaker 1 Markets across Asia, Europe, and Australia plunging.

Speaker 3 At one point this morning, the Dow sinking almost 1,600 points.

Speaker 1 The markets lost more than $6.5 trillion in value.

Speaker 3 This is an economic Armageddon.

Speaker 2 Who wears a Hawaiian shirt to an economic army, right?

Speaker 2 What are we doing here?

Speaker 2 Would they pull you in from the pool?

Speaker 2 Either financial channels Rodney Dangerfeld or something.

Speaker 2 I told my wife about the stock plunge. She said, oh, I thought you guys would never go down there.

Speaker 2 Haven't done that one in a while.

Speaker 2 This turmoil could have lasting effects on the global economy, on everyday Americans, and most worryingly, the stock portfolios of members of Congress. Mr.

Speaker 2 President, now is the time to soothe a worried nation.

Speaker 4 Donald Trump put this out on social media. Don't be weak, don't be stupid, don't be a pannikin, which he has termed a new party based on weak and stupid people.

Speaker 2 Panican?

Speaker 2 The genius who gave us classics like Sleepy Joe

Speaker 2 and Crooked Hillary just shit out, you're a panican?

Speaker 2 How about hysterocrats?

Speaker 2 Repussicans?

Speaker 2 How about crionologists?

Speaker 2 Did the overseas factory you had been sourcing your nicknames from get shut down during the tariff war?

Speaker 2 So we're going to try this again, Mr. President.
Can you ease the fears of this nation like a true leader?

Speaker 1 President Trump holding firm, posting on True Social, only the weak will fail.

Speaker 1 What are you doing?

Speaker 2 Your economic policy has the same tagline as season three of Squid Game?

Speaker 2 That's supposed to make us feel better?

Speaker 2 Only the weak shall die in my economy.

Speaker 2 By the way, in case you didn't get the point, that he doesn't give a f

Speaker 2 that.

Speaker 2 He spent the weekend showing, not telling. He played not a round of golf this weekend, a tournament of golf.
A three-day tournament.

Speaker 2 812 holes of golf with his live golf Saudi benefactors.

Speaker 2 And in case you're wondering about the venerated journalists who are now allowed to be in the press pool, this was literally the first question he was asked on Air Force One in the middle of a financial meltdown.

Speaker 2 How was the bus for the bed? Very good.

Speaker 2 Because I won.

Speaker 2 It's good to win.

Speaker 2 You heard I won, right? You hear I won.

Speaker 2 Because I won.

Speaker 2 You heard I won.

Speaker 2 You heard I won. I won.

Speaker 2 You heard I won. I won.

Speaker 2 Mom, mom, I won.

Speaker 2 Mom!

Speaker 2 I won the tournament, mom.

Speaker 2 I'm a good boy.

Speaker 2 Good boy, good golf.

Speaker 2 I know the stock market is not the totality of the economy, but if I remember correctly, in the run-up to the election, Trump seemed very concerned about the stock market.

Speaker 2 If Harris wins this election, the result will be a Kamala economic crash, a 1929-style depression. And anything she can do, I can do better.

Speaker 2 I can do it on my own. I won, Mom.
Hey, Mom.

Speaker 2 Hey, mom, look.

Speaker 2 Hey, mom, look, no economy.

Speaker 2 Please love me.

Speaker 2 And it didn't have to happen like this. Trump had so many options to shape the world economy into the one he thought was fairer.
He could have proposed some incentives to bring back manufacturing.

Speaker 2 He could have gone sector to sector, nation to nation, negotiate better trade reciprocal agreements. But he had to go to full Teresa.

Speaker 2 Now to be fair.

Speaker 2 To be fair.

Speaker 2 To be fair to the Trump administration, they did give it almost two months and no effort before they asked ChatGPT what it thought they should do.

Speaker 2 But for those of us who've been tricked into believing that an economic crisis is a crisis, Trump's people have an answer.

Speaker 3 Don't panic.

Speaker 5 Calm down. Everything's going to be okay.

Speaker 2 I would not worry at all.

Speaker 6 The Dow's actually in the same place it was in August. Do me a favor.

Speaker 7 Don't look at your stock portfolio.

Speaker 2 You know what? I don't really care about my 401k.

Speaker 2 Leave, laugh, love. That's what I always say.

Speaker 2 You know what I say, though?

Speaker 2 It's 401k somewhere.

Speaker 2 And when did the right become so chill? Aren't you the Bud Lights turning my kids trans, folks?

Speaker 2 But economic meltdown and you're getting all philosophical?

Speaker 5 Losing money costs you nothing.

Speaker 6 This is just the reality of life.

Speaker 5 Like, were were you young and dumb? How much money did you lose? Everyone loses money.

Speaker 2 Everyone loses money.

Speaker 5 It costs you nothing.

Speaker 2 Except money.

Speaker 2 Losing money

Speaker 2 costs you money.

Speaker 2 Definition of losing money.

Speaker 2 And I know you go, well, it's going to be worth it to get the character of the country that we want back again. But we have no f ⁇ ing idea if that's actually what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 You're all acting like the tariff regime is a tried and true remedy. Oh, of course, this is the medicine that's always prescribed.

Speaker 2 Except the last time it was tried 100 years ago, we had a Great Depression. So how does this work? It's just a big game of economic operation as he's sticking things in, trying to take out tariffs.

Speaker 2 It's like, you know, when you're up my age, you got to get a colonoscopy. You need a full colonic, like, to be, feel better.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 Rackquis can kill somebody in the the wrong dosages but in the right dosages that can be very healthy for the patient

Speaker 2 so everyone relax

Speaker 2 this is merely a routine

Speaker 2 rat poison colonoscopy

Speaker 2 by the way What's the right dosage of rat poison?

Speaker 2 Oh, if you get enough of it, hey, your headache will be gone.

Speaker 2 And by the way, I mean, it's slightly off topic, but the colonoscopy guy?

Speaker 2 His name is John Tobacco?

Speaker 2 That's a witness protection thing, ain't it?

Speaker 2 So here's how it's going to go. Your new name is John Tobacco.

Speaker 2 Say it back to me, John Tobacco. Your name is John Tobacco.
Say it back to me. John Tobacco.
Your new profession is you do anus metaphors on newsmax.

Speaker 2 Your name is John Tobacco. You do anus metaphors.
Say it back to me. Say it back to me.

Speaker 2 By the way.

Speaker 2 If Trump wants us to stay the course with his radical plan, you might want to think of a strategy that inspires our confidence that you all know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 Like, for instance, these tariffs.

Speaker 2 Is this a negotiation?

Speaker 1 The president made it clear yesterday this is not a negotiation.

Speaker 2 Let me make this very clear. This is not a negotiation.
This is not that. This is a national emergency.
Okay, it's a national emergency. It's not a negotiation.
Well,

Speaker 2 I don't agree, but at least I have some clarity now. The tariffs give us great power to negotiate.

Speaker 2 Always have.

Speaker 2 So much rat poison.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 is this a negotiation or is this permanent?

Speaker 2 It can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs and there can also be negotiations.

Speaker 2 How much white lotus did you people watch?

Speaker 2 What is permanence

Speaker 2 in this negotiated life we live?

Speaker 2 Have a pina colada.

Speaker 2 Forget about if they're permanent or not permanent. What are we doing? How will this bring jobs back? What are these jobs? Commerce Secretary Luttnick.

Speaker 2 Trillions of dollars of factories are going to be built in America.

Speaker 2 The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America.

Speaker 2 This is also that millions of Americans can develop the dexterity

Speaker 2 I can't even get the lint out of the charging area on my phone now I got it

Speaker 2 those are the jobs that kind of thing is going to come to America it's going to be automated and great Americans the trade craft of America is going to fix them mechanics fixing robotics that's what's coming to America

Speaker 2 So it's not the screws. We're going to be robot mechanics.

Speaker 2 The robots do the screwing, and we're just there to make sure the robots are lubed

Speaker 2 and ready to screw.

Speaker 2 That is the American Renaissance.

Speaker 2 We are robot fluffers.

Speaker 2 We are waiting. This is all.

Speaker 2 So, if I'm an American manufacturer, how long do these onerous tariffs have to stay in place to convince me to build my army of automated screw and robot mechanics?

Speaker 2 They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks.

Speaker 2 John Stewart from Popular Robot Mechanics.

Speaker 2 I've never built a fully automated robot factory before, but

Speaker 2 is days and weeks

Speaker 2 enough time

Speaker 2 or too much time?

Speaker 2 Feels like it would take a month. Well, I guess that's silver lining number one of this trade war.
Want something even more underwhelming?

Speaker 2 Here's the Treasury Secretary on if we've heard the good news on the stock collapse.

Speaker 7 One thing that I can tell you is the Treasury Secretary, what I've been very impressed with is the market infrastructure.

Speaker 7 That we had record volume on Friday, and everything is working very smoothly, so the American people can

Speaker 2 be very

Speaker 7 take great comfort in that

Speaker 2 blink twice if you want to be saved

Speaker 2 I was very impressed that in the market crash, the building is still standing.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 the captain of of the, I was very impressed by the way that the Titanic just slid into the water,

Speaker 2 almost like it was taking a bath, just

Speaker 2 dipping a toe. Those drowning should take great comfort in the lack of backsplash.

Speaker 2 But their best argument so far for any of this is the same one that we got about Tinkerbell.

Speaker 2 being able to fly.

Speaker 2 You have to believe.

Speaker 7 Don't panic, okay? You've got a president who understands business.

Speaker 1 I am grateful for a commander-in-chief that has the business acumen.

Speaker 7 Luckily, we have a businessman in the White House right now.

Speaker 6 The president did write the book, The Art of the Deal.

Speaker 9 Trump is a master

Speaker 9 negotiator, and he does know the art of the deal.

Speaker 2 We're supposed to trust this guy because he wrote The Art of the Deal.

Speaker 2 You ever say, I got the book. I got the book, The Art of the Deal.
Yeah, that's why we're supposed to trust him. You ever look at chapter nine in Art of the Deal?

Speaker 2 It's about how smart Trump is about his casino in Atlantic City. Oh, oh, yeah, chapter nine.
I built a casino in Atlantic City. I'm a business genius.

Speaker 2 Whatever happened to the casino, Donald?

Speaker 2 Trust me.

Speaker 2 Look, you make a big announcement, but your reciprocal tariff formula was just the trade deficit divided by imports equation.

Speaker 2 And when you got busted on that, you threw out this ridiculous f ⁇ ing calculus problem that's just shapes.

Speaker 2 It boils down to the trade deficit divided by imports.

Speaker 2 Which is the formula that got the rich country of Lesotho hit with 50% tariffs. Lesotho.
Yo, your freed rides over, you denim-making fat cats.

Speaker 2 But we continue to blame everybody else in the world that we designed and policed after World War II. We're the richest country in the world.

Speaker 2 Ever. We're not the world's victims.
If we have inequalities in this country, that's on us. It's not a supply problem.
It's not unfair trade for the most part.

Speaker 2 It's an investment and distribution problem. It's our f ⁇ ing fault.
And I'm not saying we can't make adjustments and renegotiate things, but it didn't have to be this reckless.

Speaker 2 You killed the hostage and then went, so ransom?

Speaker 2 Some of the biggest stock market declines since the Great Depression.

Speaker 6 The worst three consecutive sessions since 1987.

Speaker 1 Even worse than it was during the 2008 financial crisis.

Speaker 4 Their worst day since June 2020 during the COVID pandemic.

Speaker 2 Financial destruction not seen since the pandemic. And this time,

Speaker 2 there's no controversy over how it all started. There's no wet market.
You, Trump, released the contagion.

Speaker 2 It's your lab leak.

Speaker 2 And it's right out in the open. This is like if the researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology walked out to the great lawn with a Tupperware and went, We have an exciting announcement.

Speaker 2 When we come back, Ram Emmanuel will join us. Don't go away.

Speaker 2 My guest tonight,

Speaker 2 former two-term mayor of Chicago. He has worked for three Democratic presidents, served as U.S.
Ambassador to Japan under Joseph Eiden. Please welcome to the program.
Ram Emmanuel Sonic.

Speaker 2 What's happening?

Speaker 2 You are back. You were in Japan

Speaker 2 as the ambassador.

Speaker 6 And it's still an ally.

Speaker 6 Oh, but a week ago.

Speaker 2 I was going to say.

Speaker 2 Check your phone.

Speaker 2 Then you come back, and you recently just took a new job.

Speaker 2 What's your new job?

Speaker 6 Well, I'm doing daily show writing right now.

Speaker 6 What's your job? Yeah, I'm working with CenterView, and I do write for the Washington Post, and I'm on CNN.

Speaker 2 I thought you worked at an investment bank. Yeah, CenterView.
Oh, CenterView? Yeah. How's that going?

Speaker 6 I'll tell you the take.

Speaker 2 When did you join? Yeah.

Speaker 6 About a month ago.

Speaker 2 And when you got there, let me ask you a question. When you got there, how is it going?

Speaker 6 Well, there's a six-letter word that a lot of people are saying lately.

Speaker 2 What's it?

Speaker 2 Tariffs.

Speaker 2 Tariffs.

Speaker 2 Was this a completely unexpected?

Speaker 2 I mean, he's been talking about tariffs forever. It seems like, did your bank set aside anything for it? Did they know this was coming? Did they put, is there a basement where they keep things

Speaker 2 taxed?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, here is,

Speaker 6 I'm going to breathe calmly.

Speaker 2 Don't panic because everything's going to be fine. Yeah.

Speaker 6 11 weeks and 11 trillion dollars

Speaker 6 out the window. Ariva Durci, Shalom al-Achem.
Whoa. Yeah, Bon Vaya.

Speaker 2 Look at you. Yeah.

Speaker 6 And we only have 200 more weeks to go.

Speaker 2 Right. Yeah.
You think a trillion a week? Yeah, as my father would say, so, what could go wrong?

Speaker 2 He takes it very easy.

Speaker 2 Is this the colonic that we need? In your mind.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 6 let me try to help you, John. Please.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 6 I'm just very, I have an

Speaker 6 Elon Musk measure.

Speaker 2 What does that mean?

Speaker 2 How many kids you have? What does that mean?

Speaker 6 This is supposed to be a manufacturing renaissance. A manufacturing is going to come back.

Speaker 6 Screws next to Apple phones, as you said.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no. We're

Speaker 2 robots.

Speaker 6 Elon Musk has a 20,000-person factory in Shanghai, a 12,000-person factory in Berlin. When those get repurposed back in the United States, this is an incredible success.

Speaker 6 Until that time, it's an absolute failure. And what is really, I mean, on a serious note, also driving me absolutely crazy, we had China isolated.

Speaker 6 We had the whole world angry at China for exporting and destroying their economies, and we are going to be their hope and dream.

Speaker 6 We worked on getting Japan and Korea to align with the United States, isolate China. Now they're working their own economic deal, and we're isolated.

Speaker 6 It's really the most...

Speaker 2 Japan and South Korea are working.

Speaker 6 Working there now with China.

Speaker 2 Doesn't everybody trade with everybody?

Speaker 6 But they were actually number one foreign investor in the United States? Japan. A million Americans work for them.

Speaker 6 One of the biggest manufacturing countries that support manufacturing in the United States? Japan. It's the most reckless thing done by a president.
I mean there is natural disasters, human disasters.

Speaker 6 There's lightning, creates a fire, there's arson that creates a fire. This is arsonist.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 But don't you think this is his MO? You know, I'm going to tell you a story. This is really the wrong direction to go in, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Speaker 6 You look like you're taking. I'm thinking how I can do it.

Speaker 2 I was going to bring some Excedrin for you.

Speaker 2 Excedrin? What is this? The 40s? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to give you an Excedrin and a Palmaul, and you'll be fine. Oh, you're lucky I didn't.
Not safe.

Speaker 6 I can give you something McKinley used.

Speaker 2 Here we go. Oh, don't do that.

Speaker 2 So I had a dog, and the dog would go go outside and he would eat whatever he could find outside. And it were generally things that a dog shouldn't eat.

Speaker 6 I'm worried where this is going.

Speaker 2 He comes back into the house, everything's fine. And you would go.
In the middle of the night, he would wake up and he would vomit on the bed.

Speaker 2 I would turn the light on and I would look to try and go get stuff to clean it.

Speaker 2 Then he would eat the vomit

Speaker 2 and then look at me and go, I did good, right?

Speaker 2 Do you see what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Isn't that what this is?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 2 Trump, I guarantee you, here's what's going to happen. Trump is going to announce he's going to eat the vomit and look at the country and go, huh?

Speaker 6 He's giving China a get out of jail card. They were in the doghouse with everybody.
They were isolating. They were destroying steel plants in Chile.
They were destroying steel plants in South Africa.

Speaker 2 But they had Belt and Road. They were making tons of relationships.

Speaker 6 But they were also exporting all their economic problems domestic all over the world.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 6 And they had a lot of people.

Speaker 2 Party manufacturing. Malaysia.
All over the world. Yes, yes.

Speaker 6 And they were isolated. And they were becoming a problem for everybody.
We're going to be the safe haven. We've now become the problem.
We've given them a get out of jail card.

Speaker 6 This is, listen, the way I look at it. March Madness used to be about basketball.

Speaker 6 Now it's about the Trump administration. You used to do brackets, now you do 401ks.
And you used to do portfolios. I've never seen it.

Speaker 2 I got to tell you. I like my dog vomit metaphor much better than yours.

Speaker 2 I feel like mine was very direct. No, no, no.
Yours? No.

Speaker 2 Now I'm thinking about seating and everything else.

Speaker 6 I'm telling you,

Speaker 6 I've literally, I've... He's going to announce this.

Speaker 6 The only thing that I could say good about this is you could, you know, you see all these CEOs on the shows that are all now like, this is crazy, this is insane.

Speaker 6 I'm going to say,

Speaker 2 schmuck, what took you so long? I mean, I cannot believe all these guys running around.

Speaker 6 Oh, it's the largest tax increase in American history. Thank God for the American people.
They think this is horrible. He He says, I'm going to come.

Speaker 2 But don't. You listen to his people.
No, his people.

Speaker 6 I'm talking about the American people. I'm not his people.

Speaker 2 Totally don't. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 This is the wrong way to look at this.

Speaker 6 His people are literally, their grasp of the English language is down to four words. Yes, sir, Mr.
President.

Speaker 2 His people were the majority of the voters in this country.

Speaker 6 I used to, I worked for three presidents. I used to be 6'2.
I'm now only 5'8 ⁇ .

Speaker 2 Your job is to vote in the Oval Office and tell them, you're out of of your mind.

Speaker 6 These guys, yes, and they go off and they repeat all this crap on TV.

Speaker 6 You know, Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, he makes a used car salesman look like a decent guy.

Speaker 2 I've never seen anything like this. Let me tell you this, and that from your whole rant there, no way you're 5'8.

Speaker 2 There's no way.

Speaker 2 I have no

Speaker 2 way.

Speaker 2 There's no way.

Speaker 6 I am.

Speaker 2 I'm 5'7, and I could dunk on you. Come on, let's go.
Let's go. Let's go.
Let's go.

Speaker 2 There's I'm

Speaker 2 taller.

Speaker 2 Taller.

Speaker 6 I'm not, I got it.

Speaker 2 No, no, not a chance. So listen to this.
I play Jewish basketball. Trump is buying.

Speaker 2 Jewish basketball, that's Will Chamberlain.

Speaker 2 Trump is going to say, what he's going to do is go, I just made a deal. He did the same thing the last time.
China just said they're going to buy all our pork and all our soybeans.

Speaker 2 It's the best deal anybody's ever made ever. They don't actually ever do it.
Nobody ever checks on it. But why,

Speaker 2 even if you wanted to renegotiate our trade agreements or create a fair system or whatever it is you want to do, why would you do it in such a reckless fashion?

Speaker 6 I want to go back to your first point.

Speaker 2 Please.

Speaker 6 In your book here, The Art of the Deal.

Speaker 2 He is the worst negotiator.

Speaker 6 China never bought anything. They took him to cleaner.
North Korea never agreed to anything.

Speaker 6 He negotiated a trade deal with Canada and Mexico, and then he just blew it up.

Speaker 2 He's blown up his own deal.

Speaker 6 Yeah, he is not a good negotiator.

Speaker 6 When you claim you're a good negotiator, it's if we cover up the fact that you're a horrible negotiator. You could have done this seven different ways.
He picked the eighth way. Right.

Speaker 6 And the problem is not just, and you are right, he's going to say after Japan or after Israel, I got this deal, and he's going to try to calm the markets down.

Speaker 6 But the fact is, the damage to America, nobody will ever trust us. In eight weeks, he's destroyed 80 years of reputation that America built, all of us collectively.

Speaker 6 All through all the battles, he has destroyed it.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 6 just like your dog, he threw up on the bed.

Speaker 2 That was my point. That was the point of the whole story.

Speaker 2 Did you miss the point of the whole story?

Speaker 2 That was my point.

Speaker 6 But I wanted to say it my way, and I feel better for being here. Thank you, John.

Speaker 2 Do you think I just brought that up randomly? No, that was. Now,

Speaker 2 let's do the other side of the coin. Okay.

Speaker 2 Democratic policy has led us, in some measure, to this moment.

Speaker 6 No, no doubt about it.

Speaker 6 We got to own this. Here's the fact, which is we disappointed the country.
Now, they will stab you in the back. We will disappoint you.
And that's just down the way it is.

Speaker 6 And you get to pick, as the American people.

Speaker 2 That's the challenge. That's the good news now.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 and here's the deal. Here's what we do.
Do you want to be the DNC chair? That is a terrible. That is a terrible bumper step.
No, you're asking me.

Speaker 6 No, but you know how

Speaker 6 we got to be honest.

Speaker 6 Because when you make a mistake, you got to own it. And that's the only way to be.
And here's the thing.

Speaker 6 No, and here's what it is.

Speaker 6 We were just talking earlier. Yes.

Speaker 6 The Stewart kids and the Amelian kids, they're going to be good. Loving home, good education.
And the American dream, they're going to get a shot at it, which is a deal.

Speaker 6 But in fact, out of Washington, the American people haven't gotten the shot. They've gotten the shaft.

Speaker 6 And what happened is trying to own a home, trying to basically save for your retirement, save for your kids' education, a health care so you're not in the poor house one sickness away.

Speaker 6 People are missing medications, kids are coming home from college, they're living in the basement. And the American dream is good for only about 10% of the kids.
That's not how we keep score.

Speaker 2 And we are responsible for not insane for that. Then, can't you understand why a percentage of the population would be like, burn it down? No, I don't care.
Here's my thing.

Speaker 6 Here's my thing.

Speaker 6 More than that, because of what happened both in the Iraq war, what happened in the financial meltdown, the American people lost their lives, their livelihood, and the elite let them down.

Speaker 6 There is no doubt that their right to be angry. I have no problem with some of the people that make up the MAGA.
They have a right to be angry because the elite lost faith with them.

Speaker 6 What I have is all these other executives who've lived large on America, who allow a president to run roughshot over the law, who run roughshot over America. They have no right to that.

Speaker 2 But that's not owning the Democratic failure. That's again placing it to so let's let's say.
No, the Democrats, the Democrats have a responsibility

Speaker 6 for what they have done with losing faith. You can't let Peoria, Youngstown, you can't let parts of Wisconsin, lacrosse, but we did.
No, we did. And that's why the first thing,

Speaker 2 sorry. We owe you.
No, we do.

Speaker 6 You have to get clean with people, own what we did wrong, and worst case scenario, we then get sidetracked into side issues rather than the main cause, which is the American dream.

Speaker 2 So how would Democrats bring that back?

Speaker 6 The American dream is unaffordable. Right.
It's inaccessible. Yes.
And that should be unacceptable to us. And then number two, what you have to do is right now is deal with the fundamentals, okay?

Speaker 6 No part of America is off from being invested or invested in. You got to make sure every American has a chance at the American Dream, which means it starts first and foremost with education.

Speaker 2 Oh, Rob. Even when you're in the same place.
Wait, wait, say it, hold on. No, don't.
No, no, wait, say it.

Speaker 6 I've got one. I've got to own that.
Okay, number two, you own with the fact is you gotta invest in this country. And we did not do that.
We basically let Americans and let the Chinese eat their lunch.

Speaker 2 And that's why we're gonna be able to do that. Even when they did it, I'm gonna tell you, I was talking to Ezra Klein, we were talking about rural broadband.

Speaker 2 Billions of dollars invested in rural broadband. There was a 14-point plan to get companies to the starting line.
to go to build.

Speaker 2 Out of all the companies that jumped in there, everybody dropped out but three. Nobody got to the starting line.
By the time their administration was over,

Speaker 2 they invested in green technology. They didn't build the electric charging stations.

Speaker 2 How can you go out there and say, we need to raise taxes and money when people don't believe that you're going to spend it? Like, here's what's so upsetting about all of this.

Speaker 2 Trump is great at diagnosing the problem. Doge is great at telling you we need efficiency.
I think the way they go about it is actually haphazard, cruel, reckless, doesn't fix the problem.

Speaker 2 But they're not wrong in the diagnosis.

Speaker 6 Yeah, you pointed out, and I have no, I agree with you 100% of what we literally, we did all the, passing the legislation should be hard, not actually getting the resource out.

Speaker 6 On the other hand, let me give you one reverse.

Speaker 2 Can I ask you, is this about a dog? No.

Speaker 6 It's about when the auto industry was on their back.

Speaker 6 And they were literally, I remember as the chief of staff for President Obama, and we got a notice that there were six weeks left before Chrysler and GM are belly up.

Speaker 6 And thousands of jobs and thousands of communities were on their back. the United States came in and saved it.
And our auto industry came back.

Speaker 6 So in fact, there is moments you can point to, you can't get a charging station.

Speaker 2 You go a second, Ibram, even though. I'm not saying, look, but let's talk about 2008 for a second.
We did bail out corporations. Yes.
But people, homeowners who went under, they lost everything. So

Speaker 6 you're looking at the guy 100%.

Speaker 2 It's hard for me to go like, oh, good.

Speaker 2 You saved GM when all the guys that work at GM lost their jobs.

Speaker 6 You're looking at the guy.

Speaker 2 Well, that's actually, that's cheap.

Speaker 6 That's not actually true. GM jobs got saved rather than go back.
Some people were out of the way. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, well, yes, but you were not totally accurate.

Speaker 6 This may be the last time I'm asked on the show.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 6 But on the second thing, here's the thing. We did do, and we saved the auto industry from going under.
And the second thing is

Speaker 6 on that part, and somebody who was in the White House had advocated for Old Testament justice on bankers because they should have been brought into the public square and literally had the crap beat out of them because they were asking for bonuses when people were losing their homes.

Speaker 2 And I, hey,

Speaker 2 no, no. Wait.

Speaker 2 That's what you argue in the Oval Office? No. They're all like, what should we do? No, not the thing.
And they're like, beat them!

Speaker 2 Whip them!

Speaker 6 Actually, to be in all fairness, it wasn't the Oval Office.

Speaker 2 Put them in a stockade!

Speaker 6 It wasn't the Oval Office within the Roosevelt room.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they should be beaten up because they're sitting there asking for their bonuses as if they earned a bonus when people lost their homes, their livelihood, and their life savings. That's right.

Speaker 6 And that is where we lost faith in the Iraq war, which is built on deception, the liar's loan that lost people their homes, it was built on deception.

Speaker 6 And then you got COVID coming around, and the Democrats sat around and acted like they were sitting on the streets.

Speaker 2 Do you ever watch what this president is doing and think? Because you did. I do, but I put it on the news.
Stop.

Speaker 2 You're in the Oval Office. You're watching him do all these different things.
Do you ever think, because President Obama, and this is what he used to yell at me about.

Speaker 2 I I don't know if you were there when I used to have to go down there and he would yell at me for a while.

Speaker 6 I was the one that called you.

Speaker 6 But when he was with you, I got free time and I actually got the

Speaker 2 right. All right.

Speaker 2 So, do you watch what this president does in terms of at least the boldness of it, not what he's doing, and think, why didn't we push the edge and get the things that we thought rather than getting, if we ran on the audacity of hope, why did we govern on the possible?

Speaker 2 is that something?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 6 the answer is in the Talmudic way, yes and no.

Speaker 6 Okay, and I'll tell you why. No, yes, I was like,

Speaker 2 no, no, no.

Speaker 2 I feel like.

Speaker 6 Don't ever say that again.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 6 Or I'll have to give you

Speaker 6 this hand. I understand.
Okay. I understand.
Or the vec might know. I know.
Here's the thing.

Speaker 6 I like sometimes I look around and I think, I literally, I set up a blind trust. You look at these people.
They're literally trading. They're setting up Bitcoin.
I was like, well, we were schmucks.

Speaker 6 We were idiots for doing this. On the other hand,

Speaker 6 nobody ever had an ethics problem in the Obama White House. We did follow the rules of law.
America was respected around the world, and we did create jobs.

Speaker 6 So did we follow it and say, oh, we should have done it audaciously like this and break over? No, because as many people are going to be able to do it.

Speaker 2 What would you have done though if you could?

Speaker 6 Oh, that's going to, we have to do three more shows.

Speaker 6 No, but I say to on the defense of President Obama?

Speaker 2 It's on the defense. No, no.

Speaker 2 He said,

Speaker 6 you know, my presidency is a marathon, and I hand over the baton to somebody else to pick up.

Speaker 6 I actually think he left America better than the one he inherited from President Bush in a whole host of ways. I don't agree with everything.
And then you look at this. No, I don't wish we did this.

Speaker 6 And I'm glad we didn't do this. Was it constraining? Yes.
But leaving here, literally walking around saying, heh, there will be a recession. What do you need a 401k for? No, and then you can.

Speaker 2 I don't mean blow people.

Speaker 2 I mean to

Speaker 2 push things in a way that didn't follow so much.

Speaker 6 Well, somebody who

Speaker 6 pushed a number of people known for that.

Speaker 2 That's why I'm asking you this question.

Speaker 6 There are things there's no doubt, like what they're about to do, let's take this on the budget and say, well, $5 trillion in the tax cut doesn't cost anything.

Speaker 6 Well, I'm sorry, any kid in third grade math, even post-COVID, knows what $5 trillion does cost, okay? I mean, give me a break. So when they sit there and do all this,

Speaker 6 they got it, you didn't get it.

Speaker 2 I mean, I. I got it.
I'm just adding up how many Americans you've called stupid tonight. No.
I'm just going through the list. No,

Speaker 2 I start off with the... Children, I want the bankers beaten.

Speaker 2 I want the dumb children removed. Now, wait a second.

Speaker 6 I think the American people agree with me about bankers getting beaten.

Speaker 2 No!

Speaker 2 I'm not vigilante. No, it's a cheap high.

Speaker 6 I know, but I'm just here for 20 minutes, so it feels pretty good.

Speaker 2 Here's what we need.

Speaker 6 Okay, but here's, no, the thing is, do I feel like I could, back to your original question, do I feel like we should have done certain things like this?

Speaker 6 Yeah, but that for a guy, I believe in the end of the day, following the rules, playing by the rules, is better for the country than trying to.

Speaker 2 Ultimately.

Speaker 6 Not just ultimately, also at the time. There are definitely frustrating things.
There are things that,

Speaker 6 what I will say this, is you look at what they did on the courts and how they stacked them versus... we kind of the way we did it in the sense of the process, all full background checks, et cetera.

Speaker 6 You could have no doubt pushed that much harder and much faster. No doubt about it.

Speaker 2 And so if you were going to, we'll leave it at this. Final advice, you're a guy that's been in the Oval Office a few times.
The Democrats are in the wilderness.

Speaker 2 I'm assuming that whoever is going to be the next leader of the Democrat Party is going to come from the wilderness, like it usually does. Clinton came out of nowhere.
Obama came out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 Generally, the successful ones, even Jimmy Cart, come out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 Who's the next? Who's the next? And what would you want them to be?

Speaker 6 Not, no, here's what I would say on a a serious note. I do want them.
I want them not part of Washington. I want them to have

Speaker 6 governed. I want them to be a true change agent.
And I want them to understand one thing.

Speaker 6 The biggest thing we have to do is restore the credibility and trust with the American people.

Speaker 2 Competence.

Speaker 6 It's more than competence. Competence counts, but that's not

Speaker 6 what keeps you up. The fair deal, the new deal, the new frontier was not about competence.
It was about having a vision in America, holding America to that North Star.

Speaker 2 And that... Give me three people that you would call on to write that vision, to have that vision, to help you with that vision, to be that vision.

Speaker 6 Three?

Speaker 2 Three. Okay.

Speaker 2 I got six for you. Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 6 Here, hold on. Let me give you this.
I'm writing it down. You got it? You want this one? It's better.
It's a little better than that one.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 6 Hey, John,

Speaker 6 your dog was playing with that beforehand.

Speaker 2 All right. Okay.
Six. Okay.

Speaker 6 Governor of Pennsylvania, Shapiro.

Speaker 2 You're just talking about the...

Speaker 6 Yeah, you asked me who it was.

Speaker 2 But these are the usual... Okay, so you're saying it's going to come from the Shapiro.
Well, they're here.

Speaker 2 The Shear, Whitmer.

Speaker 2 Look,

Speaker 6 the one constant in American history

Speaker 6 is governors have been the most likely to make it to Washington because they bring change. Both parties, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton.

Speaker 6 You go there, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Governors are your most likely change.

Speaker 2 Would you give a Mark Cuban a shot, somebody like that? Totally out of the box?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 6 No, I wouldn't, because I think that you actually have to have, you know, the currency you work out in politics is politics. And if you don't have experience in it, no.

Speaker 6 And I do think governors bring change.

Speaker 6 People that have understand, but the most important thing to me is: can you articulate that vision that takes America out of this wilderness to a better place, to a better thing?

Speaker 6 Because when you're done with this, it's going to be a lot of carnage.

Speaker 3 Young man, we're in the manual. We're going to take a break and be right back after this.

Speaker 2 Do you see though the people are so excited?

Speaker 2 That's our talk for tonight. But before we go, we're going to check in with your host for the rest of the week, Desi Lynet and Desi.

Speaker 1 Oh, big science news, John. Just this week, researchers using fossilized DNA have brought back dire wolves from extinction.

Speaker 1 Very exciting.

Speaker 2 Aren't those the Game of Thrones wolves, the dire?

Speaker 2 That does sound a little risky.

Speaker 1 Oh, does it? Doesn't it sound a little risky? Oh,

Speaker 1 I don't want giant dire wolves or a T-Rex with guns for arms. Only the weak will fail, John.

Speaker 2 I'm not weak, but I don't.

Speaker 2 I actually,

Speaker 2 I don't want a T-Rex with guns for arms. I don't want that.

Speaker 1 Wow, you're being a real P-word, John.

Speaker 2 Panic hand?

Speaker 1 You're being two P-words, John.

Speaker 2 Fair enough. Desi Lydick, everybody.
Here it is. Your woman is dead.
The Dodgers face down adversity. You entered the playoffs battered and bruised, but not broken.

Speaker 2 When you ran out, the healthy arms, you ran out of really healthy, they had great arms, but they ran out. It's

Speaker 2 called sports, it's called baseball in particular.

Speaker 2 Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 1110 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.

Speaker 4 Paramount Podcasts.

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