May 6, 2024 • 21 mins
John Leguizamo joins Daily Show writer, Kat Radley, to explain the crucial role the Latino vote will play in the 2024 election. John breaks down why Spanglish ads from the Biden-Harris campaign are not enough to secure Latino support, how Trump and the GOP dominate with messaging, and how Democrats need to fund the inspiring grassroots organizations often led by female organizers.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, everyone, welcome to The Daily Show Ears edition. This
is Kat Radley, writer for The Daily Show. I'm here
with actor, activist and Daily Show contributor John Liguizamo, contributor.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's oh, that's a high praise. I don't deserve that.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You've gotten a promotion. You're a contributor.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now, where's my salary? Bump? Though I didn't get that.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh I stole it.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh that's good. That's good. I'm glad you got it
better than somebody else.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
John, it's so exciting to have you back. You're back
at The Daily Show for a segment about how pivotal
Latino voters are in this election.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It looks like the Democrats are in trouble and you
might be thinking, how is this possible? Donald Trump is
winning Latino's Bill the Wall, Donald Trump, mass deportations, Donald Trump.
Guy who thinks Daddy Yankee is a baseball player? Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's exciting to be a writer on this piece.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
And can you break it down for our listeners, Like,
what was this segment about?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh, you know, it's about a call to action for Biden,
a call to action to Julie Javis Rodriguez, his campaign manager.
It's a call to action for Latinos and everybody listening
that we are the largest voting block after white people.
(01:37):
Thirty six million Latinos are going to vote and we're
going to decide who's going to be president. And it's
tricky now because we only care about that. We don't
care about immigration. Unfortunately I thought we did, but we
don't give it. We don't give a flying f about immigration.
We care about our businesses. We care about moving our business,
(02:00):
about getting bank loans, about getting taxes cut.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, paying for groceries and gas. And that's what this
piece is focusing on. And as writers we hear you're coming,
we get very excited and we kind of want to
pitch some ideas, like how important Latinos are.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
They're the biggest voting block.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We are the fastest growing population in America. That's right,
fastest growing. You know what that means? We be And
the thing is that white people are shrinking too, And
then you see white white fragility is such a thing.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I'm totally fine with it.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I wasn't looking at you, like blaming you or looking
at you try to know.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I think there should be much fewer white people.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
No, no, you don't. I mean we can all live together.
I mean that's the one thing, the beautiful thing about
Latin people. We love everybody. We'll have sex with everyone.
We don't. We love everybody. We love having sex with everyone.
We love Black, Asian, Jewish, white, you name it.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And that's what this podcast says really about. Who are
the Latino voters also going to have sex?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, it's what are our tender possibilities?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Would they rather fuck Trump or Biden in this election?
Is the question?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So, getting back to the piece, though, they're the real things. Like, so,
since the Latino voters, they do have the power to
really switch this election whichever.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Way they want.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And one of the things that this piece covers is
that they are losing ground with Biden and gaining ground
with Trump, even though Biden's the one who's trying harder.
What is it that you think the Democrats are doing
wrong in their messaging? Why are they losing Latino voters
right now?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Because they take us for granted? Man, I mean, Trump
already knew in twenty twenty, and that's why he was
able to get Florida. Republicans are working hard. They were
coming at us in What's app with ads. They were
coming at us in our Spanish language radio stations with
all kinds of trigger words like socialism that triggers Cubans,
Venezuelans and Colombians now because the influx of immigrants from
(04:05):
Venezuela escaping Maduro maybe getting thick into the Latin politics.
But that's what we're here for. And they came at
us with ads, they talked our talk. Biden assumed in
twenty twenty, the Democrats assumed that we were Democrats just
because we were Latino. But no, you have to come
for us, you have to work for us, you have
(04:25):
to knock on our doors, you have to call us,
you have to talk about the words that trigger us
into voting for you. And there were so many Latin organizations,
grassroots that got zero help in Arizona and Texas. Zero helped.
These Latinas were doing it by themselves, and they gave
us Arizona and they almost purpleized Texas, but they didn't
(04:46):
have any funds. And that's where the mistake is. Put
that money in these grassroots organizations that are working their
ass off to flip these red states which are ridiculous
that they're read. I mean, Arizona is thirty percent Latino
texts this is the majority is Latino forty Latino twelve percent.
Black white people are minority in Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
The fact that Texas hasn't gone blue yet is such
a failure I think on the Democratic Party's part, because
we could have totally made that blue.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
It's a hard one though, because they have Jerry Mander
did too. Yeah a motherfucking inch. I mean now that
they got Ai that she's gonna be even crazier. They
have so many blocks over there, so many tricks up
their sleeve.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, they're just making it so much harder to vote.
And it's been proven, like you said, with the grassroots
organizations that that is where the real difference matters.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
When you get the people registered.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
To vote in those communities, yep, and increase the voter
block even by a few numbers, we realize it does
make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, that's the one thing I never knew about politics
in voting was it's just a few numbers. I mean
sometimes it's one person voting that makes a difference. It's incredible. Yeah,
So it makes you realize how important your vote is
so the apathy you know, like Latinos have apathy too,
They have apathy, you know, they feel like I mean,
I've been traveling around with my show MSNBC show like
It Does America, and I can't name the cities, but
(06:04):
people are living in hard places that get no funding,
that get no uh, the schools are defunded, hospitals going
away because they're trying to gentrify an urban renewal basically,
you know, kill these cities where Latin people are living.
So they understandably they're upset and angry and have apathy.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, and Biden's a president now, so it's natural to think, well,
one to blame.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And people have short term memories too. They don't realize
that Trump handled COVID so badly that that's why we
had such huge inflationary problems and have all these economic problems.
But Biden is fixing it and helping it.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
But you know, but they're not good at getting that
message across.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
No, definitely, never. Never. We weren't good at it with
Obama either.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, and in terms we're talking about like reaching them
in their language, in Spanish, and now they're even putting
money into like Spanglish.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Loves fish, I mean Staglish it only gets to makes
you laugh. Yeah, I mean it's not really, it's it's
Latinos who like to goofy. Yeah, it's not a thing.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
That's fine. That's one thing that we didn't put into
the piece.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
But there was a lot of material on Biden getting
what they called like a Spanish and Spanglish war room.
We're like, it would be so funny if we could
do a sketch to put John like in the Spanish.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, but we did Spanglish in our piece basically. I mean,
all Latinos now are trying to do Spanglish, which is
just a mixture. It's not like, uh, we're not using
made up Spanglish words where that's really Spanglish to me,
it's made up words like when I grew up, I
was saying, which is locked the door? But it's an
(07:33):
English word that doesn't exist. Caro parked the car wacha
look out. We just words that we make up and
make Spanish eye that's the real Spangish. But now Spanglish
just means you flip between both languages really easy.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
It's like the brunch of languages, isn't.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
There it's lunch and breakfast smashed together and it's yummy.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, that's putting that in brunch terms, so the white
people would understand better.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And the hungry folk out there foodies.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
The last time you were here, you had a piece
about Univision. I was very fortunate I got to write
on that pieces.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But oh, that great job.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Oh thank you. I'm just put a little humble brag
out there.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
But writing when you do come, all the writers, we
are all anxious to write for you because you are
so fun to write for because you as an actor,
you know, you're really good at the characters and the
voice acting, so we can have a lot of fun
playing with the different characters in the pieces. And with Univision,
we were looking at like the Trump interview and how
they gave him the softball questions Udi visa, you own.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Face, and growing backlash after giving Donald Trump the royal treatment.
Last week, the network hosted a very friendly, our long
exclusive interview with Trump that his son in law Jared Kushner,
helped arrange.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I'd mother meal. I don't know what's more shocking that
Univision gave Trump a softball interview or that Trump led
a Latin guy into his house. How did that happen?
That piece that we did was vital because I got
a call from Univision and they're they're marketing expert who
(09:09):
tried to talk me down and I was like, nah, Obra,
you softballed him on purpose, and you need to fix
this because I've heard from a lot of newscasters that
you're swinging right and on purpose and it's not okay.
You need to be neutral. And you go, oh, well,
what are you talking about. You need to come down
(09:30):
and meet with us. We love to because we really
want to do the right thing, but it was bs
because they have been swinging right and it's not okay
to pick a side like that. You just got to
be new to your news station. Yeah, they're swinging for them,
you know, it's not okay.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, just as a journalist, whether it's a Spanish speaking
organization or not. Like, as a journalist, you're supposed to
be impartial, right, which.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Fox News obviously is not impartial.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I mean you know that, Yeah, I mean yeah, I
mean there's American media, like on the left and right
that is swinging both ways.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
At least we're at least MSNBC swinging with the facts.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
They're still swinging left. But I hate calling it left
because we don't have a real left in America. I'm
from Latin America. We have a real left. The real
left wants to destroy the government. You don't have We
don't have that in America. We have a left of
center left, but we have a real right in this country.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's what's weird.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
They dig in.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They dig in so hard on the right, and they're
really good at actually pulling like the social issues and
making them like kind of take place in real life,
in tangible legislation and things like that that are actually
affecting people.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
How do they do that?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
I wish we could figure out how to do it
the other way, I.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Know, because we don't. We can't pull them a little left,
a little you know. Uh. They the vouchers are hitting
everybody was believing that vouchers are great, which will destroy
public school education for everyone, so only the best students
will get an education. Everybody else will have to fall
through the cracks.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I'm glad you brought up education because that's another thing
I wanted to talk to you about really well, yeah,
because I think.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Because that's my that's my passion, you know, is education.
It's everything.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Actually I used to be a high school English teacher
before I was a writer at The Daily Show while
I was doing comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
But that's we can get into that later.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
But one thing that like one piece of legislation I
think on the right they are so good at, is
getting like the anti CRT and the anti DEI legislation through.
And it's interesting the past few years that looking at
how whitewashed American education and curriculum is, people are finally
kind of talking about it. But it's something that you've
(11:42):
noticed a long time ago. And your show Latin History
for Morons, you even tried to like essentially fill that
whole yourself, fill that gap.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And it's for myself, for my children, for other people's children,
for other people. Yeah, it's crazy. You grew up in
America and you only learn about I mean, I hate
to say white history, but it is like kind of
like white people's history of America but denies everything that
was there before. Like you barely touch upon the genocide
(12:14):
of all the Native American people that stolen land. The
treaties broken forever they invaded them and took it from them.
I mean they don't even mention that. They don't mention
you know, of course, all No, we discovered it, right, right?
How do you discover something and settled something that was
already discovered and settled by another people. That's what's incredible.
How you can whitewash that and change it and make
(12:35):
the other people who were living there the villains. I mean,
that's what Westerns flip me out. It's like, wait, you
made the people who are living here, the people who
were genocided and attacked and murdered and slaughtered, you made
them the villains. That's incredible writing and genius marketing.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, those people grew up.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Their descendants became the right wing media people who were
so effective in getting that messaging right.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
That messaging is so easy to get. I don't know
how that's it's so much easier than I guess showing
sympathy and empathy for others.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, which is sad.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
You'd think that should be easier, right, But don't you
think Americans do want decency? Though? I really feel like
traveling around America and I travel a lot, people do
want decency, They want decent people, they want respect, they
want everybody to re respect it. I think that's that's
why I love America because I know that's deep in
our DNA in America.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, no, I agree, And it's it's sad for the
people who maybe do get the misinformation or they're only
hearing messaging that isn't actually reflective of reality or electing
the people who really would do the things that would
make their life better. You are a voice for the
(13:46):
Latino community and one of the voices. Yeah, yeah, one
of the many voices. But you've been vocal about, you know,
increasing representation and equity for Latinos in Hollywood especially.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
But across the board.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And it was something you got to cover during your
guest week host here, which was always which is also
very fun with like the various sketches and jokes we
did for that. In terms of how you started out
as like an actor and a comedian, was there a
certain time where that shift kinda happened where you started
to take on the role of activist and advocate as
well for the Latino community. Was there like a certain
(14:20):
moment were you or was it kind.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Of a yeah, I mean I was always always socially conscious. Cat.
I was always socially conscious because I was aware of
the disparity and the inequality. I mean, it was it
was front and center in my life. Like here I
am and NYU and the only Latino in my class.
And you know, I had Andrew McCarthy in my class.
(14:43):
I had dB Sweeney. I don't know if people do
remember these. It's an age gap here. But they were
going to five editions a day.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
DB Sweeney. He was spreading edge.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yes, yes, and Andrew McCarthy was it like every eighties movie,
you know, every breakfast club. And they were going to
five editions a day. And I was going to one
every five months. Wow for a drug dealer. And I
was like, oh my god. I was an idealistic young man,
and I realized, oh my god, my opportunities are not
the same. No matter if I got a's, they didn't
(15:13):
get a's. I was paying the same tuition I did not.
No matter how what I did, I was never going
to have the same opportunities as them. That's when I
realized that this deck was stacked against me. And I
didn't lose sight of that. And then you get older,
and then you get invited to one DNC and then
I flipped John Kerry. I was at the DNC and
(15:34):
all of a sudden, I was like, oh, wow, this
is politics. It's accessible. I can talk to these people.
They're reachable. That made me realize that there was something
I could do, that I could talk to people, and
it made me change my whole mind about it that
it was not you know, certain people's politics that I
had a little bit of that apathy too, you know,
m hm, just because growing up in the hood and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
But actually you felt like there was something you actually
could control or effect change in a certain way.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah. Things that I did, things that I participated, had
an influence of some you know whatever, small little influence.
We all have some influence.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
That's powerful to hear because I feel like a lot
of people don't even bother to vote to the point
where they think that vote wouldn't matter.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But there's even so much more they I.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Mean these when I go travel around America and I
see these, it's mostly Latina's organizing with no money, nothing
on their own and organizing and going door to door
and and getting people to flip their votes and giving
us Arizona. It means incredible and it's in Arizona, Texas, California.
You know, AOC did it in New York. She went stomping.
(16:36):
My mom went with her and all over queens and
knock on doors. Hello, you want to vote for Rest?
Come on, you can do it. I know you can't.
Come on vote, Come on, go got go go.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's always the women who have to end up doing right. Yeah.
The labor, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It maybe it's shit done.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Come on, yeah, yeah, no, it's always had yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
In terms of this piece, and like the writing process,
I know, like the writers came with some pitches and
I ideas, did you have like did you know what
it was you wanted to talk about or were you
kind of open to see like okay, well were their pitches?
Is the way we kind of marry the two ideas.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well. I talked to Jen and we text and I
said I wanted to deal with the voting situation, and
then boom she she ran for it, you know, and
and I and I send her like, you know, thirty
six million Latino little a little Wikipedia information or Google information.
I gogglia, I go glad. That's the spang is right,
there and uh, I sent it to and then boom
(17:30):
she had a piece. And then I said, you know,
I want to do accents and voices and do my
cousins and do my uncles and whatnot. You know, you
guys wrote it. Yeah, and then boom, here we are.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
One thing I thought was when I originally a pitch
I had which we didn't get to. You were saying
you wanted to focus on two is how it wasn't
just immigration that Latinos are that they care about. In fact,
they don't even really care about it that much at all,
compared to other issues, like it's all about the economy
and inflation. Now.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I mean that's what I found talking to my
because I thought we did care. I was out. That
was in my own bubble. Yeah. I thought immigration was
a big deal because I see the horrors happening. But no,
Latinos are, especially immigrant Latinos who are naturalized, feel competitive. Yeah,
that these other people are getting asylum and getting their
(18:18):
naturalization really quick, and they didn't. They had to work
their asses off, and they feel bitter. And I had
no idea. I thought they were full of empathy and
love and the ad they see them as a threat
because they actually can take their jobs, right, So that
was a hard lesson for me.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, and that's I think probably what the two campaigns
are having to learn as well. Not just inflation and
the economy. Polls are also showing Latino voters are interested
about crime and healthcare, and there's also all these other
issues that disproportionately affect them. Like I was doing some
research for the piece. Apparently, of all women of color,
Latinos are most hurt by abortion bands. Latinos are also
(18:58):
more disapportionally affected by clime change because they tend to
be working jobs that are like outdoors, they're vulnerable to
extreme weather. And so I was like, oh, yeah, Like
there's so much stuff other than immigration that the media
and these campaigns shouldn't focus on because like another thing
you were talking about that you want to say that
Latinos are not a monolith. You know, there are so
many different issues that are affecting them, and that's something
(19:23):
I think our piece kind of touches on, right ryb.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
We trying to touch my I mean I got well
like three minutes on on cameras, so it's hard. It's
hard to touch on all the topics. But I mean,
I guess everybody thinks immigration is a thing because even
though we keep saying immigration, immigrants, what we're really saying
is we're saying Latinos coming across the border. Yeah, nobody,
I mean, that's that's what. It's so weird. We're seeing
(19:46):
pictures of Latinos. We see pictures of them being rounded
up by horses, we see them crossing river, we see
them dying. But nobody's saying Latinos. They're saying immigrants. So
but that's the unspoken word that bothers me a lot.
But but yeah, Latinos are deep in their lives. They
got a lot of trauma. They can't be as concerned
(20:07):
about their immigrant brothers and sisters. So we need to
win this election to fix all these things. So let's
focus on the things that are going to get Latinos
to vote. You know, Bernie had it. Bernie had the Latinos.
He had Latino consultants, he had AOC, he had a
ton of them. They spoke to Latino's. Latinos were fired
up about Bernie because he spoke about these things. He
spoke about jobs, lowering taxes, helping small businesses, get a
(20:32):
little propped up. He spoke. He knew that the lingo
he had it down. They should just hire all the
people he had, which I mean, they're hard to get
because they're all like moved.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Up, including Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Maybe yeah, Bernie Sanders talks to them. He talks to talk.
I don't know how he did it, but he got
it all.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
That sounds like a great place to stop. And there's
so much more that we didn't get to cover in
this podcast or in the piece.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So look, yeah, actually, Cat, what a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Thank you, Oh, thank you so much for taking the
time to do this podcast and for.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
The thank you for writing a kick ass piece.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, hey, it's You're always a pleasure to write for.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And uh okay, thank you so much for joining me,
and thanks for listening to The Daily Show Ears edition,
and thank you so much John Leguizamo for being here.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Ten Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime
on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, everyone, welcome to The Daily Show Ears edition. This
is Kat Radley, writer for The Daily Show. I'm here
with actor, activist and Daily Show contributor John Liguizamo, contributor.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's oh, that's a high praise. I don't deserve that.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You've gotten a promotion. You're a contributor.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now, where's my salary? Bump? Though I didn't get that.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh I stole it.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh that's good. That's good. I'm glad you got it
better than somebody else.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
John, it's so exciting to have you back. You're back
at The Daily Show for a segment about how pivotal
Latino voters are in this election.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It looks like the Democrats are in trouble and you
might be thinking, how is this possible? Donald Trump is
winning Latino's Bill the Wall, Donald Trump, mass deportations, Donald Trump.
Guy who thinks Daddy Yankee is a baseball player? Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's exciting to be a writer on this piece.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
And can you break it down for our listeners, Like,
what was this segment about?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Oh, you know, it's about a call to action for Biden,
a call to action to Julie Javis Rodriguez, his campaign manager.
It's a call to action for Latinos and everybody listening
that we are the largest voting block after white people.
(01:37):
Thirty six million Latinos are going to vote and we're
going to decide who's going to be president. And it's
tricky now because we only care about that. We don't
care about immigration. Unfortunately I thought we did, but we
don't give it. We don't give a flying f about immigration.
We care about our businesses. We care about moving our business,
(02:00):
about getting bank loans, about getting taxes cut.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, paying for groceries and gas. And that's what this
piece is focusing on. And as writers we hear you're coming,
we get very excited and we kind of want to
pitch some ideas, like how important Latinos are.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
They're the biggest voting block.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
We are the fastest growing population in America. That's right,
fastest growing. You know what that means? We be And
the thing is that white people are shrinking too, And
then you see white white fragility is such a thing.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I'm totally fine with it.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I wasn't looking at you, like blaming you or looking
at you try to know.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I think there should be much fewer white people.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
No, no, you don't. I mean we can all live together.
I mean that's the one thing, the beautiful thing about
Latin people. We love everybody. We'll have sex with everyone.
We don't. We love everybody. We love having sex with everyone.
We love Black, Asian, Jewish, white, you name it.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And that's what this podcast says really about. Who are
the Latino voters also going to have sex?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, it's what are our tender possibilities?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Would they rather fuck Trump or Biden in this election?
Is the question?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So, getting back to the piece, though, they're the real things. Like, so,
since the Latino voters, they do have the power to
really switch this election whichever.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Way they want.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
And one of the things that this piece covers is
that they are losing ground with Biden and gaining ground
with Trump, even though Biden's the one who's trying harder.
What is it that you think the Democrats are doing
wrong in their messaging? Why are they losing Latino voters
right now?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Because they take us for granted? Man, I mean, Trump
already knew in twenty twenty, and that's why he was
able to get Florida. Republicans are working hard. They were
coming at us in What's app with ads. They were
coming at us in our Spanish language radio stations with
all kinds of trigger words like socialism that triggers Cubans,
Venezuelans and Colombians now because the influx of immigrants from
(04:05):
Venezuela escaping Maduro maybe getting thick into the Latin politics.
But that's what we're here for. And they came at
us with ads, they talked our talk. Biden assumed in
twenty twenty, the Democrats assumed that we were Democrats just
because we were Latino. But no, you have to come
for us, you have to work for us, you have
(04:25):
to knock on our doors, you have to call us,
you have to talk about the words that trigger us
into voting for you. And there were so many Latin organizations,
grassroots that got zero help in Arizona and Texas. Zero helped.
These Latinas were doing it by themselves, and they gave
us Arizona and they almost purpleized Texas, but they didn't
(04:46):
have any funds. And that's where the mistake is. Put
that money in these grassroots organizations that are working their
ass off to flip these red states which are ridiculous
that they're read. I mean, Arizona is thirty percent Latino
texts this is the majority is Latino forty Latino twelve percent.
Black white people are minority in Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
The fact that Texas hasn't gone blue yet is such
a failure I think on the Democratic Party's part, because
we could have totally made that blue.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
It's a hard one though, because they have Jerry Mander
did too. Yeah a motherfucking inch. I mean now that
they got Ai that she's gonna be even crazier. They
have so many blocks over there, so many tricks up
their sleeve.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, they're just making it so much harder to vote.
And it's been proven, like you said, with the grassroots
organizations that that is where the real difference matters.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
When you get the people registered.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
To vote in those communities, yep, and increase the voter
block even by a few numbers, we realize it does
make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, that's the one thing I never knew about politics
in voting was it's just a few numbers. I mean
sometimes it's one person voting that makes a difference. It's incredible. Yeah,
So it makes you realize how important your vote is
so the apathy you know, like Latinos have apathy too,
They have apathy, you know, they feel like I mean,
I've been traveling around with my show MSNBC show like
It Does America, and I can't name the cities, but
(06:04):
people are living in hard places that get no funding,
that get no uh, the schools are defunded, hospitals going
away because they're trying to gentrify an urban renewal basically,
you know, kill these cities where Latin people are living.
So they understandably they're upset and angry and have apathy.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, and Biden's a president now, so it's natural to think, well,
one to blame.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And people have short term memories too. They don't realize
that Trump handled COVID so badly that that's why we
had such huge inflationary problems and have all these economic problems.
But Biden is fixing it and helping it.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
But you know, but they're not good at getting that
message across.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
No, definitely, never. Never. We weren't good at it with
Obama either.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, and in terms we're talking about like reaching them
in their language, in Spanish, and now they're even putting
money into like Spanglish.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Loves fish, I mean Staglish it only gets to makes
you laugh. Yeah, I mean it's not really, it's it's
Latinos who like to goofy. Yeah, it's not a thing.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
That's fine. That's one thing that we didn't put into
the piece.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
But there was a lot of material on Biden getting
what they called like a Spanish and Spanglish war room.
We're like, it would be so funny if we could
do a sketch to put John like in the Spanish.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, but we did Spanglish in our piece basically. I mean,
all Latinos now are trying to do Spanglish, which is
just a mixture. It's not like, uh, we're not using
made up Spanglish words where that's really Spanglish to me,
it's made up words like when I grew up, I
was saying, which is locked the door? But it's an
(07:33):
English word that doesn't exist. Caro parked the car wacha
look out. We just words that we make up and
make Spanish eye that's the real Spangish. But now Spanglish
just means you flip between both languages really easy.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
It's like the brunch of languages, isn't.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
There it's lunch and breakfast smashed together and it's yummy.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, that's putting that in brunch terms, so the white
people would understand better.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And the hungry folk out there foodies.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
The last time you were here, you had a piece
about Univision. I was very fortunate I got to write
on that pieces.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But oh, that great job.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Oh thank you. I'm just put a little humble brag
out there.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
But writing when you do come, all the writers, we
are all anxious to write for you because you are
so fun to write for because you as an actor,
you know, you're really good at the characters and the
voice acting, so we can have a lot of fun
playing with the different characters in the pieces. And with Univision,
we were looking at like the Trump interview and how
they gave him the softball questions Udi visa, you own.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Face, and growing backlash after giving Donald Trump the royal treatment.
Last week, the network hosted a very friendly, our long
exclusive interview with Trump that his son in law Jared Kushner,
helped arrange.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I'd mother meal. I don't know what's more shocking that
Univision gave Trump a softball interview or that Trump led
a Latin guy into his house. How did that happen?
That piece that we did was vital because I got
a call from Univision and they're they're marketing expert who
(09:09):
tried to talk me down and I was like, nah, Obra,
you softballed him on purpose, and you need to fix
this because I've heard from a lot of newscasters that
you're swinging right and on purpose and it's not okay.
You need to be neutral. And you go, oh, well,
what are you talking about. You need to come down
(09:30):
and meet with us. We love to because we really
want to do the right thing, but it was bs
because they have been swinging right and it's not okay
to pick a side like that. You just got to
be new to your news station. Yeah, they're swinging for them,
you know, it's not okay.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, just as a journalist, whether it's a Spanish speaking
organization or not. Like, as a journalist, you're supposed to
be impartial, right, which.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Fox News obviously is not impartial.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I mean you know that, Yeah, I mean yeah, I
mean there's American media, like on the left and right
that is swinging both ways.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
At least we're at least MSNBC swinging with the facts.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
They're still swinging left. But I hate calling it left
because we don't have a real left in America. I'm
from Latin America. We have a real left. The real
left wants to destroy the government. You don't have We
don't have that in America. We have a left of
center left, but we have a real right in this country.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's what's weird.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
They dig in.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They dig in so hard on the right, and they're
really good at actually pulling like the social issues and
making them like kind of take place in real life,
in tangible legislation and things like that that are actually
affecting people.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
How do they do that?
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
I wish we could figure out how to do it
the other way, I.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Know, because we don't. We can't pull them a little left,
a little you know. Uh. They the vouchers are hitting
everybody was believing that vouchers are great, which will destroy
public school education for everyone, so only the best students
will get an education. Everybody else will have to fall
through the cracks.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I'm glad you brought up education because that's another thing
I wanted to talk to you about really well, yeah,
because I think.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Because that's my that's my passion, you know, is education.
It's everything.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Actually I used to be a high school English teacher
before I was a writer at The Daily Show while
I was doing comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
But that's we can get into that later.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
But one thing that like one piece of legislation I
think on the right they are so good at, is
getting like the anti CRT and the anti DEI legislation through.
And it's interesting the past few years that looking at
how whitewashed American education and curriculum is, people are finally
kind of talking about it. But it's something that you've
(11:42):
noticed a long time ago. And your show Latin History
for Morons, you even tried to like essentially fill that
whole yourself, fill that gap.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And it's for myself, for my children, for other people's children,
for other people. Yeah, it's crazy. You grew up in
America and you only learn about I mean, I hate
to say white history, but it is like kind of
like white people's history of America but denies everything that
was there before. Like you barely touch upon the genocide
(12:14):
of all the Native American people that stolen land. The
treaties broken forever they invaded them and took it from them.
I mean they don't even mention that. They don't mention
you know, of course, all No, we discovered it, right, right?
How do you discover something and settled something that was
already discovered and settled by another people. That's what's incredible.
How you can whitewash that and change it and make
(12:35):
the other people who were living there the villains. I mean,
that's what Westerns flip me out. It's like, wait, you
made the people who are living here, the people who
were genocided and attacked and murdered and slaughtered, you made
them the villains. That's incredible writing and genius marketing.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, those people grew up.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Their descendants became the right wing media people who were
so effective in getting that messaging right.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
That messaging is so easy to get. I don't know
how that's it's so much easier than I guess showing
sympathy and empathy for others.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, which is sad.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
You'd think that should be easier, right, But don't you
think Americans do want decency? Though? I really feel like
traveling around America and I travel a lot, people do
want decency, They want decent people, they want respect, they
want everybody to re respect it. I think that's that's
why I love America because I know that's deep in
our DNA in America.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, no, I agree, And it's it's sad for the
people who maybe do get the misinformation or they're only
hearing messaging that isn't actually reflective of reality or electing
the people who really would do the things that would
make their life better. You are a voice for the
(13:46):
Latino community and one of the voices. Yeah, yeah, one
of the many voices. But you've been vocal about, you know,
increasing representation and equity for Latinos in Hollywood especially.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
But across the board.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And it was something you got to cover during your
guest week host here, which was always which is also
very fun with like the various sketches and jokes we
did for that. In terms of how you started out
as like an actor and a comedian, was there a
certain time where that shift kinda happened where you started
to take on the role of activist and advocate as
well for the Latino community. Was there like a certain
(14:20):
moment were you or was it kind.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Of a yeah, I mean I was always always socially conscious. Cat.
I was always socially conscious because I was aware of
the disparity and the inequality. I mean, it was it
was front and center in my life. Like here I
am and NYU and the only Latino in my class.
And you know, I had Andrew McCarthy in my class.
(14:43):
I had dB Sweeney. I don't know if people do
remember these. It's an age gap here. But they were
going to five editions a day.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
DB Sweeney. He was spreading edge.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yes, yes, and Andrew McCarthy was it like every eighties movie,
you know, every breakfast club. And they were going to
five editions a day. And I was going to one
every five months. Wow for a drug dealer. And I
was like, oh my god. I was an idealistic young man,
and I realized, oh my god, my opportunities are not
the same. No matter if I got a's, they didn't
(15:13):
get a's. I was paying the same tuition I did not.
No matter how what I did, I was never going
to have the same opportunities as them. That's when I
realized that this deck was stacked against me. And I
didn't lose sight of that. And then you get older,
and then you get invited to one DNC and then
I flipped John Kerry. I was at the DNC and
(15:34):
all of a sudden, I was like, oh, wow, this
is politics. It's accessible. I can talk to these people.
They're reachable. That made me realize that there was something
I could do, that I could talk to people, and
it made me change my whole mind about it that
it was not you know, certain people's politics that I
had a little bit of that apathy too, you know,
m hm, just because growing up in the hood and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
But actually you felt like there was something you actually
could control or effect change in a certain way.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah. Things that I did, things that I participated, had
an influence of some you know whatever, small little influence.
We all have some influence.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
That's powerful to hear because I feel like a lot
of people don't even bother to vote to the point
where they think that vote wouldn't matter.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But there's even so much more they I.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Mean these when I go travel around America and I
see these, it's mostly Latina's organizing with no money, nothing
on their own and organizing and going door to door
and and getting people to flip their votes and giving
us Arizona. It means incredible and it's in Arizona, Texas, California.
You know, AOC did it in New York. She went stomping.
(16:36):
My mom went with her and all over queens and
knock on doors. Hello, you want to vote for Rest?
Come on, you can do it. I know you can't.
Come on vote, Come on, go got go go.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's always the women who have to end up doing right. Yeah.
The labor, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
It maybe it's shit done.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Come on, yeah, yeah, no, it's always had yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
In terms of this piece, and like the writing process,
I know, like the writers came with some pitches and
I ideas, did you have like did you know what
it was you wanted to talk about or were you
kind of open to see like okay, well were their pitches?
Is the way we kind of marry the two ideas.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well. I talked to Jen and we text and I
said I wanted to deal with the voting situation, and
then boom she she ran for it, you know, and
and I and I send her like, you know, thirty
six million Latino little a little Wikipedia information or Google information.
I gogglia, I go glad. That's the spang is right,
there and uh, I sent it to and then boom
(17:30):
she had a piece. And then I said, you know,
I want to do accents and voices and do my
cousins and do my uncles and whatnot. You know, you
guys wrote it. Yeah, and then boom, here we are.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
One thing I thought was when I originally a pitch
I had which we didn't get to. You were saying
you wanted to focus on two is how it wasn't
just immigration that Latinos are that they care about. In fact,
they don't even really care about it that much at all,
compared to other issues, like it's all about the economy
and inflation. Now.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, I mean that's what I found talking to my
because I thought we did care. I was out. That
was in my own bubble. Yeah. I thought immigration was
a big deal because I see the horrors happening. But no,
Latinos are, especially immigrant Latinos who are naturalized, feel competitive. Yeah,
that these other people are getting asylum and getting their
(18:18):
naturalization really quick, and they didn't. They had to work
their asses off, and they feel bitter. And I had
no idea. I thought they were full of empathy and
love and the ad they see them as a threat
because they actually can take their jobs, right, So that
was a hard lesson for me.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, and that's I think probably what the two campaigns
are having to learn as well. Not just inflation and
the economy. Polls are also showing Latino voters are interested
about crime and healthcare, and there's also all these other
issues that disproportionately affect them. Like I was doing some
research for the piece. Apparently, of all women of color,
Latinos are most hurt by abortion bands. Latinos are also
(18:58):
more disapportionally affected by clime change because they tend to
be working jobs that are like outdoors, they're vulnerable to
extreme weather. And so I was like, oh, yeah, Like
there's so much stuff other than immigration that the media
and these campaigns shouldn't focus on because like another thing
you were talking about that you want to say that
Latinos are not a monolith. You know, there are so
many different issues that are affecting them, and that's something
(19:23):
I think our piece kind of touches on, right ryb.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
We trying to touch my I mean I got well
like three minutes on on cameras, so it's hard. It's
hard to touch on all the topics. But I mean,
I guess everybody thinks immigration is a thing because even
though we keep saying immigration, immigrants, what we're really saying
is we're saying Latinos coming across the border. Yeah, nobody,
I mean, that's that's what. It's so weird. We're seeing
(19:46):
pictures of Latinos. We see pictures of them being rounded
up by horses, we see them crossing river, we see
them dying. But nobody's saying Latinos. They're saying immigrants. So
but that's the unspoken word that bothers me a lot.
But but yeah, Latinos are deep in their lives. They
got a lot of trauma. They can't be as concerned
(20:07):
about their immigrant brothers and sisters. So we need to
win this election to fix all these things. So let's
focus on the things that are going to get Latinos
to vote. You know, Bernie had it. Bernie had the Latinos.
He had Latino consultants, he had AOC, he had a
ton of them. They spoke to Latino's. Latinos were fired
up about Bernie because he spoke about these things. He
spoke about jobs, lowering taxes, helping small businesses, get a
(20:32):
little propped up. He spoke. He knew that the lingo
he had it down. They should just hire all the
people he had, which I mean, they're hard to get
because they're all like moved.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Up, including Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Maybe yeah, Bernie Sanders talks to them. He talks to talk.
I don't know how he did it, but he got
it all.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
That sounds like a great place to stop. And there's
so much more that we didn't get to cover in
this podcast or in the piece.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So look, yeah, actually, Cat, what a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Thank you, Oh, thank you so much for taking the
time to do this podcast and for.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
The thank you for writing a kick ass piece.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, hey, it's You're always a pleasure to write for.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And uh okay, thank you so much for joining me,
and thanks for listening to The Daily Show Ears edition,
and thank you so much John Leguizamo for being here.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Ten Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime
on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
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