DOJ Erases Epstein & Netanyahu Kisses Trump's Ass With Peace Prize Nom | Author Michael Luo

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 Show with your host, Ronnie K.

Oh my my god.

Welcome to Damn Show.

I'm Ron Check.

We got so much to talk about tonight.

The TSA ends its foot fetish.

The trade war gets semi-erect.

And great news, pedophiles.

The Epstein list doesn't exist.

Party tonight at Chuck E.

Cheese.

So let's get into the headlines.

Let's kick things off with today's biggest news because I know a lot of people out here always like, oh, the news is so awful, everything is terrible, I hate fascism, do something.

Well, stop whining, okay?

Because finally, there's some great news for America.

A senior government official says the TSA will no longer require travelers to take off their shoes at security checkpoints.

All right!

TSA!

TSA!

TSA!

TSA!

Alright, people people will cheer anything.

Yes, the TSA finally got fed up with yelling at people to take their shoes off, just like Asians and white people visit.

Just take your shoes off, you barbarians, okay?

There is no argument for shoes in the house.

There's feces on the sidewalk.

Anyway, ending this policy is long overdue.

It's 2025.

Terrorists don't crash airplanes anymore, okay?

Boeing crashes airplanes.

Now, the only people this is not good for is elites like me who, and I don't want to brag here, have pre-check.

What benefits do I still have over you, please?

Because I pay to keep my shoes on and now, what, everyone else is just keeping their shoes on for free?

So what the f ⁇ am I paying for?

I should be allowed to wear two pairs of shoes and have a loaded gun.

Or four ounces of liquid.

Okay, give me something.

Okay, that's enough good news.

Let's move on to Donald Trump.

Yesterday, he had a dinner with Benjamin Netyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, and Kosher Thanos.

And you know how whenever a world leader visits Trump and they have to butter him up with a special surprise?

Well, Bibi went all out.

At the White House last night, the president hosted a dinner for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Prime Minister gave him a letter nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This I didn't know.

Well,

thank you very much.

Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful.

Yes, a Peace Prize nomination from Nanyahu is very meaningful, right up there with a Husband of the Year nomination from O.J.

Simpson.

But

Mr.

Nanyahu, let me tell you something.

If you think you can get Trump to keep sending military aid to Israel by sucking up to him, well guess what?

You can expect that money in your bank account by close of business.

Let's move on to the last bipartisan issue in America.

What happened to Jeffrey Epstein?

We've all been waiting for years for more details to come out about his crimes and his mysterious death.

And now that Trump's in office and he said he'll release that information, we can finally get some answers.

The DOJ says its case closed on Jeffrey Epstein's alleged client list and his death.

After months of promising the public release of the Jeffrey Epstein client list, the Justice Department, the FBI now saying the client list doesn't exist.

The DOJ says it will not be releasing any more material from the case files.

What, that's it?

You're just not gonna release any more information?

I've never been ghosted by a conspiracy before.

I mean, this is crazy.

I could have sworn that someone said there was an Epstein client list.

Who was that?

The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients?

Will that really happen?

It's sitting on my desk right now to review.

Oh yeah, the f ⁇ ing Attorney General of the United States said the client list was on her desk.

Let me guess, your desk also hung itself?

Pam Bondi was supposed to release the pedophile list.

If we wanted an attorney general to cover up sex crimes, we would have stuck with Matt Gates, okay?

At this point, it's like the only way we can learn about who is a certified pedophile is if Kendrick Lamar makes a song about them.

Look, I don't know what to believe anymore.

Okay, can you just declassify something?

The Justice Department also releasing more than 10 hours of purported footage, which they say supports the medical examiners finding Epstein died by suicide while in custody in 2019.

The video allegedly shows the view from across Epstein's cell door in a Manhattan prison, indicating no one entered the area the night he died.

Is that background music to that?

Finally, some transparency from this administration.

Conclusive evidence that leaves no room for debate.

The release of that surveillance video has fueled some conspiracies itself.

There appears to be a missing minute at midnight.

It's very interesting that at the 1158 mark in 58 seconds, the video jumps to 12 o'clock and it's missing a full 61 seconds.

What is going on here?

Why would they edit out 61 seconds?

Was Epstein listening to a Beatles song and the government couldn't get the rights to it?

And if that wasn't suspicious enough, when Trump was asked about it in his cabinet meeting today, he was over it.

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

This guy's been talked about for years.

Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?

That is unbelievable.

Yeah, why are you guys obsessed with the suspicious death of my best friend in a federal prison when I was president right before he was going to be on trial for sex trafficking?

It's so boring.

But yeah, Epstein is old news.

Trump is not going to use up his precious cabinet meeting time talking about somebody from years and years ago.

That's a gentleman named, and we call him President Polk.

He was sort of a real estate guy.

Too late, like too tall Jones for the Dallas Gale.

Over there is Arnest Abling.

Franklin, Delano Rosa, remember when

Bill Clinton had it and he rented it out.

Teddy Roosevelt went out.

And then you have Dwight Eisenhower, who is a very underrated person who built the interesting thing.

Johnson Quincy Adams, Mrs.

Adams,

they were the first out.

You ever see John Lovitz, The Liar, where he goes, yeah, yeah.

I guess I can see why you didn't have any time to talk about Jeffrey Epstein.

For more on this sudden ending to the Epstein case, let's go live to the Justice Department with Michael Coster.

Michael.

Michael.

There are so many questions left to answer.

Not at all, Ronnie.

I spoke to top Justice Department officials, and trust me when I say that there's no story here.

Jeffrey Epstein did not have a client list.

He did not get murdered in prison.

He actually never even existed.

I'll be at the Dave and Busters down the street.

See you later, Ronnie.

Thanks.

Hold on.

Can you elaborate?

I'd be happy to elaborate.

I own the high score on Buck Hunter.

That's a game at Dave and Busters, which is an adult arcade that I go to after work every day.

No, no, no, not that.

I mean, they can't just say Jeffrey Epstein didn't exist.

We all saw photos of him.

We think we did, but it was just one of those collective false memories.

It's like how many Americans believe there was a movie starring Shaquille O'Neal called Shazam.

But guess guess what?

There never was a Shaquille O'Neal and there's no Jeffrey Epstein.

See you at Busters.

Wait, everyone.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Then whose client list did Pam Bondi have on her desk?

That was all a misunderstanding.

It looked like a client list, but you know what it was?

It was actually just a list of an old BuzzFeed list of the top 10 Pokemon most likely to help you jumpstart your car.

You want to talk scandal?

They only have Squirtle at number seven.

What is that?

Michael, how can you believe all this?

Ronnie.

Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie.

Let me ask you a question.

Do you really think there's a cabal of millionaires out there who have the power to kill Jeffrey Epstein in prison and force the President of the United States to cover it up?

Well, when you say it out loud like that, yeah, I do.

Yeah, okay, and I do too, all right?

And I want that cabal to know that I'm just just a guy with a high-scoring buck hunter who's happy with whatever explanation they want me to believe.

I'm good.

I'm good.

So that's it then?

We're just gonna move on.

Ronnie.

Ronnie, there's so many other juicy scandals out there.

Have you seen this newly released Diddy client list?

Let's check out the names on.

Oh,

holy shit.

You know what?

Turns out this list actually never existed.

So, So

God damn it, Michael Costa, everyone.

When we come back, we'll find out who's going to win this trade war, so don't go away.

Welcome back to the Daily Show.

The stock market is crashing, which means Donald Trump is talking about terrorists again.

Let's get into it with another installment of trade wars.

My favorite word.

My favorite word.

Tariff.

Last April, Donald Trump imposed brutal tariffs on every country in the world because he doesn't give a f.

But then the economy crashed, and it turns out he does give a f, so he delayed the terrorists 90 days.

But tomorrow, those 90 days are up.

This morning, President Trump threatening steep tariffs on America's trading partners, sending letters to more than a dozen world leaders.

That's right.

He typed out letters.

Old school.

In shopping.

The terrorists hit tomorrow and there's no pushing it back this time.

Those tariffs were scheduled to go into effect tomorrow, but the president pushing it back until August 1st.

All right, we're pushing it back one more time,

but August 1st is it, right?

Is the August 1 deadline firm now?

Is that it?

Because you're moving again?

No, I would say firm.

Firm.

August 1st is 100%

firm.

I would say firm, but not 100% firm.

Do you need a pill for that?

Because they make a pill for that.

Seriously, what?

What the f?

I don't know what the terrorists are anyway.

Just give us a number.

Also, speaking of firm lines, can you just please blend your makeup a little bit better?

Just look at this.

He does his makeup the same way Mrs.

Doubtfire does.

Hello?

Now, you might be wondering why Trump is sending letters instead of making trade deals with these countries.

Luckily, Treasury Secretary Besant went on the news to clarify.

The president has a reputation, self-described deal maker.

So why haven't we seen the kind of deals that he promised in the last 90 days?

When we send out the 100 letters to these countries, that will set their tariff rate.

So we're going to have 100 done in the next few days.

But that's not a deal, that's a threat.

No, that's the level.

That's the deal.

Okay, I see.

First of all,

a letter is not a deal, it's a letter.

Second, could we give the Treasury Secretary a seat with a little more dignity?

Something that doesn't look like he's in a high chair, maybe?

Like,

hey, here comes another question for you.

I guess there's not going to be any deals.

Trump is just going to send letters to all the world leaders announcing what their tariff rate is going to be.

And he definitely knows all these leaders by name.

I'm going to send letters.

That's the end of the trade deal.

I could send one to Japan.

Dear Mr.

Japan, here's the story.

That's right.

Dear Mr.

Japan,

I'm imposing tariffs on you starting tomorrow.

Unless you say no, then it's August 1st.

I'm not firm.

Sincerely, Mr.

America.

AKA Mrs.

Deltfire.

When we come back, Michael Lowell will be joining me on the show, so don't go away.

Welcome back to the Daily Show.

Our guest tonight is an executive editor, The New Yorker, and author of the new book, Strangers in Land, Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America.

Please welcome Michael Lowe.

Hey, hey, give me a standing ovation for the writers.

Yeah, applaud the writers.

We need to applaud the writers more.

Yeah, we love readers.

We need people to read.

Yeah.

Speaking of reading, do you like these flags I put in your book to make it look like I read this?

That is.

I chose different colors too.

You read it?

You read it or your producers?

No, I read it.

It was great.

This book is great because it's about the history of Asians in America, and there's something for everyone.

If you like Asians, you learn a lot about Asian history.

And if you don't like Asians, boy, you'll love this book.

There's tons of horrible shit that happens to Asian people in this book.

So man, I didn't know there was so much horrible shit that happened here to Asians.

A lot of bad stuff.

There's a lot of

violence?

Yeah, why do we not know about this?

Yeah, that's actually why I wrote the book.

This history

goes back more than a century and it's part of the American story.

There's the worst mass lynching in America actually happened in Los Angeles in 1871.

19

men were killed, 18 of them lynched, and they were Chinese.

It was not black Americans.

There was this horrific period that I'm sure very few people in the audience have heard of called the driving out, this period 1885, 1886, where dozens of communities, nearly 200 communities, the American West, violently, physically expelled the Chinese from their communities.

And yeah, I didn't know this history before I wrote this book.

This turning out period continues till today.

Driving out?

I mean,

I thought I was publishing this book into a second Biden administration and it would be kind of a relatively sedate

time for this book to come out, but it came out in a second Trump administration and I feel the resonance of it every single day.

Right, unfortunately.

So this, I want to get to the kind of lessons in history, but I mean, again, you know, you touch on some highlights of this book.

some pretty awful highlights.

I mean, you know, it's almost like a who's who of horrible stuff that happened to Chinese people.

But like, again, why do you think we don't know about this stuff?

Well, I mean, I think history is written by the powerful,

and the powerless are often left out of history.

Historians talk about the archives

and what is left behind and whose stories are left behind.

And the

sad thing is, and the tricky thing is, there aren't very many Chinese voices in the archives.

You have to really hunt for it.

This book starts in the gold rush, and I compare it to sifting for gold.

When you read through the documents from the past, you have to look hard to bring out those voices.

Sure.

What is really cool is you tell it through this kind of narrative of people.

So it is actually

not all just an awful sound.

No, not at all.

Not at all.

Not at all.

I mean, it's an uplifting.

I think of it as like writers talk about like a three-act structure where there's a protagonist who confronts a conflict and they and there's this kind of rising tension and complications and then there's usually some sort of resolution and

you know in the sort of feel-good things is when they kind of overcome and and you know the the the heart of this book is this violence and bigotry that the Chinese in America experienced in the 19th century but the Chinese persisted.

Obviously,

you know, you know, you and I are sitting here and talking and we're part of that story and it really is a story of resilience.

Sure.

And I mean, you talked about the digging for gold.

And that's really what's really cool here is that you did dig for gold.

There's photos of people you managed to find

who...

you know, lost the history.

But you managed to find their photos and maybe tell a fragment of what happened.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, a little example of, we mentioned the Chinese massacre in Los Angeles.

You know, there were 19 people who were killed, and I think it's so important to say their names, and so we can know who they are and tell their stories.

And, you know, we know their names because there were coroners' reports and things like that, but you're trying to build a story.

And there was this herbalist, a doctor named Gene Tong, who

was one of the most well-known Chinese figures in Los Angeles.

And I tried to build that chapter around his story.

And one of the, just one little detail just shows how we do our work.

He was killed, he was lynched, and afterwards,

a reporter went through his apartment, which had been torn apart, and there was blood everywhere, and his possessions everywhere.

And there was a

pet poodle.

He had a pet poodle that him and his wife kept in their house that was under this table with a broken leg and whimpering.

And I just thought that detail was so humanizing to, because that's in the end what we need to be able to do is to move past the level of abstraction and see these people as humans.

Sure.

Is there anyone in this book who didn't get lynched?

Yeah, there are a lot of people who didn't get lynched.

What's some contribution to America that you can?

Well, I mean, the name Juan Kim Mark, I hope, is familiar to folks.

His name has been in the news.

He was

born in the United States and

Exclusion Act.

So he was born in San Francisco, and the Supreme Court, through his case, when he came, he went back to China, and when he tried to come back in,

they tried to deny his right to land.

And he said, I'm an American citizen.

I was born in the United States.

And what they were trying to do at that point is what Trump is trying to do right now.

It's saying, no,

they acknowledge that he was born in the United States, but they were saying that Chinese being born in the United States shouldn't be American citizens.

It went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court affirmed the right to birthright citizenship, which is in the 14th Amendment.

And the fact that

many people, generations of people who have, you know,

descendants of immigrants are American citizens is owed to Juan K.

Mark.

Right.

And we don't know that.

We don't know that you're not.

Sadly.

We should know that.

We should know that.

I mean, the other thing about Juan K.

Mark is that I actually didn't know, and maybe the larger story of him is known by some people.

His troubles with immigration didn't end after this really famous Supreme Court case.

A couple years later, he was arrested at the border, even though people,

this Chinese inspector down there.

They looked at his phone.

Yeah, well, they searched through his phone.

Exactly.

And they hassled him, and eventually they let him go.

But his sons, who were American citizens.

They looked for his scrolls.

Right, exactly.

His sons who were American citizens through

who were born in China, but they were American citizens through him.

When they tried to enter the United States, they were also hassled.

And one of them was actually sent back to China.

It's a pretty incredible story that his problems just didn't end there.

So, I mean, from all this and kind of what we know about history, it seems pretty obvious that

when the British came to America and founded America with these ideals of freedom of religion and birthright citizenship, they were like, oh, we meant it for us.

We didn't mean you guys, you guys weren't supposed to use this same thing.

We just meant it generally.

So, like, what does that mean for people now, you know, that we

try to live up to these ideals that

it's like the people who founded it didn't even intend for that to happen to them?

Yeah, you're totally right.

There were no federal laws regulating immigration until the Chinese Exclusion Exclusion Act in 1882.

And, you know, initially,

America was open.

They wanted people to come.

And,

you know, when this book tells a story of

how the country responded when tens of thousands of people who spoke a different language, looked different from the

racial hierarchy, the racial

hierarchy that existed then,

had a different religion.

When they started landing on American shores, what happened?

How did we respond?

And obviously,

it feels really resonant to this moment.

It's not just the story of the Chinese American, it's the story of any number of immigrant groups who have been treated as strangers.

The title of the book, Strangers in the Land, comes from a Supreme Court decision that upheld one of the Chinese exclusion laws.

And

the Supreme Court justice referred to the Chinese in a derogatory way as a group of people that couldn't assimilate with the rest of us and called them strangers in the land.

And you could say the same thing is happening.

That's what's in Stephen Miller's head when he's, you know.

Why?

He seems like a nice guy.

Why are you casting exposure?

He's reading this book and getting some ideas.

Yeah, changing his mind.

Yeah.

I mean, what do you

like?

I remember when you got inspired to write this book.

Yeah.

Can you?

Yeah, no, that's that journey.

You're talking about this moment that happened on the street in 2016 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, you know, just across town from here.

It was after church on a Sunday, and a group of friends of mine, all Asian Americans,

and my family,

we were blocking the sidewalk, and this well-dressed white woman.

Oh, now I blame you.

Yeah, we were annoying the marriage guy too.

We were annoying, yeah.

And she brushed past us, annoyed that we were in her way.

And she said, as she brushed past us, she said,

go back to China.

And I was like, kind of stunned.

And then I kind of abandoned my daughter, who was

two daughters.

One of them, who was two, was in the stroller.

She's in the audience here.

Oh, yeah.

And

ran

ran.

Hang on, you guys applauding the abandonment?

What's going on?

Sprinted after her and confronted this woman, and we were kind of going back and forth.

And she yelled down the street, go back to your effing country.

I guess I could say, go back to your fing country.

Yeah, we'll.

On the daily show.

On the daily show.

And I was trying to come up with some smart response, like the adrenaline's flowing,

and I yelled, I was born in this country.

It was such a pathetic response.

And I ended up writing a piece for the New York Times about how a lot of Asian Americans feel otherized and

like strangers in the land.

And that was kind of what set me on the journey to writing this book.

And that piece went viral.

I retweeted it.

Yeah,

I tweeted about it.

Bill de Blasio tweeted about it.

But it was this moment.

It was really just an ordinary moment.

But it really moved something in me because I was thinking about my kids and thinking about, you know, I was walking away and I was thinking about even though they're two generations removed from my parents' immigrant experience, would they ever feel like they truly belonged in this country?

And that is

what stuck with me.

And it was a couple years later during the pandemic when we had that surge in violence against Asian Americans, the Atlanta spa attacks where several Korean immigrant women were killed,

and I started to look into this history that I didn't know, that I felt like this story were part of the story of America, and yet it's not widely known.

Right.

And I guess what you're saying is some racial abuse inspired you to write a 500-word response to this?

I came up with, you know, like after you have all these encounters and you're kicking yourself what to say, I decided to write

a 160,000 word book.

Well, I'll tell you what, I mean,

I hope I'm going to walk around the Upper East Side and look for her and try to give her this book.

Give it to her.

Well, I mean,

if racial abuse helps you write this, I mean, if you want inspiration for more material, just read the comments on this video because

you're going to have a whole whole series of books after this.

Yes, there might be a go back to Malaysia or go back to Malaysia.

Go back to Malaysia.

I might write, I might, they're forcing me to do homework now.

I gotta write

every time someone tells me to go back to Malaysia.

But they don't say go back to Malaysia.

They say go back to China.

Yeah, they told me to go back to China because they think I'm from there.

So I don't even know.

I wish they said go back to Malaysia.

I could write about that.

Yeah, and you could say, and you could say now I'm an American, right?

I guess I'm American.

Brownie became an American citizen.

Just real quick, so like, what do you say to the kind of

right-wing Asians who read this book?

And they go, you know what, all this abuse that happened to Asians in America nobody knows about, and we never talk about it.

And

this is just proof that Asian people need to

band together and stop caring about any other race and just push our own agenda

and end affirmative action.

Yeah, yeah, no, well, that's what happens.

Which is what happens.

I mean, that's kind of what, that's kind of like one end of your possible response to this.

Yeah, yeah.

No,

the reality is, I do, I think the impulse behind that is related to my impulse to write this book, that this feeling of invisibility, this feeling that this story needs to be told, and this lack of acknowledgement.

But I think folks who are kind of in that MAGA Asian crowd are similarly forgetting history and forgetting the parallels in our story and that of other immigrant groups in this country.

Also forgetting the fact that we benefited from

Asian Americans benefited from the civil rights movement and the rights that were fought for and bled for.

And really, I think when you read history, when you read a book like this, when you read other great books that have been written about the story of other groups in America, black Americans,

Latino Americans,

you feel empathy, you feel kinship, and

so

that's why people need to read history.

Sure.

And I mean, yeah, people need to read history.

It's just bad.

You know,

sometimes I I feel like we're never going to live to see the final chapter of the story of Asians in America.

You end

your book in your final chapter and you end it to your daughters.

And you say, you know, maybe

I dedicated the book to

my daughters and I wrote, like, May They Find Belonging, this kind of, and I write at the end of the book, kind of a, it's a little bittersweet, that

even though this, I think it's a book of hope and I said a story of persistence and resilience the the feeling of belonging remains elusive

you know the the the question is how are we gonna get there and and you know obviously the Asian Americans are actually the fastest growing

ethnic minority group in the country and are

in a few

years are going to become the largest immigrant group in America.

So obviously numbers is part of it.

But I also think think, you know, people like you being on TV, that representation is part of it, telling these stories is part of the TV saying f is important.

Important people seeing you.

I think that's an important part of this part of this.

Well, thank you, Michael.

Thanks so much for running this boat.

Thanks for doing the work.

Thanks for sharing these stories that were lost to time.

It's very important.

And if you didn't do it, I don't know if anyone else would have done it.

So thank you so much for doing this.

We're all very grateful for you for capturing it.

Strangers in the land is available now.

Michael Law, everybody, we're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back after this.

That's our show for tonight.

Now here it is.

Your moment of Zen.

We're the hottest country in the world.

I think Bibi would admit it.

Even hotter than Israel, although Israel was pretty hot about a week ago, I can tell you,

for the wrong reasons.

But we are the hottest country in the world right now, and

it happened faster than anybody thought possible.

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.