Jordan Klepper Charts Trump's Long History with Epstein & Nick Offerman Sounds Alarm on National Parks | Thomas Chatterton Williams

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance.

Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business.

Quote in as little as six minutes at progressivecommercial.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers.

Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

Labor Day is the last sale of the summer, but this one is our biggest sale of the year.

Now through September 2nd, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Plus, two years' interest-free financing, and we pay your sales tax.

The Floor Stores Labor Day sale.

Don't let the sun set on this one.

Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

The Floor Store, your area flooring authority.

As a parent, your number one job is keeping your child safe.

But did you know choking is the fourth leading cause of accidental death in children?

That's why there's LifeVac, the non-invasive, life-saving device that can help you act fast in a choking emergency when seconds matter.

Visit lifevac.net and use code LIFE at checkout to get 20% off your order today because peace of mind should be in every parent's home.

LifeVac, when every second counts.

You're listening to Comedy Central.

From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central.

It's America's only source for news.

This is the Daily Joe with your host, Jordan Clever.

I gotta tell you, we got so much to talk about tonight.

The government insists there's no government conspiracy.

We release our own Epstein files and we go for a walk in the woods with Nick Offerman.

So,

let's get into the head round.

We are on week two of the MAGA civil war over the Epstein files.

And the Trump administration can't get its stories straight.

There was a client list, then there was no client list.

They were going to release all the files, and then they decided not to release any files.

So let's see what today's excuse is.

I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey.

They were made up by Obama.

They were made up by the Biden infrastructure, you know.

Okay.

Cool.

Cool as a cucumber.

This guy's not worried about a thing.

So, let me get this straight.

According to Trump, all the top Democrats got together and said, Let's create some fake files that destroy Trump's political career.

They don't ever use them.

They let Trump get elected, don't use them.

Let Trump get elected again, still don't use them.

And then, once he's the president, hope he releases the files without ever looking at them.

Frankly,

you know,

that plan sounds so inconceivably bad.

I do believe the Democrats might have come up with it.

But Trump clearly wants everyone just to move on.

And after initially pushing back, some of them are getting the message.

I think the DOJ should immediately move to unseal all the Epstein documents in the Southern District of New York.

I think every file should be released to the public the same way as the JFK files.

Honestly, I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being.

I'm going to trust my friends in the administration.

I'm going to trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solve it.

The ball's in their hands.

Oh, oh,

wait a minute, wait a minute.

The ball's in their hands, he says.

Probably not the phrase I would use when

talking about the Epstein files.

The ball's in their hands.

The shaft is in the courts.

The taint is in the breadbasket.

What the f are we doing here?

A phrase you don't hear conspiracy theorists, free thinkers utter a whole lot is: I'm going to trust my friends in the government on this one.

Clearly, this issue has MAGA on its heels, which means now is the time for Democrats to strike.

Democrats, show us what you got.

Congressman Hank Johnson coming to give you some more ear candy or perhaps an earache.

You know,

maybe

I was too harsh on the J6 choir.

You know, I just feel for his poor aides who probably spent all week having to help him with this.

Like, Rebecca, quick, give me a list of all the words that rhyme with suicide, please.

But it's a fluid situation right now, and MAGA is trying to wrap their heads around it because they have a lot of unanswered questions.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, but the biggest question is just what on earth is going on?

I don't know what's happening.

It doesn't make sense.

I can't reconcile this Donald Trump with the Trump that we're seeing right now.

The Trump that is gaslighting the public right now.

Yeah, okay, okay, you know, yeah, this is a tough one.

Why is Donald Trump refusing to release the Epstein files and telling everyone to shut up and move on?

Well, okay.

Let me offer one possible theory.

Perhaps you've heard of Occam's razor.

It's the idea that the most simple explanation is probably the correct one.

In the case of Trump and the Epstein files, let's call our theory

Occam's giant f ⁇ ing machete.

By now, you've probably heard that Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Epstein's partner, Ghillaine Maxwell, used to be friends.

But it's worth understanding how close this friendship was.

Trump says he's known Epstein since the late 80s, and pictures from the 90s show the president with Maxwell, who became Epstein's girlfriend.

They were neighbors in Palm Beach.

At one point, Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago.

It's party time at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago.

And among the guests, Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump and Epstein can be seen ogling the cheerleaders.

Trump points one of them out and says, she's hot.

Then he says something in Epstein's ear that has the financier doubled up in laughter.

Now.

Okay, now.

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

What did Trump say?

It's impossible to know.

And Donald Trump and Epstein didn't just party together.

They were neighbors.

Epstein said he was Trump's closest friend for 10 years.

In fact, Epstein's infamous little black book included 14 different numbers for Trump and his representatives.

I mean, he had 14 separate ways to contact Donald Trump.

I mean, when I drop my kid off at camp, I give two emergency contact numbers.

And one of them is fake because I don't need the hassle, all right?

And these guys didn't just party together, Epstein was a part of some major milestones in Trump's life.

Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump.

Trump was a frequent passenger on Epstein's plane, known as the Lolita Express.

And Epstein told author Michael Wolfe: the first time he slept with Melania was on my plane.

And that is how I met your mother, Baron.

Any questions?

I'll tell you, next time you're on a flight with a crying baby, just think about how much worse it could be.

All right.

So right now, you might be thinking, fine, they were friends.

They hung out.

That doesn't mean Trump knew about what Epstein was doing.

And you know what?

Maybe not.

But he clearly had some idea.

In a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, Trump showered praise on Epstein, calling him a, quote, terrific guy, and saying, it is even said he likes beautiful women as much as I do.

And many of them are on the younger side.

Do you know how creepy with women you have to be for Donald Trump to pick up on it?

I mean, that's a real, you're drunk friend taking the car keys from you moment.

And you could still say, so what?

They were close friends.

They were mile high club pals.

That still doesn't mean that Trump is in the files.

And maybe.

But after Jeffrey Epstein died in prison, the only person left who knew all his secrets was Ghelane Maxwell.

And when she got charged with sex trafficking, Trump's response was surprisingly sympathetic.

I haven't really been following it too much.

I just wish her well, frankly.

I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach.

But I wish her well, whatever it is.

You wish her well?

Is that the right response?

I think there's a reason they don't have that section in the Hallmark store.

It's not there.

It's not.

Let's be clear.

Law and order SBU doesn't start like in the criminal justice system.

Sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous and we wish the perpetrators well.

Dun dun.

Okay, you know what?

You know what?

You want to take another shot at it?

Maybe, maybe even more flailing and desperate?

Yeah, I wish you well.

I'd wish you well.

I'd wish a lot of people well.

And I do wish you well.

I'm not looking for anything bad for her.

I'm not looking bad for anybody.

What are you talking about?

You wish bad things on everybody.

Suddenly you're wishing Ghelane well.

You were harder on Kristen Stewart for cheating on Robert Pattinson.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

All right.

So,

so,

to sum up, to all the MAGA people who are so confused about why Trump doesn't want to release any of these files, maybe the answer has something to do with Occam's giant

machete.

But

Bravo, Jordan.

What is that?

Bravo.

I know that sarcastic clap.

Is that Michael Costa?

Yes, Michael Costa.

Michael Costa.

Apparently.

Apparently, I'm in Mon-Alago, everyone.

Michael Costa.

That's right.

I'm Michael Costa.

And you must think you're Inspector Gadget, the way you're putting all the clues together, huh?

But the fact is, you're just talking out of your go-go-gadget ass.

Okay.

I don't think that's fair, Michael.

I've laid on a pretty good trail of Trump and Epstein's decades-long friendship.

Sorry, I barely recognize you in your tinfoil hat.

Hey, Clepper, you're just like all the other conspiracy theorists, stringing red yarn between random facts.

You think you're Sherlock Holmes, but really, you're just talking out of your go-go gadget ass.

All right, Smarty

Why do you think Trump was just so close to Epstein?

It's so obvious, Jordan.

Once you take off your go-go-gadget blinders, you'll realize that the reason Trump was friends with Epstein was so he could investigate him.

He knew from the very beginning that Epstein was trouble, and as a concerned citizen, Donald Trump f ⁇ ed Melania on his claim.

You know, laying low.

Okay, okay, but if Donald Trump was working to expose Epstein, why doesn't he just say it?

Because he's a humble man, Jordan.

If the world found out he was the one who exposed the world's most notorious sex trafficker, he would get so much praise, love, and attention.

And that's the last thing Donald J.

Trump would want.

But.

Consequently, he didn't expose anything.

Epstein killed himself in prison.

Yeah, well, and you can thank Donald Trump for that.

Who do you think talk Epstein into it?

My man, Donnie T, went into his cell and said, listen up, you ugly mug, the game's up, see?

We got you dead to right, so do yourself a favor.

Punch your own ticket before we put you in the chair and give you the juice, see?

Okay, all right, so let me get this straight.

Your theory is that Trump spent the past 30 years undercover in Epstein's pedophile cabal, which he was not actually part of, to get evidence to convict Jeffrey Epstein, who Trump convinced to kill himself, but he can't release the files because people would be too grateful for him.

Well,

well, well.

Look who finally

connected all the clues.

Mr.

Detective Colombo.

Looks like Mr.

Murder She-Road finally pulled his Nancy Drew head out of his go-go-gadget ass.

Michael Costa, everybody.

Bucks laughing, stop slapping, stop.

When we come back, Nick Offerman will give us his opinion.

Don't go away.

This Labor Day, gear up, save big, and ride harder with cycle gear.

From August 22nd to September 1st, score up to 60% off motorcycle gear from your favorite brands.

RPM RPM members get 50% off tire mount and balance with any new tire purchase.

Need to hit the road now?

Fast Lane Financing lets you ride now and pay later with 0% interest for three months.

And here's the big one.

August 29th through September 1st only.

Buy any helmet $319 or more and get a free Cardo Spirit Bluetooth.

Supplies are limited.

Don't wait.

Cycle gear.

Get there.

Start here.

At Larson, we've perfected storm doors.

like the Larsen 60 Maximum View Wisher Latch.

It's a guardian, keeping your little escape artists securely inside.

The Defender, protecting against what you don't want with the most secure, first-ever magnetic latching technology.

When you hear, you know your 60 Maximum View is secure with Surelatch.

Larson, it's not just a storm door.

Find us in aisle or learn more at larsondoors.com slash Shurelatch.

When never thought this would happen actually happens, ServePro's got you.

If disaster threatens to put production weeks behind schedule, ServePro's got you.

When you need precise containment to stay in operation through the unexpected, ServePro's got you.

When the aftermath of floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and other forces that are out of your control have you feeling a loss of control, ServePro's got you.

Simply put, whenever or wherever you need help in a hurry, make sure your first call is to the number one name in cleanup and restoration.

Because only ServePro has the scale and expertise to get you back up to speed quicker than you ever thought possible.

So, if fire or water damage ever threatens your home or business, remember to call on the team that's faster to any size disaster at 1-800SERFPRO or by visiting SurvePro.com.

Serve Pro like it never even happened.

Welcome back to The Daily Show.

We all know I've got great opinions, but I'm not the only one.

Studies show that other people also have opinions.

So, here with another installment of In My Opinion is our good friend, Nick Offerman.

Hello.

I am stage and screen luminary Nick Offerman.

And I'd like to say the phrase that everyone loves hearing.

Do you have a moment to talk about the environment?

I have several undeniable loves in my life.

The oaky notes of a barrel-aged whiskey, an old-fashioned plum bob dangling over a red cedar plank, my blushing bride's hoo-ha,

and of course,

America's national parks.

Our beautiful national parks were the brainchild of Theodore Roosevelt, Teddy if you're nasty,

and environmentalist John Muir, who you may recognize as the old man in Home Alone.

America's national parks, as the kids say, slay.

Now I've spent much of my life in their splendor.

I've written several books about them.

And thanks to the parks, my parents never had to teach me about the birds and the bees.

They just took me to look at Old Faithful.

I mean,

I got it.

But that's why it brings me great sorrow to report these pastoral gifts to America are under attack.

National parks are facing a major summer staffing crisis.

Staffing cuts under President Trump and cost cutting by Doge have left parks struggling.

Permanent staffing is down 24 percent system-wide since President Trump took office.

Cuts to the park system are causing chaos.

Long lines, dirty bathrooms, and overflowing trash cans.

Even scientists now have to help clean toilets due to severe shortages.

That's right.

America's parks are so underfunded now that they're making scientists clean the toilets.

Like goodwill hunting, but in reverse.

Now this is a huge mistake.

No scientist has the strength to clean the skid marks of a man who's been eating beans and campfire hot dogs for the past three days.

They're weak.

This is no way to treat America's park rangers.

They are already underpaid despite being highly skilled.

Our park rangers have to traverse miles of treacherous terrain, stand up to dangerous wildlife, and glue all the leaves back on the trees every spring.

You thought they grew back?

Read a book.

These rangers are doing everything they can to keep the parks going, and I mean everything.

A TikTok influencer is proving once again that sex sells, even when it comes to, yes, national parks.

Kim Tanner is behind a trend called Park Talk, which features risque videos and raunchy song lyrics to promote awareness of the parks.

Tanner says that she's concerned about federal funding cuts and new mining activity.

Yikes.

Rangers are stripping.

People, I'm worried we're just about two months away from seeing the Grand Canyon on OnlyFans

because

it shows whole

And it does rim-to-rim action.

Color me subscribed.

Now, true, our parks need to make money to function.

And to make matters worse, President Trump's one big beautiful bill just cut another $267 million from the national parks budget.

How will he make up that money, you ask?

I'll tell you.

The only way he knows, by shaking down foreigners.

President Trump just increased the price to get into national parks, but only if you're from a foreign country.

The national parks

will be about America first.

The increase is estimated to bring in an additional $90 million to the Department of Interior's budget.

Let me get this straight, Mr.

President.

You cut $267 million to get back $90 million.

Now, I'm no mathematician,

but I believe that's called shitting the bed.

But then again, I didn't go to Wharton Business College.

If money is all you're concerned about, there is great news, Mr.

President.

These parks actually make a ton of green.

In 2023, National Parks brought a record $55.6 billion to the U.S.

economy, supporting more than 415,000 jobs.

A record-breaking 331 million visits across hundreds of sites last year alone.

330 million visits.

That's over five times more visitors than Disney World.

Plus, the mice in our national parks would never debase themselves by participating in the culinary atrocity that is the character breakfast.

I'm sorry that you flunked out of Juilliard, Mickey, but you stay the f ⁇ away from my eggs.

That is the true miracle of our national parks.

It is an affordable vacation that everyone can take inside our own borders.

Whether you're traveling with your family or abandoning your constituents during a crisis.

Protecting our national parks is a bipartisan issue.

They are the one place where a pickup truck and a Prius look equally at home.

All Americans use our parks, conservatives, liberals, libertarians, from Rand Paul to the birds that live in Rand Paul's hair.

In fact, President Trump, even you have talked about our parks fondly and almost remembered their names.

We want every American child to have access to pristine outdoor spaces.

When young Americans experience the breathtaking beauty of the Grand Canyon, when they gaze upon Yosemites, Yosemites.

It's Yosemite.

Yo, Semites

is what a bad undercover cop might say to a group of Hasidic Jews.

Yo, Semites, you want to buy a bag of goofballs?

So look, we can only hope that the president takes his own advice and protects our country's majesty with adequate staffing and funding.

It's America the beautiful, purple mountain majesty, amber waves of grain, a little bit of chicken fried, cold beer on a Friday night, a pair of jeans that fit just right, and the radio up.

I may have gotten my songs mixed up.

The point is, if we don't protect our natural beauty, what is even left to sing about?

Because let's face it, America without its national parks is like McDonald's without the hamburgers.

You can still go there, I guess, but at that point, it's kind of just a bathroom.

But that's just my opinion.

Welcome back, Thomas Chatterton-Williams.

And he's joining me on the show.

Don't go away.

Welcome back to the Daily Show.

My guest tonight is a staff writer at The Atlantic and and author of the forthcoming book, Summer of Our Discontent, The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse.

Please welcome Thomas Chatterton Williams.

A lot of big ideas in this book, Thomas.

I want to jump into some of these, all right?

You look specifically at the summer of 2020, but this book takes us back a little bit about the promise of Barack Obama and talks about this promise of post-racialism and how the failures, I believe you say, the failures to take action in that or to find this moment of post-racialism, you could draw a direct line from that to this era of Trump and MAGA.

Explain that for me a little bit.

Yeah, I think we had a moment in the beginning of this century when the country seemed to come, not everyone in the country, but a plurality of people in the country, maybe even a slim majority of people in the country, really wanted to put the past oppressions and biases behind us and create this multi-ethnic society that Barack Obama's figure kind of gave us a hint of what could be.

You know, and so there was this moment of goodwill and even there were there were polls in Gallup that a majority of McCain voters even thought that this was an inspiring moment, even in loss, and that.

Fake news.

I don't believe that for a second.

There was a moment where people on the other side were like, this is still inspiring.

It's hard to believe.

I don't remember.

It was a different country.

It might have been a temporary moment, but there was a moment when people seemed to want to transcend the kind of conflicts that we had been plagued by in the previous century.

And Barack Obama's figure was a special charismatic kind of

idea of a post-racial future embodied in the president.

And I think that we had a chance, but it didn't last so long.

So what?

It didn't last so long.

Well you mentioned in here that this sort of clicked with you.

You're a teacher as well with the disconnect you had with your students.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I'm about 20 years older than the undergrads that I teach.

And they can't remember the Obama era.

This idea that there is a moment where we would become, now it seems naive to say post-racial.

And a post-racial is such a loaded term now.

It almost feels antiquated.

It feels antiquated, and people don't really take you seriously if you say you believe in post-racialism, but there was a moment when that seemed to point to something that we could become.

That seemed to be a kind of, it was downstream of Martin Luther King's idea of the mountaintop, you know, and that we would meet each other and judge each other by the contents of our character.

It seemed when it was earnestly embraced like a vision of America that we were moving towards the arc of history, it bent towards justice, you know, and that was a moment that I don't believe that the Gen Z students and soon to be the Gen Alpha students that I teach

have direct contact with.

And so

it seems like abstract history to them.

And when I try to kind of evoke that in the classroom, that sense of optimism that we had, that hope and change, when Barack Obama said, you know, we're not the, you know, we're not red states, we're not blue states, we're the United States of America, there was a moment where I truly believe in that because I came up when that kind of defined the political possibilities of my generation.

And I noticed this absence with the young kids, with the young adults that I teach undergrad now.

And I find that to be kind of a real tragedy of the political culture that we've inherited since

that crucial turning point when we reached this fork in the road where we could have gone to this nicer,

more perfected union.

How could we have done that?

Because I mean, this book is critical of the left and the way in which they handled that movement, right?

Like, how do you see,

what are the criticisms you see in the way that the left and Obama handled that movement?

And where was the actual space for a post-racial America?

That's a very good question.

I think that there was a space where,

and you might call this also, you know, I think there's a lot of room to push back and critique this, but I think there was.

Give me a shot.

So

there was a moment where I think a lot of very well-intentioned white people,

let's call them, you know, white liberals,

I'm tracking, yes.

Where a lot of them probably felt like, we've done it.

You know, we've really done it.

We've decided to put race behind us and identity behind us, right?

And so we've elected somebody who is embodying that new America that we're moving towards.

And there is a chance to really be post-racial.

But I think there were several missteps, and I can understand how they happened, and I think it's a tragedy how they happened.

But one of the real inflection points that I tried to get into in the book is when Barack Obama said, you know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin.

And at the time that that happened, I didn't really appreciate that that was a rhetorical misstep.

I think that, you know, I really understand what he was trying to say.

But I can also see now in retrospect how we had elected Barack Obama and we had believed that we were moving past race and we had believed that we were moving past these divisions.

It's appalling that a boy is stalked and killed because that's an appalling thing to do full stop.

And I think that you know when he injected the kind of identity angle into it people said we you know this we haven't actually become post-race at all.

In fact this is a kind of identity angle and I feel excluded from this.

I try to think of the example of like think of like Lake and Riley

who who was

this young woman in Georgia who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant.

Imagine if Donald Trump said, if I had a daughter, she'd look like Lake and Riley.

That could actually really be explosively divisive.

Not to say that he's not explosively divisive every day.

But think about what that would inject into the conversation about it.

Almost a kind of white nationalism.

Oh, that's what it would begin?

Well, I mean, I think

that's a curious point there, right?

But Lincoln Riley is somebody who has, from my perspective, been weaponized by the right.

Absolutely.

As a victim that the left doesn't see.

And I remember that moment with Barack Obama and Trayvon Martin.

And

from my perspective, it felt like a very powerful moment when Barack Obama saw himself and his family in this victim here.

My memory of it was less that he brought race to that situation.

I feel like he had an entire media ecosystem on the right that was making Barack Obama the black president.

Absolutely.

That was consistently projecting this and race baiting and fear-mongering.

And so in some ways it felt like that moment was like a necessary moment of inclusion.

That identity, he didn't bring up identity.

Identity was somewhat thrust on him as a weapon.

Well it shows how little leeway he had and how there was no room for any mishap.

And that's what I think is the tragedy of his presidency actually.

It was always too much for one person, even as magnificent and excellent, and I think as elegant a person as he was.

It was too much for one person to ever be able to handle because the moment anybody could kind of put a misstep on you, then it was much more extreme and much more significant than it would have been for another president.

But you still see there was a moment of hope in that.

I really do.

And so do you see that...

Does that give you ultimate hope that there's space there, or does it ultimately depress you because that was a missed opportunity?

Both.

I think

I have to call myself a pess optimist.

But both.

You can't just be one or the other.

And I think that the vision of America that I was exposed to, I can never forget.

And so I have to be an optimist as long as I know that that moment existed and I lived it.

The night he won in 2008, in November, I was in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, walking through the streets.

I've never seen

such civic pride.

And

the thing I felt in the streets that day is the country that I believe we will one day have back.

I think it's really under siege.

I think it's the most dangerous moment I've ever lived through now.

But having glimpsed that, I don't believe the future belongs to Donald Trump and the movement he's trying to bring in.

I really can't accept that.

I think it's

the

major part, the big chunk of this book looks really at the summer of 2020.

And

it's fascinating to look back at something that feels in some ways like it was a month ago, in some ways it feels like 100 years ago.

But you really walk through it

from a critical eye towards

what the progressive response to that was.

And I think you're very clear about, like,

you don't hold back on your critiques of the left, but make it clear that in order for people to find that step, perhaps away from Donald Trump, you need to be pretty clear-eyed about the mistakes that you made, specifically in the summer of 2020.

What do you see those major missteps as?

Well, where do you want?

How much time you got?

Well, I mean, like, you focus on, that was such a chaotic time.

You're looking at COVID and you're looking at George Floyd.

Yeah.

Right?

Talk to me about George Floyd and where you see the flaws of the left in the response to George Floyd.

Sure.

So you have really, thank you for bringing that up.

You have a confluence of events.

You have the pandemic, which makes possible a kind of reaction to this like horrific videotaped execution that really looks, looks, it's a nine-minute long slow death that's recorded.

So that happens at a moment when everybody is at home, sidelined from their normal lives with a lot of time and attention and glued to these screens that homogenize all of our shared reality.

And then hanging above that, you have the specter of Donald Trump telling people to ingest bleach and to

shine light on themselves as a way of fighting

an epidemic that we still don't fully understand and terrorizing the body politic.

So you have this kind of moment where so many missteps

were made but one of the most extreme things that I think was really done by people who would be left of center and progressive was that they squandered the kind of institutional authority that they had in our mainstream institutions.

They squandered trust.

So you have epidemiologists and public health

authorities saying one day that you really can't be outside because it's too dangerous to mass collectively and people are trying to kill your grandmother if they're outside or if they're trying to you know if they're don't you have sympathy for that that was a fluid situation of course I have sympathy for that but what I don't have as much sympathy for is that the next day after George Floyd dies tragically is that then it's like racism is also an epidemic and you actually must be outside now because because we actually have to protest against this other pandemic and the risk is now tolerable.

It's either

the COVID-19 doesn't discriminate based on which ideological standpoint you're at.

So

that was a major mistake by the kind of public health messaging that was picked up by other outlets on the left.

Then you had the kind of reporting that I think

was a massive, massive squandering of institutional authority.

I think maybe people in this audience remember a Chiron that said, fiery but mostly peaceful protests.

I don't think that people people who lived through seeing cities burn, and you know, downtown New York City, Soho, it was getting crazy in Soho sometimes.

You know,

all of the stores were boarded up.

There were police guards outside of Nike.

You know,

people were looting.

To say, it's one thing to say that that's sometimes what happens, you know, but it's another thing to say that this isn't happening.

Don't believe your lying eyes.

You know, it's really mostly peaceful.

It's really, Kenosha is not burning.

You feel that's embedded in some of the frustrations that the MAGA movement picked up.

I don't think it justifies, you know, I think you know they you know there's there's ways of responding to to something that's not right that that go so far beyond an appropriate response that they create a new problem that's that that's that's far greater than the original offense.

But at the time though, at the time you do see a left who is like you're you're you're advocating for a more rational response.

Yes.

But it felt like it it was an irrational time.

Very much so.

With a person in charge who was fear-mongering, giving you false information, who was race-baiting with all of the moments, with what was happening with George Floyd.

And that I know that you're against elements of the identity politics and how the Democrats have clung to it, but it didn't feel like, at the time, it didn't feel like that was the choice Democrats were making.

It felt like that was the reality they were embracing and had a real earnest

desire to use

that moment and to use that anger to try to enact some kind of change.

I know you don't think that was done correctly,

but what do you do with that energy in a moment that is so irrational?

It's a very good question.

I think that in retrospect, it's very easy to judge a lot of things.

In the moment, you know, I think that emotion and a sense of solidarity can be very compelling, but they can also cloud judgment.

You know, I think that there's something ludicrous when you look back at Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling in Kenty Cloth.

It's a weird look.

It's a weird look.

It's not a weird look.

It didn't fit correctly either.

Well, I mean,

they didn't do very well.

It's a weird look, but you can understand this kind of, we all feel this impulse to empathize with the victim.

But what I'm trying to get at in this book is like

The America that I want to achieve is like, what was George Floyd's primary identity?

Certainly he was black, but his black experience is not the universal black experience.

First and foremost, his identity was that this was a poor man.

This was a man out of work.

this was a man who was broken by police and was able to be violated in the way he was because he had no socioeconomic protection.

And I think that to talk about it only as a matter of identity actually limits our ability to engage non-black people in the struggle, which is that no American should be okay with law enforcement being able to break somebody, especially a poor person without any resources, the way that they broke George Floyd.

Whatever color you are.

Do you see a space?

Is there a space in the middle?

Is there a space between no identity politics and identity politics that someone is walking right now, or you see as a potential lane for somebody to walk?

I think so.

I think the way you and I are talking, I'm cognizant of the fact that you seem to be descended from Europeans, though I would never assume.

That is the kindest way to address my race.

cognizant of the fact that you are a pasty mother.

But

I would like it to tell me as little

about you as possible.

I would like that to be as,

I would like to not make assumptions based on that.

on those superficial identity markers that I see.

I want to understand you as an individual.

I want to understand where you come from.

I want to understand what experiences you've had in America and not just assume things based on the texture of your hair, the color of your eyes, and your epidermis.

And that's really what I, you know,

I was curious.

I will say, like,

there's a lot in this.

I found this book really challenging and fascinating.

I very much enjoyed it.

And something you talk about, you spend a lot of your time in France,

is

the ways in which a place like

how the French see identity compared to how Americans see identity.

And like,

what are some of the takeaways you have of looking at what American identity politics is from the point of view of somebody who spent so much time in a place like France?

Yeah, so I wrote an article in the Atlantic a few years ago about the kind of ideal society would be someplace in between France and America.

You know, France has this commitment to universalism and what they call laicité and this idea that there's just the French citizen and you leave

everything for the Jew privately but nothing for the Jew collectively as a group.

That's how it kind of originated.

And then now with Islam and Muslims, this kind of idea that you leave that ethnic or religious identity in your home, outside, everybody's a French citizen.

This has a lot of strengths to it.

They don't actually,

they've struck the word race from all.

The government doesn't recognize racial difference.

But that's actually kind of like where you would say, if you had to say, like, what's the ideal society you would like to get to?

You would say, in theory, I would like to get to that society.

But in practice, you actually don't know how many French citizens of Arab descent are in jail and how the criminal justice system operates.

So, by doing that, you don't have any awareness of what the patterns are within the past.

Exactly.

So, you have

some real drawbacks to that.

But you would have to say that I would like to get there as opposed to a kind of society where we permanently kind of fetishize our differences and think that

here I am a descendant of slaves, here you are, a descendant of slave masters.

I like the earlier description of the universe.

And that we can never kind of understand each other, and that there's an epistemological divide between us.

You would have to say that you would want to get to the society of the universal citizen, but in practice, there are some real stumbling blocks, and sometimes the kind of American way of speaking as a has a place.

So, I think what you're talking about is a kind of nuanced approach that recognizes and respects identity differences, but doesn't make that the whole game, and doesn't ever allow that to occlude the ability of the individual to, you know, what about the minority within the minority?

I think sometimes when we talk about differences of identity,

we forget that there are Muslims who disagree.

about what the proper direction of Islam is.

There are blacks who have very powerful critiques of affirmative action and reparations.

There are Jews who see the war in Gaza completely differently.

So there is no Jewish point of view.

There is no woman's point of view.

There are just people who come from these backgrounds and have lots of competing viewpoints.

From 2020, the example that I really take about this is that for a moment there was so much

understandable empathy about policing that people said, you know, this is terrible.

Like, black people are being killed in the streets by police.

We have to do something about it.

Okay,

let's defund or even in some cases abolish the police because that would be what's

in black people's favor.

And then suddenly, you know, know, the homicides go up.

You really have serious consequences in Minneapolis and other places that experimented with this stuff.

And you have

this inconvenient result that a lot of black people are screaming and saying, bring the police back.

I'm the one getting shot here.

My daughter is getting shot here.

There is no black point of view that agrees on that.

So you actually have to listen to differing viewpoints.

People don't have a monolithic kind of identity.

And so I think that is what is the risk in a kind of American identity forward, multi-ethnic society where you stay in your corner, I stay in my corner.

When I'm speaking, you listen to me because I have some epistemological advantage over you that's based on ancestry and can't be bridged.

So I think the ideal society has a softer approach than the French who can be too tough with their universalism, but never kind of skews too far into fetishizing the difference the way that we do now.

Well,

it's truly a fascinating read, and I appreciate most of this conversation.

The slave owner thing, maybe not as much, but I like that.

Thomas, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Lisa.

Summer of our Viscontest is out August 5th and available to pre-order.

Thomas Chatterton Williams.

Gonna take a quick break and be right back after that.

That's our show for today.

Now, here it is.

Your moment is is eggs.

Mr.

Epstein was a sex trafficker.

I think it's reasonable for the American people to ask

who he sexed, trafficked these young women to.

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

Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus.

This has been a Comedy Central podcast.

Shop the Sherwin-Williams Labor Day sale and get 35% off paints and stains August 22nd through September 4th.

With prices starting at $31.84, it's the perfect time to transform your space with color.

Whether you're looking to revamp your interior or exterior, we have you covered with bold hues, soothing neutrals, and everything in between.

Visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams store or shop the sale online.

Delivery available on qualifying orders.

Click the banner to learn more.

Retail sales only, some exclusions apply, C-Store for details.

It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.

For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.

And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose.

Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.

Visit Carrington.edu/slash/SCI for information on program outcomes.