Epstein Emails Reveal "Bubba" Bombshell About Trump & Republicans Pretend It’s NBD | Christiane Amanpour

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Speaker 2 You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 2 From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only source for news.
This is the Daily Show with your host, John Stewart.

Speaker 2 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Daily Show.

Speaker 2 My name is Jon Stewart. We have a tremendous show for you tonight.
Later on, we're going to be joined by CNN International anchor Christian Amampour.

Speaker 2 But first,

Speaker 2 we need to talk about the big revelations that have been coming out about the private lives of America's depraved coastal elites.

Speaker 2 I'm referring, of course, to the Real Housewives of Rhode Island trailer, Andy Cummingby.

Speaker 2 At BravoCon, it appears the smallest state might have the biggest drama.

Speaker 2 And then, obviously, there's also thousands more Jeffrey Epstein emails to go through.

Speaker 2 Let's get into that with another installment of

Speaker 2 it's pretty boring stuff.

Speaker 2 On the premiere of season eight of the Epstein Files, old emails continue to resurface, sparking renewed interest because of exchanges like this one, which

Speaker 2 really encapsulates the absolutely astonishing nature of this entire affair. I give you,

Speaker 2 this is an email exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and his brother Mark.

Speaker 5 In one email, Epstein's brother Mark told him to ask Steve Bannon if, quote, Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.

Speaker 2 This sentence,

Speaker 2 maybe

Speaker 2 18 words long,

Speaker 2 seven of those words are Steve Bannon, Putin, photos, Trump-blowing bubba.

Speaker 2 It's a rich text.

Speaker 2 Literary scholars will secure tenure off off the analysis of

Speaker 2 this text.

Speaker 2 Steve Bannon, Putin, photos,

Speaker 2 Trump-blowing Bubba.

Speaker 2 And I know what you're probably thinking,

Speaker 2 Jeffrey Epstein had a brother?

Speaker 2 He did, apparently. And to the second thing that you you might be thinking.

Speaker 5 Mark Epstein released a statement clarifying that the name Bubba was not a reference to former President Bill Clinton.

Speaker 2 Thank you for clearing that up.

Speaker 2 No further questions, Your Honor.

Speaker 2 Boy,

Speaker 2 before I go, one last thing.

Speaker 2 Which Bubba was he blowing then?

Speaker 2 It's not Bubba Gump, that's a restaurant. And you can't blow a restaurant.

Speaker 2 By the way, that's not a challenge, Mr. President.

Speaker 2 You see, but these are the kinds of questions that can be answered by releasing the Epstein files, which Donald Trump has been steadfastly against.

Speaker 6 I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff.

Speaker 2 Did you see the blowing email?

Speaker 2 It's kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 the little taste of that, no pun intended,

Speaker 2 did arouse, again, no pun intended,

Speaker 2 some curiosity about the rest of, if I may, the load.

Speaker 2 That one I meant.

Speaker 2 But pressure is building. Is there any way to talk about this story that doesn't sound ejaculate adjacent?

Speaker 2 People are begging on their knees. No, this is not.

Speaker 2 Demanding release? No, this is.

Speaker 2 But the House of Representatives clearly now has the votes to demand that the Epstein files be released, which is why this weekend, Trump pivoted.

Speaker 7 The president writing on social media, House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide.

Speaker 7 Oh.

Speaker 2 Nothing to hide. For those of you at home who are watching tonight and have something to hide, whether it be a simple guilty pleasure of the lowbrow television variety, hello swinging Mormons, or

Speaker 2 a body encased in concrete by your sump, at some point the walls will close in, at which point you too will probably find yourself saying, maybe not via tweet, hey, go ahead, look, I got nothing to hide.

Speaker 2 But you do.

Speaker 2 You do, and so does Trump. Because guess what? If he had nothing to hide, he could have declassified and released these files himself at any time.
How do I know this?

Speaker 2 A legal expert named Donald Jurisprudence Trump

Speaker 2 said so.

Speaker 8 If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it.

Speaker 2 Come on, Donnie boy, don't think about it.

Speaker 2 No, don't even... Think about baseball.
Think about your grandma. Think about baseball.
Think about your grandma playing baseball. Don't think about the classified.

Speaker 2 I declassified it.

Speaker 2 Oh, I shouldn't have done it, but I did it.

Speaker 2 I declassified in my pants.

Speaker 2 It's very clear. Trump does not want these things out there, which is obvious even from his nonsensical answers about it in the Oval Office today.

Speaker 8 We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do.
All of his friends were Democrats. You look at this Reid Hoffman, you look at Larry Summers, Bill Clinton.

Speaker 2 First of all, are you okay?

Speaker 2 And second of all, we've tried to look at those people, but every time we do,

Speaker 2 Your picture comes up.

Speaker 2 But f ⁇ ing yeah, investigate everyone who had a relationship with Epstein, which includes, if we're being honest, you, Mr. President.
And by the way, investigate the Democrats.

Speaker 2 And maybe you'll find out.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 Investigate them all.

Speaker 2 And by the way, while you're out there, see if you can find the Democrat who cut a sweetheart prison deal for Ghelane Maxwell after she told your lawyer she never saw you do anything wrong.

Speaker 2 Oh, and by the way, never saw Jeffrey Epstein do anything wrong either. Have at it.

Speaker 2 Because the perks that Maxwell is getting in prison would seem sketchy for a run-of-the-mill white-collar larcenist, let alone a convicted sex trafficker.

Speaker 9 Tonight, new details about the list of perks that Ghelene Maxwell is getting behind bars.

Speaker 10 Private meals and mail delivery, cellmates reassigned for privacy, special visits in the chapel, and the warden helps her send documents and emails.

Speaker 2 The warden?

Speaker 2 Hello, warden.

Speaker 2 It's Ghillane.

Speaker 2 I'm having just an awful time converting this file to PDF.

Speaker 2 Would you be a deer?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll send the IT guy. Oh, no!

Speaker 2 You will attend to this personally.

Speaker 2 Yes, Ghislane.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 Yes, Miss. I'm sorry.
Am I still on the phone? Yes.

Speaker 2 Yes, Miss Maxwell.

Speaker 2 And Scene. All right.

Speaker 2 I mean, come on.

Speaker 2 The finger warden.

Speaker 2 And it gets cushier, literally.

Speaker 10 One of the perks that I think that people may be surprised that is a perk is the idea of unlimited toilet paper.

Speaker 2 The audience literally gasped right now.

Speaker 2 I've been a free man my whole life. I have never

Speaker 2 had unlimited toilet paper. Never in my life.

Speaker 2 I wasn't raised that way. But Maxwell, she's just wiping and wiping.

Speaker 2 Hello, Warden.

Speaker 2 Would you be a dear?

Speaker 2 Unlimited toilet paper. It does explain her prison Halloween costume this year.

Speaker 2 Oh, unlimited.

Speaker 2 Is it possible that Trump's whole bullshit facade is crumbling? I mean, right now, all he can do is distract from one lie with what is clearly another lie.

Speaker 8 All I want is I want for people to recognize a great job that I've done on pricing, on affordability.

Speaker 2 What planet do you live on?

Speaker 2 Great job on affordability. My Taco Bell order is now $72.

Speaker 2 By the way, I still round up for the children.

Speaker 2 I don't want you thinking I don't round up.

Speaker 2 This dude is flailing. The normally reliable Trump is even struggling to deliver on his greatest gift, the cutting nickname.

Speaker 7 Over the weekend, President Trump repeatedly going after one of his closest allies and staunchest defenders, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Speaker 12 Calling her Marjorie Taylor Brown because, quote, green grass turns brown when it begins to rot.

Speaker 2 You know, I've always said that the best nicknames are the ones you have to explain

Speaker 2 in parentheses.

Speaker 2 Right, Bubba?

Speaker 2 Hey, Bubba! Hey, Bubba, he's from the South and he likes being blown, Bubba!

Speaker 2 But believe me, this is real. This Epstein thing is no Democrat hoax.

Speaker 2 And you know it's real because Trump's allies are working overtime to distract, or in the case of Fox News, not even to mention, when the emails came out, Fox devoted most of their airtime to such urgent matters as the socialist takeover of Seattle, the Treasury phasing out the penny, the northern lights, the growing popularity of Christian music.

Speaker 2 And as always, Kamala Harris goes crazy for carbs.

Speaker 2 Move over, elite pedophile ring.

Speaker 2 Kamala's gone Garfield on the lasagna.

Speaker 2 My God.

Speaker 2 Any other problems with the emails?

Speaker 9 Another critique we're hearing from some Republicans is that these emails are cut and spliced. They're taken out of context.
Some of them are a little bit difficult to decode, if you will.

Speaker 2 Bullshit.

Speaker 2 Difficult to decode? Have you read these emails? They weren't put together by Navajo code talkers.

Speaker 2 Here are the emails. Hey, Jeffrey.
Rented a huge house in Ibiza, invited lots of girls from Russia, all models. The scout used to scout for Trump, but he doesn't work for him anymore.

Speaker 2 He's coming with 12 girls and would like to meet you or how about this one I will send you a picture of this Burmese girl very pretty I will bring her to the US yeah probably not on an H-1B look

Speaker 2 these emails are explicit and they were written post Epstein's conviction in 2008 and even then

Speaker 2 these mother f ⁇ ers felt so invincible that they didn't even think to try and hide any of it. No mafia, take care of

Speaker 2 no the donuts are in the container, no even Ix Nay on the Earl's gay.

Speaker 2 But suddenly the right is all,

Speaker 2 this is impenetrable.

Speaker 2 What language be this?

Speaker 2 So let's go back and remember how this whole f ⁇ ing dance started.

Speaker 2 Let me take you back to 2016 when another batch of emails was released And MAGA had no trouble busting out the Dakota rings for those emails.

Speaker 14 The Pizzagate conspiracy began with the Clinton WikiLeaks. The conspiracy theory quickly spread to Reddit and YouTube, feeding fake online news stories alleging a Clinton campaign child sex ring.

Speaker 2 Well, a child sex, that's an incredibly serious charge.

Speaker 2 And seeing how the right doesn't like to jump to conclusions on emails, I assume that these emails were pretty concise and clear about the extent of what would be a horrific crime.

Speaker 6 The original source of all this?

Speaker 2 A leaked email to John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chief.

Speaker 6 It was from his brother, and it said simply, would love to get a pizza.

Speaker 6 My God.

Speaker 2 Could it be any clearer that John Podesta and his brother are running a family-owned child sex ring?

Speaker 2 What else could would love to get a pizza mean?

Speaker 2 That was the famous Pizzagate conspiracy. When people were so obsessed with finding evidence of sex trafficking, they built a whole code book and applied it to those emails.

Speaker 15 What they found were numerous references to pizza, a term Urban Dictionary says is slang for child pornography. So somehow they concluded that Podesta and company were speaking in code.

Speaker 16 These conspiracy theorists started saying that pizza and cheese and pasta were code words, referring, in fact, to child sex abuse.

Speaker 17 Why did the Podesta emails mention the code word pasta for either little boy or sex 78 times?

Speaker 2 Why would he mention pasta 78 times?

Speaker 2 Other than the fact that he's Italian.

Speaker 2 He's Italian.

Speaker 2 What are you?

Speaker 2 He's Italian!

Speaker 2 If you try to type Podesta into your phone, half the time it will autocorrect to pasta!

Speaker 2 If anything, 78 times is low!

Speaker 2 I mean, who knows what this dude is into? But mentioning pasta doesn't make someone a pedophile,

Speaker 2 even if it does make them a penophile.

Speaker 2 I'm comedian and deli show host Jon Stewart.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it's a challenge for a comedy show to discuss sex trafficking networks. So you have to find the jokes wherever you can.

Speaker 2 Generally, that does include pasta puns.

Speaker 2 even if they do make me feel a little fusilly.

Speaker 2 But the Pizzagate conspiracy wasn't just left to grow on its own. People in MAGA World were very happy to feed that fire.

Speaker 18 This is tied into Podesta with thousands of emails.

Speaker 10 There were little kids going in and out of this bathroom, one or two kids.

Speaker 19 And this is a bar.

Speaker 10 Podesta, Podesta, the Molesta.

Speaker 20 QAnon,

Speaker 20 a lot of this stuff these guys have been talking about comes out to be true.

Speaker 18 Pizzagate, as it's called, is a rabbit hole that is horrifying to go down.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think if people thought anytime someone mentioned pizza, they were talking about having sex with kids.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that would actually be terrifying because it's the most popular food in the country. But you know what this shit does?

Speaker 2 It trivializes and tries to politicize what is an actual real f ⁇ ing problem in this country and this world.

Speaker 2 And has now put those same influencers in the position to back away from this in present time with far more explicit evidence.

Speaker 10 This is an email without any context. Once again, ultimately it's just Epstein trying to pull Trump in and duplicate him.

Speaker 11 And they've been over him. They've been cherry-picked.

Speaker 3 They know it's there.

Speaker 11 It's all old stuff. So it's just more gaslighting, more deception.

Speaker 2 As I've always said, context is important.

Speaker 2 As I say on my show every day, the truth is oftentimes nuanced.

Speaker 2 That's why you got to be real careful with this shit.

Speaker 2 And as for Bannon, through these emails, we've learned he was working with Epstein to figure out ways he could rehabilitate Epstein's image. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 With these Podesta emails, it was all they were the Enigma machine decoding everything. But these Epstein emails now are a New York Times crossword puzzle from a Monday.

Speaker 2 You can figure this shit out ink.

Speaker 2 In fact, the only guy,

Speaker 2 the only guy,

Speaker 2 the only guy that I have to give props to is Alan Dershowitz. Not for moral integrity, but this dude's been on Epstein's team from the get-go and he's sticking with it.

Speaker 21 He pleaded guilty to one count of having sex for money with a 17 and year and 10 month old person. That's not pedophile.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Little rule of thumb for everyone out there.

Speaker 2 If you ever find yourself counting anyone's age in months,

Speaker 2 chances are the person you're describing is still a child. But maybe the most shocking thing about this, and I cannot stress this enough, convicted sex trafficker is the extent of his social network.

Speaker 4 We mentioned some of the emails between Epstein and writer Michael Wolf.

Speaker 5 Epstein emailed he received a gift from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Speaker 2 Contacts include liberal academic Noam Chomsky, Echou Barak and Larry Summers.

Speaker 9 Deepak Chopra.

Speaker 2 Sunyi Prevan, Woody Allen's wife.

Speaker 9 Belinda Thomas of the New York Times. The former Prince Andrew.

Speaker 15 Ken Starr. Peter Thiel.

Speaker 2 Look at the names in these emails. You get Democrats, Republicans, Silicon Valley billionaires, spiritual thought leaders.
You got an Israeli prime minister and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2 My God,

Speaker 2 the range.

Speaker 2 What it tells you is that a certain stratosphere, the petty differences of class and race and religion, fade away.

Speaker 2 We're left and right, Jew, Arab and Christian, ultra-rich and oh my god, is that a rocket rich,

Speaker 2 find common ground and show us that we can live in peaceful coexistence.

Speaker 2 It would be almost beautiful

Speaker 2 if not for the sex trafficking part.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, elite sex trafficking ring. Is there anything you can't spoil? And I'm not saying these people are all in the ring, but Epstein was a convicted sex offender at the time of these emails.

Speaker 2 And of course, mentioned in these emails more than anyone else, more than 1,600 times, is Donald Trump. Is that evidence of his guilt? No.
But it shows that he's a part of that world.

Speaker 2 And certainly the circumstantial evidence points to his understanding of what was occurring. But if there are more of you out there that need definitive proof,

Speaker 2 perhaps this will convince you. It's wrong, isn't it?

Speaker 7 But it feels so right.

Speaker 3 Then it's a deal?

Speaker 7 Yes, we eat that pizza the wrong way.

Speaker 2 Crust first, introducing Steph Crust Pizza from Pizza.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, they're doing anal!

Speaker 2 When we come back, Christiana McBorne will join me in the studio. Don't go away.

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Speaker 2 Right everybody today is showing my guest tonight, CNN's chief international anchor and host of the Global Affairs Program, Amampur. Please welcome to the program, Christiane Amampur.

Speaker 2 Look at us. Lovely.

Speaker 7 Lovely.

Speaker 2 Crazy, right?

Speaker 7 Crazy.

Speaker 2 What do you do when you're in a newsroom and something like this, not your newsroom, because it's sophisticated and urbane, but when something like this email scandal, and it's so salacious and it's got so many layers to it, and it so speaks to privilege and corruption and invincibility at the highest

Speaker 2 levels, is that

Speaker 2 the trifecta for journalists to kind of dig into?

Speaker 2 What is the sense of this?

Speaker 7 You know, the journalists have been digging into this from the very beginning. It was great journalists, obviously, who revealed it from the very beginning of when all this stuff started years ago.

Speaker 7 It was a great journalist from the Miami Herald, Julie Brown.

Speaker 7 Yes, indeed, who broke the actual story of the, you know, sort of not so serious plea deal that he that he copped all those years ago and lived, as you just said, in a sort of a country club existence.

Speaker 7 I just think that these are the stories that we have to cover.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 7 That, yes, they touch people high, low, all over the place, but nonetheless, you can't shy away from it.

Speaker 7 This is the responsibility of journalism to, without fear or favor, without being one side or the other, to just go for the truth and to follow, as they say, follow the money, but in this case, follow

Speaker 2 whatever. Do you think the current media setup is capable of that? Yes.

Speaker 7 And I think the current media setup is doing it. Really? It's not an accident that a lot of the reveals that you're talking about come from FOIA requests, freedom of information,

Speaker 7 come from CNN broke some of it a week ago, I think was part of a group of journalists who broke some of it a week ago.

Speaker 7 And I do believe that journalists are absolutely able to get to the bottom of this and any story. That's what investigative journalists are trained to do, to find is there a there there?

Speaker 2 Right. And tell me about the separation.
Here's my concern.

Speaker 2 You mentioned Julie Brown and Miami Harrow.

Speaker 2 Very clearly the money in this business is moving away from not just international on-the-ground reporting, but local reporting for people like that, journalists that are in the weeds.

Speaker 2 But, you know, the work that she did, will there be journalists to do that when the money is being funneled into much more weaponized media, much noisier media,

Speaker 2 media conglomeration.

Speaker 7 That pains me. The weaponization of the media, the weaponization of speech, the weaponization of journalism,

Speaker 7 and as you say, the shifting of resources away from this kind of journalism and towards something that's just not as expensive to cover.

Speaker 7 It takes resources to cover and to conduct serious investigations.

Speaker 7 Not just money, money, but people. You know, people who are going to be

Speaker 7 tasked with not having to do breaking news and standing always and doing these stand-ups outside, you know, wherever, and actually going and doing what they do, pounding the streets, using the shoe leather, all those clichés are real.

Speaker 7 And I think that is something that we have to all really keep in mind, that no matter what it is, whether it's a foreign story that I cover overseas, whether it's an investigation over here or wherever, these are the bread and butter of real journalism.

Speaker 7 And it is still happening but you're right, the resources are very very stretched. And the other thing you mentioned is the corporatization, conglomeration,

Speaker 7 and you know,

Speaker 7 it doesn't always improve the quality of journalism.

Speaker 2 We have more information now than I think we've probably had in the entirety of human existence, but we have less insight.

Speaker 7 And less understanding. Right.
And less knowledge. More information, less knowledge.

Speaker 7 So I always say, and I would say that, wouldn't I, that people really do have to, and I will say it, have to be very careful where they choose their media. Yeah, I'm over there.

Speaker 2 Look at that. Did you just screw my audience? No, no.

Speaker 2 Did you just ask? Did you just down the pipe? Hold on a second. You go to me.

Speaker 2 You guys are doing great.

Speaker 2 Don't

Speaker 2 know.

Speaker 7 Did I finish what I said?

Speaker 2 Probably. Yeah, probably.

Speaker 7 Just find your news from trusted and credible organizations, all right?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 7 Don't go down the rubbit hole.

Speaker 2 But how do you do that when the algorithm has such gravitational?

Speaker 7 It's a pain in the neck, and it's really hard. And it's a struggle.
And it's a struggle when also, as I said, you know, it's weaponized to a degree that it hasn't been in my experience anyway.

Speaker 7 Maybe somewhere in the past it was like this. But you can barely cover all sides of a story.

Speaker 7 I mean, you can barely be an actual journalist and cover this side and that side and come up with, you know, what's going on.

Speaker 2 Are we making the mistake? Without people saying you're on the wrong side or the right side. Are we making the mistake of buying into,

Speaker 2 for most news now, the right-left paradigm as opposed to something more exclusively corruption versus integrity?

Speaker 3 I think so.

Speaker 2 Is that something that feels like a business model that would have legs? I think there's such thirst for people to...

Speaker 2 Corruption is so endemic in these systems. And I think the Epstein case shows it has no party.
It has no favor. There is a stratosphere that exists beyond accountability.

Speaker 2 And that feels ripe for not just good journalism, but good business.

Speaker 7 And I think, you know, it's the drip, drip, drip nature of all of this.

Speaker 7 Had it all been done, as President Trump said in his campaign, had they released all the files and this and that, it would have been done and dumped and dusted, right?

Speaker 7 And then people would have taken what they could and saw and you did this evening. But I think it's the drip, drip, drip.

Speaker 7 It's the sort of story that's going around that there is a division within MAGA, within the President's own base on this.

Speaker 7 And so it's a story that keeps feeding itself because it's just still out there. And I think you can't ask journalists not to cover this stuff because it's clearly important.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's not just here. No, it's corruption.

Speaker 7 And it's happening in the UK, as you know. It's touched members of the royal family.
Well, a member of the royal family who's been defenestrated by his brother, the king.

Speaker 7 You know, the prince.

Speaker 2 Wait, what did the king do to him?

Speaker 2 I think I saw that in Braveheart. Literally.
I mean, how did his house run? He defenestrated.

Speaker 7 Maybe he went out the window.

Speaker 2 I think about what's shocking to me is the length of time before accountability.

Speaker 2 And even then, with Prince Andrew being the avatar of all of this, but there's clearly layers and layers underneath it, his punishment is, you are no longer a prince.

Speaker 2 Like, in what world is this sex sex trafficking ring somehow the only thing that happens is one guy's not a prince and the other one gets all the toilet paper she can use.

Speaker 2 How does that seem just or fair

Speaker 2 to anybody watching this?

Speaker 7 As you know, we and I have spent many many years covering sex trafficking around the world. I've done pieces on 60 Minutes about sex trafficking from the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

Speaker 7 I've done, you know, the oppression and the victimization and the mass rape of women during war,

Speaker 7 the abuse of children, all over the world. So it is very, very clear that there is a conscience and there is a morality to covering these stories.

Speaker 7 It's very clear and that the victims, as always, must be heard and must be listened to and there should be you know

Speaker 7 justice clearly.

Speaker 7 So we don't know, I don't know how this is all going to transpire, but you hear, certainly regarding the UK case, that certainly politicians in the the United States have suggested that there might be more testimony required, etc.

Speaker 7 So I think that

Speaker 7 justice is being pursued on this and other issues.

Speaker 2 When you are traveling the world and you're getting to interview some of those that are in these halls of power or that live on that plane of a lack of accountability, is it they just breathe it like air or is it evident the utter lack of accountability?

Speaker 7 I think, look, from what I have experienced in my life, talking to certain people of great privilege, and often unelected, by the way,

Speaker 2 autocrats and stuff.

Speaker 7 Yeah, they're there for life. Sure.
So when that happens, you become hugely arrogant because you feel you are entirely invincible. And until some revolution happens or somebody comes up.

Speaker 7 So you get humbled by the people. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 7 And I find that that arrogance is a very, very common through through line, a thread to all the people who I've interviewed in the past who've had other situations to answer to.

Speaker 7 The arrogance, the belief that no, no, no, no, there's not one law, there is several laws, one for the rich and famous, one for the powerful,

Speaker 7 then they're the ordinary people.

Speaker 2 That's why it shouldn't be like that.

Speaker 7 And there needs to be a rule of law, and we need to stand up that.

Speaker 2 But in our country, I think that's why we're all so pleased by the humility of our leaders. I think.

Speaker 2 What do you think of, you know, I've been impressed

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 the best bulwark against authoritarianism in this country has been the American people.

Speaker 2 Trump may want the trappings of a dictator, he might want the iconography, he might want all those things, but I find that, you know, for a wannabe authoritarian, he's not that popular.

Speaker 2 You know, around the world, despots are generally

Speaker 2 pretty, usually pretty popular, especially at first.

Speaker 7 You know, I was hoping you would ask me this question. Really?

Speaker 7 Do you know what's happening tonight as we speak? According to Politico, I don't want to be held

Speaker 7 to account, but the president is making a speech on affordability tonight.

Speaker 2 He's answered the people.

Speaker 2 He's heard the people. Shoot your news sources wisely.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, you ask.

Speaker 7 You asked.

Speaker 7 This is answering the people. The people spoke at the election, and the president got the message.
Now, on what was that? Accountability?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 7 Yeah. We need to hold power accountable.
That's what we do. The notion that we should be bending a knee here or bowing there.
I grew up in a monarchy. I grew up in a monarchy.
I know what's that like.

Speaker 2 Right. And I know what's that like.

Speaker 2 My impression is, and this is not, I'm not talking about you, I'm not talking about specific journalism.

Speaker 7 I'm talking about the Iranian monarchy by the way.

Speaker 2 Exactly. I understand that.
But it feels to me like the guardrails of our society in America that have failed us have been saved by the people.

Speaker 7 And that's what it's meant to be.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 But it hasn't been the corporate leadership or it hasn't been Congress and it hasn't been the judiciary, although there's been underneath the Supreme Supreme Court, but it's been the president says, I want to be like Orban and I'm just going to pull people off the air that say things I don't like.

Speaker 2 And the American people go, f it then, I'm canceling Disney Hulu. And three days later, Kimball's back on the air.

Speaker 2 And that's why,

Speaker 2 you know, people here, they're always saying like,

Speaker 2 what can we do? And I always say back, like, you're doing it. Yeah.
We're holding a line on this. It's fine.
I think much more effectively than people might realize.

Speaker 7 I actually agree with you, and I think that's really important.

Speaker 7 And we have to just keep doing it. We're fighting the headwinds, right? I mean, it's very difficult,

Speaker 7 but we have to keep doing it. And as I say, without fear nor favor, without being political, being journalists, truthful, not neutral, just do it.
What else do we have to do?

Speaker 7 What do we have to lose?

Speaker 2 Do you think journalists are honest about... And you define journalism in a different way because, you know, the media is obviously not a monolith.

Speaker 2 But there is a sense sometimes that the journalists are high on their supply as well. There's a little bit of the...

Speaker 7 Is that a drug thing? Yes.

Speaker 7 I don't do drugs.

Speaker 24 Be careful.

Speaker 2 But there's a little bit of the democracy dies in darkness.

Speaker 2 But they're not showing light oftentimes. They're just playing into the circus.

Speaker 7 Sometimes, sometimes you can get very caught up in the circus, as you know, in the horse race, instead of the policy. I mean, how many times have pundits and polls been wrong about elections?

Speaker 7 Okay, my point.

Speaker 7 But often we do do the important good news stories when they're elections, and I'm talking about around the world now, where there's a triumph of justice, when war criminals are in front of the tribunal and are actually,

Speaker 7 you know, trying to get away from the state.

Speaker 2 Are we shining a light on the right... If democracy dies in darkness, are we shining a light on the right work work? Is my question.

Speaker 2 You have great people that are doing things at great risk to themselves in all kinds of places that are really dangerous.

Speaker 2 Are we shining the proper light on that work, or are we wasting too much on nothing?

Speaker 7 I think that, obviously, you've just answered your own question. You know.

Speaker 7 Guys, be careful where you get your source of news from.

Speaker 2 It is true.

Speaker 2 So you grew up in

Speaker 2 Iran, yeah. What is it about, you know, people say like Hungary, Putin, North Korea.
Is there something in America that makes those kinds of authoritarian takeovers more difficult?

Speaker 2 Is it that they're grafting something that's alien to

Speaker 2 this particular culture? Because I do think

Speaker 2 it's not as easy to do it here. It feels like the people fight it a little.
Well, no, they do.

Speaker 7 Are you having me on now? Sorry? Are you joking with me? Of course people here are fighting it. This is the United States of America.

Speaker 2 No, that's what I mean.

Speaker 7 You have a constitution, you have rule of law, you have a First Amendment.

Speaker 7 And if we don't defend it, more fool us.

Speaker 7 More fool us and more fool everybody. If we don't defend our democracy when we have a whole rule of law, I'm not American, I'm just saying our because I'm sitting here trying to be polite.

Speaker 7 But it's up to us, right? Those people don't have the option. When they tried in Iran, all the women, you know, went out in the street and what happened? Beaten down, shot,

Speaker 7 put in jail, and yet they keep coming out, of course, killed.

Speaker 7 Journalists being killed all over the place, trying to do their job.

Speaker 7 I mean, this is deadly serious stuff that we do, and it's really important to to realize that, that we're not here playing a game, we're not here to score points or to get

Speaker 7 more views on social media. We're here to do a job that's vital, that's vital and protected by the US Constitution, that upholds a strong democracy, that creates a healthy democracy.
So,

Speaker 7 here's an example.

Speaker 7 I really hope to God that the BBC is not crushed under the weight of an attack and an assault on the BBC. It's one of the greatest public service television broadcasters in the world.

Speaker 7 And it's not just news, BBC World Service, BBC Culture, Sports.

Speaker 2 David Attenborough.

Speaker 2 I mean, come on.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 be careful what you wish for, because if you torpedo that, then what do we have? You know,

Speaker 7 in England, there's a thing called GB News. Actual sitting politicians have shows.

Speaker 7 Has that ever been, you know, hauled into account by the governing body of Ofcom and this event?

Speaker 2 Yeah, sorry. Yeah, we do that in this country as well.
I mean, there's a revolving door. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 Actual shows?

Speaker 2 Oh, absolutely. Am I thick?

Speaker 2 No, there are a lot of people that, like, when they run for president, have to stop their show. I mean our the Secretary of the Department of War came from a Saturday morning.

Speaker 7 I'm talking about active. Active

Speaker 2 literally have

Speaker 2 there's there's all kinds of rules in there about like if you don't announce you get to stay on your show for the whole thing.

Speaker 2 Or they invite the politician to be on their show all the time as just an infomercial. No, there's believe me.
There's no American

Speaker 2 for a while. This may be a surprise to you.
We may not be the shining star of an enemy that you think we are.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah. Well, it's getting a little tarnished.
America, the view of America overseas is becoming quite tarnished because this administration seems to want to push its friends away

Speaker 7 instead of hugging them, instead of keeping them close for strength and allies

Speaker 7 and fighting the good fight. You want to make America great again? You have to do it in a team.

Speaker 2 All right. It's all about...
So it's just a we're a hug away.

Speaker 2 this one. I'm trying to be polite, all right?

Speaker 7 But you've got a big problem overseas.

Speaker 2 Right. You know, brand America is

Speaker 7 no longer as popular as it used to be.

Speaker 2 What is the biggest danger to what you do, to what really good journalists do in this current environment then?

Speaker 7 What's the real danger?

Speaker 2 Yeah, what's the biggest danger?

Speaker 7 Being shut down. Being shut down.
Being fired, being shut down, being

Speaker 7 censored. That is dangerous.
Right. That is dangerous.

Speaker 2 And then there's the real danger that we don't even know. People that are covering it in actual dangerous

Speaker 7 places. Well, look, the CPJ, I'm hosting the Gala on Thursday, the annual Galaxy.

Speaker 2 Fantastic organization.

Speaker 7 Fantastic, which protects and supports and

Speaker 7 stands by journalists all over the world. You know, there are something like 327, if I've got the name right, number right, of journalists jailed around the world.

Speaker 2 Right. And how many killed?

Speaker 7 2024 was the deadliest year.

Speaker 7 Absolutely. 126 were killed.
This year, 113 have been killed, and the year's not out.

Speaker 7 And it is a dreadful situation.

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 7 when even democracies screw around with us, it's not okay.

Speaker 2 No, no.

Speaker 2 But you stay with it and BBC stuff doesn't affect CNN International.

Speaker 2 You're good.

Speaker 7 Look, when we make mistakes, we have to own up to it.

Speaker 7 But the answer is not to then to torpedo and crash everything else. It's a very important

Speaker 2 solution, yes, sir. Are they literally going to evacuate Tehran?

Speaker 7 I don't think so. I don't think so.

Speaker 2 For those of you who know, Tehran has been going through a water emergency. As much as those people have had to deal with it.
Yes, now it's a water emergency. Now they've run out of water.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they have.

Speaker 7 They have. They managed to get through the very brutal summer.
The lakes are drying up, but they managed to get through the summer.

Speaker 7 So they think that they have passed that tipping point of having to evacuate. But it's massive mismanagement and it's climate change.

Speaker 2 Right, and all those things. But

Speaker 2 it looks like that. So far.
Right. Well.

Speaker 7 We're two months past the deadline of having to evacuate.

Speaker 2 Well, I so appreciate you coming by. Well, I appreciate you having

Speaker 2 the time and putting on in that good work for CPJ. I'm on poor is available to stream in the US and channel.
And check out Pocket, the X-Files. Damian Rubin, Christian on the port, Tatersburg River.

Speaker 2 We're right back. You do a concern.

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Speaker 3 There we go. That's our show for tonight.

Speaker 2 Before we go, we're going to check in with your host for the rest of the week, Mr. Ronnie Chang.
Ronnie Chang!

Speaker 2 What do you got for this week, Ronnie?

Speaker 24 Well, John, bad news for Thanksgiving. Turkey prices are up 40% this year, and that's why I'll be giving you tips on how to save money with alternative meats.

Speaker 2 Like chicken or ham, or

Speaker 24 no, even better. I'm talking pigeons, baby!

Speaker 2 Yeah!

Speaker 2 Where did you get those, Ronnie? They're everywhere.

Speaker 24 And dumb as shit, all right?

Speaker 7 All you need is a crust of bread and an empty bag.

Speaker 24 They just walk right in. Hey, I'll sell you this for 10 bucks.

Speaker 2 I'm okay. Okay.

Speaker 24 You're lost.

Speaker 24 And by the way, there are cheap alternatives for dessert, too.

Speaker 2 No, Ronnie, I don't think I'm going to be able to do it. I'm talking more pigeons over there, man.
Ronnie Chang. Pigeon Pie, baby.
Here it is. Your moment is in.

Speaker 15 Nobody wants pigeons. The regular MAGA people out there want the truth, and they want it from him.

Speaker 13 And listen, we have to reiterate that he has not been accused of any wrongdoing, any sort of criminal activity. There may be something salacious, it may be unpleasant.
I hear your phone.

Speaker 13 You can just try to turn that off. Can you still hear me? Because I'd love to ask you this question.

Speaker 13 I mean, yeah, we've all fumbled with our phones at times.

Speaker 25 Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 25 Watch The daily show weeknights at 11 10 central on comedy central and stream full episodes anytime on paramount plus

Speaker 6 this has been a comedy central podcast

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