Republicans Play "War Plan" Semantics as Journalist Brings Receipts | Steve Coogan

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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 Chang. Hello, welcome to The Daily Show.
I'm Ronnie Chang. We got so much to talk about tonight, so let's get right into the controversy that's still rocking Trump's cabinet in another installment of The Worst Wing.
What a bunch of losers. None of that was AI.
By now, we all know that Donald Trump's meritocracy brain geniuses planned an attack on Yemen in a Signal group chat and accidentally invited a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg. And this story might have ended on day one if the administration had just owned it and made some bullshit statement like, sorry, we're taking accountability,

hashtag listening and learning, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

But they just can't help themselves

because whenever they're in trouble,

their default response is to punch their way out of it,

which only makes things worse.

So now we're still talking about this three days later

instead of what I wanted to cover tonight,

which was 23 and me going bankrupt

and what they're gonna do with all your DNA.

One word, face off.

Okay.

Okay, that's two words with a slash

and we can't decide that.

Look, it doesn't matter, all right?

The point is they're gonna put your face on someone else

and Okay, that's two words with a slash, and we can't decide. Look, it doesn't matter, all right? The point is, they're going to put your face on someone else, and the White House wants to move on.
They've got to come clean and stop stepping on their own dicks, okay? So let's start with something easy for National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. How did the reporter get invited into the group chat?

I don't mean to be pedantic here, but how did the number get in the chat? Have you ever had somebody's contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else's number there? Oh, I never make those mistakes. Right? You've got somebody else's number on someone else's contact.
So, of course, I didn't see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else.
I mean, I'm sure everybody out there has had a contact where you, it was said one person and then a different phone number.

No, no one's, no one's ever had, no one's ever had that. All right.
People don't have a contact with a phone number for, like, a different person.

Unless they're having an affair.

So, I...

I guess I'm saying

I think this guy is having an affair

with Jeffrey Goldberg.

And,

and look, even if that was

an actual, somewhat relatable

mistake,

Thank you. with Jeffrey Goldberg.
And look, even if that was an actual, somewhat relatable mistake, maybe try not making that mistake when you're planning a war. And why are you shitting on Jeffrey Goldberg? He's a loser.
This guy sucks. He's dishonest.
He didn't do anything. All he did was wake up in the morning and you added him to your group chat.
You, like, abducted him and forced him to see your secrets. But, okay, the bigger issue is what was shared in the group chat.
Jeffrey Goldberg says there were war plans that were so sensitive, he didn't even put them in his article. But Pete Hegseth spent the last two days saying he's lying.
Nobody was texting war plans. Nobody's texting war plans.
Nobody's texting war plans. Okay, great.
Couldn't be more clear. Nobody was texting war plans.
You hear me? Nobody was texting war plans. Nobody was texting...
And we begin with the breaking news. The Atlantic Magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, is releasing the messages from the Yemen strike plans group chat.
And the screenshots show discussions of weapons and specific timing of U.S. military strikes.
11.44 a.m. Eastern that time.
Weather is favorable. Just confirmed with CENTCOM.
We are a go for mission launch. 1215 Eastern F-18s launch declaring this first strike package.
1345 trigger based F-18 first strike window starts. Target terrorist is at his known location, so should be on time.
1415 strike drones on target. This is all caps.

This is when the first bombs will definitely drop.

Okay, look.

Just because you write in all caps,

this is when the first bombs will definitely drop doesn't mean they're war plans.

Okay?

This is Pete Hegseth.

Maybe he was talking about Jager bombs but if you if you if you ask me that looks a lot like a plan for the war uh it had military time and everything okay it had more details than you get from doordash and and those guys tell you everything all? 8.56, we have received your order. 8.59, we are preparing your food.
9.06, we accidentally dropped your food. 9.07, actually, don't worry about it.
We're on our way. So I think it's a war plan, but what the hell do I know? I've never seen one before because no one's ever been dumb enough to put one in a f***ing group chat with a journalist.
But maybe... Maybe it's a...
Maybe this is a good thing, okay? The receipts are out, so we can call a spade a spade and admit that these are indeed very specific war plans. I don't think it's specific enough to be considered war plans.
It doesn't tell you, hey, we're gonna hit

this particular village, this particular city,

this particular target, this particular individual.

They were talking about when,

not specific longitude and latitude

and all that other stuff.

Oh man, Janine must be a nightmare to make plans with.

Hey, you said me that Chili's at seven, but where's the f***ing longitude? Like, stop pretending you need some arbitrary detail to make it a war plan, okay? It's like saying this wasn't an orgy. We didn't have the pink feathers and the eyes wide shut mask.
Well, they're more than three dicks. Then it was an orgy, okay? Everything else is semantics.
You know what? You tell me, if having a detailed schedule plan of attack is not a war plan, then what is it? Do you think these are war plans? Oh, this, you know, it's a, it's an outline of what is about to happen. There were no war plans in any of this stuff.
There's a conversation. This was a private conversation.
I would characterize this messaging thread as a policy discussion, a sensitive policy discussion, surely. What is a war plan? Whoa, what is war, man? It's just raw spelled backwards.

I think it was Shakespeare that said,

what is in a plan?

That which we call a war by any other name would accidentally get texted to Jeffrey Goldberg.

For more on this stupid argument,

we go live to the Pentagon

with senior war correspondent Michael Kosta.

Michael, Michael, hey, am I crazy or are these very clearly war plans? You're crazy, Ronnie. You know, maybe a civilian reporter like yourself spills his cortado all over his little UGG boots reading these texts.
But the grizzled veterans at the Trump administration know that these are not war plans. I mean, would it be a war plan if I said carrier strike group two will engage 14 targets in northeast Syria at 0900 tomorrow? CENTCOM says go.
I repeat, CENTCOM says go over. Yeah, that sounds like a war plan.
Yeah, because you're a civilian, you know, peeing through his Fall Raven jacket all over his Lululemon yoga mat. But it's not a war plan, because I didn't say something specific, like what type of plane they're using.
You have no idea that it's an F-18. Yeah, you just said that it's an F-18.
Yeah, well, F-18 could mean anything.

It could be a bingo number or a parking spot.

F-18 could be Pete Hegseth's search on a dating app.

You don't know.

Okay, but F-18 is clearly a plane.

Oh, you're an expert now.

The only military figure you know anything about is General So.

By the way, by the way, by the way, that's a burn about you being a civilian, not an Asian.

Okay, then, why don't you enlighten me of your military genius?

If that's not war planning, then what is it?

It's war manifesting, you know?

Hegseth was asking the universe to drop a tomahawk missile, and it happened. Haven't you ever read The Secret? You know, the book, not the state secrets he texts Jeffrey Goldberg.
You really want me to believe this was war manifesting? Of course it was manifesting. No different than making a vision board.
Kind of like this one. You know, look.
Look. Holy shit, is that a war plan for Canada? There you go again with that phrase war plan.
It's not a war plan, it's an operational scribbling. Of a war plan.
Look, it has like arrows and airplanes and like weapons and those little crosshairs and there's times there.'s clearly a plan to invade Canada. Okay, look, but we don't know which Canada, you know? And none of these arrows are even labeled.
So we don't know where we will be attacking, which is why the people of Winnipeg and Banff, here and here, will never see this coming on Saturday at noon. It's going to be sweet.

Okay, where did you even get that war map?

The DOD accidentally mail it to my house.

Mike Waltz has my address in his contacts.

It's not a big deal.

He's having an affair with my wife.

Okay, well...

Great job, I guess.

Michael Costa, everyone.

When we come back, we find out Chris DiStefano can solve it, so don't go away. We were getting where we couldn't pay the bill.
PG&E asked customers about their biggest concerns so we could address them one by one. That's terrifying.
That's fair. Joe, Regional Vice President, PG&E.
We have to run the business in a way that keeps people safe, but it starts driving costs down. I would love to see that.
We're on our way. I hope so.
PG&E electricity rates are now lower than they were last year. Hear what other customers have to say and what PG&E is doing about it at pge.com slash open dash lines.
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Welcome back to The Daily Show. America has a ton of problems right now, and no one knows who can solve them.
But Chris DiStefano will give it a try in our new segment, Can Chris Solve It? Hey, guys, I'm Chris DiStefano, as ronnie said aka chrissy the american and if you're like me you love having opinions on things that you don't know anything about like for example there's no way childbirth is that bad right i mean we have tylenol See? It's easy, Ronnie. So today, we're going to go through some of the world's biggest problems to find out if Chrissy can solve them.
Hit me. Markets gripped by anxiety about an all-out tariff war.
Tariffs. I have to be honest.
I have no idea what a tariff is. really don't and don't pretend you do either babes and unless you went to like hofstra university or one of the fancy ones but i couldn't get in when i first saw the word tariff i thought it was a dune character i was like yes tariff will lead the sand people to freedom i I'm in.
But listen, apparently that's not what tarifs are. It's, yeah, it's a tax on imports.
And that sounds bad because America imports everything. I'm pretty sure the only thing America makes are the real housewives.
And those ladies are 50% plastic, so I don't even know if that counts. I mean, where does plastic come from? I honestly don't know, but it feels Chinese.
Anyway, if you're going to have a war, a trade war is probably better than like a war war. You know what I mean? Like with guys and women, obviously, you know, they kill each other, too.
Ladies.

My Gramps was in a war war. He was crawling through the mud, dodging

bullets in Okinawa. Now I'm just paying

80 cents more for guac. But hey, we're still

both heroes.

I'm going to go ahead and call this

one solved. Next topic.

The battle over President Trump's actions

to secure the border and combat illegal immigration. Immigration.
Everyone, buckle up, everyone. Please stop saying there are two sides to this issue.
We have to have a country with laws. The border should at least be as secure as the deodorant at cbs.
If you want to get in, you have to hit a button and wait for ICE to come unlock the wall. But listen, that being said, we also have to celebrate legal immigrants.
That's right. Even though I look like the fire chief of Ron Concoma, my wife and kids are Puerto Rican.
Hola. So, yeah.
So I know how it feels when people hate on the Latino community. What's up, dad? Look, the reality is this.
Immigrants can make our country better. For instance, our soccer team has never won a single World Cup.
It's embarrassing. How about free green cards to anyone who can make a penalty kick? Right? It's a good idea.
That's what I thought. I mean, let's get it done.
Vama nosotros or whatever. It's hard for me to learn Spanish.
That's for my wife and kids to talk shit about me. I mean, crap.
Sorry, mommy. As you can see, I actually know what I'm talking about on this subject, because like I said, I not only have a Puerto Rican family, but I'm also from Queens, the most diverse community in America.
And yeah. Right.
And look. hey, look how I turned out.

I'm only kind of racist.

So what I'm saying is this country should welcome everyone

who wants to meaningfully contribute to American society,

except Dominicans.

I'm sorry, but yeah, like I said, I'm Puerto Rico, Papi.

And apparently there's bad blood,

but I don't speak Spanish and my kids will teach me.

So either way, this one's solved. All right.
Yeah. There we go.
No, seriously, that was I was nervous on that one. That was a controversial subject.
So I want to get to something a little lighter. So hit me.
All right. Can I spin again? I'm not doing.
Can I spin again? Because I just... I don't want to say anything...
Yeah, can we just get rid of the trans rights? On the board! Not in line. On the board! Jesus Christ! Don't clip that! Drama surrounding Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, Doge.
Whew! That was close. Wiggled out.
Okay, Doge. Please do not tell me you're against the government running more efficiently.
I mean, anyone who says that doesn't remember the DMV before they installed the bakery number system. I mean, right.
Remember that? It's still too slow, though. I mean, by the time I get to the window, I forget why I'm even there.
I'm like, yeah, let me get a half a pound of mortadella. I mean, sorry, I have a DUI.
That said, some of these cuts might be going too deep. I mean, they just listed Guantanamo Bay on Airbnb.
And hey, if you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, it could be worse. My solution? Let them do their cuts, but I get to bring a baseball bat on a plane.
If you're defunding air marshals, I'm not going down without a fight.

Now, give me that seat.

Give me that aisle seat.

I pee a lot.

Chrissy the Prostate.

All right.

Solved it.

Moving on.

President Trump is doubling down

on claims that controlling Greenland

may be in America's future.

OK, so Canada isn't the only cold, pasty country Trump wants. He's also after Greenland.
Now, people are really mad about this for some reason, and I gotta be honest with you, I've never even met a single person that's been to Greenland, let alone anyone from Greenland. And like I said, I'm from Queens.
We got everybody there. One time I had to break up a fight between a Hare Krishna and a meter maid from Tajikistan.
I was like, you guys both wear robes. Just be friends.
True. Now, also, this is crazy.
Did you know there's only 50,000 people in Greenland? I have 50,000 people on my block. Not for nothing.
You guys are also being kind and greedy with that land. It's 600 million acres.
That's got to be at least four Home Depots. What are they doing in Greenland? I mean, is that where they make the plastic? I don't know.
And if you're a liberal and you hate this, maybe you shouldn't have spent so much time telling Trump to go green. This is what he thought you meant.
So, and I, it's true. And I gotta be honest, that's what I thought you meant too.
I'm an idiot. We cannot please these people.
So I'm just gonna mark this one, not soft. All right, yeah, can't win them all.
Well, that's it for me. I hope you didn't

learn anything today because if you did,

that means you're even dumber than me and I got bad

news for you. You're definitely getting rejected

from Hofstra. So,

I'm Chris DiStefano and I hope I

solved that one for you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you, Chris.

When we come back, Steve Koolin will be joining on the show, so don't go away. Thank you, Chris.
When we come back, Steve Kooling will be joining you on the show, so don't go away. We were getting where we couldn't pay the bill.
PG&E asked customers about their biggest concerns so we could address them one by one. That's terrifying.
That's fair. Joe, Regional Vice President, PG&E.

We have to run the business in a way that keeps people safe, but it starts driving costs down.

I would love to see that.

We're on our way.

I hope so.

PG&E electricity rates are now lower than they were last year.

Hear what other customers have to say and what PG&E is doing about it at pge.com slash open dash lines.

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My guest tonight is a legendary comedian and actor whose new film is called The Penguin Lessons. Please welcome the one and only legendary Mr.
Steve Coogan. Standing ovation.
Thank you. Thank you.
Standing ovation in New York. I know, that's unusual.
No, we reserve it for legends. You're a legend.
It's so great to finally meet you. I've been following you for a long time.
Huge fan of yours. You make me feel old, but keep going.
Yeah, I mean, because I kind of, we kind of... You started in live performing.
Yeah. And I also started in live performing.
I know. And we both went to Edinburgh.
You went to Edinburgh in 1990. You did a show with Mr.
Frank Skinner. And then you went back in 1992.
You did a show with Mr. John Thompson.
And a second... At the same time, you're doing a show with Richard Herring.
And was it Armando Annucci? Armando Annucci, Patrick Barber. Stuart Lee was on that.
Stuart Lee, yeah. And then you won the Perrier, which is the best show at Edinburgh for the show with John Thompson.
And I went to Edinburgh. I won nothing.
And I f***ing hated it. Yeah.
So. Yeah.
I hated it, too, the first time. I went with Frank Skinner, this British comedian, and the reviews, the reviews were great for him.
And for me, they were terrible. And the newspaper they're in, he hid under the sofa, so I wouldn't find it.
I did. Yeah.
But then you came back with a vengeance. In the end, I won.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I guess. Yeah.
I say all of that to be like... First of all, I've been to Edinburgh.
It's the biggest live-performing festival. But I guess you being a household name, comedy legend, very established in the UK, but you still stick with live-performing.
You never let that go. And I guess I'm wondering for myself, like, you know, I like to think I'd be able to do that too.
I think it's good. I have a recurrent dream where I'm about to go on stage with no material and I wake up in a cold sweat.
But why? What makes you stick with live performing? I think it's important to... When you write comedy and you do comedy on TV, there's so many layers between you and the audience.
You don't see them laughing. You do, because they're over there and you're there.
These guys are here. But they are forced to.
These guys are forced to. Yeah, I know.
That's where those guys with the whips are at the back. So I think it's important to get rid of all the filters, because you don't want to be in an ivory tower.
You've got to be connected with your audience and make sure they're still laughing and see the whites of their eyes and all that stuff. Right, as a live performer, you use it to stay connected to the crowd.
Is there any element of it where you feel like, just as career diversification and just from a pure money point of view, in terms of like, oh, that stuff, people can take away from you, TV, film, but live performing, it's always... It's true.
you if people want to come and see you they'll come and see you and there's no and you you got you're in total control you know and also it's like it's quite gladiatorial you know if if if it's successful you get all the credit and but if it fails it's all your fault yes yeah and and but and you do like i mean you kept you got, I don't know if I should tell people this,

you have, like, all the money in the world.

You don't need to do anything anymore.

I'm not quite as rich as Elon Musk, but, you know.

Right.

You're close.

You're second. Getting there.

Yeah.

And you still got, and I mean, you did, not only do you do the Alan Partridge live show,

you did, like, Dr. Strangelove recently.

I did the Stanley Kubrick movie.

We did it on stage, yeah, where I played.

Peter Sellers did this famous movie.

Anyone over 50 in the audience might know this movie. Wow.
I'm surprised too. Where did you guys come from? So he did this movie about nuclear war, a comedy, a black comedy about nuclear war.
And Peter Sellers played three roles in it. And I did a live stage version.
And I did four roles because I wanted to do better than Peter Sellers I just wanted to beat a dead man that's what I used to do that no but which is great because four roles and you were like losing you I saw you doing press for it and you were like losing your voice from it you're doing like it's like when you when you're doing four roles on stage you're on and off so fast when you go off stage you they pull all the clothes off you not in a good way yeah and then put it all back on you yeah and uh it's like a formula one pit stop because you're just going bang bang bang bang and you're back on stage and i did 140 shows and uh i'm i'm done yeah yeah but again again all the money in the world why did you do that um i think this i don't know maybe I'm a Catholic, and because I'm Catholic, I like to sort of punish myself and do penance, you know what they call penance? It's Lent, so, you know. That was your penance, doing Dr.
Strange Love was your Lent. I think somehow, like, hard work is good.
If life gets too easy and you get too lazy, it's good to kind of make, to scare yourself. Right.
And I guess that goes back to what I was saying about you being this legendary comedic figure in the UK, Alan Partridge. And you've done it for so long now.
I mean, do you do stuff to just kick yourself in the ass? Just to, because you've managed to like reinvent this character you've been doing for, I guess, what, 30 years now? Well, yeah, in the UK, he's an institution. People over here, he's not that well known over here.
The only people who know him over here are the cool people like Bill Hayden. Ben, Ben, Ben.
Ben, me, I know him. I know, you're part, you're part of the new Gen, are you Gen Z or Millennial? I don't even know.
I'm like, why? And then they call me Millennial and I resent that, but I don't know. I don't know.
I guess I'm on it. Okay, well, I'm definitely a non-reconceration.
I'm the last of the baby boomers start of Generation X Sorry, just to set it up. All of those, I'm a white middle-aged guy, so I know I'm an endangered species.
Not as endangered as you think right now. They're doing pretty well right now.
They're having a resurgence. That's true, I'd say.
They were endangered for a while, and we accidentally brought them back. I know.
I'm sorry about that. No, no, but the point is that Alan Partridge is a, I like to call you mom famous in the UK.
Everybody knows moms know you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.
You know how famous you have to be to be mom famous? It is true, yeah. It's very difficult.
And so you're that level in the UK, and so, like, is that, like, why you come? I'm kind of part of the furniture in the UK. Your institution, your institution.
But over here, I'm still kind of, I'm still a bit, because no one knows who I am, I'm a little underground, so I'm still quite cool and edgy. So I come here to feel cool and I go back there to earn a living.
But I mean, that also is relevant for me, too, because I really had to ask myself this. Not only coming to America, but staying here in American show business.
Why do you come to America?

Why are you in America? I don't, it's not like I want to come to America to live the American dream. I come here because I get to work with interesting people.
And fortunately, because the people I admire, I've had a chance to work with them in the past. People like Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller.
and and

and

you know

so

I go and work with people

I and still are. And, you know,

so I go and work with people I respect,

people who want to do, you know,

I want to entertain people,

but I want to have some substance to it too.

You know, I like to make people laugh.

I like to punch up, not punch down,

like your president.

Right, right.

Yes, that's right.

Our president.

We are applauding the president right now okay god bless america uh yeah and and you so you do come to america to kind of get your ass kicked to be and challenge yourself and i i just i go where the where the where the interesting people are you know i'm lucky enough in my uh career that i can work with people i like and's why I'm here with you. Oh, yeah.
Thank you. I really appreciate it.
That's very nice. So that's what I do.
I'm over here right now promoting this new movie, Penguin Lessons. Yes.
And I know that there's a good audience here. In some ways in the UK, because I have this famous character, I'm kind of pigeonholed.
Over here, I do some odd movies that kind of have, I did a movie called Hamlet 2 that has some kind of cult following over here. No, you did everything.
You did everything. You did Around the World in 80 Days, Jackie Chan.
You did, oh my God, you're putting me on the spot, right? You were in Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder, other guys.
Other guys, yeah. Your IMDb, Philomena.
Philomena was a movie. Oscar-nominated Philomena.
Yeah, I got an Oscar nomination. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice. Oh, nice to win, but, you know, it didn't happen.
But so you did a bunch, I mean, you talk about this a lot in America, about how you were doing, you were kind of doing Alan Partridge, Household Name, and then you came to America, and you were doing kind of not bit roles in American movies, but kind of smaller profile roles. If someone will pay me my airfare and put me in a nice hotel, I mean, I did like two days on The Joker, and that was great.
Yeah, and so I guess asking for myself here, is like it seems like you, because I'm trying to build that. That's kind of what

that's kind of where I'm going myself.

I'm like, you know, I'm doing 20 on the call

sheet. Grateful to do the role.

Have fun. But you talk

about doing these roles in America,

finding them a little bit unsatisfying.

And that's what inspired you to write

or to do film.

I was doing a film called The Other Guys and Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell.

Very funny guys.

With Adam McKay, director.

Adam McKay, who is a great director.

And I enjoyed it a lot.

But it was kind of like, I like to be in the driving seat.

And when I was doing that, that's why I discovered the story of this Irish woman whose child had been taken from her and sold to an American couple back in the 1950s. And that was it.
So I pursued that as a writer, which was drama. And before that, I'd just done comedy.
And I didn't know if it would work out, but we wound up at the Oscars. So I thought, OK, well, I'll do some more of this stuff.
People seem to like it. Right to like it.
Right. But is that the strategy? I mean, would you, so you, would you say you need to do these kind of small roles in America to build enough political capital to do? I have a career in the UK and I like to do a bit of comedy, a bit of drama.
You know, like sometimes you don't want to get too serious because you can vanish up your own ass. So it's important to have a laugh and just remember,

it's just don't get too full of yourself.

So I like to do a bit of yin-yang,

you know, so make people laugh,

make them cry.

If you make them cry too much,

they're not going to want to see you anymore,

so you're going to make them laugh again.

No, but you definitely play the yin-yang

almost better than anyone I've ever seen,

because you've got the comedy bona fides,

like legend comedy characters,

and then you do dramatic roles,

not just Philomena,

but you do like Jimmy Savile.

I'm going Jimmy Savile, the sex offender, people actually said, you'd be perfect for that. Wait a second.
Yeah, so you managed to do Ying Yang. Anyway, just hats off to you.
And every project you do, you were talking about it with the other legend, Irish legend Tommy Tiernan on his show. You said you're looking for projects that are funny but have heart in it.
And I feel like you've definitely been going that way. I mean, you did this movie in 2019 called Greed, which was about a fashion mogul.
And there were political overtones in that about kind of the wage gap. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, you want to make people laugh and you want to make people think at the same time.
And there's ways to do that. Also, I think,, I think a lot of comedy is about...
Some comedy can be about cruelty.

I think it's always important to...

You can be smart and tough

and you can be kind at the same time.

You don't have to be a dick.

Right.

I got to write that down.

Yeah, do, do.

I'll email it to you later.

I didn't know you could do it without being a dick uh i've been approaching this all wrong um yeah but you so uh i mean just going back to the politics so what my point is that you kind of try to do things that have not just be funny but have a message yeah i think well i think look it's like anything when you have an argument with someone you can bang heads. And if you have a different point of view, you can not end up resolving anything.
Yes. And also, if you have those facts and statistics, they get twisted and people can present their alternative facts and all that stuff.
But if you tell a story or you make someone laugh, then you kind of show you people relax a little. And you can talk about serious stuff, as you do on this show in a funny way then people relax about it and uh it takes the edge off it and uh it starts people being scared you know we're living in scary times and uh if you can laugh to have that that gallows humor then uh we can all get through it together i think right right right and um I have to expertly pivot to what you're promoting or your publicist is going to kill me.
No, but really, I did have a plan and this is what I wanted to get with all this is that you talk about political activism. So your latest movie is Penguin Lessons.
What is it about? And do you mind just saying what you think of political messages? I mean, it's a film, ostensibly, you look at it, it's a cute film about a penguin. I'm not really interested in doing a cute film about a penguin.
Did you tell the penguin that? I didn't. I told his agent.
There is a live penguin in this thing. There's a few penguins in it, but to me, my buddy was writing at Jeff Pope, who I've written a bunch of films before with, and he said, hey, I make this film about a penguin.
Do you want to be in it? And I said, no.

I said well hang on if I make the guy someone who doesn't like penguins and doesn't like animals and doesn't like children doesn't really like people then that gives him somewhere to go and the penguin

acts as a catalyst and it's set against the fascist regime the the military dictatorship

that existed in Argentina from the late 1970s. So there's a kind of dark, brooding backdrop to it.
Any parallels to modern times? Well, I figured out that everyone loves the penguins because they're cuddly and fascism is very popular at the moment. So it's something fascism but Disney Disney fight yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like fascism meets Disney yeah which is Disney which is yeah I had to quickly do a calculation to see if our parent company it was Disney, but it's not.
It's Paramount. We're fine.
So I think I did a show with... Anyway, they don't watch YouTube.
So, yeah, but this is kind of just for me now. Because did you...
When you... Again...
By the way, I just want to say about the penguins, because I'm a little worried. No penguins were harmed in the making of this film.
And we have a robot penguin in the film, as well as real ones. So if we asked the penguins, we didn't ask the penguins to do anything difficult.
Because there's one scene where you throw the penguin back into the ocean. Yeah, that's like a...
That was the real penguin. There's a fake one that I throw, and then we cut it together.
Right, you got to say that for legal reasons. Yeah, no, and also I've never thrown a penguin in my life.
But I get cancelled for throwing penguins. It's in the movie.
It's trickery. Magic, the magic of movies.
So not a real penguin. We had a robot penguin and we had a puppet penguin.
Someone had their hand up a fake penguin, so to speak. And so we sort of mixed the two together.
And I just... Yeah.
And when you're doing these scenes, I was watching it and it's like, it's comedic. It's not...
I won't say you did... You're obviously not doing a sketch when you're in this movie.
So is it difficult to kind of like dial it to where it's... You know what I mean? Where you're not doing a sketch.
No, no. It's funny.
It's not silly. It's not dumb funny.
It's, I play a guy who doesn't really like penguins and winds up adopting one by mistake and, uh, and ends up teaching these kids at school with it. Yes.
It's very touching and it's not goofy. It's not very goofy.
And there's, and like I said, there's, there's a, there's a little bit of fascism in there because, uh, you know, we, we haven't, we need more of that. Yeah.
A little bit sprinkled in there. Yeah, a little sprinkling of fascism.
Yeah, and I just feel like you're like this beloved character in the UK, both Steve Coogan and Alan Partridge. I think you...
You appeal... Your character, Alan Partridge, appeals to people on the left and the right in the UK.
I would say... That's true.
Right. That's true.
And you're... Steve Coogan yourself, you're very politically active.
You're out there, you're campaigning publicly. I pick and choose my fights.
If you bang on about what you think about stuff after a while, people go, who cares what you think? And it's like, oh, not him again. That's where I'm at right now.
I guess that's what I was asking I was like why you can't answer the question like how come I feel like you never use um chose to use Alan Partridge as a political overt political thing is you have he's more satirical you've got to if you just try and entertain you the people already agree with you you're never going to change anyone's opinion I'm going to challenge them so you have to reach out you have to put your arms around everybody and say look I don't agree with you but come over here let's have a laugh and maybe we can learn something and uh so i do i do that with that that alan partridge character uh and you know sometimes i slip i try to make people laugh and if occasionally you can slip a secret message under the door while you're doing it then that's great and i do do that with uh partridge but uh if you're just preaching to the converted you know What's the point? Yeah. the point? Other than making money.
Yeah. And I like to do that occasionally.
Anyway, but I could talk to you forever, but I just want to say thank you so much, Mr. Steve Coogan.
You're a legend. Thank you for calling me cool.
I really appreciate it. You increased my street credit UK.
Thanks for entertaining everybody.

Thanks for coming on this show.

I really appreciate it.

You're the best, man.

Thank you.

It's Steve Kugan, everybody.

The Penguin Lessons of the Intuitars Nationwide, March 28th.

It's Mr. Steve Kugan.

We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back after this.

Thank you. That's our show for tonight.
Now here it is, your moment of zen. What's your reaction to all of this? And what do you think the lesson from it should be, Secretary? Well, Martha, I'm going to leave all that to the legal experts.
I'll say one of the

few advantages of being one of the older people in the cabinets is that I still like to pick up

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