Trump Blames the Left for Charlie Kirk's Assassination as Rhetoric Escalates | Rainn Wilson

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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, Michael Costello.

Welcome to the Boodle Show.

I'm Michael Costello.

We've got a lot to talk about tonight.

So let's get into the headlines.

By now, you guys all know about yesterday's assassination of Charlie Kirk.

And this probably goes without saying, but I feel like I have to say it.

I believe killing people is wrong.

And I know that's a hot take.

But as of now, we don't know who did it.

But Cash Patel's FBI is on the case.

so we will never know who did it.

This is as good a time as any to say political violence is never acceptable and should be condemned.

And thankfully, many political leaders think the same.

All four former presidents are reacting to the death of Charlie Kirk.

Joe Biden posting on X, quote, there is no place in our country for this kind of violence.

Barack Obama shared a similar sentiment, writing, this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy.

And a statement as well from George W.

Bush, who said this, members of other political parties are not our enemies.

They are our fellow citizens.

And a message from Bill Clinton, who says he hopes we all go through some serious introspection and redouble our efforts to engage in debate passionately, yet peacefully.

Yeah, and let's not get sidetracked by who may or may not have been friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

Just focus on the introspection thing.

But yes, it was comforting to see our living past presidents and Joe Biden attempting to lower the country's temperature yesterday.

But none of those guys are running this place right now.

So I want to hear from the current big guy.

For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals.

This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today.

My fellow Americans, we must come together to destroy each other.

So yeah, Donald Trump came out with a partisan message blaming the left.

And let's be real, did we expect anything different?

This is what this guy does.

The last time Trump delivered a thoughtful message was apparently when he sent a birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's...

I realize that's two Epstein jokes in a row.

It's not my fault everyone was friends with this guy, okay?

And by the way, I'm not singling Trump out.

This is how our society behaves now.

A tragedy occurs.

Instead of digesting and trying to understand, everyone sets their feet and starts throwing punches immediately.

Like Nancy Mace, Republican congresswoman and somehow the scariest type of mace.

She came out swinging, but apparently wasn't expecting a counter.

I'm going to say this.

Democrats own what happened today.

By that logic, do Republicans own the shooting of the two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota?

Political violence.

Isn't this on both sides?

Yeah, we're talking about Charlie Cook right now.

Yeah, okay.

We're talking about my thing right now,

not about things that make me look stupid, because if we did that, we'd be talking all day long, okay?

All right.

Now, we're all...

And now we're in very familiar territory.

Republican accuses Democrat, so Democrat accuses Republican.

What do you say to people who are saying that Democrats need to lower the temperatures of

the United States?

Right, why don't you start with the President of the United States?

Right, so here we go again.

It's Democrats' rhetoric.

No, it's Republicans' rhetoric.

Has anyone considered that the problem of political violence in America might not just be the rhetoric, but instead something extraordinarily complex?

The problem might be a toxic mix of our gun laws, lack of mental health, collapsed social connection, probably a bunch of other things I haven't even thought of yet.

I'm sure laboo boos are somewhere in there to blame.

I guess I just don't think rhetoric is the root cause of this thing.

Political violence isn't going to go away if the people on the other side say exactly the right words from now on.

Now, that said, if you turned on the 24-7 news coverage yesterday,

you probably saw some unhelpful rhetoric.

He's been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups.

And I always go back to hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.

And I think that's the environment we're in, that people just, you can't stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place.

I don't know, man.

Okay.

The whole idea of free speech in America is you can say what you want and not expect to be shot.

Can you be challenged?

Can you be challenged?

Sure.

Can you get roasted online?

Sometimes.

Told to leave a child's birthday party?

Yeah.

Even though I think I was right that the cake f ⁇ ing sucked, Derek.

All right?

That was hardly only the bad take.

Even some people who understood that a cycle of violence was not the answer.

They still wanted to make sure you knew who'd be coming out on top.

The last thing I ever want is violence.

Like I spent nine years in and out of war.

The last thing I want is that.

But if these people keep pushing, they're going to radicalize a huge portion of America that they don't want.

I want us to be able to debate, like Charlie Kirk always did on every campus, gave the airtime to opposing views.

I want that as my America, not trading gunfire, because I'll win.

You could have just stopped with the last thing I want is violence.

You didn't have to add in, because I'll win.

But I guess it's like Jesus always said: turn the other cheek, but be ready to cut a motherfucker.

By the way,

who's they?

No one knows who the shooter is or what his motivation was.

And even if it was political, he doesn't represent half the country.

But some of these MAGA guys are acting like this is a liberal declaration of war.

If they could do this, they are capable of anything.

I think that was the message.

I believe that was the message.

It's really hard to radicalize Republicans.

Yeah.

You know, it's like we're not the radical type.

I'm sorry, first off, it's not that hard to radicalize Republicans.

You guys almost burned down the country because Cracker Barrel changed its font.

Second, far be it from me to tell anyone how to do their job, but you can lose the poop emoji mug for one day.

When Walter Cronkite broke the news about the Kennedy assassination, he didn't come out in a wacky novelty bow tie.

I did not expect a groan from the audience on the novelty bow tie.

And also, once again, who is they?

Does anyone want to specify who they are, or are we just going to keep talking about all that they do?

They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not.

They are at war with us.

Trump gets hit in the ear.

Charlie gets shot dead.

They came after Kavanaugh with a rifle to his neighborhood.

They went after Musk's cars.

Sort of petered out there at the end, huh, Jesse?

If you're trying to rile people up for war, maybe leave out the car vandalism.

Look, I'm sure people in the media would love to talk about how they are responsible for what they've done and how they had better watch out.

or else they'll get what's coming to them.

But I think it would be better if we,

as a country, understood that we have a problem with political violence.

And we need to start thinking less in terms of what they should do and more in terms of what we have to do.

And

it's not lost on me today that the last time it felt like we thought in terms of we was on 9-11,

when we all came together as a nation.

And we did.

We did.

Even if it was just for one day.

You know, sure, we turned pretty quickly to scapegoating Muslims and blogging about how Bush did it.

But on that one day, we were united as a country.

For 24 hours, we even admired Rudy Giuliani.

That's how incredible our unity was.

And I don't know what you do to get back to that.

Obviously, not another 9-11.

I want to be very clear about that.

But what about,

I don't know, an alien invasion?

You know?

Maybe if UFOs suddenly appeared over every important U.S.

city and also Los Angeles, that's the thing that would jolt us off our phones and bring us back together.

Or the aliens take over and enslave us all.

But at this point, that might be worth a try.

All right?

When we come back, we found out why climate change is cow's fault.

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Welcome back to the Daily Show.

Cows.

To most, they're just delicious animals warming our planet with their farts.

But to some, cow farts might be a new tool in the fight against climate change.

Grace Kulenschmidt has more.

2024 was the hottest year ever recorded.

The world's glaciers shrinking at a dramatic pace right before our eyes.

These days, it seems like every little thing we do makes the planet hotter.

Driving to the store, flying home for Christmas, burning plastic outdoors.

Hey, you can't do that.

It's okay.

I'm on TV.

And now, Washington State Representative Lisa Parshley wants to track another source of climate change emissions.

I sat down with her to find out more.

The best way to put this is I'm trying to get a monitoring program for cows, burps, and farts.

Yes, cow farts.

The bovine blasts that governments around the world are cracking down on.

Denmark taxes livestock gas and even California has started to track farm farts.

Is Washington state about to join the fight against this silent but deadly problem?

So, is the next step collecting human sparts?

Because for the record, I'm not using your bathroom here.

I refuse.

No, we're not going to collect human farts.

I don't think they'd be worth it.

We know at one point, it's possible that the methane emissions from cows in California was as high as 40-50%.

And we don't know how much of a problem Washington actually has.

So, data is always best.

Okay, I guess that makes sense, but how do farmers feel about this?

I reached out to local farmer and mustache enthusiast Jake Yancey to hear his thoughts on the government's plans.

So, this bill that would track cows' gas, how would it affect you?

The biggest concern is what the financial impacts are going to end up being.

If ranchers aren't making a million dollars and having cooks.

It feels like Big Brother is monitoring farts.

I kind of feel like we should write a new version of 1984 with farts.

The number one thing is cows don't fart.

They don't fart?

Cows burp.

I spoke to a farmer recently, recently, a best friend of mine whom I met yesterday, and he told me that cows don't fart.

Well, they burp a lot, there's no doubt, but they do fart.

Whether the gas came out of one end or the other was never clarified, but there's one thing Lisa knows for sure.

If a cow is going to fart, it's going to have to pay.

We have all the data from Denmark and California.

At some point, somebody's going to put the dots together and say, we need to tax this.

But they'll be doing it based on an assumption instead of data.

And that's not a good way to do policy, nor is that a good way to put in taxes.

And if we can find an accurate measurement of how much they're reducing the methane expected, we can give them credit in the future for their work.

So she wants to accurately count the farts to help the farmers qualify for fart credits to offset the fart.

But how the fart would that work?

The European Union has developed a mathematical equation for the average cow.

A fart plus burp algorithm.

I'm not trying to attack the farmers.

They're producing food for us, which is critical.

It's about a balance between providing food, farts and burps, and protecting our environment.

I feel like everything in 2025 is ruined.

This has been the worst year of my entire life.

It actually was really good until I heard that farts are harmful.

This would have a huge impact on our future, so I decided to gather a panel of experts on the topic of farts and burps.

I want to know how scary this is to you.

Are you guys worried about how much cows are farting and burping?

I don't know at all.

You're not worried at all.

Do you guys think the government has the right to make a fart mandate?

Who thinks no?

Me!

Who thinks yes?

Me!

It's okay to be confused right now.

If there was a way for farmers to make cows fart and burp less, do you think they should try?

I think if they try to stop it, it's a no because

if they try to stop it, they might fall out on it.

If Washington were to implement a tax on farts, how much do you think a fart should cost?

$1,300,000.

And you think farmers can afford that?

Yeah.

Do you think this will be effective in reaching our climate goals?

I think you guys should really be researching this.

It's gonna affect your lives a lot.

I keep doing the

research wrong.

Where are you doing your research?

Um, in my brain.

In a world full of farts, the confusion continues without any answers.

So I went directly to the source.

So, how often are you burping and farting?

Sadly, the answer was the problem.

Burped right now in my face.

At the end of the day, all I could do was let the voiceless know I was fighting for them.

I support you.

Oh my god.

Thank you, Grace.

We come back.

Rain Wilson to join me on the show.

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Welcome back to Do Show.

My guest tonight is a best-selling author and Emmy-nominated actor whose new film is called Code 3.

Please welcome Rain Wilson.

you.

Cheers to Red.

Thank you.

You know, I'm delivering.

All righty.

I'm delivering it.

We got to have some time for a conversation here.

Long time watcher, first time.

Are you the first time?

Seated at the desk.

This is amazing, bro.

Wait, wait, wait.

In all your previous acting, you've never been to the Daily Show?

I have never been to the Daily Show.

I'm so glad you're here.

Yes.

And so are they, which is amazing.

Apparently.

Seriously.

Wow, this is.

I I will f ⁇ you up.

I will seriously.

No, you know, I always like to shut it.

Thanks for this movie.

Wow, really fun.

Thanks.

Really touching.

Very funny.

You're a paramedic in this film.

Did you...

How did you train for that?

Looked like you knew what you were doing.

Well, we underwent some serious training with other paramedics.

In fact, the co-author of the film is here in the audience somewhere.

And all of the stories in Code 3 are based on his real life experiences.

Wow.

And so as people

on the frontline workers, MS workers are seeing this film, they're ecstatic.

They're like, finally, a film that really gets us.

But I did a ride along with in South Central with the LA Fire Department.

That was really eye-opening.

Yeah.

And there's a wonderful part in the film where they...

walk through a hospital and they show you what everyone's making as far as money goes.

And it's depressing that the paramedic is averaging like $42,000 a year or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The number one thing I would learn from this film was that this population, the population that we entrust to save our lives, to save our grandmothers' lives, to come at a single call of 911, they get paid about what someone who works at Starbucks gets paid.

There's a great line that's something like, I'm your best friend on your worst day.

Yeah.

Why are we paying our best friend on our worst day?

Nothing.

Well, you know,

answer that for me.

I'm going to.

Yeah.

Tell me how the healthcare system can be improved.

Professional actor.

Yes, okay.

You want to hear from a sitcom actor about how to fix the American health care system.

You know, these systems are so colossally broken from top to bottom.

You can talk to anyone,

you know, from a hospital administration staff to the insurance companies to, you know, the emergency room workers.

It's crazy.

Everything is upside down and backwards.

We've got to really kind of reinvent the system.

But I did that guy, you know, Dr.

Mike, he has a big popular doctor podcast.

And he was saying, like, trying to fix it, the problem is, is that people die if you're trying to fix it while it's operating.

Because it's like fixing an airplane while you're in mid-air.

So it's a tricky one.

It's beyond me.

I was skiing in France one time, and

and my friend went off-piste and tore his ACL and the French ski patrol takes the snowmobile up and before they even put him on the stretcher they swipe his credit card and I'm like that's how we got to do it that's it yeah yeah yeah

let's talk about burnout because what's so fun of this scene of the film that we just saw was you're done you didn't like you said you didn't know you could feel happy again I think they said the average paramedic works from like two to four years on the job and my character Randy, has been working at it for 18 years.

18 years, yeah.

But he's the guy you want saving your life.

But yeah, burnout is very real in all of the medical service industries.

How have you managed burnout at all in your life that isn't medical?

And acting, is there such a thing?

I mean, you were on a very, very grueling, scheduled sitcom for a long time, was it?

Oh, that was tough.

That was tough.

It was, you know, we had so few breaks and trying to eat the lobster rolls on those breaks was just just having enough time to get one in the gullet before your next scene with Steve Corell and John Krasinski was tough.

It was done.

I'm feeling sarcastic.

I want to talk to you about Soul Boom because I love Soul Boom.

And it's one of these only positive breath of fresh air things that ever comes across my Instagram.

Tell us about it.

Tell the audience about it.

The people who aren't sure what it is.

Oh, thanks so much.

So Soul Boom is based off a book I wrote two years ago that is Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.

And it's using and looking at spiritual tools, both for personal transformation, but also on how to make the world a better place, a more just place.

That, yes, we've been looking at political parties and partisan politics, we've been looking at different kinds of legislation, but perhaps there is in the reservoir of wisdom from the world's faith traditions and indigenous faith traditions, perhaps there's a kind of a wisdom that we can use to heal.

And we're seeing that in the divisions that are happening right now, that perhaps if we simply turn to compassion

and really harness it as an energy, we can affect some transformation.

Are you...

How do I live that?

How do I live it?

I'm trying to get on the C-train.

It's full.

Someone told me my backpack hit them.

I don't make enough money at work.

Not me.

I make plenty.

But I mean, like,

how do we live the compassion?

Is it knowing we're all human and connected?

Well, Carl Jung said, until we make the unconscious conscious, we will live our lives in a certain way and

think of it as fate.

So it's taking the unconscious habits that we have throughout our life, getting on the C-train, waking up in the morning, brushing our teeth.

doom scrolling on our phones and bringing more and more consciousness.

I think a meditation practice is a great place to start for everyone, whether you're an atheist or a theist,

to bring more kind of loving attention to

being in the moment.

That's one place to start.

And then we have to look at it in terms of building at the grassroots, building community and connection.

Social connection, it's so important.

It feels like

It feels like now, maybe just now, we're starting to realize this is an antibody for feeling isolated and depressed, but we almost need to prescribe social connection.

I almost need someone to go, Michael, get off the couch.

There's a world out there, connect with people.

Yeah, and it's hard to do it.

And think about how bad it is for our kids right now.

They're growing up with these like microcomputers in their pockets that make you feel like you're connected.

They certainly allow you to communicate, but communication is different than connection.

Oh, yeah.

So

we,

yeah, that we have to foster that.

And I think it's going to happen not online.

I think it's going to happen IRL.

That That makes sense.

In real life.

And

that's one thing that we've lost in, what I say is we've thrown the spiritual baby out with the religious bathwater.

Right.

So we've chucked out religion, but we've lost a lot in the doing, where it's potlucks and community gatherings and

bringing trays of food to people that are sick and checking in on each other.

So we have to find new ways of coming together.

It's a tricky one because I hear church and

I back off.

A lot of people do.

Yeah, a lot of people do, but soul, boom,

I'm in.

Connection.

Yeah.

Or community.

Right.

And we are losing that.

So that's interesting that that's something we should really be focusing on.

Yeah.

You know, you talk a lot about climate change.

You talk a lot about the fires that you've had to endure and deal with living in Los Angeles.

Yeah.

But then you also are about compassion and yet half this country doesn't necessarily even believe in climate change.

Or I see some of what you post in the people that write back, they say really vile and mean things to you.

You've been reading my comments.

How do you soul boom an asshole is what I'm trying to say.

How do you navigate that?

I just caught a glimpse of myself.

I look pretty good.

You look pretty good.

It's like, clean up nice.

Clean up nice.

Listen,

there is about

a little less than a third of the United States that doesn't

believe in the science of climate change.

Of course, science isn't something you believe in.

Science just is.

We need to just forget about them.

We're never going to change their mind.

I do believe that there is a movable middle of people that are really confused and they hear the science and they read the studies and they look online and they know there's got to be some truth to it because you've got factories belching smoke into the atmosphere for 200 years now and every year is getting hotter and drier and weather is getting more extreme.

So I think one of the failings that we've done is, especially on the political left, is communicate climate effectively.

You guys do it great with humor like the cow farts.

So, and also I think one area that can unite both political left and political right is, again, looking at a sacred or spiritual connection to nature, which we have really forgotten about.

We need to be in nature more.

We need to train our children in nature more, educate them.

I mean, we're still teaching them like home eck and cursive, and we need to teach our children to cherish the land.

To conserve the land is something that people maybe on the politically right, political right can get behind.

And there are ways to bring people together around climate that we haven't fully explored.

Nature is just such badass, huh?

Badass!

I was sitting on a deck this summer and this bee was behind me doing its thing.

And my first New York City reaction was, God, this bee is so loud.

I was mad about this.

I was mad at the bee.

And then you really watch what's happening and it's like, man, we're all connected with this shit, dude.

Yeah.

Come on, Rank.

Yeah.

Are you, um, we're all in it.

We're all in it.

Are you?

You're on mushrooms now, aren't you?

Yeah.

I love that you thought a bee was loud.

You live in New York City with like garbage cans and people screaming and honking horns like,

I guess it's, I guess it's

pollinate.

I guess it's the noises we're used to.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's the name of my new book, The Noises We're Used.

Oh.

You were at the U.S.

Open, tennis.

Yeah.

They showed you a lot.

They love showing the celebs.

You're sitting next to Anna Wintur.

You're sitting with Hugh Jackman.

Yep.

John Bon Jovi.

Tell me about the tennis, huh?

You know, I love tennis.

I've taken it up as a kind of a middle-aged sport.

I play a lot.

I do USTA matches and stuff like that.

I lumber around the court.

And you know what?

I'm better than I look like I would be.

Yeah.

So

that's all you want.

Yeah.

It's a great sport.

I read your incredible autobiography about your tennis.

Thank you.

That's what this was about.

His story was great.

But yeah,

I think it's an amazing sport.

And that's another, you know, we talked about climate change communication.

We need to communicate tennis better because people need to get into tennis way way more we're losing the audience for it it's such an amazing it's an amazing sport the average age of like a tennis viewer is like 68 years old no offense

and I completely agree people ask me do I play pickleball and I say no I have a good relationship with my parents

last question thank you for being here but look A lot of people know you as Dwight.

They must,

I know that they, Dwight, they yell, is this a positive?

Is this a negative?

Are you ready to move on from Dwight?

Talk to me a little bit about that.

You know, it is a challenge, you know, having played one of the most iconic characters on television history.

That's nice.

No.

It's a challenge, but I am so grateful.

I mean, the doors that have opened because I've played Dwight, I got to write a book.

I get to go to the U.S.

Open.

I get to play other roles like the lead role here in Code 3.

Yes, opening tomorrow, September 12th.

Ray Wilson, everybody, Code 3 will be at Theaters Nationwide tomorrow, September 12th.

Ray Wilson,

back after this.

Thank you, man.

You're the man.

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

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