January 21, 2025 • 39 mins
Jon Stewart unravels the absurd "weave" of Trump's Inauguration Day, from Joe Biden's buzzer-beater pardons to the tech billionaire VIPs, to the passive-aggressive transfer of power. Plus, the Best F**kin News Team has full coverage on day one of the second Trump era.
Brooke Harrington, economic sociologist and author of “Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism," discusses modern American oligarchies and the behavior of the ultra-rich. They talk Donald Trump’s “broligarchy” of American tech billionaires, how they differ from the oligarchs of Russia and the Gilded Age, and how a coalition of laborers is the only way to dismantle the system.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
One of the most trusted journalists at Comedy.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Central a very special special report.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
The Daily Show presents Inauguration Conyny Bull. That the and
likely final from Inauguration with.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Your host John Stuart Boom Father, Hi, welcome, Welcome to
(00:53):
The Daily Show.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
My name is uh hold on, my.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Name is My name is John Stewart. I'm your host.
Most historic vibe shift of day.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Donald J. Trump, the forty fifth.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
President of the United States, a man who's licentious and
felonious behavior has been well cataloged and documented, returned to
the Capitol of Rotunda just four short years after inspiring
in that very place a day of riotous.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Shickfre.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Shitury. Return to the exact same room.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
Now, generally, if this were a dateline documentary, he would
return to that room to express a form of repentance,
in maturity and acknowledgment of pain that had been wrought
on that terrible day. But in this show that we're
filming now, it's to be sworn in as the forty
seventh President of the United States, And as with most,
(01:57):
returning to the scene of the crime.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
It began with tea with the people you tried to
steal it from a short time ago.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
President Joe Biden greeted mister and Missus Trump at the
White House for tea, an inaugural tradition.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
It's always important to keep up the tea tradition when
you hand over the keys to I'm sorry, what did
you call them?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Hitler, But gotta be a good host.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
And the WiFi password his White House, but I change
the eye to a one.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I hope that's not weird.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I'm not saying Biden should have done his own insurrection,
but there's got to be a happy medium between storming
the Capitol and would.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
You like a crumpet?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
But everyone showed up. Yes, it's the Supreme Court taxing in.
Oh please, they're taxing in.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Like the private jets some of them take to caged
pheasant hunts. All very legal because illustrious senators like Amy
Koba Shar and Deb Fisher.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And of course Hakeem Jeffreys was there, and.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Fetterman was are you come on, Fetterman?
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Really, Schwartz, it's not even an inaugural decorum thing.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's freezing out there.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It's a it's a health cancer.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Fedtterman is literally America's teenage son.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
It's your grandma's funeral.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I told you I don't like long pants.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Fine, be cold.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Even the president's family attended, most of whom didn't have
to be warned not to do that weird thing with
their hands.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Don't, hey, hey, hey, don't don't do it with your hands.
Can you Jeff be normal for a day?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
What was he doing?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Literally like, look at my dick?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
What now? Okay? Okay, but not to worry.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Also attending were all those people who warned Americans to
shun this wannabe fascist dictator called Trump. Look at me, ma, Oh,
let's go see Hitler and get a quick selfie. First
look at us, a quick one for the gram. Yes,
former President Obama was there. George Bush seemed kind of there,
definitely high. Even Mike Pence showed up. I guess to
(04:40):
let the crowd finish the job. Only Michelle Obama seemed to.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Have the consistent ethical stance of saying, when they go low,
I stayed the foul.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I don't have.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Of course, Joe Biden was there, making the strategic choice
of keeping her person, which, as you know, is the
international symbol of but the award for most useful fashion
accessory went to the ever stylish Millennia Trump, who's Audrey
(05:34):
hepburn esque chapeau or head close as it's called double
doesn't affect him.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
If you don't control your borders, we don't have egg.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Meanwhile, many dignitaries went not only hatless, but hairless, with
a plethora of stocky bald billionaires who all seem to
go to the same biohack life extension clinic and say,
give me the lex luthor, Yes, taking the place of
seats normally reserved for democratic or Republican governors. Sat Zuck Bezos,
(06:25):
Tim Cook, Elon, Tictac guy, the Google guy, the six
guys who control maybe twenty percent of the world's wealth
and one hundred percent of your nudes. You don't need
(06:47):
to pretend with me. I don't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Delete delete delete populism, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Shouldn't this gathering be happening in a volcanoes layer near Zurich?
Or are we just open source Illuminati? Now, where's the conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Fund in that?
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Honestly, there is not a useful app of communication not
controlled by at least one of these individuals, And you
may not be concerned that they've all ponied up a
million dollars to be sitting there and are kissing the
ass of a president who openly threatens non ass kissers.
But trust me, shit's gonna get weird even by that afternoon.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Disappearance of Elon Muscat, an earlier trunk rallies getting loads
of attention because of a one armed gesture he made.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
This one really matters, and I just want to say
thank you for making it happen.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
Okay, Charitably, I'm going to say that was just an
awkward My heart goes out to you, jest.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Sure any of you might have done it like this.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
You know, even Taylor Swift has done that, you know,
my heart, but she almost never does nothing goes down
to you like just always stays with But you know, listen,
it's nerve wracking day. You're not normally a public speaker.
It's one off gesture. Please try not to use it again.
Speaker 8 (08:48):
A bit.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I really want to make sure that people in the backseat.
I guess.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I'm just going to be generous and say maybe that
was Elon's attempt at dabbing on the haters.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I don't by the way do people still dab on haters?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Was that a very old man?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Okay, wasn't that a thing at one time?
Speaker 9 (09:22):
No?
Speaker 5 (09:23):
I think I think it's important in these troubled times
to continue to dab on the haters. But don't be
concerned that these tech titans control Google and TikTok and
WhatsApp and Instagram and x and any other way that
we communicate in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty five,
because you know, I'm not going to censor us. And
(09:43):
it doesn't matter anyway, because I know in my heart
we don't need any of them, because we'll always.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Have you messing your pigeon.
Speaker 10 (09:50):
No, no, how dare you, sir? Why messenger pigeon? Why
would you turn on me? I'd let you live in
a cage on my roof, surrounded by your own shit.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I asked them to make that animation at like five o'clock.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Tonight, literally with everything else going on in the show, and.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was literally like, could you make me a pigeon
doing this?
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And they were just like sure, Hey, then it was
time for the swearing in on me kind of on
the Bible. Yes, it turns out Trump didn't actually put
his hand on the Bible, obviously because one or the
other would burst into flames, perhaps both. And so, ladies
(10:50):
and gentlemen, the torch has been passed from Piden to Trump. Yes,
the torch has been passed to the same generation of Americans.
Let's hear from the four seventh president, fresh off the
warm embrace of a tea ceremony with his predecessor.
Speaker 11 (11:06):
My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally
reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals
that have taken place.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
He's right behind you. Luckily, I don't think he can
hear you.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
The inaugural speech followed the American tradition of a passive
aggressive transfer of power. The incoming president gets the completely
shit on the outgoing president in front of that president
and hopefully his spouse.
Speaker 11 (11:48):
In recent years, our nation has suffered greatly record inflation.
Trying to socially engineered race and gender disastrous invasion of
our country is a radical and corrupt, establishous, violent, and
unfair weaponization. From this moment on, America's dickline is over.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
This is a tumultuous time in American history, filled with
much uncertainty, interrepidation. But it is very difficult for me
to not in any way take the bait of the
way he said dickline. It really did sound like, he said,
(12:40):
our dickline, like the line of our dick So you
can see America's dickline. I mean, how are you going
(13:01):
to end our dickline with a tuck or a full reassignment?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Or is this more about Fetterman's shorts?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
What about our dickline?
Speaker 5 (13:14):
I am a child, but as bad as things were,
guess what, folks, Daddy's home, It's about to get a
whole lot better.
Speaker 11 (13:25):
The Golden Age of America begins right now. From this
day forward, our country will flourish. The American dream will
soon be back and thriving like never before.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
We will win like never before.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We will be a rich nation again.
Speaker 11 (13:39):
We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We will drill, baby drill.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
I think I just saw Jade Vance's dickline, Drill, baby drill.
But for all the day's eerie energy, one thing stood
out to America's watchdogs of democracy. We have watched as
the forty seventh President of the United States has been
(14:11):
sworn in a cornerstone of democracy. This is the true
transfer of power here of the current president and the
former president making this walk.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
This process is what distinguishes the United States from a
lot of other parts of the world.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, it's all just normal shit, it's just another day.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
It's all just normal transfer powershit. We're just going to
play along like all this theater is normal. Oh, except
there was one thing that might have given the game away.
Speaker 12 (14:40):
For just twenty minutes or so left in his presidency.
We've just gotten word from President Biden that he is
pardoning his brothers, their wives, his sister, other family members.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
He says that he is.
Speaker 12 (14:53):
Doing this because baseless and politically motivated investigations Greek havoc.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
On the lives of a individuals. It's all just normal.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
First of all, Biden, you're at the inauguration. Did you
auto schedule your pardons? And second of all, what the man?
You're just pardoning your whole family. It's not a great look. Yet,
like any good captain, as the ship is going down,
Biden gave the order that life vot is from my family.
(15:28):
The rest of you can do just like a kind
of Jack and Rose thing, one on one off fifty
to fifty shot. Who gives a shit? Biden outy. So
the takeaway of this entire day was a man who
tried to overthrow the government has been peacefully handed the
reins of power, and the outgoing president has started a
(15:50):
new tradition of blanket pardoning everyone in his orbit, the
two men creating a magnificent snake sucking its own dick
cycle of no accountability. And then, of course we end
with the grand finale, the attack on Greenland has begun.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 5 (16:24):
For more on the day's events, we go out to
the best news team in the country, starting at the
Capitol with Michael cost and dasy Leer.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Michael Costa, I'm gonna start with you, my friend.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
What's the mood over there at the inaugural parties tonight?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
John? It's incredible.
Speaker 13 (16:47):
Donald Trump hasn't even been president for one whole day,
but already unemployment is down, gas is low, my vertical
jump increased half an inch, and the stock market is.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Soaring.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah. I think.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
I mean, obviously a lot of that economic stuff was
happening before noon today, so.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I don't think so.
Speaker 14 (17:09):
Also, Trump made eggs sheep again. I mean, we can
eat ton twenty thirty of these a day. John, They're
literally selling them by the dozen. My albumen levels are.
Speaker 15 (17:27):
Foreign.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Desi Leidick. You're down there as well. You've been covering
Blue Washington as it were.
Speaker 14 (17:34):
John.
Speaker 7 (17:35):
I'm with the hashtag resistance, and they are aphalled by
what they're seeing. The executive orders, the renaming of military bases.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
They've already renamed the bases after Confederate generals.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
No Hitler, it's just Fort Hitler.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Now.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
It's overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
John, all right, Well, try and stay safe out there, Dosy.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
And John, if I could say something, I'm sorry, Yeah,
Josh Johnson, are you.
Speaker 15 (18:10):
I'm at the Martin Luther King Memorial Today was also
MLK Day. There was a march honoring a man that
represented the best about America. Just want to put that
out there.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Okay, fantastic, good to keep in mind, John, Can I interraw, Yes, Michael,
I just thought of some more egg stuff.
Speaker 13 (18:31):
Egg salad, egg creams, eggnog, yawnie, eggs, egg plants.
Speaker 14 (18:36):
Thanks to Trump, these things are now super cheap.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And the best part about eggs, John, they never expire.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's definitely not true.
Speaker 13 (18:46):
Michael's Okay, well, we'll see what the new Secretary of
Health and Human Services has to say about that, right
after he legalizes raw milk.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
You know, speaking of the letters M L and K.
Speaker 15 (19:09):
Let me tell you about someone else we should be
celebrating today.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Black guy preacher and he talked like Vice, the black
guy from the movie Selma.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
No, well yeah, but no, no, John, I have an
update from Resistance headquarters that the Cheetos man is not
gonna like yes.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Does he do initiatives? Is there another march?
Speaker 7 (19:34):
Not gonna be necessary? I'm hearing Rachel Maddow is coming
back five days a week, and when she compares what's
happening now to the Chay's rebellion of seventeen eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Whooh boy, I would not want to be Trump.
Speaker 16 (19:49):
Excuse me, sorry, I'm sorry, great cool Trump, we're being
recognized again.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Why are you dressed like a caveman and a robot?
Speaker 16 (20:08):
Oh we were under studies for the village people.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
If the copper Native American gets sick, then caveman and
robots step in. Well, aren't you guys a little like
shamed at all about performing at the Trump inauguration?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Or do we look like we're capable of shame.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
John.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Besides, this is fun, much.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Like it's fun to stay at the White.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, that's you know where it's not fun to stay.
Speaker 9 (20:36):
It's not fun to stay at a Birmingham jail.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, Josh, can't we just talk about this another day?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It is literally the day to talk about it.
Speaker 15 (20:53):
Damn, am I the only one who thinks it's fucking
crazy that Martin Luther King Day is having it at
the same.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Time that Trump taking power.
Speaker 15 (21:00):
A man who staged violent resistance is being rewarded with
power to the diminishment of our greatest nonviolent resistance leader.
Speaker 13 (21:09):
This cannot halt in it won It's just been renamed
Martin Luther Trump Day.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So that's your news team, everybody.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
When weak you're looking for Brook Carrington, you'll be joining me.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
We'll rob.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Hello the buddy. Welcome back to the Daily Show.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
My guest Tonight.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
My guest Tonight is an economic sociologist at Dartmouth College
who studies the behavior of the ultra rich. Her latest
book is called Offshore Stealth, Wealth and the New Colonialism.
Please welcome to the program, Brook Carrington.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I'm so happy here.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You have studied oligarchy, you have studied the ultra rich.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
As you were watching today, I'm going to assume you
were struck by the scenes of the collegial atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, that was that odd.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
Do we normally see all the titans of industries and
things in the front row the box seats.
Speaker 6 (22:43):
No, this is really different, And in fact I was
reflecting on how different this is even from Russian oligarchy, because.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Don't now, Okay, that hurts, that actually hurts.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Sorry, well, you know, at least Putin had a very
clear red line with hisligarchs. The grand bargain of the
early two thousands was he was going to let them
get rich on condition that they kept their noses out
of his political business. At most they would be his
errand boys from some diplomatic missions in Europe, for example,
and they're superyodds. But that was it, and it ended there.
(23:17):
And he made a huge example of Mikhail Haroowsky, who
was the Yukos Oil chairman who dared to stand up
for transparency and human rights in Russia, and that earned
him almost a decade in Russian prison and seizure of
all of his assets by Putin. He was lucky to
escape with his life.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Oh and so you're not expecting any of our oligarchs
to be like, hey, watch what you're doing, Like none
of that.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
No, But what Trump has done is so extraordinary because
he doesn't have that bright line with the new oligarchs
of America at all. He's basically said, Okay, you bought it,
do what you want.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
But he's blended them. I mean this doze.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
I mean, he's brought them in to the But is
there maybe something better about that because the explicit bargain
is now you have to give us money or you
have to bring business to America.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
Well, for me, as an American, this is not good
news because I like democracy And tell.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Me more about this. Yeah, I like the sound of it.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, but I'm afraid I'm.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Gonna have to be sold. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
Well, the thing about the brologarchs, and this is even
different from oligarchs to stop.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Stop Okay if that's not trademarked brologarch. Nice.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
So we've had oligarchs in the past in America. We've
had Carnegie and we've had Rockefellers, but aside from making
sure they didn't get regulated or taxed too much, they
kind of stuck to their own business they just want
to get rich. But the brologarchs really have an explicit
political agenda and it is essentially anti democrats and almost monarchical.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
So there you see them more as like they're in
the King's court and the world has been returned to
the more natural order of nobless obleege or something along
those lines.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
Well, they're going for no bless without the obliege. They
want all the privileges and none of the obligations in
terms of charitable funding, philanthropy, any sense of social norms
constraining them. I mean, what they're all about is nothing
can constrain me.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, look what.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
Happened when the EU tried to impose its own laws
on Elon musk jd Vance not even the vice president
yet rolls up on the EU and says, you leave
our boy alone or we're going to pull out of NATO.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Wait that's what he said. You made this sound very
crips versus bloods. Well there is dad e Vans rolled
up on the EU out of his benz and went inside.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
And it was like you'd me with the eyeliner and everything.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Right, craziness.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
So they are explicitly but then what is the political philosophy.
Is it just the great man theory that, you know,
the irony of a populist movement relying on the great
men to control all that happens.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
It sounds a lot actually like the divine right of kings,
but with a pseudoscientific spin. So that's where you get
all the elon bros. Talking about being high t alpha males.
That's just a twenty first century way of saying, God
says I'm the king and you all need to bow down.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
But don't I mean, at some level, don't you think
they're just trolling people with that? Like you do you
actually believe they think I have a heighspermut?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
So I mean I feel, yeah, listen.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I don't know how we went off the rails on that,
but that feels a little bit like how much of
this is trolling and memes and how much of it
for me? They feel a little bit like, Look, we
had a Gilded age. It doesn't seem that different from
the Gilded Age that ushered in industrialization, although now it's
(27:28):
more on the digital side.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Would that be a charitable way of putting it?
Speaker 6 (27:34):
Well, I think it's different from the Gilded Age in
two important ways. One is the sort of the release
of the oblige part of No Blessed Oblige. These guys
are totally released from the constraints of social norms. That said,
it was stigmatizing to sit on your wealth like a
dragon on a horde of gold. You had to show
that you were doing something for society.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Is that why?
Speaker 5 (27:56):
So when you look at all those like National Parks
of Rockefeller, or you look at all that that's why
those guys did that.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
Yeah, I mean they didn't necessarily have to be fans
of humanity, but they cared about their reputations, and in
order to keep a decent reputation, you had to be
seen to do something, you know, throwing the public a bone.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
As it were.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
But isn't that what these oligarchs now? Isn't that what
their first wives are for? Isn't that like what it
seems like now, is they divorced their first wife and
then their first wife is like.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Give this all the planned parentos?
Speaker 9 (28:29):
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Is that the is that the oblige that's coming out?
Speaker 6 (28:33):
I only know about the case of Mackenzie Bezos writing that.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I think Melinda Gates also gives a true she.
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Too, Yes, she is doing her part, but it almost
seems as a like a middle finger to the ex
husband's like, I'll show you the proper use of wealth usob.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Really yeah, so this so let's talk about though, when
we look at the Russian holguards you talk about Putin
is utilizing the wealth of these men, I guess to
fund some of his endeavors or just the amassing of
that money covers his own.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Corruption.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
My understanding, I'm not a Russia expert, but my understanding
from reading the work of people who are is it
sort of like a pyramid schemer, a mafia operation where
the Capo de Tutikapi sits at the top and takes
a percentage of what the lower level henchmen are getting.
So you know, he takes a chunk of Yuco soil,
and he takes a chunk of gas prom and that
(29:39):
way he stays the wealthiest man in the world.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, they're earners. So Vladimir Putin like runs herbal life
like that's what they say.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
Yeah, And for Trump, he looks at it as like
I will take my power that I have in government
and I will amplify it through industry.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
But through industry.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Look, it's almost better to me that it's this explicit
like I feel like, now we have a number on
what this type of crony capitalism looks like. Elon gave
two hundred and seventy million dollars to get Donald Trump elected.
He made after the election, I think something like two
hundred and ten billion.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
So now we have a number on it.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
We know what their access to government is worth.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Is that transparency?
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Better for us to even know? Can we do anything
about it if we don't even know?
Speaker 6 (30:35):
Well, I think you make a good point. It's better
that we know and that it not be happening sub
rosa and you know in whispers that we can't really
define in any way. It's it's all cards on the
table now, and it's almost like it's being rubbed in
our faces.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Right, how do you battle?
Speaker 5 (30:53):
So when you have something that's the state power of
the United States, which is utterly enormous, combined with the
corporate power, I mean I always viewed government in some
ways as hopefully a check on corporate power. But if
it's a lubricant, what does that turn into?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
And again I apologize, you know, I just realized.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
You went right from.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
Well, it's obviously something very dangerous because what we're seeing
here is the total release of all democratic constraint and
all pretense to social norms that used to constrain these people. Right,
they're totally unfettered in their access to power and in
their sense of what is okay to do with that power.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But were we kidding ourselves in some ways? You know?
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I saw a gentleman who was trying to become the
new DNC chairman, Gentleman Martin, I think is Amos, and
he had said about money and politics, Oh yeah, we're
going to get all that money out. You know, we're
going to have our good billionaires, but we're not going
to take any money from the bad billionaires.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And it reminds me.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
I once said Nancy Pelosi on it. She said, money
corrupts in politics, So what about the money democrats race?
Oh no, that doesn't corrupt them. There's this sense that,
oh no, it's only those actors that are bad. I mean,
the oligarchs gained trillions during the Biden presidency. Yeah, so
are we kidding ourselves that this wasn't in place? Just
(32:23):
not maybe as stated as clearly, I.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
Would want to move away from individualistic explanations of like
good billionaires and bad billionaires and talk about like what
do we as a society say We're not We're not
going to let you get away with that, because historically
that's been the only thing that's constrained the really rich.
If you go all the way back to the Medici
in the fourteen hundreds, they weren't necessarily good people, but
(32:48):
they were the richest people in Europe. And the reason
we have the Renaissance and all of its great works
of art is because their society wouldn't let them get
away with just sitting on their hordes of wealth and
enjoying it for their own benefit. They had to do
something for their society.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Does that mean we're allowing ourselves to be bought off?
Is the idea of being like, look, you guys, a mass,
what you need to amass at the top? You pull
the strings you want to pull. We need two parks,
Like what how? And this gets to a larger conversation
about labor and capital. How does American labor tap into
(33:27):
that money stream? Because that money stream is built on
the backs of American labor, yet they don't have access
to it. What if we allow them their excess but
rather than philanthropy.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Is there a way to.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Attach to make American labor also a shareholder in.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
That, Yes, but you could say it's the hard way,
so to speak. One of the wealth managers I spoke
to in the course of studying offshore finance over seventeen years,
he was a historian, and I mean he trained as
a historian at one of the Oxbridge schools in.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
The UK, and he said, one of the finest historian institutes.
Speaker 6 (34:08):
And he was very candid about his role in making
rich people richer at the expense of the rest of us.
And he said, well, once that ball gets rolling, it
becomes quite difficult to stop it short of like revolutions
or mass general strikes. And I think historically that's what
we've seen. We're at levels of wealth inequality unseen since
(34:29):
the Gilded Age. And you know what happened then, Well,
we had a World war, we had a pandemic, and
then we had the rise of fascism, and in between
then we had a lot of labor action in the US.
So if labor unions are able to muster enough power
to stand up to some of these oligarchs, they could
(34:50):
be a.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Force for good.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
It's so dispariting to hear that same message for labor
of like, you guys just need to get together and
get better lobbyists. And there is something here that seems
almost more difficult, which is this rise of populism mirroring
this Gilded Age. You know, fascism was not blended with
(35:13):
the Gilded Age. The Industrial age was. And so I
don't know that we've we've seen this before and I
hesitate to say that, but it does seem unusual.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
And you know, what's really kind of surprising to me
about this is that what's really needed here is a
way for people to coalesce and organize themselves to stand
up to these individual accumulations of power in the hands
of the brologarchs.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But the law is not on our side. The law
is basically now saying corporations are people.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Money is speech, And so how do you well, boy,
I hate to see someone who studied this for so long.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
To you go like, you know what's terrible to me?
And I'm like, what, sorry, you study this.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Well, as you correctly point out, like where does the
wealth actually comes from? Maybe it comes from labor. So
if labor gets together and says we're not going to
stand for this anymore, or if consumers get together and
say we're not going to stand for this anymore, they're
way more of us than there are them. The problem
is that the weird twist in the wonderful world of
the Internet and social media is that rather than giving
(36:19):
us a means to coalesce and come together, it's divided
us into these little bubbles or camps that are at
war with.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
One another, which I'm guessing now is maybe the overt strategy. Yeah,
because that's in many ways how they generate the income,
because that the overt strategy of the algorithm is to
conflict and outrage.
Speaker 6 (36:43):
Just last week there was a scholarly journal article published
by some political scientists in the Netherlands that looked at
who generates the most misinformation on social media and they
found it was really asymmetric. It's almost all coming from
right wing populus and it's not an accident. That's their strategy.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Holy shit.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
You know, for a second there, I thought you were
gonna say me made me really nervous. Thank you so
much for this. Offshore is the book. It's available now,
Brook Herrington. We're gonna take quick break a little love that.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Hell everybody's got the shop for tonight.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Before we go, I'm gonna check in with your host
for the rest of the week, mister Ronnie Chang Ronnick.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
What do you got for the rest of the week,
my friend John.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Before we lean into the Trump years, I'm gonna spend
this week finally remembering the incredible four years America had
under Joe Biden, a president of faith, compassion, and courage.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
You uh, you know he's out office and can't give
out any more pardons, right, you know that?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Oh? I see? I see.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Well, then I'll be spending this week talking about the
Biden crime family and how only President Trump has the
courage to take them down.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Trying to chang everybody.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Gright Brent here it is your moment to.
Speaker 17 (38:30):
Jem I just want to say, you're a younger, far
more beautiful audience that I just spoke to, and I
want to keep.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It off the record.
Speaker 11 (38:42):
At least change is a disaster. She's a crying lunatic
and crying crying Adam Kinsinger, he's a super crime.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I never saw the guy not cry.
Speaker 8 (38:50):
I talked about inflation too, but you know how many
times can you say that an Apple has doubled and
used to get into a stage coach. Now you get
into a helicopter in times got like six seventy pounds
of drug and they go as fast as you can walk.
I go, but I would attack a karate champion get
slightly repaired.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I think this was a better speech than the one
I made upstairs.
Speaker 8 (39:11):
Okay, I think this was better.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Jad Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe
by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on
Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount plus
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Paramount Podcasts
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
One of the most trusted journalists at Comedy.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Central a very special special report.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
The Daily Show presents Inauguration Conyny Bull. That the and
likely final from Inauguration with.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Your host John Stuart Boom Father, Hi, welcome, Welcome to
(00:53):
The Daily Show.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
My name is uh hold on, my.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Name is My name is John Stewart. I'm your host.
Most historic vibe shift of day.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Donald J. Trump, the forty fifth.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
President of the United States, a man who's licentious and
felonious behavior has been well cataloged and documented, returned to
the Capitol of Rotunda just four short years after inspiring
in that very place a day of riotous.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Shickfre.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Shitury. Return to the exact same room.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
Now, generally, if this were a dateline documentary, he would
return to that room to express a form of repentance,
in maturity and acknowledgment of pain that had been wrought
on that terrible day. But in this show that we're
filming now, it's to be sworn in as the forty
seventh President of the United States, And as with most,
(01:57):
returning to the scene of the crime.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
It began with tea with the people you tried to
steal it from a short time ago.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
President Joe Biden greeted mister and Missus Trump at the
White House for tea, an inaugural tradition.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
It's always important to keep up the tea tradition when
you hand over the keys to I'm sorry, what did
you call them?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Hitler, But gotta be a good host.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
And the WiFi password his White House, but I change
the eye to a one.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I hope that's not weird.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
I'm not saying Biden should have done his own insurrection,
but there's got to be a happy medium between storming
the Capitol and would.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
You like a crumpet?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
But everyone showed up. Yes, it's the Supreme Court taxing in.
Oh please, they're taxing in.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Like the private jets some of them take to caged
pheasant hunts. All very legal because illustrious senators like Amy
Koba Shar and Deb Fisher.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And of course Hakeem Jeffreys was there, and.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Fetterman was are you come on, Fetterman?
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Really, Schwartz, it's not even an inaugural decorum thing.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's freezing out there.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It's a it's a health cancer.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Fedtterman is literally America's teenage son.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
It's your grandma's funeral.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I told you I don't like long pants.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Fine, be cold.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Even the president's family attended, most of whom didn't have
to be warned not to do that weird thing with
their hands.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Don't, hey, hey, hey, don't don't do it with your hands.
Can you Jeff be normal for a day?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
What was he doing?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Literally like, look at my dick?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
What now? Okay? Okay, but not to worry.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Also attending were all those people who warned Americans to
shun this wannabe fascist dictator called Trump. Look at me, ma, Oh,
let's go see Hitler and get a quick selfie. First
look at us, a quick one for the gram. Yes,
former President Obama was there. George Bush seemed kind of there,
definitely high. Even Mike Pence showed up. I guess to
(04:40):
let the crowd finish the job. Only Michelle Obama seemed to.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Have the consistent ethical stance of saying, when they go low,
I stayed the foul.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I don't have.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Of course, Joe Biden was there, making the strategic choice
of keeping her person, which, as you know, is the
international symbol of but the award for most useful fashion
accessory went to the ever stylish Millennia Trump, who's Audrey
(05:34):
hepburn esque chapeau or head close as it's called double
doesn't affect him.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
If you don't control your borders, we don't have egg.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Meanwhile, many dignitaries went not only hatless, but hairless, with
a plethora of stocky bald billionaires who all seem to
go to the same biohack life extension clinic and say,
give me the lex luthor, Yes, taking the place of
seats normally reserved for democratic or Republican governors. Sat Zuck Bezos,
(06:25):
Tim Cook, Elon, Tictac guy, the Google guy, the six
guys who control maybe twenty percent of the world's wealth
and one hundred percent of your nudes. You don't need
(06:47):
to pretend with me. I don't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Delete delete delete populism, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Shouldn't this gathering be happening in a volcanoes layer near Zurich?
Or are we just open source Illuminati? Now, where's the conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Fund in that?
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Honestly, there is not a useful app of communication not
controlled by at least one of these individuals, And you
may not be concerned that they've all ponied up a
million dollars to be sitting there and are kissing the
ass of a president who openly threatens non ass kissers.
But trust me, shit's gonna get weird even by that afternoon.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Disappearance of Elon Muscat, an earlier trunk rallies getting loads
of attention because of a one armed gesture he made.
Speaker 7 (07:42):
This one really matters, and I just want to say
thank you for making it happen.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
Okay, Charitably, I'm going to say that was just an
awkward My heart goes out to you, jest.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Sure any of you might have done it like this.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
You know, even Taylor Swift has done that, you know,
my heart, but she almost never does nothing goes down
to you like just always stays with But you know, listen,
it's nerve wracking day. You're not normally a public speaker.
It's one off gesture. Please try not to use it again.
Speaker 8 (08:48):
A bit.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I really want to make sure that people in the backseat.
I guess.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I'm just going to be generous and say maybe that
was Elon's attempt at dabbing on the haters.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I don't by the way do people still dab on haters?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Was that a very old man?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Okay, wasn't that a thing at one time?
Speaker 9 (09:22):
No?
Speaker 5 (09:23):
I think I think it's important in these troubled times
to continue to dab on the haters. But don't be
concerned that these tech titans control Google and TikTok and
WhatsApp and Instagram and x and any other way that
we communicate in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty five,
because you know, I'm not going to censor us. And
(09:43):
it doesn't matter anyway, because I know in my heart
we don't need any of them, because we'll always.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Have you messing your pigeon.
Speaker 10 (09:50):
No, no, how dare you, sir? Why messenger pigeon? Why
would you turn on me? I'd let you live in
a cage on my roof, surrounded by your own shit.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I asked them to make that animation at like five o'clock.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Tonight, literally with everything else going on in the show, and.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I was literally like, could you make me a pigeon
doing this?
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And they were just like sure, Hey, then it was
time for the swearing in on me kind of on
the Bible. Yes, it turns out Trump didn't actually put
his hand on the Bible, obviously because one or the
other would burst into flames, perhaps both. And so, ladies
(10:50):
and gentlemen, the torch has been passed from Piden to Trump. Yes,
the torch has been passed to the same generation of Americans.
Let's hear from the four seventh president, fresh off the
warm embrace of a tea ceremony with his predecessor.
Speaker 11 (11:06):
My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally
reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals
that have taken place.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
He's right behind you. Luckily, I don't think he can
hear you.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
The inaugural speech followed the American tradition of a passive
aggressive transfer of power. The incoming president gets the completely
shit on the outgoing president in front of that president
and hopefully his spouse.
Speaker 11 (11:48):
In recent years, our nation has suffered greatly record inflation.
Trying to socially engineered race and gender disastrous invasion of
our country is a radical and corrupt, establishous, violent, and
unfair weaponization. From this moment on, America's dickline is over.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
This is a tumultuous time in American history, filled with
much uncertainty, interrepidation. But it is very difficult for me
to not in any way take the bait of the
way he said dickline. It really did sound like, he said,
(12:40):
our dickline, like the line of our dick So you
can see America's dickline. I mean, how are you going
(13:01):
to end our dickline with a tuck or a full reassignment?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Or is this more about Fetterman's shorts?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
What about our dickline?
Speaker 5 (13:14):
I am a child, but as bad as things were,
guess what, folks, Daddy's home, It's about to get a
whole lot better.
Speaker 11 (13:25):
The Golden Age of America begins right now. From this
day forward, our country will flourish. The American dream will
soon be back and thriving like never before.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
We will win like never before.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We will be a rich nation again.
Speaker 11 (13:39):
We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We will drill, baby drill.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
I think I just saw Jade Vance's dickline, Drill, baby drill.
But for all the day's eerie energy, one thing stood
out to America's watchdogs of democracy. We have watched as
the forty seventh President of the United States has been
(14:11):
sworn in a cornerstone of democracy. This is the true
transfer of power here of the current president and the
former president making this walk.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
This process is what distinguishes the United States from a
lot of other parts of the world.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, it's all just normal shit, it's just another day.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
It's all just normal transfer powershit. We're just going to
play along like all this theater is normal. Oh, except
there was one thing that might have given the game away.
Speaker 12 (14:40):
For just twenty minutes or so left in his presidency.
We've just gotten word from President Biden that he is
pardoning his brothers, their wives, his sister, other family members.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
He says that he is.
Speaker 12 (14:53):
Doing this because baseless and politically motivated investigations Greek havoc.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
On the lives of a individuals. It's all just normal.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
First of all, Biden, you're at the inauguration. Did you
auto schedule your pardons? And second of all, what the man?
You're just pardoning your whole family. It's not a great look. Yet,
like any good captain, as the ship is going down,
Biden gave the order that life vot is from my family.
(15:28):
The rest of you can do just like a kind
of Jack and Rose thing, one on one off fifty
to fifty shot. Who gives a shit? Biden outy. So
the takeaway of this entire day was a man who
tried to overthrow the government has been peacefully handed the
reins of power, and the outgoing president has started a
(15:50):
new tradition of blanket pardoning everyone in his orbit, the
two men creating a magnificent snake sucking its own dick
cycle of no accountability. And then, of course we end
with the grand finale, the attack on Greenland has begun.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 5 (16:24):
For more on the day's events, we go out to
the best news team in the country, starting at the
Capitol with Michael cost and dasy Leer.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Michael Costa, I'm gonna start with you, my friend.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
What's the mood over there at the inaugural parties tonight?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
John? It's incredible.
Speaker 13 (16:47):
Donald Trump hasn't even been president for one whole day,
but already unemployment is down, gas is low, my vertical
jump increased half an inch, and the stock market is.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Soaring.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah. I think.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
I mean, obviously a lot of that economic stuff was
happening before noon today, so.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I don't think so.
Speaker 14 (17:09):
Also, Trump made eggs sheep again. I mean, we can
eat ton twenty thirty of these a day. John, They're
literally selling them by the dozen. My albumen levels are.
Speaker 15 (17:27):
Foreign.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Desi Leidick. You're down there as well. You've been covering
Blue Washington as it were.
Speaker 14 (17:34):
John.
Speaker 7 (17:35):
I'm with the hashtag resistance, and they are aphalled by
what they're seeing. The executive orders, the renaming of military bases.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
They've already renamed the bases after Confederate generals.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
No Hitler, it's just Fort Hitler.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Now.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
It's overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
John, all right, Well, try and stay safe out there, Dosy.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
And John, if I could say something, I'm sorry, Yeah,
Josh Johnson, are you.
Speaker 15 (18:10):
I'm at the Martin Luther King Memorial Today was also
MLK Day. There was a march honoring a man that
represented the best about America. Just want to put that
out there.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Okay, fantastic, good to keep in mind, John, Can I interraw, Yes, Michael,
I just thought of some more egg stuff.
Speaker 13 (18:31):
Egg salad, egg creams, eggnog, yawnie, eggs, egg plants.
Speaker 14 (18:36):
Thanks to Trump, these things are now super cheap.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And the best part about eggs, John, they never expire.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's definitely not true.
Speaker 13 (18:46):
Michael's Okay, well, we'll see what the new Secretary of
Health and Human Services has to say about that, right
after he legalizes raw milk.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
You know, speaking of the letters M L and K.
Speaker 15 (19:09):
Let me tell you about someone else we should be
celebrating today.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Black guy preacher and he talked like Vice, the black
guy from the movie Selma.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
No, well yeah, but no, no, John, I have an
update from Resistance headquarters that the Cheetos man is not
gonna like yes.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Does he do initiatives? Is there another march?
Speaker 7 (19:34):
Not gonna be necessary? I'm hearing Rachel Maddow is coming
back five days a week, and when she compares what's
happening now to the Chay's rebellion of seventeen eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Whooh boy, I would not want to be Trump.
Speaker 16 (19:49):
Excuse me, sorry, I'm sorry, great cool Trump, we're being
recognized again.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Why are you dressed like a caveman and a robot?
Speaker 16 (20:08):
Oh we were under studies for the village people.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
If the copper Native American gets sick, then caveman and
robots step in. Well, aren't you guys a little like
shamed at all about performing at the Trump inauguration?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Or do we look like we're capable of shame.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
John.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Besides, this is fun, much.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Like it's fun to stay at the White.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, that's you know where it's not fun to stay.
Speaker 9 (20:36):
It's not fun to stay at a Birmingham jail.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, Josh, can't we just talk about this another day?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It is literally the day to talk about it.
Speaker 15 (20:53):
Damn, am I the only one who thinks it's fucking
crazy that Martin Luther King Day is having it at
the same.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Time that Trump taking power.
Speaker 15 (21:00):
A man who staged violent resistance is being rewarded with
power to the diminishment of our greatest nonviolent resistance leader.
Speaker 13 (21:09):
This cannot halt in it won It's just been renamed
Martin Luther Trump Day.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So that's your news team, everybody.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
When weak you're looking for Brook Carrington, you'll be joining me.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
We'll rob.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Hello the buddy. Welcome back to the Daily Show.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
My guest Tonight.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
My guest Tonight is an economic sociologist at Dartmouth College
who studies the behavior of the ultra rich. Her latest
book is called Offshore Stealth, Wealth and the New Colonialism.
Please welcome to the program, Brook Carrington.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I'm so happy here.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
You have studied oligarchy, you have studied the ultra rich.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
As you were watching today, I'm going to assume you
were struck by the scenes of the collegial atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, that was that odd.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
Do we normally see all the titans of industries and
things in the front row the box seats.
Speaker 6 (22:43):
No, this is really different, And in fact I was
reflecting on how different this is even from Russian oligarchy, because.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Don't now, Okay, that hurts, that actually hurts.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Sorry, well, you know, at least Putin had a very
clear red line with hisligarchs. The grand bargain of the
early two thousands was he was going to let them
get rich on condition that they kept their noses out
of his political business. At most they would be his
errand boys from some diplomatic missions in Europe, for example,
and they're superyodds. But that was it, and it ended there.
(23:17):
And he made a huge example of Mikhail Haroowsky, who
was the Yukos Oil chairman who dared to stand up
for transparency and human rights in Russia, and that earned
him almost a decade in Russian prison and seizure of
all of his assets by Putin. He was lucky to
escape with his life.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Oh and so you're not expecting any of our oligarchs
to be like, hey, watch what you're doing, Like none
of that.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
No, But what Trump has done is so extraordinary because
he doesn't have that bright line with the new oligarchs
of America at all. He's basically said, Okay, you bought it,
do what you want.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
But he's blended them. I mean this doze.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
I mean, he's brought them in to the But is
there maybe something better about that because the explicit bargain
is now you have to give us money or you
have to bring business to America.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
Well, for me, as an American, this is not good
news because I like democracy And tell.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Me more about this. Yeah, I like the sound of it.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, but I'm afraid I'm.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Gonna have to be sold. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
Well, the thing about the brologarchs, and this is even
different from oligarchs to stop.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Stop Okay if that's not trademarked brologarch. Nice.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
So we've had oligarchs in the past in America. We've
had Carnegie and we've had Rockefellers, but aside from making
sure they didn't get regulated or taxed too much, they
kind of stuck to their own business they just want
to get rich. But the brologarchs really have an explicit
political agenda and it is essentially anti democrats and almost monarchical.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
So there you see them more as like they're in
the King's court and the world has been returned to
the more natural order of nobless obleege or something along
those lines.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
Well, they're going for no bless without the obliege. They
want all the privileges and none of the obligations in
terms of charitable funding, philanthropy, any sense of social norms
constraining them. I mean, what they're all about is nothing
can constrain me.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, look what.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
Happened when the EU tried to impose its own laws
on Elon musk jd Vance not even the vice president
yet rolls up on the EU and says, you leave
our boy alone or we're going to pull out of NATO.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Wait that's what he said. You made this sound very
crips versus bloods. Well there is dad e Vans rolled
up on the EU out of his benz and went inside.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
And it was like you'd me with the eyeliner and everything.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Right, craziness.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
So they are explicitly but then what is the political philosophy.
Is it just the great man theory that, you know,
the irony of a populist movement relying on the great
men to control all that happens.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
It sounds a lot actually like the divine right of kings,
but with a pseudoscientific spin. So that's where you get
all the elon bros. Talking about being high t alpha males.
That's just a twenty first century way of saying, God
says I'm the king and you all need to bow down.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
But don't I mean, at some level, don't you think
they're just trolling people with that? Like you do you
actually believe they think I have a heighspermut?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
So I mean I feel, yeah, listen.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I don't know how we went off the rails on that,
but that feels a little bit like how much of
this is trolling and memes and how much of it
for me? They feel a little bit like, Look, we
had a Gilded age. It doesn't seem that different from
the Gilded Age that ushered in industrialization, although now it's
(27:28):
more on the digital side.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Would that be a charitable way of putting it?
Speaker 6 (27:34):
Well, I think it's different from the Gilded Age in
two important ways. One is the sort of the release
of the oblige part of No Blessed Oblige. These guys
are totally released from the constraints of social norms. That said,
it was stigmatizing to sit on your wealth like a
dragon on a horde of gold. You had to show
that you were doing something for society.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Is that why?
Speaker 5 (27:56):
So when you look at all those like National Parks
of Rockefeller, or you look at all that that's why
those guys did that.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
Yeah, I mean they didn't necessarily have to be fans
of humanity, but they cared about their reputations, and in
order to keep a decent reputation, you had to be
seen to do something, you know, throwing the public a bone.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
As it were.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
But isn't that what these oligarchs now? Isn't that what
their first wives are for? Isn't that like what it
seems like now, is they divorced their first wife and
then their first wife is like.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Give this all the planned parentos?
Speaker 9 (28:29):
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Is that the is that the oblige that's coming out?
Speaker 6 (28:33):
I only know about the case of Mackenzie Bezos writing that.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
I think Melinda Gates also gives a true she.
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Too, Yes, she is doing her part, but it almost
seems as a like a middle finger to the ex
husband's like, I'll show you the proper use of wealth usob.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Really yeah, so this so let's talk about though, when
we look at the Russian holguards you talk about Putin
is utilizing the wealth of these men, I guess to
fund some of his endeavors or just the amassing of
that money covers his own.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Corruption.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
My understanding, I'm not a Russia expert, but my understanding
from reading the work of people who are is it
sort of like a pyramid schemer, a mafia operation where
the Capo de Tutikapi sits at the top and takes
a percentage of what the lower level henchmen are getting.
So you know, he takes a chunk of Yuco soil,
and he takes a chunk of gas prom and that
(29:39):
way he stays the wealthiest man in the world.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, they're earners. So Vladimir Putin like runs herbal life
like that's what they say.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
Yeah, And for Trump, he looks at it as like
I will take my power that I have in government
and I will amplify it through industry.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
But through industry.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Look, it's almost better to me that it's this explicit
like I feel like, now we have a number on
what this type of crony capitalism looks like. Elon gave
two hundred and seventy million dollars to get Donald Trump elected.
He made after the election, I think something like two
hundred and ten billion.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
So now we have a number on it.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
We know what their access to government is worth.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Is that transparency?
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Better for us to even know? Can we do anything
about it if we don't even know?
Speaker 6 (30:35):
Well, I think you make a good point. It's better
that we know and that it not be happening sub
rosa and you know in whispers that we can't really
define in any way. It's it's all cards on the
table now, and it's almost like it's being rubbed in
our faces.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Right, how do you battle?
Speaker 5 (30:53):
So when you have something that's the state power of
the United States, which is utterly enormous, combined with the
corporate power, I mean I always viewed government in some
ways as hopefully a check on corporate power. But if
it's a lubricant, what does that turn into?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
And again I apologize, you know, I just realized.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
You went right from.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
Well, it's obviously something very dangerous because what we're seeing
here is the total release of all democratic constraint and
all pretense to social norms that used to constrain these people. Right,
they're totally unfettered in their access to power and in
their sense of what is okay to do with that power.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But were we kidding ourselves in some ways? You know?
Speaker 5 (31:42):
I saw a gentleman who was trying to become the
new DNC chairman, Gentleman Martin, I think is Amos, and
he had said about money and politics, Oh yeah, we're
going to get all that money out. You know, we're
going to have our good billionaires, but we're not going
to take any money from the bad billionaires.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And it reminds me.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
I once said Nancy Pelosi on it. She said, money
corrupts in politics, So what about the money democrats race?
Oh no, that doesn't corrupt them. There's this sense that,
oh no, it's only those actors that are bad. I mean,
the oligarchs gained trillions during the Biden presidency. Yeah, so
are we kidding ourselves that this wasn't in place? Just
(32:23):
not maybe as stated as clearly, I.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
Would want to move away from individualistic explanations of like
good billionaires and bad billionaires and talk about like what
do we as a society say We're not We're not
going to let you get away with that, because historically
that's been the only thing that's constrained the really rich.
If you go all the way back to the Medici
in the fourteen hundreds, they weren't necessarily good people, but
(32:48):
they were the richest people in Europe. And the reason
we have the Renaissance and all of its great works
of art is because their society wouldn't let them get
away with just sitting on their hordes of wealth and
enjoying it for their own benefit. They had to do
something for their society.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Does that mean we're allowing ourselves to be bought off?
Is the idea of being like, look, you guys, a mass,
what you need to amass at the top? You pull
the strings you want to pull. We need two parks,
Like what how? And this gets to a larger conversation
about labor and capital. How does American labor tap into
(33:27):
that money stream? Because that money stream is built on
the backs of American labor, yet they don't have access
to it. What if we allow them their excess but
rather than philanthropy.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Is there a way to.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Attach to make American labor also a shareholder in.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
That, Yes, but you could say it's the hard way,
so to speak. One of the wealth managers I spoke
to in the course of studying offshore finance over seventeen years,
he was a historian, and I mean he trained as
a historian at one of the Oxbridge schools in.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
The UK, and he said, one of the finest historian institutes.
Speaker 6 (34:08):
And he was very candid about his role in making
rich people richer at the expense of the rest of us.
And he said, well, once that ball gets rolling, it
becomes quite difficult to stop it short of like revolutions
or mass general strikes. And I think historically that's what
we've seen. We're at levels of wealth inequality unseen since
(34:29):
the Gilded Age. And you know what happened then, Well,
we had a World war, we had a pandemic, and
then we had the rise of fascism, and in between
then we had a lot of labor action in the US.
So if labor unions are able to muster enough power
to stand up to some of these oligarchs, they could
(34:50):
be a.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Force for good.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
It's so dispariting to hear that same message for labor
of like, you guys just need to get together and
get better lobbyists. And there is something here that seems
almost more difficult, which is this rise of populism mirroring
this Gilded Age. You know, fascism was not blended with
(35:13):
the Gilded Age. The Industrial age was. And so I
don't know that we've we've seen this before and I
hesitate to say that, but it does seem unusual.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
And you know, what's really kind of surprising to me
about this is that what's really needed here is a
way for people to coalesce and organize themselves to stand
up to these individual accumulations of power in the hands
of the brologarchs.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But the law is not on our side. The law
is basically now saying corporations are people.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Money is speech, And so how do you well, boy,
I hate to see someone who studied this for so long.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
To you go like, you know what's terrible to me?
And I'm like, what, sorry, you study this.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Well, as you correctly point out, like where does the
wealth actually comes from? Maybe it comes from labor. So
if labor gets together and says we're not going to
stand for this anymore, or if consumers get together and
say we're not going to stand for this anymore, they're
way more of us than there are them. The problem
is that the weird twist in the wonderful world of
the Internet and social media is that rather than giving
(36:19):
us a means to coalesce and come together, it's divided
us into these little bubbles or camps that are at
war with.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
One another, which I'm guessing now is maybe the overt strategy. Yeah,
because that's in many ways how they generate the income,
because that the overt strategy of the algorithm is to
conflict and outrage.
Speaker 6 (36:43):
Just last week there was a scholarly journal article published
by some political scientists in the Netherlands that looked at
who generates the most misinformation on social media and they
found it was really asymmetric. It's almost all coming from
right wing populus and it's not an accident. That's their strategy.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Holy shit.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
You know, for a second there, I thought you were
gonna say me made me really nervous. Thank you so
much for this. Offshore is the book. It's available now,
Brook Herrington. We're gonna take quick break a little love that.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Hell everybody's got the shop for tonight.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Before we go, I'm gonna check in with your host
for the rest of the week, mister Ronnie Chang Ronnick.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
What do you got for the rest of the week,
my friend John.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Before we lean into the Trump years, I'm gonna spend
this week finally remembering the incredible four years America had
under Joe Biden, a president of faith, compassion, and courage.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
You uh, you know he's out office and can't give
out any more pardons, right, you know that?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Oh? I see? I see.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Well, then I'll be spending this week talking about the
Biden crime family and how only President Trump has the
courage to take them down.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Trying to chang everybody.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Gright Brent here it is your moment to.
Speaker 17 (38:30):
Jem I just want to say, you're a younger, far
more beautiful audience that I just spoke to, and I
want to keep.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It off the record.
Speaker 11 (38:42):
At least change is a disaster. She's a crying lunatic
and crying crying Adam Kinsinger, he's a super crime.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I never saw the guy not cry.
Speaker 8 (38:50):
I talked about inflation too, but you know how many
times can you say that an Apple has doubled and
used to get into a stage coach. Now you get
into a helicopter in times got like six seventy pounds
of drug and they go as fast as you can walk.
I go, but I would attack a karate champion get
slightly repaired.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I think this was a better speech than the one
I made upstairs.
Speaker 8 (39:11):
Okay, I think this was better.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Jad Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe
by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on
Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount plus
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Paramount Podcasts
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