The Precap | Ronny Chieng - It's Always Epstein Week

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Speaker 3 You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 4 Welcome to the Precap, where we sit down with this week's Daily Show host to preview what's coming up and recap some of the news that we might have missed. I'm Nicole Conlon.

Speaker 4 I'm a writer at the Daily Show, and I am joined today by Mr. Ronnie Chang.
Hi, Ronnie.

Speaker 3 Hello. How are you? I'm okay.
Thanks for asking.

Speaker 3 Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 4 Oh, this was easy for me. I didn't even have to leave my apartment.

Speaker 3 Oh, well, okay. Well,

Speaker 3 and then no thank you for doing this. Okay, I'm in Miami right now.
Ooh. Are you doing shows? Yeah, doing some shows, trying to get with my MAGA people and, you know, overthrow the government.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Perfect. Well, let me know how that goes.

Speaker 3 Sure. If I succeed, I'll let you know.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Are you excited excited about hosting the show this week?

Speaker 3 Yeah, always. Always excited to host.

Speaker 3 I think it's the best job in comedy. Yeah.
Daily show.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. A dream.

Speaker 3 Miami. What an interesting city, by the way.
I've never been. Oh, you've never been to Miami? You got to come.
It's great.

Speaker 4 What are you doing while you're there aside from comedy?

Speaker 3 Nothing. Just doing two shows.
And then

Speaker 3 the older I get, the less I'm able to maximize my time in a city before a show. Now it's all I can do to just do the two shows and get out.

Speaker 3 But miami is an interesting american city and this is coming from a place of ignorance on my part so i'm not saying i'm an expert in miami but my impressions of miami as someone who watched scarface and cocaine cowboys the documentary sure uh is that this was always a kind of city where it was wealthy and

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 uh developed but also had this kind of shady side to it. Uh-huh.
And I'm not sure. And that's kind of, yeah, and that's kind of never changed.

Speaker 3 It's always been like this weird extremes, you know, it's like a city of immigrants, but it's also a city of mega. It's also

Speaker 3 a city of law and order and like

Speaker 3 institutions, banking and you know financial institutions and it's a clean kind of developed city, but it's also Cocaine Cowboy slash Scarface slash Godfather Part 2.

Speaker 4 You're like a documentary filmmaker who goes to a new culture and you're like, Miami is a land of contrasts.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, but I mean, it fits, right? Because

Speaker 3 I only became American this year. So for me, I still view America like it, like, you know, the way natural.
It's anthropological for you. Yeah.
It's anthropological. It is.

Speaker 4 Let's talk about some of the stories that we might talk about this week on the show. Please.
Okay.

Speaker 4 The big one is that the Democrats caved and the government is reopening after its longest shutdown ever.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they should. Good.

Speaker 3 I feel like most Americans are kind of apathetic when it comes to politics.

Speaker 3 Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong, but my general feelings are apathetic.

Speaker 3 So they never see any real-world consequences to the stuff that you and I look at on the news, you know, because we're deep into it, right?

Speaker 3 So we'll be like, oh, this legislation, oh, this congressman. And for the day-to-day person, I feel like they rarely ever see the effects of this.
Whereas for this shutdown, I mean,

Speaker 3 like,

Speaker 3 because they shut down, we couldn't fly to to do our, to tell our dumb jokes. You know,

Speaker 3 airports are insane. So

Speaker 3 my hope is that people actually felt the pain, the kind of consequences of elections a little bit, you know.

Speaker 3 I'm not sure if they did.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 Democrats caving,

Speaker 3 the moderate position is that it is a painful

Speaker 3 position to hold because you are withholding

Speaker 3 genuine kind of of food benefits. You know, there could be some real suffering involved.
And so can you blame people for caving?

Speaker 3 I don't know. You know,

Speaker 3 on the other hand, it's like, if you're winning, why did you let your foot off the pedal? You know?

Speaker 4 Yeah. It feels like a classic Democrat move of like

Speaker 4 that, like,

Speaker 4 get it. You're trying to be compassionate and you're doing the right thing.
But you did the, you had the worst of both worlds of like, if you caved immediately, nobody would have lost any food. Yes.

Speaker 4 And it, and by caving right now, you also don't win anything.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's the worst of both. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So it's the Democrat motto is all pain, no gain.

Speaker 3 But I'm very curious to know,

Speaker 3 genuinely asking like, how much of this shutdown is for people who did care about the shutdown, who, who, who are angry about the shutdown, how many of those people would blame Republicans or Democrats?

Speaker 3 I am genuinely curious because it's not clear to me because Republicans control every branch of government, but yet this shutdown seemed to be a Democrat thing. So I don't know.

Speaker 4 It's actually not as, it's more evenly split than I thought. It looks like 52% blame Trump and or congressional Republicans and 42% blame congressional Democrats.

Speaker 3 Yeah, see, I don't think that, I think that's still equal. I don't think that's a heavy.

Speaker 3 And the other thing that's interesting about this shutdown was that they had a chance to remove the filibuster and they didn't. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So the the last semblance of institutional

Speaker 3 kind of traditional government politics, which is the filibuster, even, you know, even in this day and age of complete disruption of politics, the Republicans didn't get rid of it when they could have.

Speaker 3 Like if you're playing pure, if you're purely trying to win the system, you would have gotten rid of it, right? Because now's the time you can.

Speaker 3 So the fact that they didn't, I feel, is also kind of a little interesting, right? That someone somewhere was like, oh, we can't do that.

Speaker 3 You know, to pass legislation, you need an overwhelming majority. Right.
And so if we get a filibuster, you're saying that you just need a 51% and we can pass any legislation.

Speaker 3 And even Republicans were scared to do that. You know, they were scared to do that.
I guess, you know,

Speaker 3 for me, that's kind of like a sign of holding on to the vestiges of, you know, some semblance of the institutional democracy of America.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 At the same time, it feels on brand to me that the vestige that we're holding on to is also the most like annoying,

Speaker 4 run out longest part of the American democratic process.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I read somewhere like a long time ago that America's government is inefficient by design

Speaker 3 so that no one person can quickly seize power and destroy it and take over everything.

Speaker 3 And I got to say, I think there's some wisdom in that.

Speaker 3 So obviously the downsides, we see it every single goddamn day in America, this kind of gridlock inefficiency.

Speaker 3 But I think the positive side of it is that it's just too hard to take over every single part of government, you know,

Speaker 3 just because it's just so inefficient.

Speaker 3 It's hard. It's hard.

Speaker 3 To change the Constitution is hard.

Speaker 3 I would like to ask a lawyer, though, whether the Republicans could get rid of the filibuster, pass legislation, and then

Speaker 3 reach

Speaker 4 the filibuster

Speaker 3 before they get out of office. I mean, wouldn't if you were just purely gaming the system, wouldn't that be the play?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's look, you should write to, I don't know, Mitch McConnell and tell me.

Speaker 3 Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson.
Yeah, I'm not sure. Oh, yeah, Mike Johnson.

Speaker 4 I got a great idea.

Speaker 3 Great idea. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Another thing about the shutdown is, do you think it's time that they just make it so that fucking air traffic control is an essential service?

Speaker 4 Yes, I think so. It's, I mean,

Speaker 4 the damage was done to air traffic control in the 80s when Reagan fired everybody, and it feels like they've just been trying to catch up since then.

Speaker 4 And so I think they need to, first of all, staff way back up, and second of all, probably make it an essential service.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, this sounds... Look, the environmentalist in me is like, oh, they stop all the flights.
Oh, that's good. You know, good.

Speaker 3 The only thing that can stop capitalism from destroying the environment is, I guess, grounding all of our planes. Yeah, free market capitalists who destroy.
Yeah, like grounding all of it. But

Speaker 3 so that was good. I thought, you know, everyone chill out.
Don't fly unless you have to, you know.

Speaker 4 But then do you know anybody who actually canceled a flight for it?

Speaker 3 It's too hard to say because some people, maybe they didn't cancel, maybe they just didn't book. So I don't know.
I don't know. But I, as someone who was flying freaking regularly during the shutdown,

Speaker 3 dude,

Speaker 3 it was like, you know, book five flights and see which one goes. Really?

Speaker 4 You noticed a big difference.

Speaker 3 Yeah, if, because I was touring for, you know, I was trying to do these dumb jokes all over the country. And so we had to book five flights and then we see which one goes.

Speaker 3 And then you try to book the first flight out the next morning.

Speaker 3 And the whole time, you know, you're squeezing your asshole because, you know, you're clenching your butt because it's like, I'm not going to make the show in time in Chicago. And, you know, but.

Speaker 3 Did you make it to all of them? I did. I did make it to all of them.
So it, but not, you know,

Speaker 3 it was definitely like swimming uphill to, you know, try to get these

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 every flight would get pushed back by seven hours, and then you would get there, and then they would push it back another three hours, and then

Speaker 3 you were scared the whole time, you know. Wow.

Speaker 4 Well, hopefully, that's over, and you will get to all of your shows on time.

Speaker 3 Sure, that's the most important thing. Not clenched.
I'm a single-issue voter.

Speaker 4 If you're a single-issue voter, get me to my shows on time.

Speaker 3 Get me to my shows so I can tell these racist jokes.

Speaker 3 Which party will enable that?

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Speaker 4 So the other big news this week is that a bunch of new Epstein emails just dropped.

Speaker 4 And they're

Speaker 3 crazy.

Speaker 3 They are crazy, but are they crazy enough?

Speaker 4 I don't.

Speaker 4 What is more interesting about them is that they're just like kind of weird. And then there's also some that Jeffrey Epstein wrote to, he like emailed himself.

Speaker 4 And it is a combination of like him recording like incriminating evidence that he could use against people, but then also just like ideas that he had.

Speaker 3 Bits. He was emailing himself.

Speaker 3 He was like, oh, this could be good. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Jeffrey Epstein waking up the night after emailing himself being like, what did I mean by that?

Speaker 3 What was it? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So the emails are out, but again, it's like,

Speaker 3 Does this, is it crazy enough to stop anybody? Because it seems like the American public has either a high tolerance for nonsense now or a low trust of what's in it.

Speaker 3 Like they won't believe it if they see it. So, you know, and it's also the, the,

Speaker 3 what is crazy is that, I mean, Trump was

Speaker 3 known to be a friend of Epstein for decades. Because back in the, back in like the 80s and 90s, it was like the world that Trump traveled in.
He was like, you know, the Playboy

Speaker 3 fun-loving fun-loving, rich guy in New York. So when he was womanizing in New York, it was seen as like a, it was like a cool thing.
Right. Oh, look at this womanizer, dude.

Speaker 3 So he openly talked about womanizing with Jeffrey Epstein. So all this is on the record.

Speaker 3 You know, he would be like, yeah, the only person who loves women more than me, I think, is Jeffrey Epstein, you know, and we both love beautiful women.

Speaker 3 And then now it's like, oh, not only were you womanizing, you were straight up, you know, in this very dark sex trafficking world. So that's what I don't understand.
Like, there's no dispute of that.

Speaker 3 So why, why why is why why would the emails make a difference or why do his followers will this move the needle is what i'm i'm i i i don't even know you know i feel like nothing moves the needle anymore yeah it's

Speaker 4 it is frustrating because it like they released some of them just release all of them why are we waiting just release all of them more okay yes there are more which is also like this motherfucker sent a lot of emails sure yeah i mean that tracks right in the the 90s, it wasn't text messaging.

Speaker 3 It was emailing on your Blackberry. So

Speaker 3 you would be kind of emailing everybody. You wouldn't, yeah.
I mean, every time we think we pull up something, which is totally disgusting, and we're like, this should be it, right?

Speaker 3 Like, this, this should sink anyone's political career, if not outright land them in jail.

Speaker 3 And it never happens. So I don't know what are we going to see this week, you know, in emails.
Can we, you know, for all these disgusting emails to come up yeah

Speaker 4 that has been one weird element of this whole thing is like i'm i used to wait for like a like a new album from my favorite band and now i'm like oh i can't wait for that new f-scene drop i know it's so gross it's just can't wait to read what these old perverts are talking about it's never good

Speaker 3 It's never good.

Speaker 3 It's never profound. It's always just profane and just

Speaker 3 makes you sick.

Speaker 4 Everything that comes up always makes you sick yeah well on that depressing note let's move on to the next story which is that the beloved penny the unit of currency is no more

Speaker 4 rip rip the penny they're done minting them ronnie how do you feel about the penny going away um

Speaker 3 I'm surprised that conservatives are okay with this, but I guess they're okay with anything that guy does.

Speaker 3 But, I mean, objectively speaking,

Speaker 3 I'm totally down. Get rid of the penny.
I personally, I moved to America in 2015. I have not used a single coin in 10 years.
Wow. I round up and I, you know, I tip.
I round up and tip.

Speaker 3 I have not touched a coin in 10 years. So I'm all for, let's get rid of the penny.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think it's fine. My big, my question is, like, if we're not making them anymore, is everything just going to be like in units of five now? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like, what if you pay for something with cash and it's like $19.97 or whatever? Do you just not get those three cents back?

Speaker 3 Yeah, you don't get it.

Speaker 3 Great question. I think they should just stop making things in, you know,

Speaker 3 denominations. Just five points.
Just five cents. Just do it.

Speaker 3 In Singapore, they did that like... 20 years ago, I think.

Speaker 3 They got rid of the one cent coin, so everything was five cents minimum, like increments.

Speaker 4 Did that have some weird impact where like it made a bunch of people like gain or lose money as a result or did it

Speaker 3 not matter at all?

Speaker 3 Singaporeans are some of the most like

Speaker 3 they complain the most about bullshit

Speaker 3 and even they didn't complain that hard about this. Okay.
And they were they're like the Karens. They'll complain about everything.

Speaker 3 And I don't remember anyone being outraged over it just because it was like, it's just so it was actually convenient for the citizen. right? I think this might be convenient for Americans.

Speaker 3 I don't know. Uh, do you use coins?

Speaker 4 No, almost never. They do, they do seem to amass in my car's cup holders, and I don't know where they're coming from, but we have a bunch.

Speaker 4 We have like a big change jar in our apartment, and pennies are always disappointing because then you go cash it in and you're like, all right, I'm gonna get something, and then it's like four dollars and eighty seven cents.

Speaker 3 Yeah, okay,

Speaker 3 I know. So, yeah, uh, RIP penny, I guess you save on

Speaker 3 metals

Speaker 3 that you can cop. That's copper, right? Yeah.
Pennies are copper. So you can, that's a lot of electrical wiring that you could shift the metals to.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 If anything, this is a move for green energy because we need all of that copper to go into our grid.

Speaker 3 Right. And also, I mean, unfortunately, I mean, I'm not happy about this, but the way the American economy is, like, you can't buy shit for one penny anyway.

Speaker 4 Yeah. It's the only thing pennies are good for is when you go on like a road trip and there's one of those machines where you put a penny in and it smashes it.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Those things now you can do it without guilt.
I always felt guilty doing that because I was like, man.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Also, I was always like, isn't this illegal to deface money?

Speaker 4 I think technically it might be illegal. And because nobody gives a shit about pennies, the government was like, it's not worth pursuing this.

Speaker 3 Because it's legal tender. Like, you're not supposed to destroy money.
But anyway, there's a, you know, kids are destroying money

Speaker 3 by the penny in all these

Speaker 3 tourist attractions. So I guess now you can go and mint more of those penny smashing things.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Smash your pennies while you can, folks. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Ronnie, did you see this fedora detective at the Louvre?

Speaker 3 Yes, I did.

Speaker 4 He turned out to be a fancy teenager. He was just, he's like a 15-year-old kid who loves detective stories and dresses up like that every day for school.

Speaker 4 Can you imagine being a 15-year-old kid who loves detective stories and a heist happens while you are at the loop?

Speaker 3 Crazy. That's true.

Speaker 3 I know. What?

Speaker 3 Right time, right place, you know?

Speaker 4 But he didn't solve the crime.

Speaker 3 No, he didn't solve the crime. But he got a great photo.
That's true. And everyone thought he was somehow involved.

Speaker 3 Hey, shout out to anyone who's dressing up these days. Like, come on.
We need to bring back

Speaker 3 some class.

Speaker 4 The thing with him is he had the whole look. It wasn't just the fedora.

Speaker 3 He had like the suit.

Speaker 4 Because you'll see guys wearing a fedora sometime with like cargo shorts. And it's like, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 What are you doing? It's awful. You

Speaker 3 look like a total loser. But this dude, he didn't even wear, it wasn't just a suit.
It was like a full-on,

Speaker 3 like, he looked like someone who was... He looked like someone from a Sherlock Holmes book.

Speaker 4 Totally. He had the trench coat.
He had a fancy umbrella.

Speaker 3 He had the tie. Yep.

Speaker 3 I think he had a three-piece.

Speaker 4 Yes. I'm looking at him now.
He's wearing a waistcoat.

Speaker 3 Yeah, waistcoat. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it's hard. I mean, good for him.
And

Speaker 3 I mean, he was there right when

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 he was there. He was visiting the Louvre when the robbers hit or was he just walked by after?

Speaker 4 He was visiting the Louvre.

Speaker 3 Oh, okay. Well, hey, you never know, man.
Maybe this guy is involved. Maybe.

Speaker 3 It's just a freaking, he's just a cover story. He goes, oh, he's just a teenager just hanging out.

Speaker 4 Oh, wow. His name is, I don't know if we're, I don't know if we should say this because he's a minor, but the BBC is talking about it.

Speaker 4 His name is Pedro Elias Garzon Del Vaux, which sounds like a detective name.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's a detective name. He would be...

Speaker 3 You ever read those young adult detective stories when you were a kid? Like the Secret Seven and the whatever, you know, or the Hardy Boys, the Hardy Boys, right? This guy would be in the hottie boys.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you know, they'd be like a kid who likes to dress up and solve crimes. And

Speaker 4 except this is just a kid who likes to dress up and solve crimes, but everywhere he goes, he's like not really where the crime is happening. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's sort of just adjacent to crimes.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he never solves shit.

Speaker 3 He shows up for the photo op. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Dude, if this kid shows up in America, it'd be awesome.

Speaker 3 Imagine him if he, if you know, he's at some ice raid or like some, you know, what's he doing in, what's he doing in uh chicago yeah he's gonna he's gonna solve the epstein files he's gonna try to like get to the bottom of it yeah we gotta send this kid in no don't send that kid to epstein college don't send him there

Speaker 3 send this kid in to solve uh this guy you know cash patel should recruit this guy yes honestly he i trust this 15 year old kid from france to do the job way better than cash patel could do no totally totally get him in there

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Speaker 4 So let's look ahead to the coming week. The big news is that the House is finally going to vote on releasing the Epstein files.

Speaker 4 They had to swear in their new congressperson, which they were delaying for as long as they could, so they didn't have to release any more of the Epstein files.

Speaker 4 Ronnie, do you think that they will vote to release the files?

Speaker 3 I guess it's Epstein week.

Speaker 3 It's Epstein Week.

Speaker 4 It's never infrastructure week, but it's always Epstein week.

Speaker 3 Always Epstein Week.

Speaker 3 Will they vote to release it? Yeah, I think it sounds, it feels like

Speaker 3 to the credit of the Republicans, it feels like momentum is

Speaker 3 voting for releasing it, right? Despite it being weirdly against party agenda to release it. It feels like the House Republicans are actually like, we should release this.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And there's several very prominent Republicans,

Speaker 4 particularly like Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, who are very vocally like, we must release the files. Right.

Speaker 3 But I mean,

Speaker 3 again, not,

Speaker 3 I don't, I think it's fair for me to say in general, the Republicans for the last eight years have been released the Epstein files, right?

Speaker 3 Like they've been at the forefront of releasing Epstein files.

Speaker 4 I think so, but then it's, I think there's divide within the party, right?

Speaker 4 Because Republicans have spent the past, you know, 10 years cultivating the q anon type person who legitimately believes like all of this and has thought there is a pedophile cabal in washington from even before we knew about epstein and then there's also the regular republicans who only care about like power and getting their agenda put forward and like right lowering taxes and regulations as much as possible and i think that is sort of like the divide we're seeing right now yes but but i feel like the party has always been the very vocally anti-pedophile

Speaker 3 party.

Speaker 3 Like,

Speaker 4 what a messaging L for the Dems that they didn't get to be the vocally anti-pedophile.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like

Speaker 3 exactly. It's just a weird thing where, like, everyone's anti-pedophile, but then Republicans are like, that's our number one agenda issue.
Yeah, that's our brand. They kind of, that's a brand.

Speaker 3 And so it's weird to be against it now, I guess. But, I mean, I'm not saying anything revolutionary in terms of pointing out some weird hypocrisy.

Speaker 3 I mean, if you, you know, if you want to be even-handed about it, like the funny thing about the Democrats is that they

Speaker 3 were, they weren't about that. They didn't focus this hard on Epstein files until now.
It's, you know, like,

Speaker 3 where were they, why, why is this taking so long to release these files? Like, they've been, you know, they've had them since for at least what, at least five years now.

Speaker 3 Like, when Biden was in office, this was never a agenda priority but it is crazy if it's if it is as bad for trump as it seems like it would be it's crazy that the democrats wouldn't have released that sure exactly that's what i'm saying so here we are in 2025 and now it's again top of the priority so but whatever you know i'm not complaining like go for it let hope hope they release it so and so sorry to answer your original question it sounds like they have the numbers and the political will to release abstinence Files this week.

Speaker 3 Vote to, right? I think.

Speaker 4 I hope so. I mean, we'll see.

Speaker 4 They seem to always find a way to get out of doing it. So I wouldn't be surprised if it falls through somehow.

Speaker 3 Insane. Just how hard it is to agree on any issue in America.
Like, can we agree on releasing Epstein Files? No, we got to fight. We got to fight.
This is a, you know, it becomes a partisan issue.

Speaker 3 Like, what? Just release it. There's no, are there no non-partisan issues left

Speaker 3 in Congress?

Speaker 4 Well, one very partisan issue that I feel like even a lot of Republicans should be against is it seems like Trump might be trying to drum up a war with Venezuela.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, yeah. So extrajudicial

Speaker 3 killings like a Tom Clancy novel, shooting missiles,

Speaker 3 shooting missiles at boats coming in from Venezuela.

Speaker 3 So again, to be even-handed, okay.

Speaker 3 I guess,

Speaker 3 no, even then,

Speaker 3 I can't even justify. I'm trying to play devil's advocate here.
I don't even know how you justify extrajudicial killings. Arrest them and then, you know,

Speaker 3 go to court or something. I don't know.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 Ronnie, I think the fact that you can't justify extrajudicial killings makes you a good person.

Speaker 4 If you can't yes and the extrajudicial killings are not.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm just trying to yes and for the best.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so it's that, I think, you need congressional approval to declare war. So technically, it's not a war.
It's just a killing.

Speaker 3 I don't know anymore.

Speaker 4 Well, but now,

Speaker 4 so Trump and Pete Hegseth have talked about like going into Venezuela. And Pete Hegseth vowed to purge the Americas of, quote, narco-terrorists.
So

Speaker 4 it seems like Pete Hegseth is like, as our Secretary of War, is... quite hungry for war.
And even Maduro, who is the president of Venezuela, is like,

Speaker 4 he was like, it's going to be like Afghanistan for you guys all over again.

Speaker 4 And you're gonna be here for 20 years, which is like a crazy thing for the leader of another country that you're talking about to say.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't get.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm trying to think of

Speaker 3 like the best argument you can make for this

Speaker 3 to justify what they're doing.

Speaker 3 Because the gut instinct is to

Speaker 3 obviously what they're doing is pretty insane.

Speaker 3 If you're trying to stop drugs coming to America, I mean, first of all, the problem is also like,

Speaker 3 hey, how about Americans, you know, stop doing drugs? You know, how about that? That's some of that, right? Like,

Speaker 3 but no, I guess the answer is no.

Speaker 3 Americans stop doing drugs? No. No.
That's the answer. That's out of the question.
That's out of the question.

Speaker 4 It's easier to do a 20-year war in Venezuela than you can get Americans to stop doing drugs.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So that, you know,

Speaker 3 Also, is, yeah,

Speaker 3 is there, what is the plan to go in and take over the country or to just kill drug cartels?

Speaker 4 It's not clear. Pete Hegseth said the Western Hemisphere is America's neighborhood, and we will protect it.
Sorry, he tweeted that.

Speaker 4 And then he said the Southern Command mission would defend, quote, our homeland and secure it from, quote, the drugs that are killing our people. And then this is from The Guardian.

Speaker 4 And then they say, it is unclear why Hegseth made the announcement now.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 4 I love when serious news sources hear like what's going on in our government. And even they have to be like,

Speaker 4 we don't know what the hell this is. This doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 So I guess the argument in favor is what, like, these countries need help combating drug cartels.

Speaker 3 You know, so I guess. that's something, but to

Speaker 3 not work with the country to do it is pretty insane.

Speaker 3 to just go in and you know unilaterally try to end the drug cartels like you probably should try to partner with right like i don't know i don't know what the

Speaker 3 i i don't know what the official policy thing is here you know i i

Speaker 4 well i think the official policy is if we go to war with venezuela everybody will stop talking about epstein sure that too And also, you don't know,

Speaker 3 you don't do extrajudicial killings because you don't know who you're killing. I mean, that's just the...
Yeah, among other reasons.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like you don't know who. Many reasons not doing it.
One is who are you killing? We don't know what is going on. Who are these people? What were they doing?

Speaker 3 Is it, you know, that's why you kind of need a justice system. Yeah.
But

Speaker 3 yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 You caught me at a law syndical. This one's too hot for me to solve.
Well,

Speaker 4 speaking of people putting other people in dangerous situations, Mr. Beast is opening Beastland in Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 3 Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's opening his own theme park inspired by his stunts, but there's a catch. And I'm going to scroll through this article to find what the catch is.

Speaker 4 We built custom games modeled after our videos that don't exist anywhere else and will have the world's largest prize wall. Wow, it looks like a big laser tag facility.

Speaker 3 So what? The idea is kids from all over the world can go to Saudi Arabia to play Mr. Beast

Speaker 3 games. I don't, I don't, yeah.

Speaker 4 It's

Speaker 4 Ronnie, you're pretty famous. Have you ever met Mr.
Beast?

Speaker 3 No, I've never met Mr. Beast.

Speaker 3 You know, hats off to Mr. Beast for all he's built.

Speaker 3 I now met him.

Speaker 3 I'm, you know, good luck with everything.

Speaker 4 One of the games is called Drop Zone, which positions six people atop trap doors. A button will light up in front of each player, and whoever presses it last will drop.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 3 okay.

Speaker 4 It seems dangerous.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it seems dangerous. Seems like not something you want to do in Saudi Arabia.
Yes.

Speaker 4 He says, I just wanted to mention that we take safety extremely seriously.

Speaker 4 Every challenge was tested by multiple stuntmen, and we have a full rescue team on standby with firefighters, EMTs, and divers. It was an ambulance.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 3 I actually thought it would be pretty safe until he said that.

Speaker 4 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4 If I went to an amusement park and they were like, don't worry, we have a full rescue team, including divers on staff, I'd be like, but I'm not going.

Speaker 3 What's happening here? Divers, firefighters, and ambulance and EMTs.

Speaker 4 Also, every challenge was tested by multiple stuntmen.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 What about just like regular people? I'm not a stunt man.

Speaker 3 Am I going to have to be able to dive through a plate glass window?

Speaker 3 You can survive this if you know how to do a somersault in the air.

Speaker 3 Also, like, yeah, I mean, these rides seem to be going through multiple elements here. There's like a fire element, and then there's a water.
Like, why do you need firefighters and

Speaker 3 EMTs and

Speaker 3 divers? Why do you need firefighters and divers? Those are two opposite

Speaker 3 environments. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, so they got the firefighters, they got, which is fire, obviously. They have the divers, which is water.

Speaker 4 They have,

Speaker 4 let's see, studmen and rescue team, I guess, arguably is Earth. They don't have Wind.
Maybe they'll have like a parachute squad.

Speaker 4 And then you have Heart. And Heart is, I think, what all of the attendees bring.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it's the same kind of

Speaker 3 team you wish they had outside the embassies, you know?

Speaker 3 Just to save.

Speaker 4 Yeah. We're going to send the Mr.
Beast

Speaker 4 safety squad into Venezuela.

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Speaker 4 All right, to wrap things up, we're going to do a segment called The Daily Show and Tell.

Speaker 4 Ronnie, what is something that you've watched or read or listened to or argued about or that's just been on your mind lately that you want to tell people about?

Speaker 3 Oh, um,

Speaker 3 I read, I recently read the book 1776. Ooh.
From,

Speaker 3 oh shoot, what's his face? David Mitchell, David, not David Mitchell, David McCulloch. David McCullo.

Speaker 4 God, if David Mitchell of that Mitchell of Weblook wrote a book about 1776, I would absolutely read it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But you read the David McCullough book.

Speaker 3 Yeah, 1776. It took me 10 years.
I start and stopped it every, you know, every couple of years. And finally, I went through the whole thing.

Speaker 4 By the the time you finished it was 1786 yeah

Speaker 3 and uh i tell you what it it took me until i was 40 years old to be able to appreciate it yeah but it's a real page turner once you get into it it's pretty crazy uh the

Speaker 3 america first of all i finished the book and i thought oh this is gonna cover the whole american revolution it literally covers one year 1776. Wow.
The book ends at the end of the year.

Speaker 3 And that was a crazy ass year for America.

Speaker 4 Did you? Probably not because you didn't grow up here. Did you ever watch the movie 1776? No.
It's a musical. The guy who played Mr.
Feeney and Boy Meets World was in it. And it was very much,

Speaker 4 he was, I think he was John Adams, but it was very much the kind of movie that, like, when your teachers were like, I don't want to do anything today, they would just roll in and play us 1776.

Speaker 4 I don't know if that's based on the book or not.

Speaker 3 So you tell me if this is news to Americans, because this was news to me, how you feel about this. So in 1776,

Speaker 3 not everyone in America wanted to separate from England. It was very much majority want to separate, but not by any means the overwhelming majority.

Speaker 3 So you have people, so most of this book takes place in New York City.

Speaker 3 And it's, it's kind of, there's people who are... who are with loyalists to the British, people who are rebelling.

Speaker 3 When the rebels in America said that they wanted to declare independence and separate from England, England sent everybody to invade New York. So

Speaker 3 within a couple months, they sent ships into New York City. And apparently from Manhattan, you could see the New York harbor just fill with British ships.

Speaker 3 And everyone was scared shitless because they sent the Armada to shut down this rebellion. And it was a bunch of part-time soldier farmers led by George Washington versus the superpower of its time,

Speaker 3 England. And they fought, they were fighting in New York and they were going from New York to Brooklyn, back to New York, and they would go upstate.

Speaker 3 And the British had the best ships, so they're trying not to fight. The U.S.
had no ships. They had no navy.
And the British had...

Speaker 3 every ship.

Speaker 3 And so it was just like, it was, it could not be more one-sided.

Speaker 3 And Washington was like running back and forth from New York to brooklyn and they managed to make some key victories but they fought to a draw they lost a lot of people the u.s soldiers had no shoes it was like it was just a mess you don't want that especially not in new york city getting me no imagine tenness my takeaway from the book was this idea that like

Speaker 3 you know what what what is that 250 years ago in new york city

Speaker 3 the people,

Speaker 3 the concerns of the people in America are totally different to what the concerns are right now. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so whatever moment we live in that we think is the most important thing that's happening and this is crazy and, you know, in 50, 100 years, it's going to be something else completely.

Speaker 3 You know, that's my takeaway from it.

Speaker 4 Well, Ronnie, I'm going to put you in touch with my dad and then you guys can talk about this book.

Speaker 3 Oh, he's a U.S. historian?

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. Big time.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. I'd love to talk about it.
Big time.

Speaker 4 Okay, I'll do my show and tell. I'll keep it quick.

Speaker 4 So you brought up David Mitchell on accident, but I'll bring him up on purpose because

Speaker 4 he's in a show called Ludwig, which is like a detective show. It's a mystery show.
And he plays a guy who makes puzzles. And his twin brother is a detective who goes missing.

Speaker 4 And so he has to take his place and pretend to be his own twin brother to solve his own disappearance.

Speaker 4 And it's on, I watch it on Britbox, but I think it's also on Amazon Prime and maybe like the Roku channel. And it's really good.
He's really funny in it.

Speaker 4 If you've ever, you know that sketch that's like, Hans, are we the baddies? That's, that's David Mitchell, but he does a really good like dramatic performance in this one.

Speaker 3 So if anybody out there is listening, one of the all-time greatest satirists, David Mitchell.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's amazing. He's also, I watch Would I Lie to You a lot, and he's on that show and he's so funny.
It's unbelievable. Okay, everybody, that is everything that happened in the world so far.

Speaker 4 So to see what happens next, catch Ronnie hosting the Daily Show this week. I've been Nicole Conlon.
Thank you for listening to the precap. Thank you, Ronnie.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 10 Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

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